Will my lab partners hate me for being Jewish?
Being absent from school certainly has its drawbacks. After taking off for the first two days of Sukkot, I returned to Paramus High School bright and early on a Monday morning for period one chemistry. We were assigned partners to complete a lab that I had not been in school to begin. My lab partners were more than willing to get me up to speed on what I missed. One of them asked why I was absent.
A small part of me immediately tensed at this harmless question. In my four years of public school, no matter how many times I have been asked a question that requires an explanation involving Judaism, I immediately recoil. It is an irrational fear that I will somehow be ostracized for my faith. My lab partners are good-natured girls, though, and they seem curious, so I venture a short, but concise, explanation.
I explained Sukkot. How the Israelites constructed huts as shelters in the desert. How Jews eat, and sometimes sleep, in these huts as a demonstration of our faith in God. The hut is not a well-constructed shelter, though we have faith that God will shelter us from any danger, just as our ancestors believed in the desert.
“So you believe that God kept them safe then, and will keep you safe now?” asked one of the girls.
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