I gave up on G-d for a week, thanks to A.J. Jacobs and my girlfriend’s hatred for my hat collection.

I’m one of them-head-covering-Jews. And it drives my girlfriend insane. She hates them and has threatened to burn them all, with the exception of my black beanie, which she says makes me look like Link from Zelda.

Anytime one of the “Jew Rules” doesn’t make logical sense, she’ll mockingly say that I’m  ”just trying to be difficult”. I find this a lot when more observant people are in relationships with the unobservant. But I started to wonder if that was true. Do I keep kosher just to be a pain? Is a yarmulke more about standing out…a grown up version of blue hair and piercings…than connecting with HaShem?

Then I thought, what would it be like to go “off the derech” for one week? No davening, no kashrut, no nothing. It reminded me of a backwards-day-version of the A.J. Jacobs book The Year of Living Biblically. So I decided to un-Jew myself for one week…my “Week of Living Un-Biblically”.

Head Covering: the first thing to go was the hat. It felt weird walking around with my hair sticking out, and it actually made me self-conscious in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. I was more aware of what my hair was doing and kept running my hands through it to make sure I didn’t look bad. I felt naked, exposed…and weirdly normal, in a bad way.

Kashrut: I normally eat vegetarian food out and only eat kosher or in some cases halal meat. But the burger was there, and I ate it. Frankly, that didn’t do much for me. A veggie burger would have been just as good. But then I had the opportunity to eat at Teds Montana Grill.  Meatloaf, caramelized onions, grilled bread…and cheese! Oh, glorious cheese. I took one bite, and frankly, treif wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. I found that I didn’t enjoy mixing meat and milk, anymore than I enjoyed avoiding it.

Davening: having to take part in PunkTorah’s Afternoon Online Prayer Services while being a heathen was tricky. Luckily Michael ran the show on that, and I could just play second in command. I always enjoyed the Q&A chat sessions after services the most, so I figured that the Un-God would forgive me if I stuck mostly to talking and less to praying. It was interesting to wake up in the morning and feel no sense of what had-to-be-done. Though, I did wrap tefillin twice because they were sitting there, looking so lonely, and I felt compelled.

Tisha B’Av was a hard one to pull off, too. We did the online service, which was awesome…though it was weird trying to be un-frum during a Jewish holiday. I didn’t fast, which I actually ended up being OK with since Tisha B’Av is a rabbinic holiday and frankly the restoration of the Temple is not on my hot-button-issues list.

Shabbat: not going to shul was strange. My girlfriend left to go to a party and I hung out at the house reading. No Shabbat candles, no wine, no challah. Then I went to bed.

The next day, we talked about my upcoming trip to Chicago. I was planning on flying up Sunday morning, but instead we decided to go together, and to drive up. So I drove on Shabbat…eleven and a half hours. Driving that long, slamming Red Bull and eating old pizza…that was my punishment from G-d.

So what did I learn from not being religious for a week?

Too Much of Judaism Is Exterior: Wearing a yarmulke or tzitzits does not make you more/less Jewish. It just makes you more/less Jewish in a certain way. My obsessive fear about walking around bare headed seemed to pre-occupy my time more than if I wasn’t praying. And that’s a bad sign. Plus, I know Judaism focuses more on what you do instead of what you think or feel, but I have the sense that this is a really, really bad thing. Maybe it does matter more what you think than what you do. The local Reform shul in my town operates a homeless shelter. The Orthodox shul doesn’t. Just saying…

The Soul Finds A Way: Whether it was the compulsive latching onto my tefillin, or the spiritual conversations I found myself having with Catholics, I realized that when I couldn’t “do Jewish”, I felt myself needed to “be” more Jewish. The soul winds a way to express itself, even under duress.

Calling BS on Yourself Isn’t A Bad Thing: I’ve always looked at spirituality the way I look at clothing. You put on what you like, and that’s it. We’re all naked underneath. But at some point, you have to seriously look at the kind of clothes you are wearing and decide if that is really you. Am I really the guy who thinks that G-d will strike him dead if he walks more than four cubits without a hat on? Am I the guy that thinks that “boil the kid in the mother’s milk” means “if it doesn’t have a Star K on it, then it’s dirty goy food”? No. Do I act like I am? Sometimes. Is that a bad thing? Sometimes. Is it a good thing? Sometimes, too.

Yes Virginia, There Is A G-d: Tonight (Shabbat) is supposed to be my last night of living un-biblically. I was going to go with my girlfriend to see Troll 2, considered by critics to be the worst movie ever made. But then the theater sold out. Not saying G-d had anything to do with it. But have you seen Troll 2? Only G-d could make that movie sell out. Looks like I’m going to shul.

Oh, and for those who are wondering…I decided that head covering was not really that important, that kashrut is really important, and that G-d rules over all of my petty social experiments.

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