Conversation

Some companies have normal water cooler conversations. We, apparently, talk about circumcision.

So I thought, how fantastic. This is not one, but two conversations about circumcision that I have experienced in less than a week. There was the one last Saturday with the guy who works in AIDS research, but that was in a Jewish context. Here, this was totally random.

And through that conversation (I am not really sure how this happened), but the subject of Jesus came up. The guy sitting next to me, who was not a young guy, piped, "But Jesus wouldn't have been circumcised, because he wasn't Jewish." That's when I corrected him. He was aghast. Jesus was Jewish? No. Really? He looked at me like he had just discovered that doors open through walls. But the other ladies backed me up. "Yeah, like you know where it says 'King of the Jews'?" Really? He said, putting his hand on his head. He still looked incredulous. Obviously this was a first time for him.

There are some things that I think everybody knows, because it's been beaten into my head so many times that I can hardly stand to hear it anymore. But I am always amazed. What I take for granted as common knowledge sometimes maybe just isn't. But it makes sense. Why would Catholicism or Christianity want its members to know that Jesus was Jewish? As far as they are concerned, he was the first "Christian," though educated Christian people know better. Christianity cuts everything off at that point, and says, ok, that was then, this is now. We're Christian, and that's all that matters.

And I think Christians are afraid. Of course they are afraid. Because Christianity knows, if it ever let people know what other religions were really like, nobody would stick around. And plenty of people don't. Being a Christian doesn't make anybody a bad person, necessarily. But my props to those who can cut through all the mess, and get down to the reality of life. That's why I'm here. But that's why I am becoming Jewish.