Living in two worlds

My name is Maija-Lisa Weinberg. My father is Jewish. My mother is gentile. So growing up was very interesting.

My mom was raised christian. She even went to bible college. While she was in college the group Lamb did a concert on campus. Like most of the other students, mom attended the concert. It was this concert that sparked her interest in Judaism.

My dad was not raised with any sort of religious upbringing. He knew he was/ is Jewish because my grandfather (his dad) would play a game with him when he was young. He would cover his nose and ask "guess what nationality I am". But as far as celebrating holidays and going to synagogue was concerned, my dad had no clue what they were.

Once my parents met and got married they both started studying and trying to figure things out for themselves. The problem was they hadn't quite figured it all out before I was born.

They knew that we needed to go to synagogue but mom wasn't ready to give up church yet. So for years we went to erev shabbat service on Fridays, Torah service on Saturday mornings, and church on Sundays. We also celebrated both Jewish and Christian holidays. We celebrated them all.... Christmas, Hannukkah, Easter, Passover, Purim, Halloween, Sukkot, and all the others. Out of all the holidays, my parents didn't really care for Halloween but they sent my to Harvest parties at Church instead. I still got candy and I still got to dress up, but it was easier on them to know I wasn't out on the streets.

As you are starting to see I was getting mixed messages from every side. I grew up with a belief in G-d and a Messiah. Only in the church we would call him G-d and Jesus, but in Jewish setting we used other words such as Hashem and Yeshua. I had no clue that they were interchangeable for the same person. So truly who was I worshipping. As I got older it became easier to separate the names and understand why Jews say it one way and Christians say it another. However, it wasn't quite as easy to separate christian theology vs. the truth in Torah. (This is a subject for another blog, so stay tuned.)

So my goal of blogging all of this is to hopefully reach out to people like me. People who were raised in two worlds and may find comfort knowing they are not alone in their journey to discover who they really are.