How do you Jew?

I’m well, how do you Jew?

Hahaha!  Okay, bad joke but I thought it was pretty funny in a really corny way.  I was sitting on the subway early this morning leaving Mirs’ doing what I normally do on the subway-Praying.  I don’t know why I’ve taken to doing it on the subway, it’s not exactly the most sacred space and it’s definitely not a private place or a place that I feel holy.  It usually has to do with the fact that I’m running late and I’m sitting down (usually).  Nearly every morning I’ll open my borrowed siddur and start with the Shema and V’ahavta with the help of the Shabbat Shalom CD I received in my shul’s welcome packet.  I then shuffle through the pages until I get to Nisim B’chol Yom and continue through the end.  I listen to Jewish music while I’m praying and do my best to concentrate and feel connected with God.  I will be honest that I don’t sometimes feel connected and sometimes I feel silly but most of the time it still feels like a great way to start my day.  On the mornings (which are rare) that I’m not rushing, I say the prayers in my apartment before I have my coffee or after getting out of the shower.

This morning, I was thinking about our conversion classes conversation about Jewish Identity and Pesach  observances when I was praying.  I finished and looked up and noticed an Orthodox (or Conservative) man watching me.  He sort of stared and I sort of stared back before we both looked away.  I shrugged it off but wondered, why did he (did he?) care what I was doing.  Whatever his thoughts, I forced him to see a Jew who may have looked contrary to what he perhaps is used to seeing as Jewish.

The way that our conversion class is structured is that the first half hour the people who are in the process of converting sit and talk with a rabbi.  We talk about challenges of our week, we ask questions, and sometimes they ask us a question.  Last night, Rabbi L., who is in “charge” of my conversion, asked us if we had any issues, questions, or thoughts about Jewish Identity.  Being the overly enthusiastic student that I am I spoke up first and talked about what I always talk about here and everywhere-challenging the thoughts of who is a Jew.  On of the students next to me, and one of the other three black women in the class asked me, “What does a Jew look like?”  My answer was, “It depends on where you live.”  My long-term goal as a Jewish woman who longs to be a rabbi, is to continue to challenge Jewish people to see past their families, communities, and comfort level and to encourage an open-mind and open heart with regard to Who is Jewish and How they Jew.  It is also to challenge non-Jews to look outside of their ideas, thoughts, and expectations of who is Jewish.

I personally want to focus on being a Reform Jew with Conservative leanings.  In other words, a very observant Reform Jew.  I have long-term goals to observe some form of kashrut,  Most kashrut laws are in conflict with my conviction to eat locally, sustainable, and organically.  I have a long-term goal to get the communal, cultural, tradition part of Judaism (which I struggle with) melded seamlessly to the religious aspect of Judaism (the part I love and is easy for me).  A long-term goal is to maintain a Jewish home and raise a Jewish family that honors and loves Shabbat in a real way.  A long-term goal is to go to rabbinical school and join or create a shul that is diverse, inclusive, observant, engaging, fun, with real outreach and roots and ties to the broader, multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious community.  My long-term goal is to create long lineage of Jews.  A long-term goal is to go to Israel.  The list goes on and on and on and on…

As I said in an older post.  The way that I Jew and How I Jew is not always going to be the way that you Jew or How you Jew and it doesn’t need to be.  I’ve been reading Sh’ma online recently and encourage you to as well.  The current issue is ALL about who is a Jew and who says so.  It’s full of great essays on Jewish relations here in the US as well as in Israel.  It’s truly, one of the best collections of multi-faceted Jewish identity that I’ve read in a long while.  It has me thinking and affirming my Jewish choices, my Jewish life, and my Jewish identity.

In our first discussion Rabbi L. suggested that I find a Star of David charm to go with my two hamsas I currently wear around my neck.  The Star of David, more than a hamsa, identifies you as a Jew.  As much as I don’t “look” Jewish-I am.  Wearing an object so easily recognized and associated with Judaism allows people to “see” the Jewish me.  I’d been searching for weeks and remembered that I saw one at an antique store on 17th street called Pippin.  I went to the store after work yesterday and after poking around in their beautiful and tempting wares, I found the piece I’d spotted months before.  It was dull but after a quick rub by one of the associates it sparkled and gleamed like sterling silver does.  I added it to my hamsas.  It needs its own chain because the three charms together clink in a way I’m not fond of, but it’s there.  Around my neck as a bold statement to the world that I am (or will be soon) a Jew. 

my neck jewelry

Just in case you were wondering 47 days until Pesach.

