I went to synagogue today. I hadn't been to a religious service in seven years. Being immersed in a Jewish community had burned me out on the whole thing, and anyway, I decided a while ago that the words found in a prayer book don't express my heartfelt views. I believe in the existence of something bigger out there, which I call God because I don't know what else to call it, but I worship no supreme being. The nail in that coffin came when I stood at the base of some mountains here in Idaho and stared up at their peaks, towering above wildflowers I had never seen and creeks so unbelievably clear, I thought for sure I was in another world. When I need to feel grateful, to cower beneath grandeur and beg for the chance to spend another day on this planet, I go to the mountains. When I need to feel grounded, to seek out meaning and to understand life's big questions, I go to the rivers. When I seek out my purpose, a way to leave this world a little bit better, I look inward for the answers. I thought I had no use for religion, and so I gave it up.
But now I have a special person in my life, three months and counting, and he is actively practicing another faith. Our spiritual views are mostly aligned, so we can spend lovely nights on a small mountain beneath the setting sun and talk about what that means to us. But because he cares too, and because he shares that with his children, I feel the need to balance his religion with mine. To teach him ha-motzi lechem min ha'aretz to say sometimes when he says grace and to explain the holidays to him, even if I don't observe them. To understand better what I do believe so that we can have more meaningful conversations about what keeps us going during the darker moments of our lives. While researching some tidbits about the Jewish New Year to share with my special someone, I came across videos of people blowing the shofar, a ram's horn played with four different notes to inspire us to consider our lives and vow to live better in the coming year. It moved me deeply, like it always did, one of the few things I loved about the high holidays as a kid.
So I went to synagogue for Rosh Hashanah in this small town populated mostly by Mormons and Christians and everything that isn't Jewish. The hall was filled with people, many more than I had expected. The service was some of what I remembered, peppered with new tunes for old prayers and new ways of saying things. The rabbi quoted Wendell Berry and Terry Tempest Williams, and the people called to chant the prayers and read from the Torah were all women, in recognition of the 40th anniversary of the first woman ordained as a rabbi. The West may be very different from what I grew up with, but Jews in all places are mostly the same, and I felt at home in this foreign land.
I still don't believe most of what's in that prayer book, but I'm glad I went to services today. I'm glad I challenged myself to think about the traditions in which I find meaning, to question why I still cling to them, and to appreciate the spiritual road I have consciously headed down. I don't rule out going back to synagogue some day, but I'm glad to know that here in Boise, I can bring the mountains and the rivers with me if I do.
