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48 T I K K U N W W W. T I K K U N . O R G S P R I N G 2 0 1 1 WILLIAM MERCER MCLEOD we thought perhaps it would comfort him to have a pet. After looking around the store—at all manner of lizards, turtles, and the like—he spotted a bin of tiny baby cornsnakes, and chose the prettiest one: a female he named Snakey. We brought Snakey home and set her upinatank,withaheaterandawaterbowl andalogtohidein.AsIwatchedherwrithe andslither,Icouldn’thelpbutthinkbackto that former student of my wife’s—and to wonder:wasSnakeyJewish? As I had come relatively late in life to the study of Judaism, I didn’t have easy access to the kind of rabbinical wisdom that this issue seemed to call for. And as we lived in Berkeley, there seemed at least afairchancethatthesnakewasUnitarian. Butthequestionwouldn’tstopnaggingat me—so finally I made a list for myself of possible pros and cons. On the plus side: Snakey was persistent , much like the Jewish people, who had somehow remained intact over thousandsofyears.Sheneverateleavened bread. She enjoyed basking in blistering conditionsthatresembledIsraelorMiami Beach. And the cruel vicissitudes of life often made her come out of her skin. On the minus: She demonstrated no particular grasp of Martin Buber’s “I and Thou” philosophy (though she had a terrific grasp of mice). She rejected an empty Manishewitz matzo box that we onceofferedherasanalternativerefugeto her beloved log. And facially she kind of resembled the Rev. Pat Robertson. Eventually I decided to wait and see if she would ask for a bat mitzvah when she was about to turn thirteen. But alas, she never made it that far. A little while ago, at thetenderageoften,Snakeystartedacting erratically—moving in a herky-jerky fashion, ceasing to maintain her usually glistening exterior, regurgitating her food. Andjustashorttimelater,shepassedaway. The folks at the Vivarium said it was probably some sort of internal disease, one that nobody could have detected. Theyassuredusthatthesethingshappen, despitethebestofcare.ButIcouldn’thelp wondering whether there was something I might have done differently: fed her smaller mice, lowered the temperature in her tank, read to her from the Torah. In the time she was with us, I had begun my own tentative, serendipitous approach to my ethnic roots. As she grew, I grew (though far less rapidly). And in honoring our home with her spirit, she inspired my family to deepen our spiritual practice. Snakey—or, to use her pre-Ellis Islandname,Snakovitch—addedamythological dimension to our days, inspiring us toconnectthemysteriousworldaroundus with the burning questions within us. In an important sense, she made our little apartmentintoahome. But was she Jewish? For the answer, I may have to await my own encounter with the creator of all things—creatures with legs or without, circumcised or circumscribed ,reptilianorReform.I Josh Kornbluth is a monologuist who lives in Berkeley with his wife and son. His latest solo show is Andy Warhol: Good for the Jews? You can follow his doings at joshkornbluth.com. “Is the cornsnake Jewish?” This was a tough question to answer. I was visiting with the first-grade class taught by my then-girlfriend, who had introduced me to her students as “Farmer Josh”—and then thrust a large-ish cornsnake into my less-than-willing hands. The little ones crowded around me, and excitedly asked me questions about this miraculous creature, about which I unfortunately knew nothing. It was possible to bluff some expertise regarding the snake’s eating and groominghabits—butonthesubjectofits Jewishness, I was frankly stymied. “Cornsnake” certainly sounded like a Jewish name—not so different from “Kornbluth,” really. Perhaps the Cornsnakes and the Kornbluths had even come from adjacent shtetls in the Old Country. And the animal did have an ambivalent air about it (another telltale sign of my people), alternately twisting around my wrist and trying to escape up a shirtsleeve . But was it descended from Abraham, or merely from a nondenominational , ethically challenged reptile in the Primeval Garden? I wanted to confess to these kids that I just didn’t know—that I had some questionsevenaboutmyownJewishness. And yet I couldn’t bear to let them down: they were so excited! I suppose I also longed to impress my girlfriend by...

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