{"id":117445,"date":"2017-09-15T12:14:52","date_gmt":"2017-09-15T20:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=117445"},"modified":"2017-09-15T12:19:34","modified_gmt":"2017-09-15T20:19:34","slug":"the-secret-fear-plaguing-the-unmarried-untethered-orthodox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=117445","title":{"rendered":"‘The Secret Fear Plaguing The Unmarried, Untethered Orthodox’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Laura E. Adkins writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I did not grow up a religious Jew, but for my entire adult life, I\u2019ve been a member of the Orthodox world. As a result, I\u2019ve spent a lot of time in other people\u2019s homes, with other people\u2019s families; Orthodox life is built around the family, and Shabbat and holidays are desolate affairs if you\u2019re by yourself.<\/p>\n

Countless families and communities across the world have graciously opened their doors and tables to me. From the homes of close friends in my neighborhood to the home of an eccentric kabbalist-cum krav maga teacher in Israel, through the boisterous Chabad of Panama City and everywhere in between, every Shabbat and every holiday I\u2019ve found a place amongst my generous fellow tribesmen and women.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never once been made to feel unwelcome. But I have also never forgotten that I am always a guest.<\/p>\n

And while I pay my synagogue dues and give what I can to the communal institutions that have made me who I am today, and though I regularly host Shabbat and holiday meals of my own in my tiny apartment, there\u2019s a little part of me that will always feel like a burden, a tiny voice in the back of my head telling me I\u2019ve been given more than I can ever give in return.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a friendly voice. A child of divorce, I hate to need. I\u2019ve been able to pack a dufflebag by rote in fifteen minutes flat since age eight. I have become a self-sufficient machine; my first word was not \u201cmommy\u201d or \u201cdaddy\u201d but \u201ccat.\u201d I\u2019m an introvert by nature, and at the end of the day, I live in my head much more than I do in the presence of others.<\/p>\n

But the Orthodox Jewish world is no place for such singularity.<\/p>\n

This point was driven home for me during a seminar course in college on religious leadership. Our first assignment was to tell the cohort a 10-minute narrative of our life and religious journey. When it came to her turn, a fellow Orthodox Jew from a wealthy coastal town who I\u2019ll call Beth shared the story of a woman I\u2019ll call Rebekah, a woman from her community who had no nearby Jewish family members of her own. Rebekah would come to Beth\u2019s Orthodox home every Jewish holiday at the behest of her parents, who made room for this unmarried woman in their hearth.<\/p>\n

When Beth was a child, she saw Rebekah\u2019s visits as a burden; making space in the house, making space at the table, making space in the family for a virtual interloper during the pinnacle of family time seemed like a grand intrusion. But as Beth grew older, she realized that though it was never truly painless having her home opened to someone so different each and every holiday, she gained as much from Rebekah\u2019s presence and unique persona as Rebekah did from her family\u2019s hospitality.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Laura E. Adkins writes: I did not grow up a religious Jew, but for my entire adult life, I\u2019ve been a member of the Orthodox world. As a result, I\u2019ve spent a lot of time in other people\u2019s homes, with … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orthodoxy"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=117445"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117447,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117445\/revisions\/117447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=117445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=117445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=117445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}