By Carly Abramson
Growing up I have simply embraced the Judaism I was taught rather than try to develop my own understanding of Judaism. The concept of Jewish identity has been a topic that has interested me for as long as I can remember; but my own Jewish identity has always been reflective of the compromised answer of my surrounding community. It was not until a session with Rabbi Cohen that we all got the opportunity to be almost ‘selfish’ with our Jewish values. I’m sure my word choice might cause a slight debate amongst my fellow Cohort 2 peers, but I stand my ground.
During the activity we each had to pick our top eight Jewish values and write them onto post-it notes. From there we were then put into pairs and had to agree on eight out of our combined sixteen values. A small knot in my stomach began to form after I had to toss aside a few post-its that I felt so strongly about. Little did I know, that small knot was nothing compared to when Rabbi Cohen made my partner and I get up from the only sliver of dry grass, to join another pair sitting in the shade. I could not fathom the reality that aside from having to crouch down on wet grass, I then had to bargain even more of my beliefs. I am sure I was not the only one who was both physically and emotionally uncomfortable on this lovely Friday afternoon session.
I thought for sure Rabbi Cohen was walking towards my group to tell us to join the rest of the cohort so he could conclude the session, but looking back at that day I should have known better. Instead, he pointed our group towards a clump of eight other people looking just as baffled and aggravated as we were... great. Now you have twelve aspiring Jewish leaders all sitting together in a mess of a circle trying to debate over which post-it note out of the twenty-four is worthy enough to be in the collective top eight Jewish values. Yes, that is a run-on sentence but it serves to show that compromising with twelve equally passionate people was an absolute “balagan” (mess). Tensions were definitely rising during this part of the program; people were fighting, talking over each other, sighing when they disagreed, I cannot even begin to explain. However, as I was arguing for one of my Jewish values suddenly everything clicked.
I didn’t even know I had personal Jewish values and now all of the sudden I’m defending them? The point of this activity was not obvious at first; but towards the end of the session we realized that through all of our reactions, debates, and disengagements with one another, that was exactly what Rabbi Cohen wanted. This is was the first time that I fought for what I believed instead of simply accepting the values of those around me.
