Why I’m Thankful For Being An Ultra-Reformed Jew
Let’s just start with the ease, convenience, lack of red-tape or maintenance costs and hassle-free terms with Zero-Due-At signing.
It works like this: if your mother’s a Jew, you’re a Jew.
Let me run that by you again, in case you missed it:
If your mother is a Jew, then you are a Jew.
That’s it. We’re done.
If you’d like, you can just walk right out the door and never give it another thought. You’re in. There’s no readings, no meetings, no annual service fees. You never have to sit in a tiny darkened box detailing your sex life, either real or imagined, to a -sixty-something year old virgin. Ever. Nor will you be commanded by them afterwards to recite magic poems under threat of eternal torment. Also, there’ll be no Creators of any Universes keeping records of all your actions nor listening to all your thoughts to determine whether or not you’ll be spending forever writhing in agony. And believe me, that last one is a huge advantage over the competition in terms of overall quality-of-life.
You like cookies, right? Everybody likes cookies! Here, have a cookie, they’re delicious! Have another! Enjoy! That’s what cookies are for! We don’t want you to spoil your dinner, we just want you to know that when a Jew gives you a cookie, it’s just a cookie and it’s gonna stay a cookie… you can eat it with absolute confidence it’s not gonna suddenly transform into the flesh of a 2000 year old Palestinian the moment you put it in your mouth. Sounds whacky I know, but believe it or not, not all religions will guarantee that. But just between you and me, it’s exactly the same deal with their cookies. Cookies don’t turn into someone’s flesh inside your mouth, divine or otherwise - if there was even the slightest chance they did, nobody would eat cookies. And it’d spoil your dinner.
Here’s the thing. It might seem like a small point but it’s important. ’Cuz it’s not just that our cookies won’t be changing into flesh… the critical point is we’re not gonna ask you to pretend they did. Y’know why? ‘Cuz that’d be lying! And we’re not gonna ask you to lie for us. And if we did, I guarantee it’d be about something more useful than pretending cookies were turning into old hippies in our mouths.
Because when a religion asks you to lie, sooner or later they ask you to start murdering people. Happens every time. Trust us, we’re Jews: We Know.
You might’ve noticed a few things have been conspicuously absent so far, seeing this is supposed to be an introduction to one of the major Abrahamic religions, which tend to be notoriously ritualistic and detail-oriented when it comes to pro- and prescribed behavior. And to be clear, you do have that option… We’ve got special clothes, special prayers, special foods, dances, holidays… all that stuff. In fact, if you wanted to, you could have your Judaism dominate every single aspect of your life with every waking hour of every single day filled with the readings, studies, prayers and all that. But we’re not going to tell you, let alone promise, any of it’s gonna bring you any closer to G-d, whom you may have noticed has also been rather conspicuously absent here. If you believe in God, or Goddess, or some pantheon thereof, that’s great - we’d love to hear about Him/Her/Them. Some of us have speculations of our own. But that’s it - just speculation - no promises. Because that would be lying, and we’ve seen what that leads to.
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