Who are you?

Ultimately, ultimately, ultimately, we will come into conflict with ourselves. Bottom line is that the various shards and facets of our identity cease to co-exist because there can be only one at the top spot. And we can dance around that eventuality and skirt it most of the time, it will find a way to make itself known. Who we are is so convoluted and complex but peel it all away and there are truths that are mutually exclusive and we have to choose.

It isn’t fun and it isn’t fair but it is the way it is. While we can try to reconcile all those disparate elements, some run so counter to others that being both is impossible. We can pride ourselves on being “modern-Orthodox” but on some base level, that hybrid is doomed to failure. Once we allow certain behaviors as functions of our modernity, then we have sold out the underlying thread which defines us as Orthodox. And, yes, to some degree, all of life is compromise for most people. Shabbat isn’t 25 hours of straight and consistent focus on the spiritual or the divine. We live in a world in which many have found how to justify reading a newspaper, chatting with friends about life and walking the dog. But the moment we employ whatever leniency in our understanding to allow that inch, our logical application of extensions tries to take the mile. If there is an eiruv designed to allow me to carry a holy book, can I carry my keys? Once I allow my keys, what about a newspaper? Or a game? Or a ball?

If I am in a building, so I don’t have to worry about the limitations of the eiruv’s rules, can I do something which is not inherently breaking the rules but isn’t in the nebulous “spirit” of the Sabbath? Am I keeping the day’s intention with or without inspecting the minutiae?

A current question surrounds a sports figure who, though he seems to abide by the various trappings of religion, chooses to play on the Sabbath. Does this encourage young people to opt in favor of competition on the Sabbath as the new and accepted/sanctioned normal? Is it bad enough that we silently condone, but this elevates the behavior through institutionalized approval? Or do we criticize the choice because it is at odds with traditional practice and we refuse to moderate our hold on the past? When is it authentic? When it evolves into modernity or when it resists change and rests on traditional laurels. This tension can never be resolved but we lie to ourselves and tell each other that there is a golden mean, a path amidst the mighty waters. It cannot be.

Sometimes we just have to choose, and let one adjective which describes our character come in second and that has to be good enough. It is only through this crucible of choice that we find out who we really are. We are not both and we are not serving two masters and while we can find ways, on a daily basis, to lead a life which exploits the overlap and downplays the friction we have to accept that this will inevitably and consistently lead down that slippery slope. And when it reaches a red-line we will have to accept that, in that moment, at that tipping point, we are either fully modern or fully Orthodox.