Tziry.

Religion is a wall.

From New York to Tel Aviv I sat next to a lovely, young Orthodox (Jewish) woman on the plane who was very cordial. I was ecstatic because she was very willing to talk to me about her life and religion and how, I quickly came to find out, they are the same thing.

Her name was Tziry (pronounced like Siri—the woman who talks to you on your iPhone) and she was from an Orthodox neighborhood in New York City. And there is nothing in her life that is not Orthodox.

In chatting it was made very clear that in her life no entertainment, music, book, food, neighborhood, education, language, relationship, Saturday, birth of her child, wedding, death, job, or hobby is not Orthodox. Nothing.

She was open to share it with me, talk to me about it. She answered all my questions. Obviously, I was enthralled.

She was touched that I respected her religion the way I do, and I was able to share a little bit about why I believe the New Testament even though she does not.

But still there was a wall. Unlike some people I have met on flights with where both of us leave with email addresses and phone numbers and websites, it was obvious to me from about 5 minutes in that Tziry and I were not going to be friends.

Our relationship would not continue. I would never know HER, I would only know how she lives. It’s not the same. I would never know her real stories, all the things that happen when no one is asking her to give an account of her beliefs, I would only know what she is trained to tell the world about “her people.” It’s not the same. I would never know if deep down there were doubts; if deep down she prayed and hoped that all she was doing was right.

Why? Because there was a wall there. A wall intentionally placed there to not only keep me out, but to keep her in.

The wall that was there was a wall in between us. A wall that she seemingly had no desire to move, even though I wished with everything I had that I could bulldoze the whole thing.

I left the flight more knowledgeable, yes. Grateful to her for the honesty I got. But a little disheartened.

I didn’t want to know just Tziry-the-Orthodox-Woman, I wanted to know Tziry, the woman who happens to be Orthodox.

And herein lies the great divide: I thought the two could be separated. I thought “Tziry, the woman who happens to be Orthodox” was an actual entity.

But I was wrong.

Why was I wrong? Because I am an American and don’t understand things about the rest of the world.

See, the concept of separating who you are from your religion is a concept that, frankly, from what I understand, only happens in the west. It only happens in the Roman world.

Years ago I read something by Ravi Zacharias, the Indian apologist, who said something along the lines of the reason American and western Christians are the least devoted Christians anywhere in the world is because true Christianity doesn’t make sense to them. American and western Christians don’t realize that Christianity is an Eastern religion and therefore they try to view the Bible through western eyes, and are subsequently confused over the simplest of concepts.

The simple concept I clearly was not understanding which is exemplified in my belief that I could separate Tziry from her Orthodoxy is the same concept a lot of western Christians seem to have no handle on whatsoever. Paul stated it best: “To live is Christ.”

Here in the west, myself included, we kind of wrinkle our nose a bit and go, “I don’t get it….”

To live is Christ? No no no. To live is jobs and house and hobbies and family and weekends and friends and SportsCenter and Keeping Up With The Joneses and fame and food and clothes and wealth and health and knowledge and religion and environmental responsibility and blah and blah and blah.
That’s what we think. We think life is made up of a lot of things, all different facets of life, sub-categories of life.

Like this.

But that’s not what they think in the East.

That’s not what my airplane neighbor thinks, that’s not how she lives her life.
To her, to live is Orthodoxy. Rather than “Life” up in the top box, the word “Orthodoxy” is up there.
And jobs and houses and hobbies and families and weekends and friends and food and entertainment and clothes and money and health and education and whatever else blah constitutes life are all sub-categories of orthodoxy.

Does that make sense?

So, when Paul goes off and says what we in the west think is some revolutionary concept, “To live is Christ,” it’s not a new concept to them at all. It’s just a transfer of affection. Whereas a lot of those people used to be “To live is Judaism” or “To live is Zealot,” or “To live is Etc.,” now it was just a transfer. Now it was, “To live is Christ.”

Because they were Eastern people. To them, if they were “religious” there had never been some separation of church from culture, church from state, church from business, church from relationship, church from eating habits, church from entertainment, church from money.

The East doesn’t separate those things.

And I am going to go out on a limb here and say the East doesn’t separate those things because they understand that those things cannot be separated. In the West, we are under some delusion that they can be. We (wrongly) believe that not everything is connected. We think you CAN separate church (Jesus) from job, church (Jesus) from entertainment, church (Jesus) from relationships, etc. etc. etc. When, really, I am starting to think that if there is an aspect in my life, in your life, where Jesus is not, where there is a separation of Church (Jesus) and (Fill in the blank) then Jesus is probably not the name in the top box.

See, whatever you worship is whatever is in that box.

Think about it. Do you worship money? If you do, then you will pick your job based on how much money you can make, your house based on showing how much money you have, your politics on what will allow you to make and keep more money, your hobbies on how much money it will cost you, your education on the best your money can buy, your religion on what will make you give the least, your friends based on the social circle your money gets you into.

What about worshiping your body? You will plan your weekends around how active you can make your body, your food will be chosen to give you a toned body, your clothing will be selected to show off your body, you will demand beautiful bodies from your family and probably only associate with people who feel the same way about their bodies as you do about yours.

Is this concept resonating with anyone?

See, the East is way more “religious” than the West. Over there, if someone is religious then whatever religion they are is in their your box. All their sub-categories, then, are propelled by that, which is why you cannot separate the culture from the religion; their religion is their way of life. It has seeped into the most minute details of their life; I mean, it’s even the deciding factor to how they buy groceries (literally), or—get this—they don’t even press elevator buttons on Saturday because they practice Sabbath. No joke, this is serious business to these people.

So, I didn’t make any Orthodox friends on my trip. I know, I’m disappointed too.

But I think I got into their mind a little bit; which gets me more into the mind of Christ (because he was JEWISH, but more on that later).
And now I am going to reevaluate my grocery list.
Because I want Jesus in that top box so that he changes all the other little boxes. I want “to live is Christ” to be my reality.