It’s been years since I’ve been to a synagogue. I want to say the last time was for my cousin’s Bat Mitzvah. It was an orthodox ceremony, one that my grandmother and I stopped at the synagogue’s doors to put little cloths on our heads before finding a seat on the women’s side of the aisle. The only thing I remember from that day was my cousin putting olives on her fingers during dinner. I’d never seen that trick before and it stayed with me as I felt a longing to be so free you go ahead and adorn yourself with food for a laugh.
Despite my lack of knowledge or involvement, I’ve always held the Jewish part of me close to my heart. My only connection to the rituals and practices was never eating pork, because my mother said if the Jewish people knew not to, there must be something to it. Trust the ancient logic. So I stayed baconless for my whole life, which is a shockingly constant commitment. Pork is literally everywhere. Pizza parties in elementary school? I’d be pulling off the pepperoni while the boys asked me why I was taking off the best part. Maybe I should have avoided the pizza entirely but as a weird kid deeply afraid of not conforming, I did what I could. But I digress.
Only this year did I ask why. Did the pork thing even matter? I think it was shortly after coming back from Spain, where high quality jamón ibérico is everywhere. When we’d go out to dinner I’d pass the plate.
But after a month of facing down famously good pork products, it occurred to me that I didn’t want to be an almost-30-year-old saying, “I don’t eat pork cause I never have” — it seemed like a poor reason for such a longstanding life choice.
My mother was raised Jewish, but she converted to Catholicism when I was four. This was done to provide me with a sense of community, as my dad was raised Catholic. My mother is of Jewish descent on both her mother and father’s side. There were Jews who fled Russia because of their religion and my mother told me early and often that we lost family in the Holocaust. That’s about where my knowledge of my ancestry starts and ends. Things are hazy for various reasons and I’m still exploring ways to learn more.
Ultimately, my parents never settled with one form of religion. Luckily, save for a brief stint when I was in high school, my mom wasn’t a very devout Catholic. I never really resonated with Catholicism and now just walking inside my old church awakens a visceral ache in my chest.
My parents ended up embracing all sorts of theologies, spiritual voices and paths. I was raised to prioritize my personal relationship to the divine. I am who I am because of this multi-dimensional upbringing, steeped in a kaleidoscope of gods, source, being.
So back to the pork. I got to thinking about the why, realizing I wanted to either drop it or figure out if there was a deeper meaning hidden within it.
As I considered the lineage that I love but can’t fully explain, I realized that by abstaining from pork, I’ve maintained an active thread between us. All these years it’s been an affirmation of connection, rather than a rejection of the mystery.
So I made the choice to continue with the commitment, this time embracing it as an intentional ritual honoring my ancestors. Since I going to keep it up, I wanted to look deeper into the world of Judaism. First I read was Here All Along by Sarah Hurwitz. I felt an instant affinity with Jewish ideas, which made so much sense without leaning on fear as a tactic for control. Instead, Judaism taps into the joy, with gratitude for life at the forefront. Questions are welcomed, individual conversation with the divine is encouraged and there is a lot of room to admit that as mortals, we will truly never know. It’s a very familiar concept to me, really how I approach everything.
I began to practice Shabbat in my own way. The first time was almost psychedelic, being alone with my thoughts, my being and the presence of source. I loved the opportunity to intentionally pause and make space for the week ahead.
Stepping back from the world on a regular basis gave me perspective on how to be within it. I’m still unearthing and figuring it out, but you start to see what’s truly important when you remove yourself from the hustle. Very quickly you notice what’s left.
One of my friends gave me a book called The Sabbath By Abraham Joshua Heschel, which reveals the beauty of this practice.
“There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord. Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern.”
While Here All Along and The Sabbath have offered a lot, there is still so much to learn about Judaism. The strong focus on community can be hard to come by through the pages of a book. I felt like the next step was taking Intro to Judaism classes, but with everything going on, it kept slipping on my to-do list. Luckily I have a friend in my neighborhood who is also leaning into Judaism and we’ve made a plan to find a local class in the coming months.
This is all to say, had I found myself in Bulgaria a year ago, I wouldn’t have thought to look up to the local synagogue. I jumped at the chance to visit Eastern Europe, because I felt excited to visit an ancestral region (and let’s face it, I wasn’t planning a trip to Ireland anytime soon). As I researched Bulgaria, I discovered Jews had a long history there, with evidence of their presence as early as 46 CE. I’ll save you the AP World History flashbacks (also I’m pretty sure my understanding is merely surface level). But long story short, the present Jewish population in Bulgaria is quite small.
I confess, I didn’t know much about the Sofia Synagogue as I walked over from the hotel. I knew it was one of the biggest in Bulgaria and in Eastern Europe, but I didn’t know what to expect. I took my time on the walk over, making my way through parks and stopping to document along the way. Eventually I found myself walking through a cluster of Roman ruins, which was the oldest landmark I’d ever seen. Already I was feeling dazed as I stumbled upon the synagogue.
The moment the synagogue came into view, I noticed The Star of David adorning giant windows and the wrought iron fence. It was surrounded by a tall brick wall, that you buzzed into. My bags were checked and I was let into a courtyard. I found my way to the door and walked into the large entryway.
I can’t really describe what happened next, but as I looked at a wall of names written in Hebrew, I began to cry. I admit, I cry often, but usually it’s a thing where tears just come out of my eyes and I’m like, okay please I don’t even feel that emotional!
This time it was emanating from my chest, closer to a sob. I tried to chill out but I couldn’t help how moved I felt. I looked around to see if anyone else was having a similar experience, but everyone was walking around taking photos with the composure of someone at MoMA. No shade, everyone’s experience is valid!!! Not wanting to be alarmingly emo, I kept my eyes to the ground, looking at the worn floorboards, the tiles, did I mention the floorboards. Eventually I sat in one of the rows, which brought me to tears all over again. I let myself sit with what was reverberating through me, without questioning it. I stayed there for a while, listening to the space.
Within me, around me, felt like a soft gravity expanding out. It was almost like taking the effects of a full Sabbath and condensing them into a wonder pill.
Before I left, I found a plaque that said the synagogue was built in 1909. Any details were written in Hebrew and Bulgarian (fair) so I waited until I got home to look at more information. Was the structure targeted in WWII? Was it rebuilt? Questions rang in my mind as I walked back to the hotel.
After a bit of digging, (finding the synagogue’s website and translating it) I found something truly remarkable. During WWII, a bomb fell on the synagogue but did not explode. I can’t help but believe the impacts of such a wild miracle are still echoing through the space.
Perhaps this is what it means to have a place of worship. Where a century worth of energy can rest in the tiles and floorboards that I fixed my gaze to. Maybe all the feet that have crossed over the threshold leave behind a little bit of gravity. Maybe everyone who visits a place like that and feels a sliver of transformation, leaves a little more connected in the limitless cosmos.
That’s all for today.
xx
James
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