By Charles Zucker
Anyone who believes less than me is a heathen. Anyone who believes more than me is a nut.
I’m a patchwork Jew. I’m a collection of memes and tropes and minhagim. I’ve clearly gotten more religious over time and have taken on things I never would have thought – tearing toilet paper before Shabbos? But I still identify as a moderate. I’m amazed by the breathless tales of the uber-observant. To let you know how Seriously they take their mitzot: “so then I realized I wasn’t going to make it home by Shabbos so I pulled off the highway and parked in the worst neighborhood in the world, stashed my keys under a crack hooker, and then started the 45 mile walk home while gangs are shooting at me. Uphill. In the snow” or “… and I opened the refrigerator and the light popped on. I was stuck. There wasn’t a [non-Jewish person] around. Everything melted, there was a river running through the kitchen…”
Anyone who believes less than me is a heathen. Anyone who believes more than me is a nut. I don’t know what I’ll hold by next year, but this is a sampling of my current Nut List:
· Going by your Hebrew first name when you have a perfectly good slave name.
· No longer acknowledging any English birthdays or anniversaries or New Year’s Eve.
· Loudly interrupting any conversation to make the bracha on your pear.
· Chalav yisroel
· Whatever your problem is with Coffee Bean.
· Wearing a tallis as garment like it was the most natural thing in the world.
· Waiting 5 hours and 1 minute.
· Using “nifter” in every day conversation.
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