Church vs. Temple

The last few days I've tried writing before bed, but unfortunately I always feel too tired. For some reason, I have a much harder time writing at home than I do at work. I wish I had a good reason for it. Actually I do. It's just that I'm at work, and the only thing worse than posting at work is explaining why you are posting at work. In hindsight, that doesn't make any sense.

In better news, I went to Church last week. Growing up, I had a partially explicable discomfort with churches. As R mentioned in his beautiful bacon bonanza, I am Jewish. And I'm not just any ordinary Jew. I'm one of those Jews who doesn't eat bacon or go to Church (should Church be capitalized?) Additionally, I don't eat shellfish, pork, eggplant, shrimp, gefilte fish, spare ribs, ham, key lime pie, or muscles. Some of those are un-kosher. Some of them aren't. Some of them are in fact the same thing. Some of them aren't. Some of them don't have anything to do with being Jewish at all. You can figure them out on your own time. The point is I'm not a very good Christian (probably for good reason), and I think it stems from my now completely inexplicable fear of churches. Jesus and I just don't get along. He always seems uncomfortable, limp, anguished... like he's being propped up or something (I apologize to everybody I just offended. Please don't come after me).

Forgive me, but I'm just a little uncomfortable with seeing the Christian messiah on every wall and balcony. He is responsible for all the Jewish jokes and crap that I've long since accepted as being my role in whatever group that I'm apart of (some might say that if Jesus is really responsible, then Jews are really really responsible). But you know what? I'd like to think that Jesus and I are friends. C and I are friends, but I wouldn't want to see him on every wall and balcony... Okay, maybe that's a bad example. The point is I have no problem with the J-Man. He seems like a good enough guy. It's not his fault that his followers don't always follow through with what I've heard Jesus is all about. I wish Jesus the best, and if it turns out that I'm wrong, I'll apologize. Maybe he'll forgive me, maybe he won't. If he does, no harm/no foul. If he doesn't, well, it's not like I didn't know I was going to Hell. I'll bring a deck of cards.

I kinda got off topic with the whole Jesus thing, but it definitely relates to my feelings on Churches in general. My impressions of Church are based on only a few experiences, but I feel like they're pretty accurate. After all, Christians aren't that hard to figure out: It's bacon 1st and Jesus 2nd. Everybody at Church is so quiet, as if all the Jesuses are watching and will publicly humiliate you if making any sound at all. Everybody is at the same time stiff, uncomfortable, and focused, what I like to call "Faith & Boredom." Although I just made it up, it sounds like something that I spent years researching. If that were true, I could tell you that 65% of Church goers believe in god, choose to go to church, but regret that decision 5 minutes into the service. Thank god for the end of NFL Lockout. At least those who suffer from F&B can hide from Jesus from September through January (On a side note: Do you really think Jesus goes to Church in the winter? If America is god's favorite country and football is America's favorite sport, doesn't that mean that Jesus tailgates every sunday?). From what I understand, sleeping at Church is frowned upon. At temple, sleeping is mandatory (in the sense that 3 hours of Hebrew puts everybody to sleep). I imagine not being able to sleep makes it hard for the F&B crowd to dream about the beginning of the NFL season.

Since I know nothing about the New Testament, I'm going to stay away from the actual meaning of the service. Similarly, I don't know Hebrew, so I'm ignorant about my own religion too (however, my Old Testament is pretty solid). The biggest different between Church and Temple is that at Temple, everybody is talking. I don't mean to say that there are loud conversations. Everybody at least makes an effort to be quiet, but by no means are people willing to sacrifice sports or gossip for the guy chanting in some ancient language into a microphone. Even when the Rabbi asks people to be quiet, people will be quiet for a few min and then start talking again. Whereas Church to me seems to be an individual experience, Temple is a team effort. If you haven't talked to 10 different people before refreshments are served, then you have let God down. God is very old and can't hear very well. We all need to yell together so that he can use his Human-to-God dictionary to translate what we're saying. That's why he loved animal sacrifices. God's sense of smell is top notch.

Finally, at temple you can look all-around the room without seeing any partially naked statues. When you're talking trying to sleep at temple (or church), the last thing you want to see is a naked guy out of the corner of your eye.

D

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