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What if God Shuffled by…

dmb fire dancer

I am a self-confessed Dave Matthews Band lover.  I fell in love with DMB around 1997 when the first few chords of “Satellite” blared over the surround-sound speakers in Lisa Ferguson’s Chevy Tahoe.  Since then I can honestly say that they are the only band that I continually turn to at any moment of my life.  There was a time when I was convinced that Dave was writing lyrics torn from the pages of my personal diary…

“…she says I pray, but they fall on deaf ears.  Am I supposed to take it all myself to get out of this place.  There’s a loneliness inside her and she’d do anything to fill it in.  And though its red blood bleeding from her now it feels like cold blue ice in her heart.  When all the colors mix together to grey…

…she feels like kicking out all of the windows and setting fire to this life she could change everything about her using colors bold and bright but all the colors mix together to grey…”

When I first heard that song, “Grey Street” I absolutely burst into tears, it literally was exactly how I was feeling at that time in my life.  I’d just broken up with my fiance (because I was gay)  I was scared, confused, deeply depressed and deeply in need of figuring out who I was.  It took 5 years of searching before it all sorted itself out but I always, to this day, find happiness in the music of Dave Matthews Band, no matter if that means I’m stuck in the late 90′s.

On Wednesday’s conversion class Rabbi S. asked us to consider who God is for us and what faith is to us and like a cow chewing its cud I’m still turning it around in my head.  There is a very small part of me that thinks of Zeus when I think of God; male, high in heaven, angry, lightening bolt.  There’s another large part of me that still holds onto my years of Paganism and I see God as a mother; beautiful, stern, nurturing.  Then there’s a part of me that doesn’t understand the God of the Torah.  A part of me that doesn’t understand the need for God in 2011 yet sees God in my nephews and in children.  Sometimes I think God is far away, not listening, and at others it’s like God is in everything I see.

One of my favorite books left on the cutting room floor of the Christian Bible is the Gospel of Thomas.  It was found in  1945 in a cave in Egypt.  People call it the Lost Gospel and because of the movie “Stigmata” it got a lot of attention.  It has many of the same stories of Jesus as the other Gospels but will not, as far as anyone can tell, be added to the Bible.  The thing that I find remarkable about it isn’t the “insight into Jesus’ thoughts” but rather the message that God is in everything and in everyone and that The Kingdom of Heaven is in the here and now.  It’s a tricky theology because it requires you to live in the moment and to see goodness and godliness in everyone and everything, which can be difficult. 

Rabbi S. said that his idea of God changes and I think that it’s safe to say that mine probably does as well.  Faith is an entirely different subject.  I have a hard time with the word Faith because of my Catholic/Baptist up bringing.   When I hear the word I invariably think of  blind faith in God and taking the Bible for the spoken word of God.  That part is hard for me to separate from what it means to have faith as a Jew and as an adult.  I’m quite literally shaking my head as I write this because for whatever reason that it’s easy for me to say that I believe in God, it’s not so easy to say that I have faith because I think as human beings we have so much control over, well almost everything that there seems to be no room for faith.

For instance, something as simple as writing this book.  I don’t just have faith that it will get finished, picked up by an agent and then by a publishing company I’m actually working to finish it and then get it out there for those things to happen.  I can’t just hope that the world will be a better place or pray for it to be a better place, I have to get out there and do something to make those changes happen.  I hate when things would go wrong in my life or the life of others and hear a pastor say, “You’ve gotta have faith”  How is a logical person, possibly dying of cancer or in need of a job going to just “have faith”?  This isn’t to say turning yourself over to a higher power isn’t an option but, you also do the foot work.  Get another opinion, seek out treatment, work on your resume, go on interviews, head back to school.  As a logically thinking, dare I say, science-minded human where is the room for faith?

The reason that I’m not an atheist and as hard as I tried to be a non-believer-I do belive in God.  It’s because of my  belief in God, belief in a higher power, belief in something bigger than me that I found this path of Judaism.   I’m here and not there because Judaism requires me to learn and not to have blind faith but to seek out the answers to my questions.  Judaism asks me not to believe based on blind faith but to find what faith means to me, which is what I’m trying to figure out and may never know.

