By Shira Kramer, Managing Editor
Jewish people love labeling themselves and fitting into religious categories. One of the main problems with many interpersonal connections in the religious Jewish world is the labels we give each other.
While many people consider the main categories of religious levels to be orthodox, conservative and reform, there are many subcategories that have surfaced over the last decade. Because these three categories didn’t include enough vocabulary to judge other Jews, dating platforms like YU Connects created additional subgenres that we use to box each other in. If judging others is the opposite of how we make a kiddush hashem, then why are we so good at it?
According to an 18Forty Podcast interview with YU Connects director Dr. Efrat Sobolofsky titled “How Different Jewish Communities Date,” the popular matchmaking site sifts Jews into many different categories, including modern orthodox machmir, modern yeshivish and conservadox. This is in addition to other questions about how one actually practices on a day-to-day basis.
This podcast episode discusses the intricacies of dating and problems with the so-called shidduch crisis. What if the real crisis that religious Jews face is that they are so caught up on external labels that they don’t see the humans behind these facades? When you look beyond important issues such as whether someone keeps shabbat, kashrut or any other mitzvah that’s important to you, you will begin to realize that we all have more in common than we think.
Throughout the episode, host Rabbi David Bashevkin interviews experts on how their particular religious communities date. Although I found the episode fascinating (how often do you hear a detailed explanation of a Chassidish b’show?) the main idea that I found is that we are all Jews who feel passionate about finding someone else to help us pass down our traditions to the next generation. If labels define who you interact with, they might stop you from finding something truly special.
Labels aren’t always negative, but can be used in a positive way to help enhance self-identification and community building. As young adults, labels can be an exciting way to feel confident about who you are. Generally these ‘boxes’ come with a set of guidelines that can either feel constricting or freeing.
According to My Jewish Learning, author Ben Greenberg discusses why the word “orthodox” as a way to describe a person has moved from being a nice way of establishing community, to an entryway into interdenominational tension. This strain can even cause strife amongst families. I would venture to say that even most families don’t all have the same religious practices.
Whether someone in your family is a baal teshuva, a ger, or not, at some point someone has probably switched into a box that they didn’t grow up in. Familial relationships are always tricky to navigate but adding different religious beliefs on top of that makes it even more difficult. We, as a Jewish nation, have to come up with a way to stop our boxes from defining us. How can we be a family if in our heads one person is better than the other?
The truth is that these labels are as fake as the dollar bill: they only mean something because we give them life. We need to strip away the artificial significance and meet each other again. Let other things, like one person loving lox and the other not, stop you from being friends with your fellow Jew. Not silly names. Maybe then we will all realize that Judaism is more about who we are on the inside than what your world looks like to outsiders.