(Not) Your Place in This — One Teen’s Story

Today’s episode is a Shabbat Replay from our Friday Night Shabbat service on February 23rd when teenaged Mishkanite Noa Stern-Frede delivered a passionate sermon about her own Jewish journey.

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Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

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Rabbi Lizzi:
Hello and welcome to contact chai. One of the best parts of my job is getting to know the stories and struggles of Mishkanites as we all navigate this beautiful, broken and often heartbreaking world. We've always tried to bring forth perspectives and also spaces for processing the tough issues that we as a Jewish community are wrestling with. But since October 7, it seems no amount of processing or praying or protesting for that matter, has given people in our community a sense of comfort or hope, in the midst of the horrors we saw on October 7, the tragedy of what we are now seeing unfolding in Gaza in response, and the rise in anti semitic and anti Muslim violence over here in Chicago. It all feels like too much to hold. And yet, we show up every Shabbos to try to find our way back to our center. Maybe that's why our numbers have returned to pre pandemic levels since October 7. We need to fill our well to find nourishment, and above all find community. So a few weeks back a Mishcon teen, a mich teen was brave enough to share her wrestling with us to give us a glimpse into her world as a junior AtlanTech wrestling with social pressures here at home that are of course tied to what's happening on the other side of the world. She first wrote her words as a paper for a class on her Jewish journey for school, and then develop them further to share on Friday night at Michigan. You'll hear she's eloquent, thoughtful, and her experience is entirely her own, not reflective of all Jewish teens, and certainly not reflective of a Mishcon policy position or stance, just the perspective of one teen wrestling out loud. With all the issues and even the hot button words and ideas of this moment, you should know she got both a standing ovation from many people in the crowd. And also a handful of people stood up and walked out as she spoke, there's a moment where you'll hear a loud bang. That's a door slamming. As you listen, you may find yourself feeling uncomfortable, and you may find yourself cheering. The point isn't that we want you our community to hear only one teens story or perspective. Michigan's whole ethos is to create spaces to hear the stories of others in the room, the ones you agree with, and more importantly, the ones who have something to teach you about a perspective you're not taking seriously. We have many teens, and from what I can tell over the past few months, it's just made being a teenager, even harder than it already is, socially, intellectually, spiritually Jewishly. So we need to continue to create spaces for them to come together to share and commiserate and open up and be celebrated, and also be given perspectives they might not be getting from their classmates. I'm grateful to Noah for sharing, grateful to you both for listening. And also for using her Drash as an opportunity to remember that we're all going through something hard. We need to remember to breathe. And we can and must hear the voices of the next generation to understand their concerns, hopes, dreams, and first and foremost to know that we welcome their wrestling, and we want to wrestle alongside them. Without any further ado, take it away Noah. So my name is Noah, I'm 17 I came to Mishcon because of my parents and then I went on the Israel trip with them. And like really changed my perspective on everything. So I'm just gonna talk about that.

Noa:
I used to feel a pressure to be a certain kind of Jewish whether it was because I was never truly connected to the religion itself or the schooling I was receiving and didn't help me develop it properly. Judaism just felt distant. Later on in my life, its importance and its space it took up grew and moved with who I grew into myself and how I began to figure out my place in the world. Despite these changes, I naively thought that my Jewish identity had to be fixed. I came to realize that that couldn't be further from the truth. from kindergarten up to my bat mitzvah, I went to a conservative synagogue in the area for Sunday school, my classmates and I learned Hebrew the appropriate prayers, what each holiday was and how it was celebrated and anything else necessary for the learning of a religion. As the years went on, and we started preparing for our bar and button B'nai mitzvahs. The pressure of learning Hebrew and becoming a Jewish adult greatly increased. I remember never being very good at Hebrew and learning the cancellation was a whole language in itself. My Torah portion was interesting reading, but I never fully connected with it.

And the idea of being Jewish became connected with something I couldn't understand. I always felt like I was learning about a religion separate from myself. I was learning its language, its history, its culture, its state I ate its food. I sing it songs, but it was never mine. It never felt like an extension of myself. It got to the point

Where I convinced my parents that after my Bar Mitzvah, I wouldn't go to Sunday school anymore. I just couldn't take it. Despite or possibly because of my struggles. I remember my Bar Mitzvah being one of the best days of my life, and felt like I just want to fight or cross the finish line. I had finally learned enough of the language to read it enough of the history to understand it, and I can rest easy knowing that I was officially Jewish, regardless of any non connection I was facing. After my bat mitzvah, I remember distancing myself from Judaism because I didn't have something to prove anymore. I quit Sunday school, I stopped learning Hebrew, the detachment from the religion was still there, but I didn't have a reason to care because I was finished. Instead of my bat mitzvah, making me become more Jewish, I became less. A couple years after my bat mitzvah, my family joined Mishcon. Yeah.

