I attended a family bat mitzvah in New York City last weekend. For three hours I dwelled in the sanctity of the beautiful Upper Westside synagogue, followed the prayers, the songs, the proverbial paper yarmulke covering my head, feeling awkwardly at home—a strange feeling for a devout atheist who’s accustomed to an eternity of religious exile. The deep-voiced rabbi conducting the shabbes service, the congregation clad in their yontif wardrobe, the palpable tribal embrace: a Jew amongst his people.

Now, being the sour schmuck that I am, a sense of contentment and ease immediately raises my alarms, and so I quickly go over my list: are the prayers, in most of which god demands loyalty from his people in return for protection from enemies, still petty and infantile? Yes they are. Am I still in command of all my arguments against organized religion? Check. The innumerable proofs of evolution, origin of species, and natural selection? Still irrefutable. Bertrand Russell’s celestial teapot analogy (One can not completely prove that something: god, or a china teapot revolving about the sun, does NOT exist)? Still valid. I’m okay. Still a member in good standing in the non-existing party of the united world atheists.

So nu? I ask my befuddled self. What’s so charming about a long Saturday morning in a Jewish synagogue? It then dawned on me that mine is the Mickey Mouse dilemma.

Join me, if you please, on an imaginary journey to the future, a couple thousands years, give or take. In this far world of tomorrow I am a young man in a family who belongs to the minority faith of Mickey Mouse. In the specific scene that you’re about to witness, my maternal grandmother is giving me the third degree for taking in a pet cat. Here goes:

“What’s wrong with you?” says grandma. “You know how your people are about cats, don’t you? For two thousand years we have hated that filthy, nasty, treacherous animal. Why cat? What’s wrong with a dog? A bird? Tell me.”

I try to defend myself. I live in a small apartment, cats are cleaner. “Cleaner?” she barks. “Covered with their own slime, they are. Fooy.”

I continue with futile arguments, until she cuts me with a sharp look.

“Listen,” she says. “Your people have believed in Mickey Mouse from the very beginning. Mickey is the creator of the world, and Mickey, our king and father, hates cats. It’s very simple.”

“But grandma,” I interrupt. “Mickey Mouse is just a silly cartoon character created by the Walt Disney studios.”

“Hush!” her wrinkled face turns pinkish red. “Walt Disney is a mere instrument that our lord Mickey has created to spread His word. Mickey’s horn, Walt Disney is. That’s all.”

And it goes like this, on and on. You get the point. Sense against passion. Reason vs. tradition. Then she burst out in tears. My old granny cries, and my heart melts.

“Okay grandma, alright. No more cat, I promise. Herschle goes back to the SPCA. And yes, I’ll come over Friday night for gefilte cheese.”

“But what about your future?” she sobs.

“I promise you, bubbe, I’ll get married soon, and to a nice girl from a good Mickey Mouse family. I’m seriously dating one now. Relax grandma.”

And thus the Mickey Mouse dilemma unfolds: the mind led by the heart; the independent individual succumbs to the safety of the tribe; the worship of a fantasy is preferable to breaking bubbe’s heart.

At the Manhattan synagogue the ceremony has just ended. We throw candy at the glowing bat mitzvah girl, and call, “Mazel tov!” My twelve-year-old son is next to me, eyes gleaning. His own bar mitzvah is in a few months, though we insist on calling it, “A rite of passage.” And while not on the guest list, nor taking an active role in the planned ceremony, I know god will find a way to sneak in. And it’s okay, I’ll greet him with a tip of my paper yarmulke.

In his time so far Shaul Hendel has been a pants-pissing paratrooper, a window cleaner in a holy city, a let’s-stay-friends divorcee, a stick-to-the-point acupuncturist, a father to the amazing number one & number two, a silent meditator trapped in a noisy mind, a traveler who forgot to return home, a you-could-have-done-worse husband, and a should-do-better writer. As an act of professional rebellion he is not writing a novel at the present. His work has been published, or is forthcoming in The Externalist, The Pedestal, Pindeldyboz, Ghotimag, Espresso Stories, Lady Jane, R-KV-R-Y, and Broken Plate.