I have come to see religion as an ocean; adults can enter and leave at will, while children with distracted parents tend to drown.
Mayim Hebrew Day School is situated at the bottom of a steep hill, while its entrance rests at the top. An enclosed stairwell connects the two. Each day, I would walk down the same long flight of steps, unable to control the speed of my rolling backpack. Once down the stairs I would try to avoid getting slapped in the face by the flailing limbs of Jewish moms in heated conversation until I arrived at the school, which is one long hallway with classrooms on either side. Fluorescent lights illuminated Mayim and when they were turned off, the whole place went pitch black. Even though only a small part of the school is underground, the long descent into a windowless hallway made it feel like a bomb shelter.
In the second grade my friend and I ventured into the depths of the school basement and found some foreign, rusted coins in a shallow puddle. In typical seven-year-old fashion, our immediate conclusion was that these coins were not worthless, but were gold doubloons, hidden by a pirate and never reclaimed. We pocketed the coins and brought them to the most trustworthy people we knew--our moms. After a brief examination, we were told that our gold doubloons were, in fact, Israeli currency, worth about two dollars in total. Naïve and only mildly disappointed, we were happy to have some sort of treasure to take home.
As a religious school, Mayim strived to teach its students what it means to be Jewish. We studied religious traditions, customs, the Torah, and the Hebrew language. Every day, a half hour was dedicated to reciting religious prayers and every day, the brine rose around me, unnoticed. Mindless chanting under the guise of playful song imprinted itself so deep that I can still recall many of the intricate prayers and rituals that we performed each day. At the time, however, I didn’t mind the morning prayers, being required to wear a Yamaka at all times, or even the fact that half of the school day was taught in Hebrew. I probably developed a protein deficiency because of their no meat policy, but these were the strange and unnecessary rules of God so I didn’t question them. As I grew older, my naivety, the simplicity of the world as I viewed it would be stripped from me, rusted away like coins in a puddle.
Some time into my fifth grade year, I began to question things. It started innocently, noticing loopholes and inconsistencies in Torah stories. I would think to myself that everything I was learning in science class disproved many of the events that take place in the Torah. As my knowledge of the world grew, so did my questions, but I withheld them. I convinced myself that my teacher would have some sort of logical explanation for my questions, which would only embarrass me in front of the class. This mindset remained until I eventually worked up the courage to publicly question my religion.
It was a typical day of class, the fluorescent lights faintly hummed overhead as we learned about the Jews’ escape from Egypt after being enslaved for hundreds of years. In the midst of my classmates’ thoughtless questions, I impulsively asked, “If God really cares about the Jewish people, why did he leave them to suffer in Egypt for so long?” After a period of uncomfortable silence, my teacher told me, “God acts in funny ways sometimes.” I also acted in strange ways sometimes so I wondered why God would act as flippantly as a ten-year-old. I wondered but did not push the subject any further.
Over the next few weeks, I asked more questions and received the same elusive answers. The holes I poked in their stories expanded like sinkholes until there was nothing left but the sand on my teacher’s shoes. I was eventually deemed “disruptive” and sent to speak with the principal.
“Alex, your teacher tells me you’ve been having some questions lately.”
“Yeah”
“Maybe I can help, what do you want to know?”
“Well, I just feel like a lot of the stories in the Torah couldn’t actually happen in real life, like the ten plagues or the parting of the Red Sea.”
“I know it might seem ridiculous, but God did those things so the Jews could escape from Egypt. And Alex, if you have any more questions, save them and ask me instead of asking them in class.”
“Okay”
After meeting with the principal, I wholeheartedly doubted Judaism’s legitimacy. My religion was no longer an absolute truth but a dissolving piece of my being. Why were they avoiding my questions? What were they trying to hide from the class? Are these stories even true? I came to realize that almost five years of my short life had been spent learning about events that never took place, and it shook me.
At a certain point, I began to resent my religion. My parents would implore me to push through my difficulties at school, not understanding how our religious experiences differed. My parents would go to synagogue once every three months or so, while I was left to drown in school every day, unbeknownst to them. After weeks of panic, screams, and splashing, my parents noticed my struggle and pulled me out of Mayim the next year. The seas parted and I was left gasping for air on a beach.
In the sixth grade, I switched schools and moved past my former education. I occasionally returned to the fluorescent hallway to visit my old classmates. There was always that looming, irrational fear that I would be mistaken for a student and confined in Mayim once more, and there was always a feeling of relief when I ascended the stairs and exited the glass doors. The air never seemed fresher and I never felt more awake.