The New Jew

A friend of mine writes a blog on Jewish family living. She posted a great post last Friday that got me thinking. She asked her readers, how are you making Judaism an important and meaningful part of you life and identity??

See I told you, it is an thought provoking question. I've asked myself this question before. What do I do? We celebrate the Jewish holidays, have shabbot dinner with family and friends when time allows. We joined the JCC and plan on enrolling Abby in the daycare/pre-school when she turns two. We gave our daughter a Hebrew name, and it was important that her name was the same in English and in Hebrew.

I wish we had the time, or more like made the time to do shabbot dinners every week, went to shul on a regular basis, even kept kosher. But I guess at the moment, these actions are not as important to us as other things. Most Friday nights, Micah, Abby and I spend the time together. We have dinner, play and begin our bedtime routine. Many times over the past couple of months, we have be on the road, visiting family and friends is cities far away, because it is important to us to spend time with the ones we love.

My follow-up question  would be, do not doing or doing these activities/religious practices make me more or less Jewish?  I consider myself Jewish, it is something I identify with, and if asked, I would consider myself a Jewish American rather than an American Jew. Regardless of how 'practicing' I or my family are, or how many of the 'rules' I adhere to, I'm still a Jew.  I've morphed the religion to fit my needs at right now. In the future, I might need more, but for now, it works for me. It works for us.