NYC-Feature Story

Alone With the Mountain
Finding God in the desert helped me make peace with my Jewish faith

By Marci Bayer

I have always been curious. As a small child, I questioned everything I saw. I never asked people for answers, though. I looked to books and TV to satisfy my harmless curiosity, always coming to my mom with some new fact that I had learned.


	Metaphor, Simile, Personification

“Mommy, did you know that the Electoral College isn’t a real college?” a 4th grade version of myself asked at dinner one night.

By the time I was in 8th grade, the questions had grown deeper and more difficult to answer.

“Why do politicians lie so much?” I wondered, and searched for the answer in a book. “How could someone be so selfish they would enslave another?” I asked the TV, flipping through news channels. I looked for answers everywhere, but none of these questions really threatened my sense of self—until I asked the big one.

Sudden Questioning

The question came on suddenly, quietly snaking its way into my thoughts. For once, I wanted to go to a person, because I found no answers by my usual methods.

“Mommy, teachers, friends,” I longed to ask, “Why does God care about the little details of our everyday lives? Can’t we just be good people, isn’t that enough?”

I am an Orthodox Jew. Everything we do is ordered by a ritual, every action has a rule accompanying it.

“You can’t wear a mini-skirt,” teachers told me.

“You have to wait six hours between eating meat and dairy,” my mother always said.

“Say a bracha (blessing) on that cookie before you eat it!” the lunch lady reminded me daily.

Everyone around me focused on the minute details of religion, prodding others to “do the right thing.” If I asked why, they said it was because things had always been done that way. But I felt tired of my restricted life and of always having to be different from the people I saw on TV. I didn’t want vague answers about tradition. I wanted to know why God cared.

I started questioning inside my head everything that I had previously done without thought. I wondered why I had never thought to question any of it before. I started to get frustrated when I saw other people doing certain mitzvot (commandments) that didn’t seem necessary, like making sure gum was kosher (labeled as OK to eat under Jewish dietary laws) when it isn’t even swallowed. I would lie awake at night, wondering at the concept of blind faith. How could people accept God without asking questions? Was it in me to do so?

Blind Sheep

As the months went on and my parents switched me to a new, more religious high school, I started to resent my family and new friends because they seemed to me like small children who experienced nothing but happiness. I wondered why I was the only one who had questions that couldn’t be solved.

When I couldn’t understand my faith, I felt like running away from Judaism. At the same time, there was always a pull in me to go back and find faith somehow. Everyone else did it without questioning and was fine. I knew that just conforming would be the easiest way out of my predicament. But this desire to be like everyone else also made me angry at myself.

Soon, the anger turned outward: “They are blind sheep,” I thought. “I shouldn’t be jealous of them. They’re just as confused as I am, but they’re not doing anything about their confusion, they’re just following along.”

Spiteful Toward Certainty

In my mind, my older sister was the epitome of a sheep. We shared a bedroom, went to the same schools, ate at the same dinner table. Why didn’t she question like I did? When I tired of my outward silence, I had to confront somebody about why they believed. My sister was the obvious person. One night when we were preparing for bed, I finally exploded at her in frustration.

“Regina?” I began, disturbing her nightly ritual with an antagonistic tone. I bit out in a cold voice, “Why did you start wearing only skirts?” It was never a custom in my family. My mom wore pants. But my friends didn’t, my sister didn’t. I could make excuses for my friends, that’s what they grew up with, but my sister’s choice confused me.

“I don’t think pants are appropriate,” she answered calmly.

“But what does appropriate mean?” I couldn’t accept her bland answer. I had to do something to shake her and get a response. “No one’s looking at you!”

“It’s not about looking.” She got into bed and turned her face toward mine. “It’s how a Jewish Orthodox girl should dress.”

I rolled my eyes. Regina was the wrong source for an explanation. Her windows on the world weren’t mine. They weren’t even the same shape.

“Who are you to tell me what to do?” I hardened my tone.

“I’m not telling you what to do, the Torah (the Jewish code of law) is.” She picked her book off her nightstand.

“Who says the Torah is real?” I didn’t know if I believed what I was saying or not, I just had to say it to spite her. She knew exactly what she wanted out of this world and exactly what she believed in. I wished for that certainty, and if I couldn’t have it, I wanted to take it away from her.

A Divided Self

Time passed and I put the incident to the back of my mind. At a certain point, however, my questions and complaints stopped being only questions: they started to become my excuse to not practice the tenets of my childhood. I stopped davening (praying), I stopped making brachot (blessings), I started chewing non-kosher gum.

I told myself that since I was questioning the very existence of God, I shouldn’t practice religion like I had always done. A part of me told myself this was wrong, that I had to go about seeking truth another way. But different voices were fighting for control inside my head and my “Jewish” voice was losing the battle.

The conflict continued. Eventually I returned to following rules—I stopped the non-kosher gum stint and began benching (blessings after the meal) again—but I still had questions I needed someone’s help with, and what gave me the right to question out loud anymore? Questions were for people who genuinely wanted to find answers, not for people seeking excuses to stop observing rules.

I Tried Not to Care

My head hurt constantly from the effort of dividing myself into the contrary, questioning self and the self who criticized the other for such a “shameful” attitude. I tired of trying to gain understanding. I followed some laws, I didn’t follow others. I didn’t really care—or I tried not to.

But I still had outbursts at times, like when my family gathered for the weekly Shabbat dinner (a ceremonial meal we have on Fridays at the start of the Sabbath). Once, my dad mentioned waiting for a few more men to arrive to start maariv, the evening prayer. The complete davening couldn’t be said without a minyan, or 10 men.

