Excerpt from Being Jewish by Ari L. Goldman, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

* Joe, a high school teacher and a big Red Sox fan from Boston, always has a hot dog on opening day at Fenway. Hot dogs at Fenway are not kosher, but that doesn't bother Joe, who considers himself an American first and a Jew a distant second. One year, however, when opening day landed on Passover, Joe bought his hot dog, took it off the bun, and put it on a piece of matzah he had brought along just for that purpose.

* Phil works for a major weekly magazine that goes to press on Saturdays. He can't observe the Sabbath in the traditional manner, so he makes his own -- beginning Monday night; for twenty-five hours, he does not work.

* Sam is an orthodontist with a busy practice in New Jersey. He neither prays, goes to synagogue, nor keeps any ritual laws, with one exception. Every morning, he puts on tzitzit, the four-cornered fringed undergarment worn by pious Jews. He wears the garment all day while he sees patients and while he eats his non-kosher meals. Why does he wear tzitzit? "I feel naked without them," he Says.

* Katherine, a convert to Judaism, can't fast on Yom Kippur. She gets sick if she doesn't eat. So she spends the day with a fast of another kind: she doesn't speak for twenty-five hours.

* Charlie and his wife, Susan, do not keep kosher. But on the Sabbath they never eat bacon or shellfish. "It's our way of keeping Shabbos," Charlie explains.

* The Weinstein family in Detroit keeps a kosher home; there are separate dishes for meat and milk. But there is also a third set -- Chinese -- which they use only for non-Kosher takeout.

All of these are true stories; about real people. What has been changed here are their names. In fact, the vast majority of them did not want their names used -- they consider these quirky practices to be private. Several admitted to being downright ashamed at their behavior, but for very different reasons. In some cases they felt they were doing too little; in other cases they felt they were doing too much. Perhaps the most poignant story for me came from my friend Bill (not his real name). Bill, a book editor, is not otherwise observant on a daily basis, but before he goes to sleep each night, he whispers the sh'ma. "I don't even think my wife knows," said Bill. "It's my own little private prayer."

I had known Bill for decades and never knew this about him. As a regular sh'ma sayer myself, I felt a new connection. "Do you say it with your kids?" I asked hopefully. "No," he said. "I never thought of it."

What has happened is that religious idiosyncrasies have gotten such a bad name that people don't want to talk about them, let alone pass them on to their children. I know this mind-set; I was brought up with it. The Orthodox rabbis of my youth did not subscribe to the more popular notion we find today that Judaism is a matter of choice for both converts and those born Jewish. They spoke about the "yoke of the kingdom of heaven," an obligation to follow the precepts of Torah right down to rigorous daily observances. Feeling good was not part of the system. To allow people to do what they felt good about Jewishly was to invite a kind of religious free-for-all that allows people to pick and choose what feels good to them.

Today, even some outside of the Orthodox world worry about this kind of anarchy. Writing recently in Commentary magazine, Jack Wertheimer, provost of the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary, warned of those who advocate a "Judaism without limits," where a variety of choices and practices are incorporated into Judaism simply because they are trendy or they feel good. "Instead of setting clear lines," he wrote, "they enjoin Jews to lower the barriers between Jewish and non-Jewish religion....This way lies not pluralism but anarchy, and self-extinction."

I'm not advocating extinction, but I do think a little anarchy can be healthy. Being Jewish is about feeling good. It is about finding meaning. For some, that might mean the ArtScroll Shabbos Kitchen Guide, but for others, it might mean eating lox and bagel or even a non-kosher hot dog on matzah. It might mean not talking on Yom Kippur, or having three sets of dishes, or saying the sh'ma silently on your bed.

Copyright © 2000 by Ari. L. Goldman