Getting a free pass on Jewish guilt
Guilt.
The mere word, standing along on my screen screams Jewishness. If you look for it, it’s everywhere in our culture.
None of us are strangers to the stereotypical guilt-mongering Jewish mother. Sadly, many who escaped the Holocaust suffer survivor’s guilt. Even the humble apple – when you really think about it – is no more than a guilt-ridden symbol of wrongdoing that dates back to the Garden of Eden.
So, what about my guilt?
Well, when it comes to the Jewish-mother kind, I pretty much lucked out. My mum has a no-guilt policy. I think it’s pretty unusual for a Jewish mother, so I’ll explain.
According to her beliefs, you are only supposed to visit when you want to see her. The same goes for phone calls and everything else. Her bizarre behaviour even extends to her visits with me, here in New York. Even though it’s hard to avoid, I am not supposed to be focused on her wellbeing or make sure she is entertained. I only have to come to dinner if I feel like it.
Of course, the system is predicated on the idea that you will actually want to spend time with her (or call) at some point. The policy runs into trouble if you do not call or write for a while, and you can expect a series of phone messages and emails that may fill your screen with the words “Where are you?”, repeated 147 times.
Everyone has their limits. Sometimes my mother calls just to hear my voice on the answering machine.
Yet, as much as my mother may try to shield me from the gnawing effects of having guilt dumped upon you, she can’t save me from myself.
I may go to the gym four mornings out of the working week, but I will feel guilty for the fifth, if I skip. Even when I manage to banish destructive thoughts in my waking life, guilt sometimes creeps into my dreams, with French and Math exams that I haven’t studied for (decade-old latent high school guilt!) or a mob affiliation I can’t shake (completely ill-founded criminal guilt?!)
Then again, an indignant article in one of the local Jewish papers claims there isn’t even any such thing as Jewish guilt. [LINK: http://www.forward.com/articles/the-myth-of-jewish-guilt/ ]
But one of the reason I am suffering these days is definitely Jewish guilt; it’s Australian Jewish News blog guilt.
Not because I feel that I owe the paper more frequent blogs. After all, as a freelancer building a business here, I must prioritize my paying gigs. But when I opened my blog page and noticed the comments from readers around the world, I felt a pang – I’m an abandoner!
So I resolved to re-double my efforts to write a bit more frequently. And if anything intrigues you about life in New York, please leave a comment asking about it.
Just so long as no one leaves a comment that reads: “Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?”
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