Centered around music, acceptance and curiosity. It was a Judaism completely different from what I'd experienced before. Their prayers. Our prayers were lovely and memorable and evoked true emotion within me. The sermons given by the head rabbi, were relevant and gave a Jewish lens to current events. They provided a deep understanding of Judaism and left the space open for individual interpretation. It was comforting and familiar and warm, and it felt like home.

Despite the clear connection, I felt with the new Jewish space, I still clung to my presumption that I could never have positive exposure to a religion that I wasn't immediately connected to. It took longer to acknowledge the happiness I was feeling than to acknowledge the dissatisfaction. I had never felt joy associated with Judaism before. At Mishcon, I was encouraged to hum along with tunes I didn't know and sing a language I wasn't fluent in being Jewish became fun. It became emotional and deep and accepting and everything my previous synagogue couldn't give me. It became mine. Instead of some abstract concept, I couldn't wrap my head around, I was free to make it my own.

And the summer before my sophomore year, Mishkan announced a tour of Israel and the West Bank that was focused on multiple perspectives of the country, not knowing much about the conflict, I signed up myself and my parents to go.

Hopefully, they don't regret that.

Anything I was previously told about Israel was in the affectionate snippets I got from my old Sunday school or vague reasons why we couldn't go from my parents. I wanted to not only see for myself what the truth was about the country, but how it connected with the new Judaism I had found within myself. We were led by a joint team of a Jewish Israeli woman and a christian palestinian woman. We visited their homes ate their food, so how they each lived and how they prayed. I remember going to Emily's or Palestinian guides home and eating McClure via a traditional Palestinian dish with her and her family for lunch. I remember her father's story about trying to get his daughter with a lethal medical condition to proper care. I remember him saying that there wasn't an adequate hospital in the West Bank. So they attempted to cross the border to go to Israel, and the guard wouldn't let them through. If not for a kind of taxi driver, she would have died Kermie or Israeli tour guide eight with us.

I also remember the Shabbat service that brought my love for Judaism back. It was outside and beside the Mediterranean Sea and had a crowd of hundreds of Jews from all around the world. My family sat behind a group of Jewish Brazilian teenagers on a trip together. And I remember connecting with them through our shared language of Hebrew. I remember dancing with our friends from Seattle saying the kiddish before we all left for the night, it was beautiful and emotional and brought me back to life. I remember visiting Hebron and eating Turkish delight with the Palestinians there. I remember being led by a young man from Breaking the Silence a group of former IDF soldiers coming out about the horrors they both committed and experienced. I remember chef Rabbi Josh, I remember the burning dry heat that was so comforting the view from Masada, the gravestones in the West Bank, the sunsets, the Banksy Museum, the educational bookstore, the Israeli government representative, the Dead Sea, the prayers for peace, and I remember so much more. It was awe inspiring to see Emily incarnates collaboration and heartbreaking to see how drastically different their lives where as I listened to more people's stories and saw the truth I initially wanted. I started to grapple with my own. I'd really begun to love my Jewish identity and its connection to Israel. Jerusalem filled me and gave me a strange sense of hope. I adored the old city and its intersectionality of culture. I became more connected to Israel as a physical place, a place I wanted to revisit and wanted to exist. At the same time, I hated some of the values that held its right wing leadership, it's grossly inhumane treatment of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Although I loved it, I wasn't sure I was ready to support a 100% Jewish ethno state. And I didn't like how absolutist some of the leadership's language was. I wished for more nuance, more space, more time to think and discuss an

I feel like there was enough room for that there. At least not then.

When we returned to Chicago, I delved into further research and went to protests when the Israel Hamas war began, I had complicated talks with loved ones. And all the while still thought of the dichotomy I was facing. Someone who helped me visualize what I was feeling was my good friend Dahlia. For context, they are an astounding human being who I still marvel at just existing in this world. They've done work with JCU, A, and the campaign for Brandon Johnson led multiple services shut down a bridge in Boston with if not now goes to Brandeis. And after the service, I would be more than happy to talk with any of you about them, because I could go on and on about them for hours. But anyway, they came back from college during winter break. And as someone who I've talked with multiple times about this issue, I asked for their advice, because I felt like I wasn't doing enough. And they clearly had done so much. I remember them taking a breath before telling me that they were an organizer. I said, Dahlia, I know you shut down a bridge. And they said, no, no, no, that's not what I mean. And they told me that because organizing has been a part of their identity for so long, they usually came at things from an organizer perspective. When they saw a problem in the world, they could see alongside it all the little changes they could make. They saw the protests, the referendums, the shut down bridges. They then told me that the deep conversations, the things that would lead to the long term change, though very important, they told me, that's not my place in this.

