Blessings Upon Thee, T3

Crap. Crap crap crap.

Forgot I was supposed to come up with T3 questions. I know it was supposed to be about religion.

Think, THINK!

(You know, I believe I've had school-related nightmares like this.)

Fortunately, I should be able to meet those fine Possumblog standards, even at this late hour.

Here goes:

1) Are you now a religiously committed person, and have you always been one?

2) Did you come to your faith on your own, or are you simply continuing traditions instilled by your parents/grandparents, etc. (For the non-believers, feel free to describe your absence of faith in the same vein)

3) Have you ever abandoned your faith and its teachings for any significant period of time, or in any significant way?

So be ye Christian, Mohammedean, or Son of Abraham, feel free to answer in ye comments or on thine own blog. Zoroastrians, Arianists, and Wiccans are on their own.

As for me, here are my answers:

1) I am indeed, and always have been.

2) I'm what they refer to as FFB - Frum From Birth, Frum being slang for observant. I have always been Orthodox, though the meaning of that has changed societally and personally over the years. My family's a little odd in that my Dad is less observant than my mom to a fairly serious degree, though he too has shifted in observance over the years. This is what I grew up with, and the idea of moving to a lower level of observance never really occurred to me. As I've grown older, I've been able to grasp more of what I believe, and establish my own points of faith independent of my upbringing. Most of my experiences have simply confirmed the faith I was born into.

3) Though there were things I wanted to do that my faith proscribed, things I don't want to do that the faith demands, and I have seen co-religionists twist the faith beyond reason, I've never really done what they call locally "fallen off the derech" - literally lost the way, or fallen off the path. Certainly there have been less observant moments or actions, but discarding wholesale the way of life I know and love? Never happened to me. I've known people who have. They spend years of their lives without Shabbos, eating what they want, leading the lifestyles they want. I'm not really jealous, and I don't feel like I've missed something by remaining observant all my life. I've had no reason to leave the faith - nearly everything I want is available within the faith, and the things outside the parameters of my Judaism are things I can learn to live without.