Your ancestors can sneak up on you in unexpected ways. For the most part, throughout my life, I've carried my Judaism pretty lightly. I don't go to synagogue, and don't believe in God. I married an equally churchless and unbelieving Christian, and our home is mostly devoid of seasonal rituals, except for the general celebration of consumerism at the appropriate time in December. My parents sent me to Hebrew school when I was young, not out of any great devotion, but to get us out of the house on weekends and because, my dad said, "5000 years of tradition—you ask yourself do you want that to end with you?" But their half-hearted efforts were insufficient; my daughter does not go to Hebrew school, and all that tradition is "fucking kaput," as God says somewhere in the Bible, I assume, since I haven't read most of it.
If my tradition is fucking kaput, though, I still might participate in the tradition of fucking kaput traditions.
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