God, I loved it so much. By seeing that brilliant line, they won allowed me to feel like I was doing enough and to gave me the permission to not know what to do. That's not my place in this meant it can be your place or not, I don't really care what the heck you do with your free time. And that's been a mantra that I've tried to hold on to, especially as things start shifting.

I'm sure some of you have heard about the CPS student led walkouts that took place a few weeks ago. I'm sure those of you with kids in CPS high schools, especially Jewish kids have heard about the push and pull of wondering if they should go. I definitely had that push and pull. And I know for a fact it wasn't only Jewish students, almost everyone I talked to when asking if they were going said they didn't know. Sure being a politically active person, I had politically active friends who knew 100% that they weren't going but everyone else seemed a bit tentative about the whole thing. A lot of students thought others were just going to use it as an excuse to skip class and didn't want to be lumped in with that crowd. Others didn't feel like they knew about and knew enough about the situation to have an opinion in the first place. Some Jewish students I knew were afraid of possible anti semitism. Others had important tests that day and couldn't make it. Some of my friends were organizers and speakers at the event and this one kid, my pre calc class just didn't really care. ln Tech students were all over the place with this. At the very last minute, I decided I would go yes, I was afraid of any possible hate or implicit messaging, but I knew I couldn't be afraid of a possibility and hopes that some of my friends were going who although not Jewish, we're on the lookout for the same things I was. I know not everyone had people like that that day. And it's important to not hold that against anyone. Initially, the walkout was just a large crowd of people standing outside Lane Tech huddled together, no chance happened yet no speakers, it was just, Oh, that's nice. A bunch of teenagers freezing in their coats and holding up protest signs.

I was still aware of the very possible implicit anti semitism that could occur. But I was slightly comforted by the fact that nothing was happening.

After about 10 or 15 minutes, the speaker started.

Let's just all like lead out of breath, right? We're holding.

We're okay.

One person who spoke was Jewish and spoke about how as young people we can, we can't see this conflict as having sides. They said it was much more nuanced than a lot of people would admit. And we have to see every number as a human person who had a life. Another speaker was Muslim, and she spoke passionately about how the language we use when describing what's happening is important. Palestinians aren't dead, they were murdered. This isn't a conflict. This is a genocide.

Then the chant started. I don't remember what the first one was. But I do remember when Palestinian or not Palestinians oops, when people started walking around chanting from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. And I remember even more clearly that my friend Mehta grabbed me by the arm and said, Okay, we're leaving now. And we left.

I want to make it clear that I didn't feel scared. I felt uncomfortable. My friends who left with me went on and on about how they started feeling afraid and how they couldn't imagine what I must have been feeling. And without going into the deep political complications over that chant and every part of the walkout, I was reminded of what Dahlia had told me. That's not my place in this. A few days later, Brandon Johnson was the tie breaking vote and in passing a ceasefire resolution in Chicago, and I felt like we had done something even if I walked out of the walkout.

out. So if movements like what Lane Tech and so many other CPS schools did that day actually had an effect, then from an organizers perspective, all power to them, that made a change that did something real. But I found that that's not my place in this. I'm not an organizer. And that's okay. I like the hard conversations better.

I still don't fully understand what my relationship with Israel is. And that uncertainty trickles down into how I feel about Judaism. All my experiences leading up to who I am now create a jumbled yarn ball that I'm still searching for the end of the string of it's frustrating to think that I might never find the answer. But that complicated ball of feelings, that dichotomy, that mess, that is my Judaism. It's tricky and beautiful and contradictory and intimate and contains so much of myself in it. And that will almost likely change. But something I found is if you're struggling with religion, or spirituality, or finding your place in the world, a great place to start is simply finding what makes you happy. After all, that's what religion is supposed to do, at least in my mind, are supposed to connect with it. So connect with it. Find your joy and hold on as tight as you can. That's what I did and I'm feeling pretty good. Stick with who you love and what you love and trust me you will find yourself in this great universe. You're out there and you're a lot closer than you think. Shabbat shalom.

Shabbat replay is a production of Mishcon Chicago, our theme music was composed and performed by Calvin Strauss, you can always see where and when our next service will be on our calendar. There's a link in the show notes. And if you appreciated the program, please rate and review us on Apple podcasts. I know you've heard it before, but it really does help. On behalf of Team Mishcon. Thank you for listening