About Rivka
Mar. 10th, 2024 09:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tuesday_morningContinuing on from my previous entry, I wanted to talk a bit as well about my Jewish part, Rivka. For me, she signifies purity, curiosity, spirituality, and a fresh start.
Rivka's journey began after I left Islam but before I began to explore Christianity. I think it started around the time that I began to look into the Unitarian Universalist church. In those days, I was looking for a community to call home and friends where I could be completely accepted and loved for who I am. I was very carefree back then and felt so new to the world of religion outside of Islam. I have fond memories of the UU church and i made good friends that I still have today, but it felt like something was missing from the community that I was seeking, so I continued further in my search. Still, I definitely appreciated how open the UU church was to LGBTQ+ folks and the search for the truth that works for you.
The next religion I looked into was Reform Judaism. I remember my first evening attending my local synagogue. It was such a beautiful service. It reminded me of home, but still a bit different. Different doesn't necessarily mean "bad", though. I quite enjoyed it. It was during the High Holy Days, specifically during Sukkot. I remember being really interested in learning more about Judaism after that, especially considering that my mom was highly anti-semetic. I wanted to learn about Judaism from actual Jewish people, and to my surprise, I discovered a lot of beauty in the religion of Judaism that I haven't been able to exactly find in the same way in other traditions. After the High Holy Days wrapped up for the year, i contacted the rabbi of my local synagogue in order to begin studying Judaism with him. At the time, I really did want to convert to Judaism, but because of the existence of my other religious parts, that made settling on one singular religion basically impossible, so I never did end up converting, despite my best efforts to just choose one path. Still, I can feel a part of my soul that still yearns for the community and sense of extended family that exist within the Jewish community.
When I think about it, I still wish that I could enter the mikveh (a special body of water used for spiritual purposes) and celebrate my life transitions and other events through it. Something about the idea of being completely submerged in a natural body of water with specific spiritual intentions behind it makes me feel vulnerable to the Universal Energy that I call "G-d" and yet safe at the same time. I cannot use a traditional mikveh because I am not Jewish, however I still like to incorporate water into some of my spiritual practices all the same. I see water as a source of life... but getting back on topic, even without being Jewish or being able to use a mikveh, my soul still feels free when Rivka is present. That's because Rivka holds onto the recognition that my soul is free and belongs to no person.
Beautiful Rivka has not been inflicted by the lies that we internalized growing up; that we belong to someone. When I look at her using my inner eyes, I see a rainbow, a breeze brushing through the trees, and a dove flying freely on the breeze. Rivka isn't as "loud" as the other religious parts in my system are, in the sense that she's not trying to convert the entire system to her own religion, but her role in the system is still so very important. She reminds me and the others in our system that it is good and healthy to question things and to "wrestle with G-d". Certainly, we do not know everything there is to know about everything, and that is simply human nature. So there is no reason to tie yourself to a religion that feels it does not fit, if that is your own experience.
Rivka is very brave as well. She is not afraid of the afterlife, whatever it may be, and actually welcomes it. In asking her why she feels little fear around death, she reminds me that life is about living in the moment. Tomorrow will worry about tomorrow, but for now, we are tasked with being in the here and now and making the most of it to the best of our ability. Does that make sense? Not only that, but learning more about death, in her eyes, makes the experience seem a lot less daunting, because truly, fear is caused by the unknown. We fear that we are headed to one place or another after this life, or perhaps we worry that there will be no afterlife in the end at all. Regardless, it is all based on the uncertainty of it all, and I just think that if we learned more about death and the realities of it, we would be at least a little less afraid... but in any case, at the end of the day, I just hope that when my time comes, I will be able to leave this earth feeling little regret, if any at all. I just know that I want to have lived a life that was well-lived, not feel like I wasted my life living in fear of the day that we are all promised.
And that's what there is to know about Rivka. This exercise in self-exploration was, indeed, incredibly eye-opening.
Rivka's journey began after I left Islam but before I began to explore Christianity. I think it started around the time that I began to look into the Unitarian Universalist church. In those days, I was looking for a community to call home and friends where I could be completely accepted and loved for who I am. I was very carefree back then and felt so new to the world of religion outside of Islam. I have fond memories of the UU church and i made good friends that I still have today, but it felt like something was missing from the community that I was seeking, so I continued further in my search. Still, I definitely appreciated how open the UU church was to LGBTQ+ folks and the search for the truth that works for you.
The next religion I looked into was Reform Judaism. I remember my first evening attending my local synagogue. It was such a beautiful service. It reminded me of home, but still a bit different. Different doesn't necessarily mean "bad", though. I quite enjoyed it. It was during the High Holy Days, specifically during Sukkot. I remember being really interested in learning more about Judaism after that, especially considering that my mom was highly anti-semetic. I wanted to learn about Judaism from actual Jewish people, and to my surprise, I discovered a lot of beauty in the religion of Judaism that I haven't been able to exactly find in the same way in other traditions. After the High Holy Days wrapped up for the year, i contacted the rabbi of my local synagogue in order to begin studying Judaism with him. At the time, I really did want to convert to Judaism, but because of the existence of my other religious parts, that made settling on one singular religion basically impossible, so I never did end up converting, despite my best efforts to just choose one path. Still, I can feel a part of my soul that still yearns for the community and sense of extended family that exist within the Jewish community.
When I think about it, I still wish that I could enter the mikveh (a special body of water used for spiritual purposes) and celebrate my life transitions and other events through it. Something about the idea of being completely submerged in a natural body of water with specific spiritual intentions behind it makes me feel vulnerable to the Universal Energy that I call "G-d" and yet safe at the same time. I cannot use a traditional mikveh because I am not Jewish, however I still like to incorporate water into some of my spiritual practices all the same. I see water as a source of life... but getting back on topic, even without being Jewish or being able to use a mikveh, my soul still feels free when Rivka is present. That's because Rivka holds onto the recognition that my soul is free and belongs to no person.
Beautiful Rivka has not been inflicted by the lies that we internalized growing up; that we belong to someone. When I look at her using my inner eyes, I see a rainbow, a breeze brushing through the trees, and a dove flying freely on the breeze. Rivka isn't as "loud" as the other religious parts in my system are, in the sense that she's not trying to convert the entire system to her own religion, but her role in the system is still so very important. She reminds me and the others in our system that it is good and healthy to question things and to "wrestle with G-d". Certainly, we do not know everything there is to know about everything, and that is simply human nature. So there is no reason to tie yourself to a religion that feels it does not fit, if that is your own experience.
Rivka is very brave as well. She is not afraid of the afterlife, whatever it may be, and actually welcomes it. In asking her why she feels little fear around death, she reminds me that life is about living in the moment. Tomorrow will worry about tomorrow, but for now, we are tasked with being in the here and now and making the most of it to the best of our ability. Does that make sense? Not only that, but learning more about death, in her eyes, makes the experience seem a lot less daunting, because truly, fear is caused by the unknown. We fear that we are headed to one place or another after this life, or perhaps we worry that there will be no afterlife in the end at all. Regardless, it is all based on the uncertainty of it all, and I just think that if we learned more about death and the realities of it, we would be at least a little less afraid... but in any case, at the end of the day, I just hope that when my time comes, I will be able to leave this earth feeling little regret, if any at all. I just know that I want to have lived a life that was well-lived, not feel like I wasted my life living in fear of the day that we are all promised.
And that's what there is to know about Rivka. This exercise in self-exploration was, indeed, incredibly eye-opening.
