Student Affairs
When I was a kid, I didn’t really consider myself religious. “Being Sikh or being Punjabi” wasn’t really how I identified myself. I was just me. I would go to Gurdwara on Sunday mornings, sing shabads (Kirtan) and sit upstairs to do path (read prayers). Along with going to Gurdwara, I attended Punjabi school, the …
After high school, I spent a few months in Jerusalem learning Herbew in an Ulpan, an intensive Hebrew language program for new immigrants and Palestinians entering the Israeli university system. After growing up in a majority white, Catholic neighborhood in the Midwest, it was a huge and exhilarating change to suddenly be surrounded by classmates …
Allen Ginsberg’s Howl was not, I believe, written to be read in a book (much less off a screen) but told as a warning by a stark raving mad lunatic who accosts you on the street, his voice alternating between a conspiratorial whisper and a bellowing denunciation. Nonetheless I will quote a bit, and make …
I went to a high school that was majority white and majority Christian. Other than me, there was only one other Muslim student in my grade and to this day we are still friends. I remember during my sophomore year I was enrolled in a class called “History of Religion” in which we learned about …
2020 brought with it many surprises and changes. It was also a year that made history by bringing us the pandemic and our first female vice president, among other things. The year brought so many challenges, changes, and times for reflection in my own life. This fall, I started my senior year fully online at …
I read this great editorial by Pope Francis that was published by the New York Times a couple months ago. It was titled “A Crisis Reveals What Is in Our Hearts” and was about the COVID-19 pandemic. The piece was fittingly published the morning after a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down …
One of the key aspects of my life as a modern Orthodox Jew is prayer, and in religious communities, one of the physical particulars of prayer is gender segregation. In prayer spaces in religious synagogues, there exists a dividing wall or curtain between the men’s side and the women’s side known in Hebrew as a …
Every person’s religion is a way of life. If a person is religious, it helps them form their beliefs and may influence their decisions, for example, choosing how they dress or how many children they may have. But what do we do with the fact that we often learn about our Gods through institutions or …
One of our first readings for the Interfaith Fellows program was a chapter from Diana Eck’s book about pluralism, Encountering God. She writes that, “Truth is not the exclusive or inclusive possession of any one tradition or community.” However, my first encounter with pluralism was not with Eck’s book, but several months prior during a …
As the holiday season approaches, I can’t help but reflect on my experiences regarding this time, which for many of us means enjoying a break from work, school and other obligations. As a child, I associated the holiday season with Christmas. While I did not understand the religious reason for Christmas, I could always feel …