No, really – it’s been that long.

I’ve been working elsewhere, and something someone said in one of those elsewhere places got me to thinking about how close I come in my own mind to maybe wishing I were Jewish.

I figured out that I’m not really near that point at all, which wasn’t a huge surprise, but I also got a clearer perspective on where I stand as a goy in relation to the Jewish world.

This particular person, an Orthodox lady on Twitter (who shall remain nameless for the sake of this blog, since it’s what she said that matters, not who said it), seemed intrigued as to why I wanted to study Torah (or Talmud), and said something about how hard it is sometimes to keep all those mitzvot, but how wonderful it is to be in the privileged position to be under the obligation.

Wonderful, yes, it would be, but knowing I’m not, I got to thinking would I want to? That it is, would I want to convert? Simple answer – no. That, my friends, completely skewers any wannabe attitude. I mean, how could I say I wannabe, if given the chance, I would not. Not that I’ve really said here that I am or was a wannabe Jew – wannabe, or wouldabeen-nicetobeen actual Shabbos Goy, yes, but I don’t think I’ve ever said I thought I was a wannabe Jew. But I’ve thought about it.

And all that made me also think a little harder about what is it that I do want to be in relation to the Jewish people. I’m not sure if this constitutes a fall-back position, but my basic vista point (like one of those places on a scenic highway) is that I who was born into darkness have been shown the light because Am HaSefer carried that light for centuries, carefully preserving it and transmitting it from one generation to the next, until it shined on me.

Yes, of course it was through HaAdon Yeshua HaMashiach the Lord Jesus Christ that this occurred, but it’s not just a simple matter of saying that we ought to love the Jews because Jesus was (never mind that He still is) Jewish. It’s also because a nation, and not just a nation, but thousands and millions of individual people – men, women, children, families – lived and died for the purpose of carrying the light of life in the form of a book, and in the form of their own lives. Not everyone lived their daily lives thinking that way, nor likely many at all, but it was the fact of their lives nonetheless.

And because of the purpose and sacrifice of these many, many souls, I have life.

They had life given to them, to give to me, and they gave what they had, and now I have life.

I think perhaps some gratefulness is in order. Well, more than some. But a remarkable thing about gratefulness is that it’s human nature to begin to put on a pedestal those to whom we are rightly grateful. And that is not good. It does them a disservice, in that we then may begin to expect more from them from that point on than is fair, and it also is a first step toward idolizing them. Even if we don’t go that far, we tend to start thinking that most of what they do is right – that it must be, because that’s who they are. There is, for instance, a serious tendency among Christian Zionists to give cart blanche support to the State of Israel, defending its actions even when they are wrong and we know it. Or maybe sometimes we don’t know it when they’re wrong, because we’ve got them up on that pedestal.

So I have to watch myself on that account. But still my heart is deeply moved that, at no particular cost to me, I have life through the written Word of God, preserved at such great, great cost by the People of the Book.