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The Fate of Egypt and Her People (and the people of the world)

From the Huffington Post

The news rooms, newspapers, websites, and internet were buzzing this afternoon when news of former President Mubarak finally stepping down after 18 days of protests that have been ripping Egypt apart.  I’ve been following the story, loosely meaning that while at the gym I’d watch CNN and I’d read the Times (from my new Nookcolor) in the morning but I haven’t been on the Facebook sites of those on the ground in Egypt.

I came across the following Article in my twitter feed moments after the news reached Huffington Post.   “Why Americans Must Ignore the Islamophobes who Misread the Egyptian Revolution.”  This next statement may seem a little naive but, really?  People are truly that insane?  Short answer is yes.  There are people out there who feel that the loss of control in Egypt could result in a threat to the US.  Those people feel that Muslims (even though not all of Egyptians are Muslims) will take this moment to seize power over the people and that the fate of the world will be in their hands. 

I suppose I always know that there are people out there who think in truly illogical ways based usually on misunderstanding, bigotry, and hatred but it’s still a bit shocking.  Since September 11th and more recently the debate over the “Ground Zero Mosque” hatred for Muslims and let’s face it, any one who “looks” Muslim is on the rise in the US and globally.  I recently read an article in the Times about the First Lady’s initiative on ending childhood obesity and the reporter, out of no where and completely out of context, commented that the Obama’s still hadn’t joined a Church in DC, after living there for 2 years.  The reporter went on to ask the First Lady about her spirituality and that of her family, which she declined to answer siting the need to keep those matters private.  I applaud her.  Where in the constitution does it say that the President of the United States needs to belong to a Church.  Where does it say he believe in the monotheistic idea of God at all?  I much prefer my church and state separate, as commanded by the constitution but unfortunately, as evident in the underlying series of questions set for by the article, even our Presidents religion is in question, still.

I made the correlation that the reporter was trying to insinuate that because the Obama’s have not joined a Church that there must be another reason for it.  Clearly, with his Arab (Muslim) sounding last name they must be Muslims.  God forbid they’re Jews or horror of horrors, atheists.  There are Zionists who believe that because Egypt is no longer under government control the new military will take over Israel and the people who live there.  Again, perhaps I am naive but I’d think that the new government would like to deal with bigger issues like, feeding the people, securing the economy, giving people faith in their government not a military take over from the past.

My conflicting views on Israel cannot be explained right now, or possibly ever because while I think like a Jew, I think like a humanist.  I watched a documentary on Netflix about Jerusalem through the eyes of a Jew, a Muslim, and a Christian.  This city, so central to each of the faiths is a maze of check points, barbed wire, walls(literally and figuratively), misunderstanding, and uncertainty.  Why Israel came to be makes sense to me.  After the Shoah there were millions of displaced Jews with no home to return to.  We have friends whose grandparents were those Jews, banned from returning to Poland.   Jews who were literally just like Jews in the Exodus roaming with no place to go-they needed a place to live.  That place that was promised to them by God thousands of years before was unfortunately occupied by people who were promised the same place by God thousands of years before and another group of people who were promised the same place by God thousands of years ago.  Three people, three promises by the same God in what is basically the same book-you’d think that it would work.  The thing about God and man is that while in God’s eyes it should have worked, men have too much ego, too much pride, too much need to possess and own a land that only truly belongs to God.

My prayers go to the people of Egypt and the people of the world.  I pray that the transition of the new government is peaceful and that the people there find peace.

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Hanukkah, and other things I learned in Conversion Class

Tonight’s conversion class was about Chanukah.  I gotta be real, I was sort of thinking about skipping tonight because I felt like I knew almost everything there was to know about Hanukkah, including different ways of spelling it.  Last trimester, our last class was on the first night of Hanukkah and we lit the Hanukkah Menorah together while saying the blessings.  Then we learned all about Chanukah and you know what, I learned more tonight.

I’m not going to regal you of all that we learned.  I will say that  what I did learn or gather was an appreciation for the people I’m in class with.  We’ve been together for a few months now, with a month in between and some of us come regularly and sometimes we miss a few.  The women who are converting get to spend only a half hour together before the others join us for the Basic Judaism class, but there’s something incredibly relaxing about Wednesday nights.

