My Love Story With Judaism (And Bacon)
My classmates in high school knew the $4.29 Bacon Double Cheeseburger as the centerpiece of my infamous Friday lunch. When my friends would spot me in fourth period with greasy fingers holding a crumpled Burger King bag, they’d shake their heads and groan. They knew I had consumed my favorite meal yet again. The tradition became inseparable from me, and thus the Bacon Double Cheeseburger became a legend my junior year.
Little did my classmates know, they wouldn’t see me bite into my deliciously greasy burger senior year. In the summer of 2015, I attended a pluralistic Jewish summer program called BIMA/Genesis at Brandeis University. The common trait between my brand new 120 best friends and me is that we all identify as Jewish, but how we interpret our faith varies from person to person.
My friends at BIMA/Genesis experienced daily life differently than I do. Most attended religious day school and were raised Orthodox Jewish. At home, the most Jewish I’d been was memorizing the entire Hannukah episode of The Rugrats at age seven and mastering the Fiddler on the Roof soundtrack by age eight. As a child, I latched onto whatever Jewish culture I found, especially since my secular Soviet-immigrant family could offer little in that spiritual arena. My grandma taught me her recipe for the perfect noodle kugel instead of conventional prayer.
As my first experience meeting Orthodox people, I was initially in culture shock. By the end of the first week, my friends invited me to attend the Orthodox prayer service. The service didn’t resonate with me, but I appreciated its process and beauty. While I rarely connected with prayer, this exposure to observance prompted me to find my personal connection to Judaism, so I decided to keep kosher going into my senior year. Switching my eating habits connected me to Judaism in a significant, but manageable way. I felt empowered searching for an Orthodox Union seal on a box of sugar cookies because I participated in a practice that far predates me. Keeping kosher was a constant, conscious reminder of my faith, tradition, and community.
[pullquote]Bacon tasted better than I had ever remembered, but I was pretty unsure as to why I broke a year and a half long streak of abstaining from pork.[/pullquote]
Coming to college, I dreamt of all the Jewish opportunities on campus. After I became more interested in Judaism senior year, college felt unlimited in its potential to explore my faith, especially at a school with a large Jewish population like Wash U. My first year did not meet to my expectations whatsoever—I only went to Hillel once, I stopped enforcing a strict time limit between eating dairy after meat, and I didn’t light candles for Shabbat anymore. Examples of my waning observance feel infinite. Keeping kosher was significant to me initially because it reminded me of my faith with every choice. There weren’t many Jews where I am from; the predominantly Christian atmosphere prompted an unsuccessful, albeit active, search to “feel Jewish.” Consciously choosing to not buy dessert after a meal with meat, for example, made Judaism fit into my environment.
[pullquote]My identity holds less weight when it is occupied by 30% of the population, rather than 0.3%.[/pullquote]
My defiant turning point in ditching kosher was on Mardi Gras. Inspired by my friends who were engaging in traditions of gorging themselves in junk food, I too liberated myself from my regular eating. My animalistic hunger was calling me, beckoning me to mix bacon with my hash browns at Village brunch. Bacon tasted better than I had ever remembered, but I was unsure as to why I broke a year and a half long streak of abstaining from pork. On deeper reflection, however, I realize that at Wash U I didn’t need food to remind me that I was Jewish. About 30 percent of Wash U’s students identify as Jewish. Here, I don’t need to actively seek out Judaism, whether it be Jewish friends, food, or culture. Historically, minority status has been integral to Jewish life and experience. Scarcity and diaspora bore solidarity between Jews. My identity holds less weight when it is occupied by 30 percent of the population, rather than 0.3 percent. I feel lucky about the access, resources, and relative safety provided to Jewish students, but I am personally struggling with occupying a majority status that only feels significant as a minority.
[pullquote]Scarcity and diaspora bore solidarity between Jews.[/pullquote]
I often wonder if I would have observed kosher-style eating if I had chosen to go to a different college. Did the atmosphere and demographics of Wash U replace my personal mechanism for connection to faith? Or was my connection to Judaism decreasing on its own, holding all other variables constant? Probably a little bit of both. In the coming years, I hope to learn more about Judaism and explore practices across the spectrum of observance. Whether I revisit keeping kosher or not, I hope I will discover ways to connect with my religion in the future that are just as meaningful as keeping kosher once was to me. But, right now, I’m comfortable putting kosher-style eating on hold and enjoying my Bacon Double Cheeseburger.
Liza Sivriver ‘20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at lizasivriver@wustl.edu.