Passover is my favorite holiday. As a writer, I admire a holiday that is built around a story. Going around the table and reading that story aloud and singing always makes me feel connected to something bigger than myself. I have been lucky in my life to have great Jewish friends and mentors and feeling connected to their traditions makes me feel closer to them as well.
I was raised in the L.A. suburbs by a lapsed-Catholic father and a lapsed-Mormon mother. We were left to our own devices when it came to figuring out god, religion, the afterlife and etc. Not that we were raised as complete heathens -- they had very strict senses of right and wrong and believed in common-sense family values, they just didn't force us to accept any single religious view of the world.
It was great in a way to have that freedom, but I always envied my friends who were Catholic or Jewish; I envied the idea of growing up with a sense of certainty about the way the world works. Even if only to have something solid and imposing to rebel against, as most of them did later on. I have dabbled with Buddhism, studied at the Kabballah Center, even found some parts of Catholicism attractive...but I have never found a faith to call home. Maybe I'll always be a bit of a heathen at heart...or maybe it's enough to believe that treating people (and the planet) with compassion and respect is enough.
That's my deep thought of the day.
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