Throughout this entire semester, my Jewish history teacher has asked our class the same question over and over again: "What does it mean to be a part of am Yisrael (aka the people of Israel/the Jewish people)?" However, every time he asks us this question he phrases it in a different way. In other words, each discussion we have always relates back to the Jewish people and our role in the issue or how we should act in certain situations. For example, in the very beginning of the semester when we were learning about the people, the laws, and the land of Israel, Aaron (our teacher) asked us what aspects of Chalachah (Jewish Law) should be required for reform Jews to follow. Basically, he asked us which laws are important and which laws are not important, and why we don't need to strictly follow Chalachah like Orthodox Jews do, but can still consider ourselves Jewish. Until I was asked this question, I had never thought about it at all. Then I grew a little concerned because for my entire life I had always called myself a Jew, but in that moment I could not even give my Jewish History teacher a straight-forward answer about what exactly makes me Jewish. At first I began to argue that as long as you do
something that relates to Chalachah then you are Jewish. But, of course, Aaron countered my statement by saying, "so if some random person, for example, doesn't drive on Shabbat does that make him/her Jewish?" And I replied with, "of course not!" But wasn't that what I just said? Ever since that very first week in class I have been questioning my Jewish identity and I have been trying to think of more things I can do around my Jewish community in order to confidently say that I am a practicing Jew.
However, I have come a long way since that very first week of Jewish History class. If someone were to ask me right now what it meant to be a part of אם ישראל I would answer with this:
To be Jewish is to love your community. To be Jewish is to give back to society. To be Jewish is to learn Hebrew. To be Jewish is to have a Bar/Bat Mitzvah and to read from the Torah at least once in your life. To be Jewish is to know the difference between the Temple and a synagogue. To be Jewish is to know that a menorah is actually called a Channukiah and that a menorah has nothing to do with Hanukkah. To be Jewish is to go to Israel and learn about the history of our people. To be Jewish is to witness with our own eyes the places in which six million of our ancestors were stripped of their identities and murdered. To be Jewish is to prevent the Torah that was smuggled into the Women's side of the Kotel from being ripped out of Women of the Wall's hands. To be Jewish is to educate those who are not educated on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to long for peace between them. To be Jewish is to experience the utterly amazing culture of Israel.
Believe it or not, there are many more things that are meaningful to my Jewish identity, but I'm sure no one would want to read a list of four months worth of newly gained knowledge about how I identify with Judaism. So I'll just leave you all with that. That right there is what it means, to me at least, to be a part of אם ישראל.
