Guest Rambler, Yitty Koval
Of Margaritas & Modesty
Attending John Carroll University, a Catholic college here in Cleveland, for grad school, after being in Orthodox Jewish schools since I was 3 years old is quite an interesting experience. Most of my cohort and fellow classmates are, if not Catholic, pretty religious-minded or traditional themselves. This isn’t too common for a college environment, which is usually an urban and diverse environment, with ideas that are not very aligned with Jewish law or thought.
My program director has an unmasked fascination with Judaism, and as a devout Catholic, he takes any opportunity to mention book recommendations about religion and Judeo-Christian values. I mentioned that having a Rabbi and Jewish educator as parents leaves me with plenty of religious books to choose from, but he keeps suggesting books. Anyone ever read A History of the Jews by Paul Johnson? You can let me know if it's any good, but I'll take your word for it. Pretty sure it's like 500 pages long.
The Holocaust is another thing that Christian people seem to be super-interested in. After working with a classmate on a project, she and I started talking about which countries our families were originally from. She has a German-sounding last name, and indeed, she said that her ancestry was fully German. She described touring Germany and Austria a few years ago and the conflicting feelings she felt upon learning that if her grandparents hadn’t left Germany before the Holocaust, they would have likely joined the Nazi party. She told me she shudders to think of what sorts of horrific crimes her own grandfathers would have committed had they not emigrated from Germany in time.
I’ve also found myself gently explaining to my classmates why I won’t get pizza with them after class, so when I turned 21 and they offered to take me to get my first margarita (I don’t even know what makes a margarita different from anything else), I explained about kosher alcohol. They were more interested than most Jews in the laws of kosher! The next few times they were all going out for drinks or a bite to eat, I politely declined and they seemed to not think too hard about my absence.
This whole college experience has felt a bit like trying to dance to music that keeps speeding up and slowing down. Just when I think I'm going at the right speed and I understand exactly what's expected of me, the tempo changes and I'm stuck on the dance floor, confused and tripping over myself to adapt. There are times when I feel so strongly that I am making a kiddush Hashem (reflecting G-d's name positively) and doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. I imagine G-d right next to me, encouraging me with pride and love. And then there are times when I feel awkward or embarrassed, times I feel I've overstepped a boundary and I almost certainly know that I've let G-d down.
This mess of emotions isn't new for us as Jews. Over and over again, we find ourselves in foreign cultures, and each of us needs to make choices every day about how much of the culture around us we are willing to let into our lives. My sister Hindy is in tenth grade and before Passover, one of her teachers taught that one of the greatest tragedies of the Jewish enslavement in Egypt was that the Jews almost lost their identities. There they were, living in Goshen, Egypt for a couple hundred years (interestingly, this is just about how long Jews have been in the USA), and unfortunately, their identities were nearly hijacked by the surrounding society.
But one reason the Jews merited to be taken out of Egypt, despite being far removed from their heritage, is that they didn't change their language, dress, or names. The Chasam Sofer, a leading European Torah scholar from the 1800s, mentioned in his ethical will that the three above-mentioned traits are absolutely critical to maintaining Jewish survival. Keeping our language, dress, and names unique to our Jewish heritage are powerful tools to ensure Jewish survival throughout the years.
When I heard this, I asked myself: How am I doing in this area? And I think I'm doing pretty okay. This concept gives me so much strength when I think about it. I proudly use my Yiddish name Yitty (which has been mispronounced in ways I never thought possible) among a group of people named Cassidy and Allison and John. I wear my modest clothing every day no matter the weather and no matter what everyone around me is wearing. And I still wince every time I hear a word I would never use, and I hope I don't ever lose that sensitivity to refined speech.
I remember three years ago, at the end of my first year in seminary, we had a class called, "How to Maintain your Standards after Seminary." But as a few teachers pointed out, it's not about maintaining standards after seminary. It's about continuing to build on those standards, and it's a lifelong journey to continue to learn as a Jew and strengthen your relationship with G-d.
Keeping the basic boundaries of name, speech, and language when in a compromised setting such as a secular college is crucial so I don't slip up and forget who I am. But I continue to look for more areas to build little fences, different moments throughout every day and every interaction that remind me: G-d is my Father. He has expectations of me. And I can make him proud.
Shabbat shalom,
Yitty Koval
