I miss it, I really do.

It's a lifestyle I once had. Today, I would consider it abysmal and foolish. Then, I was just confused and wanted no part of it. But right now, I feel like I want it back.

My old school was private, Jewish, and Orthodox, well to some extent. Every morning we would pray, I would sit there, confused. I hit a friend with a prayer booklet once; how was I to know it was wrong? I was young, but not young enough to be chastised by someone I didn't even know.

I yelled "BUM" every time it came around in services. I thought I was real funny. But It's not as if I understood the prayer, how was I to know better?

I didn't know why we had to walk 3 miles to a river to toss bread in or why there was a giant sukkah in the entrance of the school about this time of year. I didn't even like these things, more importantly, no one gave me a reason to care about them.

Yet, looking at my friend's older brother who went to this same school would have been enlightening today. He was learning Hebrew, not the "here is how to say cat" kind of stuff they taught us second graders, but the real thing, no vowels and all. He understood the walk to toss the bread and the sukkah as I do now.

But despite my improved knowledge, I can't help but feel that I missed out a lot of my Jewish education. I feel like I could have known so much more. Between daily Hebrew classes and a rabbi always on call, I could have explored so much. Would it have been worth it, though, in such a halachic community? Could my Judaism have survived without a sense of self-righteousness? I suppose these are the answerless questions.

That explain it though. That explain why I want what I want. I want Jewish understanding that I would have had in South Africa. I want to know everything I can learn. Jewish prayer, language, holidays, culture, history, everything. I want to know everything I missed out on.

I feel like I owe Reform Judaism my outlook on many things, but I feel like it owes me a Jewish education. I can't really blame the movement for my being Jewishly illiterate for so long, but I need a scapegoat. It's hard to have to blame oneself. But I was young and foolish, and the opportunity for an improved Jewish education in constantly on the horizon.

This semester in the shackles of a painfully boring secular education; next semester in Tzuba, next semester in Israel.