Generation Bubelah: Rediscovering my religion

A while back I wrote a post about feeling disconnected with Judaism. The responses from you all really made me sit back and think about how to reconnect to the part of me that is yearning for this sense of community or, as some of you mentioned, a connection with God.

I remembered how every Friday, after I came back from Israel, one of the rabbis from my birthright trip would write to us. He would summarize the weekly parsha, wish everyone a good shabbat and end the e-mail. I can't tell you how much I looked forward to receiving these e-mails. They made me stop for a moment, think, and in seconds I could see the connections to my own life.

Months after being back in the states, the e-mails became less frequent, and soon non-existent.

I remember one specific e-mail he sent after the holidays. He mentioned that we all have survived the holiday season, which ends on Simchat Torah. He talked about how this is not only the end of the holiday but also when we read the last parsha of the Torah. Most books, once we've completed them, we put on a bookshelf, and that's usually where they sit until we maybe lend them to someone or reread them.

The Torah, however, is different. We immediately finish and restart from the beginning. With this I find it only makes sense for me to start at the beginning as well.

Because the first parsha quite literally starts at the beginning of creation: from darkness to light, from land and sea, the sun, moon and stars and so on. I think it's appropriate to start reconnecting with my roots now – as the first parsha corresponds with the starting over or growing of ourselves. As each year passes we try to improve ourselves, resolve to or not to do something, and wipe the slate clean.

Each week I'll be reading the Torah portion, not only to reconnect with Judaism but also to uncover another level of myself and reflect on my life in a more spiritual way. Honestly, I'm pretty excited about this! It's taken me a while to get to this point where I can sit down and say, "I'm going to do x to help me connect with my religion."

It's also ironic that parshat Bereshit, with the theme of birth and new beginnings, also has a recurring theme of death. But it also makes perfect sense.

Take for example my last post. The only thing that brought the rabbi and his brother together was death. For me, the death of my grandmother has pushed me to find a new way of connecting to my religion. My grandmother was Judaism to me.

She was my strongest tie to the religion, and without her physically here it's been hard for me to see how Judaism fits into my life. I guess you could say that the death of my grandmother has made me respect my roots and heritage, and has pushed me to see the importance of understanding Judaism from a different perspective.

So the active step has been taken! Expect to see more posts relating to the Torah portions and their connection with daily life, thoughts and emotions.