One of my friends, an Orthodox Jewish woman, commented on my Shabbat Challenge post that Shabbat was always spent traditionally for her, that it was a time for her to reset.  Shabbat still is so much about learning for me and while I love Shabbat, I look forward to it, and I enjoy my time in shul, I don’t feel like I’m resetting.  I feel like I’m learning.  I’m learning the rhythm of the chants, I’m learning the variations on songs, I’m learning the prayers, I’m learning the meaning behind prayers.  On Wednesdays, when I’m supposed to be learning, I feel like I’m resetting.

It is possibly because on Wednesdays I’m spending time with people who I’m getting to know more.  I’m spending time with people who are going through the same journey as I.  I’m spending time with people who get me and get what I say, even if they don’t.  It’s only a few hours, as opposed to the full day of  Shabbos but I really look forward to it.  It has me wondering, what will happen when it’s all over.

In a couple of weeks we’ll finish up this trimester and the last trimester will begin.  Sometime after that when the time comes for us to go to the mikvah and beit din we’ll all be Jews.  We won’t be Jews-to-Be or conversion students we’ll be Jews.  In our discussion of Chanukkah we talked about how it is celebrated and the sometimes very lost meaning behind the holiday.   Some people feel like it’s a time to spend time with friends and family.  Some people feel it’s a time to exchange gifts.  Some feel like it’s a time to remember the rededication of the Temple.  Some people feel like it’s all about the miracle of the oil.  But how is that relevant to what and who we are today, right now in 2011/5771

Our rabbi encouraged us to find meaning, our own personal meaning, behind the rituals and Holidays in the Jewish calendar so that they resonate with us in a personal way.  It sounded like an easy charge but it’s actually pretty daunting.  It’s something that I’m confident will change over time as I learn more and decide what’s best for me.  It helped me to realize that taking time to learn and figure out what works best for me is also a process.

There are so many aspects of Judaism that forever swirl in my head; kashrut, Pesach seder, tichel vs. kippah, do I really want to be reform or conservative (or orthodox), how to apply to rabbinical school, how do I really feel about Israel, when can I visit Israel, when will I check out a Sephardic shul, an orthodox shul, a conservative shul, a black shul…  The list goes on and on and there’s comfort in knowing that I won’t know the answers right now and that I don’t need to know the answers right now.

Rabbi S. gave us a packet about Chanukah tonight with the following opening quote that I found inspiring.  It made me realize that I’m not on this journey of Judaism alone.  It’s beyond amazing how much my love of Judaism has inspired Mirs and her Judaism.  I know that I’m doing this conversion with the people in my class and people around the world I’ve never met and I’ll meet other Jews throughout my life who I’ll learn with and from and hopefully those I meet and  may never meet will walk  this journey with me.

Rabbi Jose said : “I was long perplexed by this verse, ‘And you shall grope at noonday as the blind gropes in darkness’ (Deuteronomy 28:29).  Now, what difference does it make to a blind man whether it is dark or light?  Once I was walking on a pitch black night when I saw a blind man walking with a torch in his hands.  I asked him: ‘Why do you carry a torch?’   He replied, ‘As long as the torch is in my hand, people can see me and walk beside me”

Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 24b

 

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Sh’ma

I woke up really early this morning to wash my hair.  (You thought you were done reading about my hair, didn’t you)  Well, when you have a lot of hair, and a lot of curly hair you need a lot of time to get it washed and conditioned even, I’ve learned, when it’s shorter.  I’m still not used to it being shorter and gave myself a lot of time in the shower to wrangle it all in.  I got out of the shower about 25 minutes later (down from 40 minutes) and found myself with nothing to do. 

Or so I thought.  As my tea kettle worked on boiling water for my coffee and my cereal bowl sat empty after scarfing down Barbaras I caught a glimpse of the Shabbat Siddur one of the rabbis at my synagogue let me borrow.  I thought I had nothing to do, when I could have been praying.  Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda I always say and I shoulda been praying, I coulda (because I had time) and I woulda been upset had I wasted the opportunity to do so.  So I did. 

