Generation Bubelah: 'Different' is good

For me, tradition has always been attached to Judaism. The way we set the table during holidays or Shabbat dinner, the plates we use, the food we cook, the way we are supposed to dress for synagogue, all of these things we do because of tradition. We do them because my grandmother's mother did them, and her mother before, and so on. Sure it's strange when you meet another Jewish family who has different traditions than your own, but just because their traditions may seem strange, it doesn't make them less Jewish, it just means they have different traditions.

Whether we keep these traditions alive today because we believe in them, or because it's what we've always done, and what we know, I'm not sure. But I do know that traditions do change. Think about what happens when people get married. How do you decide what traditions to keep and which to set aside?

My sister has been married now for a handful of years, and I have watched her struggle with maintaining certain familial traditions. Because there are now two traditions in the mix to consider, some traditions are bound to be lost. Coming from two different families, with two different traditions, or even two people who have different opinions on what tradition is, can be just as difficult as coming from two different religions.

People always talk about inter-faith relationships, marriages, what have you, but really at the heart of it, it might not be the problem of two religions, but the problem of two diverse traditions. As we know, you can be the same religion, yet have different traditions. Take the Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews, same religion, but the traditions are different. Or what about the denominations: Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and so on? Each group practices its traditions differently.

Sometimes I feel what people have the most problems with is losing their traditions, and rightly so, but I think when people talk about these kinds of things, they are only thinking about this in relation to a Jew and a non-Jew, rarely do we take a look at the relationships between Jews, and how even coming from the same background (Conservative, Orthodox, etc) traditions are different. There's been so much talk about the struggle with interfaith friendships, marriages, couples, but what about within the Jewish community as a whole?

There was an article in the New York Times Magazine a while ago, talking about marriages in Israel, and how the only way to be able to marry is to provide documentation that you are a Jew. The article went on to talk about how certain Jewish religious groups, mostly Orthodox, think less of other Jews, because they don't share the same traditions, or even acknowledge them as Jewish because they don't have ties to Orthodoxy. The article also mentioned how some Jews in Israel don't take American Jews seriously because of the difference in tradition, and practice.

Do I think tradition is a good thing? Yes. But is it possible that tradition is not only something that can bring people together but create a divide? Maybe tradition is a little bit of a crutch for some people. Maybe it keeps people from having to make certain choices? Since people generally like boundaries, because they give direction, I wonder if the sense of tradition truly comes from our parents and lineage, or if we, in fact, also lean on it sometimes because it's easier than staring at a blank page? What is it about other traditions that people are so scared of? Shouldn't people be confident enough in what they believe in, to accept other practices? Why do we all have to be the same?

There's no right or wrong way, it's just different. And what I think people forget is that different is good.