My friend Dave and I made a pact awhile back to go to different churches each weekend and "try on" an assortment of different religions if you will.  We were both raised Catholic but neither one of us felt touched by what we learned every Sunday morning and over time going to church with our families became more of a chore than a cause for celebration.  Sit.  Stand.  Pray. Sing.  Kneel.  Shake Hands. Kneel some more. The only thing really worth celebrating, as far as I was concerned was the chance that after church we might stop by Woods Bakery for some hot cake doughnuts.  Obviously, religion, or God for that matter, have not really played a huge role in my life. However, I have always been slightly envious of the people who are strong believers and those who do, in fact, have unshakable faith.  It's not that I don't believe in God, I do...or at least I beleive in Him enough to be scared to admit that I have doubts about Him, (especially outloud.)  Turns out that one day I let my secret slip to Dave who admitted that he had the same doubts and hated going to church also.  While he believes in God, he is just not sure about all the mumbo jumbo that goes along with it.  Maybe it was Catholicism that was turning us off.  Maybe we needed to get out there and explore other religions and see which one felt right to us.

The following Sunday I sat at a local Starbucks a few blocks away from my home, sipping my soy latte and watching the Jewish worshipers line up at the gorgeous synogogue across the street. The men all had long, black curls hanging down the sides of their faces that blended with their even longer dark beards and they all sported yamacas on top of their heads.  The women wore plain clothes and the children seemed to be all tiny clones of the adults..each had dark hair, skin and eyes.  Seeing them all lining up like that brought back a childhood memory that I had almost forgotten but blame completely on the strange fascination I have with anything Jewish. When I was in 5th grade my class and I took a field trip to a synagogue.  As we walked into the huge room I was fascinated that there were no pictures of Jesus up on the walls.  There were no stations of the cross anywhere, the walls were blank and the doors and windows were trimmed in shiny gold. In place of where the crucifix was in our church there hung The Star of David.  We silently sat down in a long wooden pew and directed our attention to the huge book sitting on the pulpet in front of us. Suddenly a man who looked much like the men I just described walked into the room and opened to huge book which I later learned was called the Torah. We sat listened to the man read outloud and eventhough we didn't understand a word of the ancient language he spoke we knew that if our eyes left him we would be in big trouble on the bus ride home.  We were Catholics and we were representing. 

When he finished reading we all stood up and took the driedels out of our pockets that we had made in art class the week before.  We held them out in front of us and began to sing the song we had been practicing for months to the man who smiled down at us. (At least I think he was smiling. It was hard to tell through all the curly hair around and on his face.) Looking back I am sure we must have been some sight, a bunch of Catholic kids in our starched blue and black plaid uniforms singing about dreidles and latkes, Hannukah and the Festival of Lights.  I could not tell you how long we stayed there.  I could not tell you how to get back to that place where for the first time I felt the magic of faith.  I don't know if it was that everything in that synagogue was foreign to me but from that moment on I became intoxicated by all things Jewish.  Weird I know...even weirder that I am admitting it outloud.  I don't know much about their beliefs but I do know that they fascinate me with their privateness and their smooth, exotic words: Shalom. Say it with me.  Shalom.  Nice huh?  I know that I have a Star of David pendant that I wear around my neck and that during the holidays I always buy The Festival of Lights candle from Yankee.  It smells like cinnamon and it is my favorite. I know that when I am in line at Einstein Bagels I am always tempted to try the bagels and lox.  I never do though...something about fish that early kind of turns my stomach. 

So while I may never have matzah ball soup grace my table during the holiday season and my name most likely will not be remembered in crazy Adam Sandler song, I have to say that that brief moment when I was a young girl standing in that synagogue touched me forever.  So next weekend I am going to try and drag Dave to the synagogue across from Starbucks with me.  I am not sure if the service is open to the public or if we will be turned away at the door.  That is not what worries me.  What worries me is trying to convince Dave that he will look very dapper in a yamaca.