Spiritual autobiography, part 3

As I’ve noted in the past, I was raised Jewish — though a contradictory flavor of it, to be sure. We kept kosher at home, but not in restaurants. We went to temple on the High Holy Days, but not on weekends. It was made clear to me that I was going to have a Bat Mitzvah whether I wanted one or not; I didn’t, and had to be bribed with an electric typewriter.

(Yes, I sold my soul for a Smith-Corona — though I suspect this says less about the ethical flexibility of a preteen than the undeniable truth that I was doomed to writerdom from an early age.)

I was well into adulthood before I stopped feeling like I had to defend my decision to say Goodbye To All That. I once even got into a screaming fight with a dear friend who, out of heartfelt fondness for a very liberal version of Judaism, told me I had no right to forsake the faith of my forebears until I had sampled every current variety of it and judged them all a bad fit for me. To be fair, we’d been drinking, and each of us said things we regretted. Nonetheless, it ended up being a productive argument for me, because it clarified my realization that I had drifted away from even a mushy nondenominational religiosity into hardcore agnosticism.

Today I finally managed to articulate the reason — well, one reason; there are several — why my ancestral faith never felt like a good fit. Ironically, I found it in an article in a Jewish publication. (Full disclosure: the spouse of someone I know is quoted in this article, and a friend is actually a columnist for the publication, although neither of these facts is terribly relevant.)

In a nutshell, the article explores the discomfort the Modern Orthodox writer feels at going to yoga class, because despite her enjoyment of the exercise, she feels the chanting and bowing make yoga a religion, and she believes that even if it isn’t, it looks like one. And the tenets of Judaism as she observes them require her to avoid not just committing a sin, but avoiding even the appearance of committing a sin.

In other words, even if you have no ill intent, it’s not just what you do — it’s what other people think about what you do. One must be beyond reproach. At all times.

Granted, a more liberal rabbi says later in the article that what matters is intent. But it nailed the pointed problem of my youth: I was taught, in no uncertain terms, that if someone else thinks you’re misbehaving, you are misbehaving, or might as well be — and that the appearance was every bit as important, and maybe more so, than the substance.  And that, of course, can be perverted in a multitude of ways.

In an ideal world, being concerned about the judgment of others makes you live a good, ethical life, which is then reflected in your actions. But toss in a dash of narcissism or some other common craziness, and you end up with a thought process that goes something like this: “We can do whatever we want, as long as the actions that are visible to other people make us appear to be good and ethical. In fact, if enough other people perceive us to be good and ethical, we’ll believe it of ourselves, even if our actions behind closed doors are anything but — because if enough other people see and say it, it must be true. And therefore what we’re doing out of the public eye is by definition acceptable, because how could people who are so widely acclaimed as good and ethical do wrong?”

Or, more succinctly, “If we look good, we are good.”

In the end, scary as it is to discuss, I’ve chosen a path that involves living in congruence with what I feel is right, regardless of what other people think. Call it moral relativism, but I continue to believe that spending my time worrying about how I appear to other people is not righteousness, but a fast track to anxiety, neurotic perfectionism, and the sense that every bar I hurdle only leads to a higher bar in an unending quest for unachievable flawlessness.

It may not look good. But it’s good for me.

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