I turned in the direction I thought was east (based on the location of the front door of the mosque down the street and the assumption that like a synagogue the Holy place would be in the opposite direction of the door), I opened my siddur to the Sh’ma and I started to chant in my morning voice.  The first line שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָד   “Sh’ma Israel, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad” are always really beautiful when I hear them chanted in shul but it was the first time that I uttered them alone.  I think I scared my cat.

I continued just through V’ahavta and realized that I didn’t remember how it is chanted in shul so I recited it, stumbling over the Hebrew transliterations and then reading the English at the end. 

“Recited them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up…inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates…”

It was those lines that sprang into my mind when I was standing in my apartment with a half hour before needing to leave the house.  I thought I had nothing to do and forgot to do the thing that God instructs us to do when we wake and when we fall asleep.  I finished Entering Jewish Prayer weeks ago and today the words of Hammer and the instructions in Torah struck a chord.  I wish I had more of the physical ritual garb to go along with morning prayers and completely forgot them midday, but the important thing was that I prayed, and understood what I was praying.   I’ll recite  them tonight before I go to bed, in bed which may not be kosher.  I don’t want to say that I will do it every day, because I may forget, but it was a great way to start the day for reasons I don’t really understand and don’t need to understand.  It just felt good.

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Shabbat Challenge

I’m two classes into my second trimester of my conversion classes.  We’re spending this term going through the Jewish Holiday cycle, starting with Shabbat.  I’ve read so many books on Shabbat and just finished up Entering Jewish Prayer by Hammer and still feel a little lost, but inspired by Shabbat. 

One of you lovely readers mentioned trying to have a real, traditional, halachic Shabbat and I wondered this weekend if I could take on that challenge as well.  We learned in class that the Talmud, not the Torah outlines the 39 types of work that are forbidden on Shabbos: Carrying, Burning, Extinguishing, Finishing, Writing (hard one), Erasing, Cooking (harder), Washing, Sewing, Tearing, Knotting (I can’t even knit!), Untying, Shaping, Plowing, Planting, Reaping, Harvesting, Threshing, Winnowing, Selecting (no selection of movies to watch), Sifting, Grinding (there goes baking) Kneading, Combing, Spinning, Dyeing, Chain-stitching, Warping, Weaving, Unraveling, Building, Demolishing, Trapping, Shearing, Slaughtering, Skinning, Tanning, Smoothing, and Marking.

There’s a really amazing loop-hole when it comes to the electricity part.  Apparently, there are conservative rabbis who argue the whole “electicity=burning” thing because the scientific lingo involved with electricity actually doesn’t have anything to do with a flame being kindled.  I failed Chemistry 3 times in college and never took Physics so I don’t know exactly what the rabbi was talking about.  But those of you who know the science behind electricity know what they’re talking about.  In any case, because electricity isn’t actually burning I can have lights and my computer.  Therefore, if I wanted I could watch a movie that was picked out before Shabbos and put in my computer before Shabbos I could.  I won’t (I don’t think) but the option is there.  Honestly, most of those 39 don’t apply to my every-day life but there are others that seem problematic no writing, no cooking, no washing, no selecting, no combing. 

One of my favorite themes in Heschel’s book on Shabbat is the distinction of time on Shabbos.  He talks about Shabbat being one of the only times that we can control time when time is usually the thing we can never control.  On Shabbat we can “control” time because we take time to notice it, to stop, to pause, to exist in a holy space in holy time.  Usually when I take time for myself I spend it writing but it would be nice to take that time to read.  It would be nice to take that time to reconnect with friends, with my partner, with my family, maybe with God on a deeper level.  Even though it was written decades ago so much of Heschel’s book makes sense in 2011.  In thinking of when I could take this Shabbat Challenge- I’m planning it, trying to figure out which weekend I have off from work and what other things could conflict with scheduling Shabbat, scheduling time with God I’m astounded and reminded that time is something we cannot control.  What does it mean that I have to schedule a truly meaningful Shabbat?  I immediately have a mystical thought and try to remember to see God in everything, in every moment, at every time but the red marks already on my February Calendar remind me that I often don’t make time for God, to truly appreciate Shabbat and perhaps the only time to truly appreciate the essence that should be Shabbat needs to be scheduled in like a bill payment or doctor’s appointment.  Is that sad or is it reality?  How do the Orthodox do it or do they have the same problems and issues around observing Shabbat in a traditional way.

