I feel lucky that I refound Judaism in my own way, lucky that I can have a genuine relationship with Hashem. However, there are still some parts of my education that stick with me. Still a judgmental voice in my head telling me that I haven’t gotten there yet. That I’m still not good enough, not religious enough. That if I can only conquer tzniut, if I can just daven mincha every single day, that THEN I’ll be done. Then I’ll be really religious. It’s a perception I wish I could get rid of, but ten years of education is hard to unteach.
I’m not writing this to spread hate or to speak lashon hara. The Bais Yaakov system works for some people, and I’m glad it exists. But I wish that when I was growing up, there was someone telling me what Judaism is really like. Someone to tell me that Hashem loves us regardless of nail polish. That texting a boy doesn’t mean cutting yourself off from religion. That wanting to express yourself and asking questions is a positive thing, something to be encouraged. I wish someone had been there to tell me all of the things I know now.
I can’t change the way Jewish education is run. I can’t change the way teachers will answer questions or the way kids will slowly stop asking them. What I can change is the way they feel about themselves, the way they see themselves inside of Judaism.
I’m writing this because I want to make a change. Because Judaism is too beautiful to reduce to skirt lengths and how long your shemoneh esrei is. Because someone has to tell a little six year old girl that no matter what her hair looks like, she will always be a Bas Yisrael, always be a princess of Hashem.
Visit They Call me Shev for more of Batsheva’s thoughts.
