Outsider

I've been giving a lot of thought lately to insider/outsiderism in Judaism. I've been at this for 32 years - consciously I suppose for about 20 - and it seems to me that I've always been an outsider. Yet there are legions of those who view me otherwise.

Judaism is a complete fucking black hole. The more you learn, the more you practice, the more you realize how unfathomably more there is to learn and practice. It just never lets up. And that's astonishing and beautiful.

What I don't care for, though, is the rings of insiderism that this creates around the black hole. Back when I was 15, I realized I had to get on it, start being a little high school super Jew (whatever that meant in the context of my ultra-assimilated reform community on the southeast) if I wanted to get voted to become president of my local TYG and thus become part of the inner circle of cool kids in the Southeast Region. Why did I want to be a cool kid? Because then I'd get to help plan conclaves, pick what songs we would sing at campfire and help write Shabbat services.

Now that I'm not technically a teenager, there's still teenage bullshit going on all around me. I go to a Shabbat lunch and one dude starts talking about, if all the New York yeshivot had a baseball tournament, which one would win? This is a cue for all the New Yorkers to start showing off how well they know all the yeshivot in the area, and for all of us who live in California to start feeling like idiots who really ought to move to New York and start yeshiva hopping (except that we're female so fuck us.)

And the oneupmanship gets ever more intense as one guy says to the other, oh that reminds me of Eric whatshisname at Chovevei Wherever, and then the second guy says, oh Ereic isn't the rosh yeshiva at Chovevei Whatever anymore, now he's at Or Whatever and Whosits is at Chovevei. And I completely lose my mind and start throwing challah at the chandeliers trying to smash something. Who the fuck cares?! We're sitting at a table in Nachlaot! Can we not talk about New York for five minutes? Bullshit Jerusalem is the promised land from the way all these Jewish nerds talk all the time!

This oneupsmanship can be found at every level of Jewish practice. You constantly have to be upping your practice, or your knowledge, to not feel like a tool at someone else's table.

Dont' get me wrong, I see the value in people upping their practice or their knowledge if they choose to do so. I just don't like the pressure and the hipsterism that seems to inspire such advancement. Is there another way?