The Making of a Frumster (part one)

My journey towards observance began, of all places, at a Reform shul 15 years ago.

I was a not-so-observant member of the Conservative movement, attending a Jewish singles event sponsored by a prominent Reform shul. The event was not exclusively for Reform movement members, and I valued any Jewish group, activity, or movement that worked to keep Jews attached to Judaism in some way.

At the event, staffed by an assistant rabbi from the shul, pepperoni pizza (!!!) was served. I was shocked, as was a friend of mine who grew up attending that Reform shul.

I didn't keep kosher at the time. But I respected those who did and understood the need for kosher food at Jewish community events.

I was greatly unnerved by what I considered to be naked contempt for Jewish tradition and for traditional Jews displayed by this Reform shul.

I had never studied Reform history and theology, assuming ignorantly that it was just a "lite" version of Conservative Judaism. So the burning bush of pepperoni pizza sent me to study the history and theology of the different movements of Judaism. I found out that Conservative Judaism, in which I was raised, was a rightward reaction to Reform's abandonment of Jewish tradition, ritual, and norms.

I started to wonder: What is Judaism without its rituals and laws? If Torah, Talmud, and Halkakah are "not relevant" to the modern world, then what makes Judaism different from other belief systems? If it's just a bunch of Hallmark holidays associated with special foods and department store sales, then why be Jewish (and thus different from the goyim) if the only things that separate Jews from non-Jews are symbolic, arbitrary, and devoid of unique and significant meaning?

Thus began my slow journey from "Pickle Judaism" (what political pollster and fellow yid Mark Mellman labeled as a cultural "religion" of deli food and seasonal alternatives to Christian holidays when I chatted with him at an airport) and towards Torah.

Though I had not been terribly observant or certain of G-d's existence when Mellman used that phrase with me, I was so repulsed by Pepperoni Theology, despite my respect for so many Reform Jews committed to their Jewish identity and to Israel, that I was sent back in the other direction.

I could no longer respect Reform Judaism as a Jewish movement. It wasn't just alien to what I thought and felt about Judaism, it was also openly hostile to those things make living a Jewish life different from living a non-Jewish life.

Wasn't I hypocritical? I wasn't shomer mitzvot.

But I at least felt guilty about not keeping kosher and Shabbos. :)

***

I had always vaguely felt that I would become more religious when I got married and had children, so I could give them the Jewish education and practice that I hadn't had. It was just a matter of time, it seemed, so I  began putting even more distance between myself and Our Lady of Pepperoni Pizza Congregation and the movement of which it was a part.

A future posting on my movement towards orthodoxy will try to answer the question: Did I reject Conservative Judaism, or did it reject me?