I made it out of clay...

I don’t recall discussing Hanukah in school. At all. Ever. I’d say we were lucky if there were a handful of Jewish kids/families in the entire school district, and that’s probably being generous. Multi-culturalism was unheard of because we were basically all the same: white, Christian, mostly middle class. And of course, the PC brigades had not yet begun. It is still a very homogenous area, though a teeny tad less so than when I was a kid.

Yet I know what a dreidel is and I know the first couple of verses of The Dreidel Song.

This came up during the holidays last year. People wanted to know how it is that I know about dreidels and The Dreidel Song

Well I'll tell you: I haven't the foggiest clue. Where do we learn all of the various and assorted bits of flotsam residing in our surprisingly small brains?

People seem to think I should be able to say how/when/where I learned that information, but come on, for most of the random things, we don’t know. We just kind of pick it up. I suspect I came up with the song lyrics when I did the retail thing and worked in a bookstore (because I do remember a book that sang the song, but I do not recall the tune itself being new), but I think I already knew about dreidels and even that there was a song.

Why do people expect me to know how I know this? I know lots and lots of things. I suspect I could only give how/when/where learned for a relative handful. Is that not normal?

Or is it that people are surprised to find a non-religious person from a non-Jewish family who knows something about Chanukah (which you can correctly spell 500 different ways and which I don’t think I ever spell the same way twice)? Because if it’s that – and I suspect it is – then I’m actually quite bothered by that. Because…

• Being non-religious does not mean that I am completely ignorant of all things religious. Frankly, I suspect I know a lot more about religion (certainly religion in general, if not the daily motions of a particular religion) than many of the devoutly religious of the world – or at least of our society.
  
  
• Just because my family is not Jewish is not an excuse for me to be ignorant of all things Jewish. Am I to only know of Catholic things given that in a technical sense, I am Catholic? That’s ridiculous.

Frankly, both of those are ridiculous. How can I choose no religion over all religions if I know nothing of any religion? Likewise, how can an intelligent, thinking adult who claims with their whole being to truly believe, believe that their way is the right way if they know nothing of any other way?

More than one person has also been surprised that I have a friend who is a Rabbi’s wife. Um… again… why? I’m not allowed to talk to religious folk? Or do people assume that because I am a non-believer, I must shun uber-believers?

People continue to confound and frustrate me.