Is It Poorly Chosen Loneliness?

Is It Poorly Chosen Loneliness?
A friend of mine claims to be Jewish. I assume that he is. He is not a liar. I didn’t bother to ask him if his mother is Jewish. I met him at a Christian Church. My first impression of him was over some Indian dream catchers on a children’s Sunday lesson. The church was set into uproar over it. There were the conservatives and the liberals arguing over a non religious item in church. His opinion of the church dropped just because there was this argument. That is my friend thought this was silly, and so did I.
I made my decision to leave the church, and not attend another at all. I’ve heard through the grapevine that there are several people that don’t believe that attended there. I was one of them. I attended a Christian church, but did not believe Jesus was G-d, just like my parents. My mom’s view on this might have changed though. Possibly, she has become more conservative in her Christian beliefs. However, she made it clear to me that she thought religion was a bunch of crap and that the job of pastor is a lowly position while I was living with her in my youth. Maybe, I should give her the benefit of the doubt and just say that she only reacted to my hyper-religiosity0, a symptom of my current diagnosis, bipolar. Dad says that he sees that Jesus made no personal claims to be G-d in the Gospels. Though Josh McDowell in his book, “The Evidence that Demands a Verdict,” emphatically shot this argument down, there are many intellectuals that were not convinced. Strangely, you might expect to hear these things, so liberal, of a Unitarian Church, but I was raised at an Evangelical Baptist church. I imagine few people there are actually evangelical, that is that they have actually evangelized to someone. Most people I know think evangelism is poor taste, including myself, but I admit trying on the evangelist idea at some time in my life. If the church ever became Unitarian, then I might attend as I did growing up. One of my recent blogs was a decision of mine to like the Unitarians.
There are twofold reasons why I don’t attend. The first is my own beliefs. I have moved on in my pursuit of religion from Christianity to Judaism. I have been studying Judaism for roughly ten years now. I studied Judaism with Christianity for roughly five years. That came first, and the reason I kept on with the Judaism rather than the Christianity was that I was able to tease apart the religion of Christianity first. Eventually, I teased apart a good portion of Judaism, but I see no reason to leave its study.
I wanted to start there, studies of both Judaism and Christianity because that is where my Granddad Hamilton left off. This is no easy feat, and I don’t really want my son to have to go through all of it, himself. Granddad Hamilton had only become religious in the late years of his life, studying Judaism mixed with Christianity just before he passed on. I honestly believe Granddad Hamilton would have left the faith of Christianity if G-d gave him enough time to analyze it. When he died, he was doing such things as keeping kosher. This was something totally not required from a Christian or Messianic Jewish point of view. Granddad Hamilton was still the same person though. It was just that he began to seriously study religion, and as I see it, he also began to see what he identified with.
My dad was very similar to Granddad. My dad believed in the “Old Testament” Law, but was very liberal. I was raised attending a Christian Church for the purpose of being social, not for the purpose of religion and Jesus. This leads me to the second reason why I am not attending church. I don’t want my child to go through the same confusion I went through for having parents that simply want to attend a place of belief for social reasons, but thumb their nose in secret at the exact words the pastor might say or what they sing in church.
This is where my Jewish friend at the church comes in. By the way I know that he is not the only Jew that has been there, as I once attended Christmas candlelight service there as a non-believer in Jesus with a different Jew. Attending facilitated social gatherings for Christmas time festivities of our rather non-religious household. We had sort of adopted him because he was new to the area. For me attending the Christmas service only was okay as a bean splitter because the history of Christmas really has nothing to do with Jesus. The day, Christmas, is really a borrowed pagan holiday, and it might as well be Halloween for all I am concerned from a historic point of view. But, no, this is my other friend, the one that claims to be Jewish, but I haven’t really verified it yet and for some reason that bothers me. This friend warned me not to shoot too high, as by the time I get there; I’ll be alone. He was right!
Alone is essentially where I am at now. I won’t attend a Jewish synagogue because to me it makes no sense. That is, I would have to drive a car there, and that is an infraction to the rules of Shabbat. The whole synagogue probably drives there though on Shabbat! There is a parking lot at this synagogue. I am also alone because I am self-righteous for not attending a religious gathering of Christians though I have no faith. Many would say that I am actually doing a good deed, and that you shouldn’t attend if you don’t have faith, and also have no intention of believing like a Christian. It’s different for me because I look down upon Christian faith.
At this point, I think the only reason I like Judaism is that there is a really good website, www.chabad.org where I study. If it hadn’t been for this website, then I might have a more distorted and also more perfect view of Judaism, but that would have only been for lack of study. That is correct, and what I wanted to say! This website enabled me to get past the introductory stuff that is impossible to tease apart, and into the human stuff, which is more arguable. At first, I thought Judaism was the perfect and flawless religion, but now I know better.
I want my son to study Judaism, and my wife doesn’t have a problem with that. Our family keeps kosher and observes most of the 613 commands of Judaism, so naturally my son will wonder why. I hope my son goes the extra step and goes into the mikvah to prove he is a Jew, but of course that will be his choice. My wife and I have never actually observed Shabbat in the traditional way though. She always said that the book of Genesis, in the Creation story where the idea of Shabbat arises puts forth the idea that G-d rests because He is, “Finished with the work.” For her that means humans should only rest if we are finished with the work, and there are usually dishes that need washed or something in our family. She comes home Friday nights and sees I haven’t finished the work, as usual. I never seem able to finish the work to her standards, so another Shabbat passes unobserved. As the saying goes, if only every Jew observed one Shabbat perfectly, then the Messiah would come.
I must be a zealot. I have heard it said that zealots are a curse, and perhaps that is me. I am the one taking everything more seriously than the rest of everyone else. This is where Granddad Hamilton, Harry, left off just before he died. Maybe some people were just meant to be that way. Strangely, I find it to be a good thing that my wife takes my son Alex to church. He, the baby, needs social contacts, so that he develops social skills. I feel bad that this might cause some confusion to our household, but I guess nobody has it perfect.