It looks like in two weekends, February 4-6th, I have time off of work so that will be my Shabbat Challenge.  I’m excited but mostly anxious…can I really observe Shabbat wholly and traditionally?  Am I ready?  This semester the rabbis leading the class vary weekly.  The rabbi who lead on Wednesday said something that really struck a chord with me.  He said that being a Reform Jew doesn’t mean that you’re a less-traditional or less-observant Jew but that you’re a Jew who is informed and makes the decision to do or not do something.  I’m paraphrasing but it made sense to me.  I’ve been struggling the last few weeks with the choice to convert Reform for that very reason.  I didn’t want to be a fair weather Jew, or less-than a Jew but I struggled with the prospect of taking on an Orthodox conversion because I don’t believe that the Torah can be taken for its word.   I don’t want to take this “Shabbat Challenge” just for the hell of it, and just because I’m “supposed” to but rather to experience it.  I spend most Shabbats at shul for an hour and a half and maybe we’ll light candles and maybe we’ll have challah but I’ve never gone to Saturday morning service.  I’ve never spent the day without the distractions of life to actually enjoy the one time in the week I have to reflect.  That, I’m looking forward to.

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Conversion Classes are Starting Again

Next Wednesday the 12th will start the second trimester of conversion classes.  Saying that I’m excited isn’t sufficient verbage for how I’m feeling about it.  I’ve been feeling a little down lately, a little lost-truthfully, and definitely a lot depressed.  One of the great things about working in retail is that from October-December you’re sort of in go-mode.  You really don’t have much to do except for work and there’s barely enough time to eat or sleep let alone think about the problems that may or may not be happening in your life.

Because things in my life, outside of NYC, are nothing short of hectic I’ve been able to put them at the back of my mind.  After December 25, and possibly because of December 25th things have been sort of thrown right back into the frontal lobes of my mind and therefore, almost impossible to let go.  It goes without saying that this day would come.  When I would turn to my psychologist-in-training partner and ask her to give me suggestions for therapist to help me deal with all of the stuff that’s been happening over the past few months.

The process is taking a while so I haven’t started sitting in a big leather chair spilling my guts and conflicted feelings of anger, hatred, tortured love and Jewish thinking that is any thoughts of my sister and the complicated situation she’s inflicted on my family.  Until most recently I felt that what she’d done and the effect of what she’d done didn’t or wouldn’t affect me or how I lived my life.  This has, unfortunately, proven untrue.  It’s hard to balance my disappointment with my hatred.  It’s hard to balance what it means to say that I hate my sister.  It sounds terrible, I know, but I’ve come to learn that hatred, true hatred, only comes from disappointed or unfulfilled love.  I don’t say that I hate her flippantly, I hate her because loving her has become too difficult.  Then how do you balance those feelings with thinking like a Jew.

I don’t expect for my rabbi to help me figure this out, that’s what the therapist is for after all.  I do wonder how my rabbi would help me to reconcile this anger with my Judaism and how to look at these feelings Jewishly.  I’ve read books on Jewish prayer.  I feel like I’m comfortable with the basic outline of most Jewish life cycle events.  I feel like I’ve got a decent handle on Jewish holidays but Jewish hate?  I don’t have a handle on that.  Hatred isn’t a very Jewish thing, after all.  I remember actually reading something in Hammer’s book, some Torah passage about not turning your back on your kin.  That, I struggle with.  I truly struggle with and there are many things in the Torah that I struggle with.  The role of women, the rights of women, women’s roles in synagogue and prayer-most of Leviticus makes me cringe but reading this passage in passing tugged at my very being.  Torah says not to turn your back on your kin and it’s the only thing I can do.

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When You’re a Jew-You get Two New Years!

I was always fascinated by the Chinese New Year, especially since moving to New York.  A few years ago Mirs and I went down to China town about an hour to late and missed the parade but the evidence of the festivities were in the streets.  The main drags were still closed off to cars and pedestrians took them over.  The people had smiles on their faces, there were people dressed festively and confetti in the streets.  So many ways of thinking about things became altered and enlightened when I moved to New York. 

