Sister Regina knocked my second cousin’s teeth out of his mouth in one fell swoop of her habit-covered fist. He was so traumatized by the incident that he neglected to attend his own father’s funeral twenty years later, claiming he couldn’t afford to take the day off from work. And the only possible explanation for this is that his teeth never recovered.
By the time I got to Catholic school, things had improved so much that the nuns were using nonviolent means to teach their students to turn the other cheek. But the message stuck. It permeated into the depths of my ten-year-old soul and forced me to obey, or else.
I was the new kid and – here’s the cardinal sin-the only one who didn’t have a crush on Leonardo DiCaprio. So when the Catholic school kids started picking on me with a vengeance unlike anything I’d seen before, I followed the nuns’ advice and turned the other cheek. Naturally, this increased the level of my torment more effectively than any other method.
“I don’t care what Jesus said,” my mom would yell, causing me to think she was not being a good Christian. “If you don’t fight back, they will walk all over you.”
I didn’t. So they did. And by the end of the year, my mom seriously considered putting me in public school. It was a risky move, especially since the gangs at Linton Middle School used fists instead of words. If I turned the other cheek there, they’d flay me alive.
So we chose the third option and moved. Miles away from crack houses and gang violence, we settled into safe suburbia and started looking for a church. After my experiences with Catholic school, we wanted to try out a new sect of Christianity.
We dutifully sat through countless sermons in tightly packed wooden pews, watching a variety of priests and ministers go through the familiar motions. Every service was a waiting game because we knew that one sentence was always, inevitably irrevocably uttered.
Let us pray for the Jews, that they may find the true path to God and be saved.
I understand there are many reasons, founded deeply upon religious doctrine, that support this prayer and the belief Jewish people will not be saved because the only way to God the Father is through Jesus. In fact, many Jewish people also believe their religion is the only way to God the Father, and Christian people are denied salvation until they convert to Judaism.
But if every religion thinks its way is the only way to get to God, how do we know who is right? And if God is supposed to be infinitely merciful and loving, how can he deny salvation to everyone who does not follow a certain religion?
My father is Jewish. He’s the kind of Jew who only goes to temple on the High Holy Days, the equivalent of being a Christian who only goes to church on Christmas and Easter. But he does celebrate all the Jewish holidays in our house, and I’ve been trying not to burn myself when I’m lighting the Hanukkah candles ever since I was old enough to hold a match.
The point is that he’s my father, and Judaism is still his religion, even if he doesn’t practice it as much as he could. So when churches offer to help us convert him to Christianity so that he won’t suffer the flames of hell, it doesn’t create warm, fuzzy feelings in my heart.
Neither does the memory a minister telling me that marriage between a Jew and a Christian is like tying a ball on either end of a string and swinging it over your head so that the balls crash into one another in constant, painful misery at being joined.
After months of searching, my family found a church without the “save the Jews” prayer, so we started regularly attending services. Things were going well until a member of the church whose family donated a lot of money went on a shooting spree and killed five people because of their ethnicity. The sole survivor, is now a quadriplegic.
On Sunday, the Reverend prayed for the convent and his family. She prayed that God would guide them through this difficult time and bring them peace.
She did not lift one word in prayer for the victims of the attacks.
That was the day we stopped going to that church.
I’m still searching for the one church that will make my past irrelevant because the future is so much better. But I’m being a bit more cautious this time. No more turning the other cheek. I refuse to let any religion walk all over me.
Rachel Rose-Sandow is a sophomore in the College of Communication and is a News Assignment Editor.