A Stranger

So last Friday was Tu Bishavat, leading to a packed house at Chabad in Denmark. Dealing with so many people as well as a personal issue (related to my family), I could not connect the same way as I could last week. I know that as one worships, one is supposed to empty their mind of all things but devotion. Unfortunately, I was not able to achieve such a state of mental focus last week. As such, it enabled me to focus more on my reactions to the service and the community than I might otherwise be able to do so.

I reckognized that I felt the stranger there as I feel in all of Denmark. In the case of the country, there are many reasons why I might feel like a stranger. The most obvious being I am a linguistic outsider, I have little to no knowledge of the Danish language. All I can effectively say in Danish is "I don't speak Danish." Although I was more obviously an outsider (at least in terms of appearance) in China, I was able to follow some of what was going on around me (at least some of the time.) A shared language is one of the many ways that one can and often times does find a sense of belonging.

As to why I felt like a stranger within Chabad...there are many rituals/customs/observances that I have not been previously exposed to. Since I have started to practice, I have followed ideas closer to Conservative or Reform Judaism (depending on if at home or college.) The practices of the Orhtodox community make me feel like an outsider as they are practices that I am not yet familiar. More than though, in a sense, I feel somehow...lesser. I know that even were I to 'toe party line' with the Orthodox community here, the feeling of being lesser would still most likely be with me.

There is a certain amount of self knowledge that I have managed to acquire through a life time of questioning. Among the first things I learned was that there is someone who will always be more (fill in the status here) then I am. In this case, there will always be individuals more devout. I know that if I pushed myself to the same level of devotion, I still would feel lesser. I know that if I tried to be closer to that ideal of devotion, I would still be unhappy with large parts of myself. I have to remind myself that it is okay to have this religious confusion and to not be as devout as those others attending Chabad.

Hopefully, publishing this will help me remember.