As small and closed off as my city in Ohio is, in terms of diversity, I thought that the world ran pretty much as we did.  We were Christian, we celebrated Easter and Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Halloween, and New Years in big ways.  I’d always seen Rosh Hashanah on the calendar but only knew that it always fell on a different day each year and sometimes it was close to my birthday.  It wasn’t until this year, actually, that I realized that Rosh Hashanah was the start of the Jewish Year.  My naive self assumed that the streets of Crown Heights, Williamsburg, and Ditmas Park would be filled with cheering happy Jews blowing horns, throwing confetti, and drinking champagne.  Instead, we spent a quiet night with our Israeli friends, read from a siddur, and ate apples and honey.

As much as I’d like to think that I’d live my life according to the days and times of the Jewish calendar I live in a secular world.  Rosh Hashanah was such an interesting time for me.  I spent the evening in Temple and listened to words being spoken in a language I still do not understand.  I listened to music that was different than the Shabbat music I was used to and read books on the importance of the day.  It was my first Rosh Hashanah and I look forward to many more-I’m just excited that I get to celebrate New Years with a bang in a few days, too.  I focused a lot of my thoughts for 5771 on what I wanted out of my spiritual life.  I wanted to dedicate time to Torah study.  I wanted to dedicate time to learning more.  I wanted to learn Hebrew.  I wanted to focus on observing kashrut, in my own way.

So here we are, a few days away from 2011 and I’ve been doing a decent in job 5771.  While my Torah study has faltered, I’ve been reading a lot of books on Judaism, Jewish Prayer, and God.  I received Basic Hebrew from Amazon and it’s downloaded onto my iPod.  I listen to it when I go to bed and when I wake up in the morning.  In terms of kashrut, it’s a work in progress.  I was reading a blog from a new reader and in their last post they talked about resetting.  That’s what the New Year is to me.  I love the High Holy days for their significance as a Jew and I love them spiritually.  I still have a picture in my head of a book that is opened on Rosh Hashanah and closed on Yom Kippur and it can only be described as awesome.  The secular New Years is just that-secular.  It has no ties, as far as I know, to any religion or even the turning of the earth in relation to time of year.  We’ve already had our darkest day and the nights will get shorter and the days will get longer.  For whatever reason it was decided that January 1st, instead of the solstice, would mark the beginning of the year. 

I’ve stopped making resolutions that are empty because they lack merit or real meaning.  Instead, taking a cue from my new friend, I’m going to reset and refocus on important goals in my life that I made for myself at the beginning of 5771.  This journey towards Judaism and my life as a Jew, I’m sure, will be filled with overlaps of holidays both religious and secular.  There will be hurdles for me to try to get over or perhaps realize that I cannot get through.  And as much as I’m anxious and ready to hop into a mikvah feet first (which I’m sure is not kosher) I love this time of year because it gives cause for pause.  Time for me to pause and realize that after I’m a Jew-in-Training, I’ll never be a Jew-in-Training again, I’ll be a Jew.  Albeit a New Jew but I’ll be a Jew and I’ll never get to experience what this feels like again.  So thanks, Heath, for reminding me to pause.

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Baby Steps-a Rambling Post

One Day at a Time

Easy Does It

It’s a Marathon Not a Sprint

This morning one of you readers, always inspiration, said that she was taking baby steps in divorcing herself from Christmas and it got me thinking, am I rushing into this?  The short answer would be yes the long answer is no.  Yes, in the fact that I’m hungry and literally devouring nearly everything that I can get my hands on.  Devouring may suggest that I’m gobbling it up without tasting it which is a strong visual so I’ll edit a bit, I’m consuming it…  Granted consuming makes me think of a fire that takes over a forest in an alarming rate but that’s the metaphor I’m going for.  Consume…Absorb?    I like absorb better, it’s more peaceful, like a sponge.  Alright, absorb.  I’m absorbing my Judaism at what could be considered an alarming rate and there’s no “date” in my future.  For many of the converts in my class the date they’re working for is a wedding date.  They’ve got to get it, get it done, at get to being Jews before March 15th, June 9th, April 27th.  Those dates aren’t real wedding dates as far as I know but they’re definitely markers for them, the finish line if you will.

