Why be a Salmon?

People like to understand things.

They like to be able to put things into boxes and say “Yes, I know what that is”. That's why, when people meet for the first time they instinctively ask “So, what do you do?” They’re hoping that the other person will give them a straight and simple answer that would instantly define them. By telling others you’re an accountant, lawyer, chef, actor, rugby player, student, theoretical physicist or currently between jobs, they can put you in a box, classify you, and understand you. We do it ourselves without realising it, every single day of our lives.

Some people are so used to this that when they come up against an anomaly such as a child, they get so disorientated by the whole lack of “boxability” that they ask one of the world’s stupidest question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

What do I want to be? What sort of question is that? I’m happy being what I am thanks very much! I’m in nursery, where I can paint pictures all day long, slurp milk through a straw and can’t possibly fail at ‘drawing’ if I tried! I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t do drugs and I’ve never been divorced, or even dumped. I am the apple of my parent’s eye, and sometimes they even let me stay up late!! What else would I want to be?

Aha, you’ll say, you can’t stay a child forever! – You’re quick, you are.

So let’s try to answer the question. But before we decide what we want to be or become in life, we're gonna tackle a more fundamental question, why be?
Sounds simple, no?
I mean, why not?

Walk with me.



Why do you get out of bed in the morning, no actually, why, what motivates you? And I’m not talking about the days when someone makes you get up, I’m talking about the days you force yourself, bleary eyed and groggy, to roll out of your nice warm bed. And don’t tell me its things like food, clothes or shelter, I’m asking you to tell me what drives you!
To word it better, what makes you want to get up in the morning?
Are you ready for our first cliché?

“All you need is love...”

Yup, and you’re going to argue - primarily because if you’re here you’re probably Jewish so you can’t help it. But it is the love, of your spouse, of your family, of your job, of G-D, or even of yourself, which is, let’s be honest, the driving force that normally gets you through the day. As the good men say:

“Without love, where would you be now? Without loooooooooooooo,ooooooooo,oooooooooove?”

So, for our third and thankfully last cliché:

“Let’s talk about love...”

What does love mean?

Imagine the situation, boy and girl have been going out for nearly a year now, things are going great, and this really does look like “the one”. Boy takes girl out to an outrageously expensive restaurant for their 12th month anniversary.
The boy gets down on one knee...

Boy: My darling
Girl: Yes...
Boy: I want you to know how much I love you
Girl: Ok...
Boy (while pulling a diamond the size of Wales out of his suit pocket):
I love you so much, sooo soooooo much, I love you as much as, as much as, well, as much as that other woman over there, the one with the red dress, and the ugly one behind her, oh, and as much as her husband, I love you just as much as all my previous girlfriends, and as much as the “we’re just friends” as well. I love you as much as all the animals and plants on this earth, as much as the flies, and even as much as those bloody annoying mosquitoes. I love you as much as those weeds that get stuck in my trainers on when I play football on Sunday afternoons, you know the ones darling, the ones somehow get between your laces and... Yes darling, even as much as the bacteria in that bottle of Chateau Margaux you’re currently swinging towards my head. So darling, will you marr... oooooooooooo...

You get the point.

Because love means preference. It must do. It has to. Those who want everyone to love everyone and everything the same wish nothing more that the removal of all love from this world. If you’re willing to die for Israel as much as you are for Kamchatka, then you’re not willing to die for anything of value, you’re just willing to die. And if you’re as willing to live a life of poverty to take your loved ones out of Nazi Germany as you are to live in poverty to save the chipmunks, then what’s the point of having a loving, caring, supportive family, or any family at all!

The Hebrew word for marriage, the highest form of love between a man and wife, is Kiddushin. This comes from the words Kodesh meaning holy or uplifted, and Hekdesh, meaning to set something apart, to select something above all others. Real love is to play favourites, to take sides, to be biased. This is why we have the phrase “Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh” in our prayers; we are saying that we select G-D, and uplifting only him from all the other religions of the world.
Agnosticism is fine for some people, but it’s not special.

This is why the Talmud says, “Give me a ‘chevra’ (close friends) or give me death”. Either you’re surrounded by something selected, something purposeful, something you especially love, or there’s no purpose to life at all! But to get the most of this love, this “purpose in life” you need to have that something!

This is where you are lucky. You are Jewish. You are part of a culture and religion equal to if not greater than any other in the world. So for your own sake be Jewish. Don’t be Jewish-by-passport or Jewish-by-parent, be an all-knowing-feeling-caring-thinking-Jew. Israel should not be to you “just another place I go on holiday”; Hebrew should not be “just another language I don’t understand”. Actively be Jewish, be saddened and distressed by our tragedies, embarrassed and ashamed of our mistakes, gain strength from our triumphs and victories, and most of all, be proud. Be proud that you have survived four thousand years of persecution. Be proud that your people have changed the world. Be proud of the unbroken lineage that has kept us both apart and special since our exile over two thousand years ago. Be proud that during those two thousand years of waiting, we never lost hope, and that we are now, from all corners of the globe, finally coming home! Be proud that you’re not the same as everyone else, because if everyone was the same there could be no selection, no love. For how could we ever be an Ohr l’goyim (light unto the nations) if there are no goyim!

So swim against the tide, a world where everyone is the same cannot be a Jewish one.

Be the proverbial salmon, be an individual, both as yourself and as a member of “the infinite people”. But please, don’t be a lemming. Don’t just jump head first into the abyss without thinking or knowing what’s down there. Find out about your heritage, try to learn Tanach. Find out who you are and how you got here. Learn to connect to the 600,000 people that left Egypt, and to the 14 million Jews that are around the world today.
Find in them something to love.
Find in them something to live for.
Find a reason to get out of bed in the morning!

Use this blog as a sounding board. Challenge it. Ask it your questions. You can post anonymously if you think it might be a stupid question – but believe me, there is no such thing. Any questions you have on Judaism or Jews are relevant and can be posted here, and we will try to respond to all of them.
Any comments on old posts or suggestion for new topics are always welcome.
Use this space to find out about your culture, your religion and your people.

For they are an amazing people, but to be one them you have to actively be.
And then they will be your people, to love selectively, wholly and completely.