My parents raised me to think independently. But what they didn't tell me, and this would have saved a lot of confusion later on, was that they expected me to think independently just like them.
Judaism wasn't an active influence in our lives. As the children of parents whose poverty in Tsarist Russia had ensured their theological ignorance, my own parents, equally ignorant of their own religion, saw Orthodox Judaism only as a collection of old-fashioned, narrow-minded prejudices and outmoded customs. My parents thought independently, and as proud freethinkers, they jettisoned this embarrassing baggage.
Unfortunately for them, I liked it. I loved Sabbath services in the synagogue's little side chapel. There was something quiet and clean and uplifting about those prayers, even though I didn't understand the words. It felt good.
Only in my late teens did I find out that there still were Jews who kept Judaism as it had been handed down to them by their forebears. It wasn't until I got to college, though, that I had the freedom to search out people like this, to explore my heritage. I really liked strictly observant Judaism. It felt good.
My family had never been warm. Our family relationships were more a system of shifting alliances. When I saw how my parents despised the religion I was learning to love for its warmth, its common sense, its theology, its intellectual satisfaction -- their negativity drove me away. I hardly ever went home after that.
As the years passed and I stayed strictly observant, their attitude mellowed a little, though we never really saw eye to eye. I don't believe they ever understood that they themselves had created this Frankenstein's monster -- by teaching me to think independently.
