Lewyn wondered if a few of these guys might also be Mormons. He didn’t yet possess the expertise he later would, to tell such a thing without asking. He did recognize that they were all some version of Christ-follower, but the distinctions among even the commonplace denominations were a terrible blur. （The Walden School had indoctrinated him with the notion that spirituality was a matter of self-definition, and apart from one wildly out-of-place guest speaker the previous fall, no Walden teacher had ever attempted to impart the actual beliefs of actual Christian people. As a result, Lewyn could barely have distinguished a Baptist from a Catholic. Besides, for all of its vaunted “diversity,” Walden students and faculty were overwhelmingly Jewish.） With Jonas’s friends he began to observe, if not exactly understand, the commonalities and the distinctions among them. One boy said grace before consuming his breakfast pastry; another did not. One boy was enjoying robust relationships with several willing girls while another had allowed himself only “side hugs” with his longtime girlfriend and presumptive future wife back in Virginia. Several of Jonas’s fraternity brothers were heavy drinkers, and one, an ice hockey player from Milwaukee, was so clearly compromised that his fraternity brothers had already （and unsuccessfully） attempted an intervention.
But they were nice enough to Lewyn, and as the weeks passed they began to present an almost uniform interest in him, or at least in one aspect of him. Not one of them, it had become clear, had ever had occasion to talk—that is, really talk—with a representative of his people.
“So, like,” said the Virginian, whose name was Mark, “I can’t help but notice that you’re eating bacon there, Lewyn. Isn’t that, like, against the rules?”
Lewyn explained that his family was not Orthodox, nor even particularly observant. “We’re more cultural Jews.” What he meant was: dutiful observation of a couple of holidays, correctly sliced Nova from Russ & Daughters, and an extremely broad interpretation of Tikkun olam. But what he actually said was: “There are all different kinds of Judaism, you know.”
Of course they didn’t know, and unfortunately they were all ears. So he had to give them the basics:
Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist. Also nothing at all, but still Jewish.
And how could you still be Jewish but also nothing at all?
Lewyn, by now mentally exhausted, merely shrugged. You just could. People just were. It wasn’t like you turned in a card or something. “A lot of the families I grew up with were Jewish but they also had Christmas trees.”
This the boys absolutely could not process.
“Are you serious? Christmas is Jesus Christ’s birthday.”
Lewyn very much doubted this to be true, or at any rate the whole truth of the matter, but things had been going pretty well so far, and it was nice to be in a group of guys, pounding smoothies and shooting the breeze.
“Okay, but it’s also peace on Earth, goodwill toward men.” （At Walden the lyric had actually been changed to “goodwill toward people.”） You didn’t have to be a Christian to appreciate that.
“But dude! O Holy Night! Like, you have your own holy night, right? Passover?”
Lewyn shrugged. “Jesus’s last supper was a Passover Seder, you know.”
From the look of them, they did not know.
“You guys.” Jonas was shaking his head. “You should have gone on a mission. What the heck did you learn in Sunday school?”
“Whole lot of Antichrist,” said Jim. “And how I was going to hell if I was ‘unnatural.’ Nothing about Jewish Passover being the Last Supper.”
“Hey, can we go with you?” the Virginian said. “It’s soon, right?”
Lewyn looked at him. There were so many things wrong with this question. He didn’t know where to begin.