By Kiki Arochas, Arts and Culture Editor
I do not claim to be a paradigm of religious virtue. I struggle with my faith constantly and would never pretend to be someone that is fit to comment on any person’s religious observance. The world is a confusing, chaotic place, and to judge anyone for their level of observance in the face of that, in my view, would be erroneous. However, there is one form of such observance that I do take issue with, not from a perspective of religious fervor, but from an inner desire for people to have more self-awareness about their religiosity. That form is what I describe as “going through the motions” Judaism; the lack of any meaningful attributions for the reasons behind observance. Actions are done simply because they have always been done, not because the person believes there is good reason behind it. This matter has come to the forefront of my mind now in particular because of a practice that happens every year during the Nine Days: the convenient siyum.
I first internalized this criticism in Woodburne two years ago, a town in upstate New York bustling with Jewish activity. If you have any rich cousins, they’ve likely stayed at one of the bungalow colonies near the area. It is chock full of food options: Jerusalem II Pizza (which SLAPS by the way), the Bucket, and Dougies. As it was the Nine Days at the time, my camp had planned a siyum for the day so we could eat the, uh, delicious options Dougies had to offer. I was never a fan of this tradition, as I felt it defeated the purpose of the ‘no meat’ ruling, but as the options presented were to stay true to my beliefs or not eat dinner, I caved. So we sat down, and just as I was getting ready to sell my soul for the Junior Combo, somebody walked in, looked around, and said: “Anybody making a siyum?”
For background: the ‘no meat’ rule on the Nine Days has an exception. Should one make a siyum on one of the days, they can eat meat, as it is considered a Seudat Mitzvah. However, this exception has been readily abused by our community. That moment made clear to me how bad the problem had become; somebody can just walk into a restaurant, ask for a siyum that he didn’t even prepare for, and still eat meat without a second thought? This was getting absurd.
The intention of the ruling was that if you happened to have been learning already, and through circumstance you happened to have completed the mesechta on one of the Nine Days, then, and only then, could you place the siyum on those days. R’ Ovadia Yosef understood this when he wrote in Yechave Daat 1:40: “while there are poskim that take a more lenient stance, one should not rely on this, and one must not either delay or rush one’s learning to make a siyum then.”
This speaks to the problem I outlined earlier: “going through the motions” Judaism. Asking for a siyum someone else made demonstrates a lack of self-awareness about what one is doing with his religious life. One may not believe in God; many of the most brilliant minds to have ever graced this Earth didn’t believe in Him either. One may struggle to follow all the extra stringencies brought about by Chazal, which can get very burdensome. But in my view, it is simply incongruous to play the part of a fully religious Jew and simultaneously use the siyum exception in this fashion. To do so is to demonstrate that one does not truly care about the rules laid out by his religion and the nuances within; one is interested solely in doing the bare minimum to look the part, without having to truly think through his actions.
Think about what you are doing. If your observance is real to you, make it real. Don’t just do things for the sake of doing them. Don’t go through the motions and ride the wave of the community. Don’t look to do the bare minimum if you believe in the maximum. Do not, in the words of a friend, “spend thirty dollars to get a free siyum.”