It made me angry that women didn’t count: if eight men were standing around waiting to daven and two women showed up, it didn’t matter. I screamed why at the universe, taking my anger out on my family. My parents gave their usual explanation, “That’s just what we do,” their eyes giving away their worry about me. I liked seeing their worry so I screamed even louder.

I calmed down quickly, chanting to myself mantras of “It’s not worth it,” and, “You don’t need to care so much.” It was easiest to be numb.

But then I went to Israel.

I went on a whim, not wanting to stay behind while all my friends went away for the summer after 10th grade. I joined a hiking program, excited for a rigorous summer. The middle of the program was a four-day foray into the desert wilderness. No air conditioning or bus to return to, no iPods or cell phones. Just nature and bus mates, self-cooked meals and breakfasts of tea and biscuits.

Lagging Behind

We set out early our second day in the wilderness, waking up to darkness. As everyone got up to daven, I lagged behind. My questions prevented me from truly accepting religion enough to whisper the words rabbis had set out centuries ago, but I wished I could say something. I was nervous, begging inside for some comfort. I could only think of Tehilim (psalms), the words of King David. But who was I to say his holy words, I who wouldn’t even daven? The voice inside my head yelled, “Hypocrite!” My lips stayed unmoving.

As everyone loaded heavy packs on still-tired backs, the desert seemed to awaken. The sun warmed the cold night away. I stood with my group, staring up at the colossal mountain that we were about to climb.

No Cosmic Mishap

“I’m a little bit nervous,” I whispered to my friend, afraid to shake the calm the morning had laid down. “I heard this was the hardest hike.”

“Oh don’t worry about it, it’ll be fine,” she smiled in reassurance.

“Everybody ready?” our guide shouted. “Let’s go.”

The trail was long and steep. For maybe an hour we climbed that mountain, and as time passed I began to notice my burning legs. The desert around me went unnoticed as I concentrated on the gravel beneath my feet. It crunched loudly as my sneakers continued ever upward. I forced myself to make an even rhythm out of my panting. I licked my lips, tasting salt.

So slowly that I didn’t realize it, the path began to flatten and widen. I looked up almost for the first time, alive after the arduous climb.

My mouth fell open as my heart beat wildly. The mountaintop was a stone wall turned on its side, a million rocks wedged together as one. Below stretched a desert plateau. The solid, lonely blue sky patiently covered the ancient earth.

In a trance, I walked to the edge, trying to see more. The desert was like a dry ocean. Every mountain peak had a different texture, and one curved inward like a wave.

Growing up in the suburbs, I’d known nature as something easy and predictable. Nature was little wildflowers in a field and running rivers. If I wanted to plant something, I could. If I wanted to build a pond, I could call a contractor. Everything could be controlled.

But man could never build a desert so endlessly perfect. This absence of water, this land filled with crevices and caverns, this place of sand structures towering above man in every conceivable way—none of this was nature as I knew it. I closed my eyes, alone with the mountains, in my own world.

I felt suddenly that no cosmic mishap could have formed such strong, precise mountains and valleys. There had to have been a hand guiding its constitution, giving this dry earth life. Staring out across lands that had blown away so many footsteps, I knew God.

Resentment Fell Away

As I’d climbed up the mountain, I’d seen only the earth directly beneath my feet. But from the top, the desert opened before me. It was the same way with religion, I suddenly realized. Focusing only on the stumbling blocks, how could I find truth? Only by stepping back and forgetting details could I discern order in nature and events. As I took a deep breath with my eyes wide open, I knew that keeping this broad view in mind wouldn’t be easy.

All through the next day in the desert, I kept stopping to look at the beauty surrounding me. When friends asked what I was doing, I replied, “Just taking in the view,” but I was taking in so much more. I was thinking hard about every question I had.

I knew then that I couldn’t possibly understand without seeking answers to my questions, so I didn’t need to be ashamed of them. When I took away my resentment, I saw that Judaism’s rules are there for a reason: to give spirit and intention to every daily function. I saw that just as God has a plan for every grain of sand, God has a plan for every person and my questions were part of my path. The same Tehilim I’d wished I could mutter before the climb I now sang with joy.

My Own Path

When I got back to school, I started talking to a rabbi and participating more in Judaic studies classes. I still have uncertainties about Judaism—for example, I still don’t know if I believe girls should wear only skirts. But I try not to let my questions rule my life. My certainty about God helps me worry less about fitting in or categorizing myself. I never know if I’ll like or accept the answers I find to my questions, but I keep my ears open.

Shame for my past behavior still burns holes in me sometimes, and prevents me from truly davening. I battle the voice in my head that yelled, “Hypocrite!” and try to keep it quiet when it says I don’t deserve to do mitzvot. I remind myself that religion is a process.

I see my sister differently now, too. I realized she started wearing only skirts while still in our old school, surrounded by people who wore pants, so it took a conscious decision for her to do that. Now, I notice when she picks up a book from the Jewish bookstore, and understand that she looks for more than just dictates—she wants reasons, too.

But mostly, I see that however much she accepts and takes upon herself is right for her. I see the individualistic spirit to belief. Everybody has their own way of seeing what’s in the universe. After that morning on the mountaintop, I couldn’t question the existence of a guiding force in the world. But that’s my path. My sister, my mother, my friends all have their own. Imagine the countless paths of every single person on this planet. Everyone has to do what is right for them, so living my life now, I try not to let it matter what other people are doing. I try to do the right thing for me.

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