A Cynic in the Holy Land: East Meets Middle East

Despite the fact that she started supporting her orphaned siblings at the age of 21, survived through several wars and ended up living in another country halfway around the world, in some ways, my mother has maintained a sheltered life. When you spend most of your life in mostly homogeneous Vietnam and then end up in the mostly homogeneous American Midwest, chances are you're not going to regularly meet and engage with those of different (ir)religious, socioeconomic, racial or even culinary backgrounds.

Thus it was that before this trip, my mother had had very little knowledge of Jewish religion or culture - she didn't even have the minor educational benefit of having seen Fiddler on the Roof, since she'd been sick and missed a production I did back in high school. And though she's visited me in New York several times, there's very little to be gotten from a bagel-and-schmear (apart from delicious calories and a happy stomach).

So there we were at JFK International Airport a few hours before our flight, watching as the waiting area slowly filled with other travelers bound for Tel Aviv. There were numerous retirees from the Midwest, with matching T-shirts and tour nametags already around their necks, a few priests in somber black and clerical collars, and, about fifteen minutes before boarding began, a whole contingent of Hasidim: all coats and jackets and beards; hats and hatboxes for the men and carefully wrapped headscarves for the women (the only trace of color in that mass of black and white); babies on hips and in strollers, often tended by older siblings; suitcase wheels rumbling under the guttural murmurs of Hebrew. I'm sure it made quite an impression on my mother. For my part, as we filed through the second (!) security check, found our seats and stowed our luggage, it was all I could do to stop myself from singing "Tradition" - the general chaos was so like that of the village in the opening scene.

The aforementioned chaos continued, especially as the flight wore on and Jews and Gentiles alike circulated about the cabin to stretch their legs, talk to friends, or, in the case of the former, consult a learned rabbi and/or say their prayers. It was this last that completely nonplussed my mother.

"This man had to do all this stuff before he could pray," she whispered, shaking her head. "He put on this shawl, and then he wrapped these weird boxes on his head and his hand, and then he was bobbing back and forth mumbling...it was like he was doing a spell or some other magicky thing."

I sighed and refrained from telling her that as a Catholic, she might want to consider how her own traditions also looked strange and ritualistic to outsiders.

"Jesus was a Jew, too, Mom," I reminded her. "He followed these same traditions." I went on to explain what phylacteries were and why Jewish men used them to pray, and handed her my guidebook, which had a section on Jewish religion and history. She shook her head again, but took the book and started reading. It wouldn't be till later during the tour that she would get a better grasp on all this and feel less uncomfortable around Orthodox and Hasidic Jews, but it was a start. Still, it wasn't long before she turned her mind away from the puzzle of exotic others to a subject closer to home: me. Specifically, what I was doing with my life.

"Now then," she began, closing the book, "Are you seeing anyone right now? You may have a job and friends but I'll just keep worrying about you till I see you settled down with a nice young man. I'd like to have grandchildren before I die, you know. And I don't like the way you've been eating lately. Tofu's well and good, but you're just going to waste away if you don't eat some proper meat more often."

If only she knew just how much she and Jewish mothers had in common. Oi vey.

A Cynic in the Holy Land: Introduction

Because my mother has always wanted to take a family trip to "see the Holy Land just one time before [she] die[d]," I went to Israel and Palestine this past November/December with my parents: a marathon journey around a country the size of New Jersey on what I call "Ye Olde Bible Lands Bus Tour," hitting about 50 sites in eight days. It was exhausting, it was interesting, it was...a mixed bag, in terms of my impressions and reactions. Certainly not the life-changing, wondersome mountaintop experience of the starry-eyed pilgrim, nor even an exotic tourist adventure stuffed with Kodak moments. I differed from my traveling-companions in a number of ways, not the least of which was a much more skeptical approach to the bells and whistles (or should I say camels and keffiyehs?) of the tour.


The following posts, then, are a recollection of moments and stories from my trip, some of which particularly cried out for snarky commentary, which is the reason behind the series title. My commentary also follows in the spirit of the ancient Greek philosophy of Cynicism: "the example of the Cynic's life (and the use of the Cynic's biting satire) would dig up and expose the pretensions which lay at the root of everyday conventions" (Kidd 2005).

Believe me, there was much to satirize on this trip. Enjoy. 

*DISCLAIMER*
While I have no hesitation ridiculing the foibles and failings of institutions, religious and otherwise, this is NOT meant to  demean or mock individual beliefs/faith. As a somewhat postmodern, deeply spiritual (and fairly religious) person, I know better than to try judging the highly personal and unique ways that people experience truth.