Home Presentation for College Homecoming Sabbath, December 29, 2000
Akron, Ohio .... Does anyone know where Akron Ohio is? My graduating classmates sure did not. My grandfather said that Akron is the tire capital of the US, and there is a great golf course there. My mother said, “You won't like it there, go to Boston-that's a great city.”
Akron is located in the upper east side of Ohio, 40 miles south of Cleveland. It sits in the heart of the middle eastern United States, in the Bible belt where it is “unhip” to be anything but Christian. My university is located in the downtown area of Akron, and it boasts a student body of about 26,000 students. You would think that there would be a favorable size of Jewish people, just by doing basic arithmetic. The truth is many Jews live in Akron; just none of them sends their children to the University there. The Hillel on campus had a little corner office, in the basement of the Student center, where all the other student organizations were located. The office was constantly vandalized by many of the other groups that had offices in the same area. I remember being one of only 5 or 6 members of the Hillel on Akron U. Sometimes, I did things with the Hillel at Kent State University, their Hillel was larger than Akron's. I did not get much support of religious diversity from my University, but overall my peers, coworkers, and faculty members accepted me. I never had any problems with others having to accept my judiaism until I went to the North Eastern Ohio University College of Medicine locally known as NEOUCOM.
NEOUCOM is the state supported medical school I am attending. I am in my 4th year of a combined 6 year BS/MD accelerated program. The school sits in Rootstown Ohio, literally at the crossroads of nowhere and a cornfield. At this school, it is acceptable for the two Christian student Organizations to have Mass, with priests and other religious figures, with faculty in attendance. In contrast, there are only 3 Jews in my class, and 2 more Jewish students in other classes. There are constant battles between the sublime religious right, who are blatantly against such things as abortion, separation of church and state, and homosexuality, and other non-conforming students. The only liberal idea that this group quietly tolerates is the idea of Middle Eastern and Indian religious thought. This lenience is due to the fact that most classes have at least half, if not the majority, Indian and Middle Eastern students. I have personally had conflicts with the administration as to the separation of church and state, when quotes from the Christian bible were placed on a wall in a high traffic area. I feel as if a few of my classmates do not like me simply for the fact that I am a Jew.
Through all of this, I have amazed myself with my resilience and dedication to the Jewish faith. It never occurred to me that I would have to search within myself to find my own Jewish Identity. I was surrounded by reform Jewish culture all of my childhood. I had taken my Jewish roots for granted, never considering not being submerged in Judaism. I have had some wonderful teachers to guide me to this point in my life. I would like to thank them all for helping me to develop into the Jew I am becoming. However, because of my wonderful experiences with my family, friends in the Jewish community, and my Synagogue, I was able to step into the world and proclaim myself as a Jew. It is a natural tendency when people leave their familiar surroundings to open up to new ideas, and I was no exception. I faced the ideology that ritualism defines who you are spiritually. Many of the “most religious” people I have met have turned out to be some of the most hateful people, but are viewed by others as good people because they attend church 3 times a week. Congruent with that thought, I have found that some of the most spiritual and truly religious people are those that are non judging, freethinking, and practice their religious beliefs in their own specific way. With this knowledge, I have come to believe that it is better to “be a Jew” rather than just " do as a Jew should". Meaning that I should live my everyday life as a good moral person, based on what my religion has taught me, rather than just performing the rituals of Judaism.
Rituals are very important to me, but I can't perform them all the time, due to my busy schedule, and lack of others to perform them with. My spirituality lies quite a bit deeper than just what prayers I say, what I do on the holidays, or even if I go to the synagogue at school. I do not perform religious rituals in my everyday life, but being a good person is my form of being a good Jew. Mitzvot comes in many different forms; listening to a friend’s perilous love life, giving my notes to a friend who skipped class, holding open the door for someone I don’t know, or even smiling and greeting someone with respect - These actions fulfill my definition of being a good Jew. I truly believe that every day if I try to become a more compassionate, understanding, and happier person, then I am achieving my goal of becoming a good Jew. I hope that I will have also changed those around me in a positive way.
There are no boundaries to my spirituality. I like who I have become; I feel as if my beliefs in Judaism have gotten stronger with the time I’ve spent away from the Jewish culture... Even stripped away many of the important rituals, and the culture, I have found all by myself, I am still a Jew.
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