Chinese Take-Out

One of the earliest memories I have from childhood is when I was about five or six years old, I went to the local Longs Drug Store (the equivalent today of Walgreens/CVs/Rite Aid) with my dad and older brother.

My dad was pushing the shopping cart with me in it (yes, I was small enough to fit into a shopping cart.

My dad stopped at the photo section to drop off or pick up some pictures that he had processed.

Yes, this was the Paleolithic era of early mankind, when “Kodak” was a household name like Amazon, and people used these odd, peculiar contraptions called “cameras.”

Anyway, my dad was a regular customer at the photo counter, due to his penchant for constantly developing photos: For his business, as a dentist, developing endless pictures of people’s teeth; and also, because my dad was ‘obsessed’ with taking pictures of his family, because for all intents and purposes, we were (and still are) the “center of his universe.”

The woman at the counter who always helped my dad greeted us with great enthusiasm. After all, my dad was a good customer and a kind man. Also, it was almost Christmas! Yay!

The woman saw me in the cart, commented how adorable I was, and asked in the sweetest, most Sesame Street-like voice: “So Jonathan, what do you want Santa to bring you for Christmas this year?”

A melancholic feeling overcame me. Although I had no clue at the time [being a child and all] as to what the ‘feeling’ was.

The weight of her question made me feel sad.

So, I pondered her question for a few seconds, trying to decide how to respond.

Finally, I looked with the eyes of a bitterly starved puppy dog, from a Sarah McLaughlin-narrated ASPCA commercial (you’ll know what I’m talking about if you watched television about a decade ago). I said to her, in a straightforward, but obviously downtrodden manner: “I…I don’t wanna be Jewish no more.”

The woman couldn’t believe what I just said.

Honestly, it was ridiculously adorable.

She did what any reasonable human would do in an awkward but charming situation involving a young child: She laughed and laughed and laughed and commented how cute I was.

She was right: I was an adorable, lovable little boy.

That one innocuous encounter stuck with me for some reason, for the rest of my life.

In fact, my recall “of it” is still frighteningly accurately detailed.

Why?

It was the first time that I ever felt like an outsider in my entire life.

Sadly, life would soon present me with countless events, circumstances, and situations that only reinforced that feeling of isolation from others.

In a sense, that one innocuous moment presented a strange epiphany for a young Jewish boy in preschool living in the greatest country on earth: the United States of America.

The epiphany was a bit of a microcosm of the Jewish experience in America (and throughout the world):

Strangers in a strange land.

Going along to get along.

Being a team player, to feel like you are a part of the ‘team,’ yet never actually being a part of the team.

That is the Jewish story, in a nutshell.

To be clear, I am abundantly grateful to live in a country that will look beyond your race and/or religion and see you as a human being.

One cannot put into words how wonderful it feels to be part of a society that doesn’t hate you for what you believe in.

It is often grotesquely overlooked how fortunate one is to be a member of a society that doesn’t want to throw you in a disease-filled, rat-infested ghetto or a shanty village far away from them.

It’s lovely to be a member of a society that doesn’t one day decide to get drunk and go burn down your homes, sexually assault your sisters and moms, and brutally execute your fathers and brothers.

It’s wonderful to be part of a society that has no intention of packing you into cramped cattle cars and sending you far away to a physical “hell on earth” to be brutally starved, tortured, and eventually murdered.

Trust me, A LOT of people of my race and faith (Jews) had to endure that kind of treatment.

My own family endured that kind of treatment before they came to America.

Putting aside the horrors of pogroms and the Holocaust, it can be challenging not to view Christmas time as a time when Jews are somewhat ‘expected’ to disengage themselves from the collective, consciously withdrawing from the consciousness of society for a brief 24 to 48 hours, because of a divergence of belief and faith.

With all honesty, ‘departing’ society for a day or two is well worth being accepted as a worthwhile, valued member of a society, for the other three hundred and sixty plus days of the year.

Still, despite this meager sacrifice on the part of us “different believers,” one can’t help feeling a little lonesome, perhaps a bit envious of those ‘allowed’ to partake in the festivities that celebrating Christmas entails.

One may argue (and rightly so): “Hey, you guys have Hanukkah, right? Don’t you get eight days of presents and all that good stuff?”

Yes, that is correct.

Hanukkah follows a similar trajectory to Christmas: Both holidays are within a week or so of each other (usually), and they both consist of family gatherings, celebrations, and, yes, presents.

The truth is that there are very, very, very few Jewish people on this planet (fewer than 16 million total).

How many people follow Christianity? At least over a billion.

Of course, Christmas always attracts FAR greater attention in any Christian-dominated society.

Rightfully so, as there are A LOT of people who practice the Christian faith.

When seemingly every type of media and entertainment, marketing campaign, and retail store and website is bursting at the seams with the commerce aspect of Christmas, it is only logical to feel like an outsider if you are one of “the few” who can’t relate to the celebration of the holiday and partake in its festivities.

