Selected Piece - Essay

by - Jay Schwartz, Colorado

As a people, we Jews are told to be a light unto nations.

It’s a vague thing, really. When you get down to it, the prophet never quite specified how to “spread that light”—Isaiah couldn’t have anticipated light bulbs, he was scraping by, talking about the Babylonians! The Israelites couldn’t tell you what an LED is, they were focused on the Assyrians!

Being a diaspora, I’m unsure that we’ll ever get one answer to what it is that we’re supposed to be doing. We’re scattered, eclectic, I’m you, you’re me, we’re both too far from each other and too prone to bickering; too unable to find consensus among all the time spent exploring our ideas; too historied to settle on one answer to a daunting, holy task while we continue to change.

Myself, I’ve spent a tragic amount of time in all the wrong ways. I spent too long cutting off oxygen to the light of my spirit: too much of my life I was bored by prayer, I stuttered through English transliterations. During too much of junior high I straightened my hair and mispronounced my name; for too much of high school, I dated someone who’s anti-Semitism I laughed off for social acceptance. For too many of my teenage years, I was uncertain, vague: I refused to recognize the center of my heritage, but my denial made me no closer to my peers laughing about the foils of Easter celebrations and egg hunts. I spent too much of my life moving away from who I am, and wondering why I felt so lost.

But as we are a people defined by the distance we have from one another. In our own lack of omnipresence, each fleeting example of community becomes an inspiration: we are in these pockets, everywhere.

There’s this kid on my block, who, for as long as I’ve known him, has been perpetually unhappy about his Bar Mitzvah lessons. The kid, who I’ve privately nicknamed ‘Genesis Guy’, doesn’t know his mumblings are the highlight of my morning walks; he doesn’t know how they make the distance between us seem less far. Genesis Guy might be all the warmth I need to keep away the winter blues; he might be all the hope I need—he’s a permanent request that I examine where I am, how I’ve grown, and how my faith has grown with me.

These hints about our wholeness, even when we’re separated, play over, and over, and over: as I walk to the train, the bodega on the corner doesn’t hesitate to remind me that they’re debuting these addicting new Jerusalem bagels. The smell of yeast and sesame reminds me that the recipe must come from someone, someplace, somewhere: perhaps not that far away. For each snide Instagram comment about the Star of David in my bio, I remember that the anger I feel is not for nothing. When I notice the Orthodox men in the airport praying with dedication, I ask just how we got through that turbulence. When I catch stray words in Hebrew, when I pick up curses in Yiddish, I hear a comforting wash of memory—what would it be, if I had never stopped those language lessons? What would it be if I had a first language to express exactly what I can’t find words for? We’re in a developing tale, told by lilting voices that sound like home.

I don’t think that you can run away from everything—least of all faith, least of all culture. Judaism means that there will be someone around the next bend, no matter how dim or unfamiliar it seems. When I think I’ve lost myself, that I’m really, fully gone this time—Genesis Guy, Midrash Man, he’s standing on that corner. Judaism means that, despite everything, we remain a light unto ourselves. Judaism means that I have the hope to do so for my neighbors. Judaism means that someone is always around the bend, someone familiar, someone present, reminding me just who I am and just what I’m meant for.

HaShem, how lucky you are! How lucky you are that you have children who—in every corner of the world—will recall that they are yours.