I first met the Buddha on a cruise ship. I was 20, touring the Alaskan coast with my parents and sisters. Friday night we departed Juneau, bound for Skagway, which was a relief. As Sabbath-observant Jews, unable to participate in Saturday’s offshore excursions, we agreed that if we had to miss one port of call, it ought to be Skagway. Skagway? Better to stay aboard and play gin.
Neither my father nor I wears a yarmulke on a daily basis, other than to pray or study Torah. For me, at least, this is due not to fear or a desire to pass so much as to a slightly perverse drive to balance competing identities. Nestled among Jews, as I often am, I become my most secular self. Cast out into the broader world, I cling to my Jewishness. Travel above all raises in me a frenzy, as I arrive in some far-flung place and immediately begin scouring the hotel map for synagogues and cemeteries.
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