When you’re a kid growing up, and all your friends and classmates decorate the outside (and inside) of their homes with Christmas-everything, especially Christmas lights, a temporary mimicking of the brilliant illumination of the city of Paris at night, but with exuberant amounts of red and green.

It seems like every home, apartment, condominium, etc., in your community purposely dedicates one corner of their home to a giant, shedding evergreen tree, draped in colorful lights and fixtures, erupting with beautifully wrapped boxes of gifts, spilling from the base of that tree.

As a child, it’s evident that you would want to be a part of all this fun! After all, you want to be like all the other kids! You want to share the same joys and highs, like they are!

As an adult, the juvenile tendencies towards “gift envy” may diminish, yet the feeling of still “not being like everyone else” will most likely remain. Perhaps not as potently.

When I was still living in San Jose, CA (my hometown), I used to play for several church bands.

Yes, church bands.

The church members knew I was Jewish. I told them so.

They were polite to me.

Yet, there was always a slight, sensitive tension involving my physical presence and participation in their “holy house of worship.”

I was an outsider.

More descriptively, I was an outsider, mostly comfortable with being an outsider, who declined to envelop myself in their schema of belief centered on Jesus Christ and the Christian faith.

I love and accept all people. I have no problem being around and participating in events with people of different faiths, races, creeds, sexuality, etc.

Humans are beautiful, and I love to be a member of this species.

Unfortunately, being an outsider can make others a bit uncomfortable, especially if you refuse to conform to their worldview.

It is unfortunate, but humans have the right to practice free will. They have the right to render judgment on others. People are allowed to judge you, whether you desire to receive that judgment or not.

As time went on, and as Church members became more aggressive about having me attend Bible readings or start performing customary ‘acts’ in the Church to demonstrate my allegiance to their belief system, I would, of course, politely decline their invitations.

Obviously, this caused tension. Eventually, church members preferred that I NOT be a part of their community.

Of course, that feeling of being an ‘outsider’ was reinforced again.

The stranger in a strange land.

Going along to get along.

Wanting to be a part of the ‘team,’ yet never being a part of it.

The Jewish story.

One of my church gigs came from the recommendation of a girl I was dating at the time.

She and her family attended a church in Campbell, California (a suburb of San Jose), and her church band was looking for a drummer. After a phone chat with the Pastor (which she arranged), I got the gig. Great!

That Christmas, she felt bad that I was going to be spending it alone. I had no family living in the area at the time, plus spoiler alert, I’m Jewish.

It was going to be Chinese take-out for one, which she felt would be depressing, so she invited me to have Christmas dinner with her friends and relatives.

It was a lovely gesture of kindness.

Honestly, I was (and still am) appreciative that someone thought enough of me to want to play a part in dispelling my isolation.

I was madly in love with this girl. I wanted to impress her and her family so much.

I was going to be the cute, adorable Jewish boyfriend (like the cute, adorable Jewish boy in the shopping cart, at the beginning of this tale).

I was going to bring them all Christmas presents. Wrapped in Christmas foil!

I had a Christmas cake made for them, just for the occasion!

I wanted to be a part of the ‘team.’

I was going to lock my Jewishness away in a bottom-of-the-dresser drawer and finally experience what all the millions of other people in America got to experience: Christmas!

It was a lovely evening.

Except, it wasn’t.

The dinner menu consisted of pork, namely, honey-baked ham.

I don’t eat pork. Rumor has it it’s because I’m Jewish.

But how could I sit at someone’s dining table and refuse their food?

I was so in love with this girl. All I could think about was having her family (especially her father) like me.

I wanted to be liked.

I did what anyone love-struck Jewish boy would do: I took one for the team, and I sat there and shoveled down the ham, with a smile on my face, like it was second nature.

Wow.

Then it came time for the presents. I felt like a little Willie Wonka, happily giving his sweets away to throngs of admiring children.

Except I wasn’t Willy Wonka, and these weren’t admiring children.

They were Southern Baptists, and they HATED my presents. They even told me so, in a not-so-subtle play of words.

How could this all go so wrong?

It did.

Trust me, it did.

The girl broke up with me within a month.

I still remember that night because it taught me the power of staying true to oneself.

I learned that one sets themselves up for failure in the vain pursuit of pleasing others.

After all, I am an outsider on Christmas.

I am a stranger in “Christmas land.”

I always have been.

I always will be.

You know what?

That’s totally fine by me.

It is the truth, and the truth will always set you free.

I wish all people who celebrate Christmas an excellent, bountiful, happy, healthy, and joyous Christmas.

That’s all I want for others.

I have no problem telling people so much.

That is the truth, and the truth will always set you free.

Now, if only I could find a good local Chinese restaurant to order some takeout on Christmas.