This is What a Jew Looks Like - Part 2

I have a dear friend at work that I used to live right across from in eastern Queens. It was the oddest coincidence, considering we both work in the south Bronx, and her building was literally right across from mine. When she was promoted to supervisor (while I was still a therapist) and came from the Brooklyn office to the Bronx, we soon ran into each other coming off the subway and started traveling together, eventually becoming inseparable. This bond has remained despite my having moved to Long Island in September and our fears that the absence of our shared daily commute would lead us to drift apart.

I don’t make genuine friends easily. I tend to feel left out of the group for whatever reason, and do best connecting one-on-one with a sincere, down-to-earth person who doesn’t have high, needy expectations of me. This is rarer to encounter than one might think. She is one of those delightful surprises. And she is a very private person who won’t add work people to her Facebook (I made the cut!) so I know our friendship was a surprise to her too.

This morning she called out sick but is on evening coverage so she was calling around to find someone to switch with her. Of course we ended up talking about everything BUT who could cover for her, and she was saying that she doesn’t watch TV when she’s sick – or ever, really – and was just staring at the wall all day. I said, “That sounds boring!” and she said, “Not really. I used to live without TV or Internet and did just fine. I could be a great Jew.” I said, “yeah you would, you’d celebrate the hell out of Shabbat!” She started cracking up and that’s when she admitted to me that she had panicked as soon as she spoke thinking she’d put her foot in her mouth and worrying that, in her dramatic words, she “could lose our friendship forever” because she might have offended me. She said my reaction just made her love me all the more.

I love that she could forget for a split second that I’m becoming Jewish because it means I’m breaking her preconceived notions of what that means. Previously when she has known of someone being Jewish, she automatically feels a bit of a separation, just in that they are part of a culture she doesn’t fully understand. But I’m someone she knows and understands and she is alongside me as I choose Judaism. She's been witness to a gradual process. It’s almost like I’m sneaking my way in. I think it makes it more tangible for her and less intimidating, and that fascinates me. It reminds me of a video we watched in class that had a segment called “This is what a Jew looks like,” which included such a diverse range of people. I will soon also be what a Jew looks like.

What I also think is interesting is that two separate comments today inspired me to write about them. I need extra time in life – for every two-minute interaction, I need another ten minutes to process it in writing!