Winter Musings...

Avocadoes and Stawberries are a winter phenomenon that simply make me happy.
It's getting colder and I am privy to pics from NY of snow, I hear about White Christmases and I read facebook updates of friends from down under having beach bbq's...and I am enjoying a bit of mulled wine....
Funny how I sort of miss Christmas, funny, because I am Jewish...but there is definitely a consumer cheer conjured up by those wonderful marketing geniuses that I am a victim of, and everything seems to be joyous and happy for a while around the shopping centre's anyway, and I guess I was trying to re-capture that when I went with a friend to Christmas carols in the Old City. I figured that pilgrims around the world are not as priveliged as I am to have the cultural opportunity on their doorstep and it was interesting seeing the amount of Israeli tourists that were flooding the Old City also to get a glimpse of St Nicholas...

When I reported to an Israeli friend about my outing, they were impressed I think that such a thing was happening in their city, and that the public, Israeli/Jewish public were taking the opportunity to explore....I also informed them of the Municipalities initiative with the JNF (Jewish National Fund) to give away free Christmas trees...and their reaction was of being proud....when I sang them some carols, they were unfamiliar...

Sitting with friends at a traditional Shabbat dinner meal with mince pies, we talked about how our children will not watch Christmas cartoons and Christmas specials and will not sit on Santa's lap...and it's echoing in my head, the sounds of carols from Thursday night....there is something about familiarity which brings on nostalgia that somehow got confused in religion.

I think we verbalise/label it as tradition and when we perform it we call it a custom...these are the codes we use as reference, but what actually motivates us into it all? Belief or Belonging?
Observing from the side in that Church, I recognised people, who I knew, who had also come to 'observe'...and it made me feel a bit more comfortable...instead of sacriligious...one of the draws to going to synagogue is that like the word intends it is a 'meeting' place...and here I was with Hebrew writing on the Altar, and stained glass windows, the original purpose of the Protestant building was to bring in Jews for the purpose of conversion...So I caught myself...look what a catchy song has got me doing! Did I sin? That wasn't the intention....

Back to my neighourhood, in my place of prayer, I'm looking at a friend in the service, who inbetween prayer, is rather fervently going over pages in an ancient text, learning, actively engaging in 1000's of years of history....and I want to be connected to what he is connected to...
I want to belong, I want a history, I want meaning and purpose, which are basic motivations for all religion perhaps...let's throw some belief and faith in there too....he reminded me of another motivating factor for Aliyah...to be amongst my people, today linking past to present and building a future...and religion is somewhere in that mix...chucked in to confuse and clarify.