The final interview I conducted was with my current roommate, Josh Foreman. Josh is also a long-time friend from my hometown of Potomac, MD and lives 5 minutes from my house. I knew his background and attended his Bar-Mitzvah, so I wanted to get the opinion of someone my age on the subject of either Judaism or Christianity, but in this case, it ended up being Judaism.
I first asked Josh for a brief account of growing up Jewish and he said, "Well we attended the same reform temple in D.C., so you know that it is not uber-religious. My family and I attended the major holidays, but that was about it. No friday night Shabbat services. It was pretty relaxed. I got Bar-Mitzvahed, like everyone, but the service was not that intense. It was pretty short and then there was a big party afterward." "Did you get anything out of your Bar-Mitzvah?" I asked. "I mean, it is supposed to be this "transition" to man-hood in the Jewish religion, but I did not feel any different after the ceremony than before. It was really cool to read from a real torah and have the Rabbi sitting next to you while all of your family, in town or out of town, were there to watch this historic ceremony." This was now the third interviewee in a row that mentioned either the presence or importance of family around the Jewish holidays, which important to note. |
When I asked Josh how important the Jewish holidays were to him, he answered "Really, not that important to me. I really didn't buy into certain aspects of the religion. But that was just me, I am very skeptical of religion as a whole. If it was Islam, Christianity, or Judaism it would not have mattered. Im just not that into the religious holidays. However, it was great getting together as a community and seeing all of your school friends, family members that you do not normally see and even kids you used to go to school with that you have been meaning to call."
Josh gave me a very honest answer to that question and I liked his response a lot because he not only covered why he did not like the holidays, but also certain positives that he can take away from them. When I asked Josh to conclude the interview with some values that he took from Judaism he retorted with "Well obviously family is incredibly important, also food (hahaha). But seriously, now that I am a little older I really do understand the point of the Bar-Mitzvah and it really is a great experience, even though I might have just cared about the party when I was younger. I think Judaism really values giving back to the community as well because there are always so many different events going on that are scheduled through the temple, intended to help good-will or salvation army or the homeless." "Thanks for taking time Josh!" I said. |