My new friend who’s converting Orthodox has been in private study for 5 years before making the very recent decision to convert.  Her knowledge of Hebrew prayer and the order of service is astounding and inspirational.  Then there’s me, I jumped right in feet first into the deep end and guess what-I can swim!  (These analogies bothering anyone else?)  It’s not as though I didn’t try out other things before hand, because I certainly did, but when I found what fit the best, what inspired me the most, what felt like the right place to find myself after years of searching I wanted it all and immediately.

As we all know as converts and Jews the Jewish learning never stops.  We read Torah every year over and over again trying to look for new meaning, learn new lessons, and revisit lessons learned.  As a Jew-to-be the learning seems endless but not overwhelming.  I feel like I just got a handle on what happened at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and another one of you readers helped me to remember the “big deal” that is Passover.  Still I wonder, should I be taking smaller steps rather than giant leaps.  Am I taking enough time to relish what it feels like to be a Jew in Training or has the want to be a Jew clouded the appreciation for the process I am in right now, what I’m going through at this moment.

I think back to the spring when I started shul shopping and rabbi chatting.  I sat down with 4 rabbis and visited 4 shuls before finding the rabbi that inspired me and challenged me most.  To be honest, I’ve never actually attended a Shabbat service there rather attend a shul closer to home with a rabbi that I’ve only met in passing.  The next step in my conversion process is meeting with a rabbi on a regular basis for one-on-one meetings.  I’ll continue to attend the larger classes starting in January for the second trimester of Judaism classes but in order to secure the one-on-one meeting I needed to join the synagogue.  I struggled with this decision not only because of the financial burden but because besides Kol Nidre, I’ve never experienced the synagogue’s worship style.  What I did know, as I signed a check and filled out the membership paperwork, was that Rabbi L always makes me think, she always makes me consider and reconsider, she always says something that is challenging to me and that is helping to form me into the Jew that I will become.  She’s active in the synagogue as an educational rabbi, she doesn’t do the sermon part-still she’s so very much a part of why I chose this shul.  The way I explained it to Mirs is that the mikvah is my finish line, joining the synagogue is the race course.  Great thing is that it doesn’t actually end at the mikvah, it actually begins at the mikvah.  The beauty of the mikvah is that afterwards, I can go to which every synagogue I chose and I will be a Jew.

Still I’m wondering if this step, the reform step, is the step in the right direction.  Is an Orthodox conversion a better option for the just in cases of the future.  You know, just in case my child as an adult moves to Israel for a trip and falls in love with another Jew whose parents want to verify that they’re crazy lesbian mothers are both “real” Jews.  It’s a silly what if but it could happen.  Could I be jeopardizing my potential future child’s love life?  Will an Orthodox conversion better the troubled mind of the rabbi who makes sure that Mirs has her candles for Shabbos?  Do I even want an Orthodox conversion?  Why haven’t I taken a longer look at Conservative conversion?  I considered it for a second before heading directly for the Reform.  The truth in the decision relied heavily on my gayness and need to be in a place that it would be accepted and acknowledged rather than ignored or swept under the rug.  The fact that I’m gay and will be a gay Jew is important to me.  In class and at last week’s Shabbat service the rabbis talked about  LGBT issues as Jewish issues.  I like that and I wonder if I’d find that message of acceptance and love for all people in a Conservative shul or an Orthodox shul.  I don’t know and can’t know, but this is what happens when you slow down a bit and take a look at where you’re going and where you’ve been.

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When will December 25th just be a Day

Even as a Christian I was very aware that Jesus wasn’t born on December 25th.  December 25th, the date of Christmas is very close to the pagan Yule Holiday, which is on December 21st, if I’m not mistaken.  The date of Christmas was chosen, I gather, in this close proximity to help the new Christians be more inclined to celebrate this new holiday while forgetting their old one.  I made this assertion as a young adult in high school to the dismay of many of the sisters who ran the school.  Only the infamous Ms L amused my assertions by banishing me to a portion of the room she called the Pagan Babies Section.  We weren’t pagans, necessarily, we were just questioning, intelligent shepherds, rather than sheep.

Still, part of the world actually believes with their whole heart that December 25th is Jesus’ birthday.  I call it stupidity, some people call it faith.  I really don’t care all that much because as a Jew I acknowledge that Jesus was born a Jew.  He died a Jew.  JESUS IS A JEW!  Now before you click away and think I’m one of those Jews that believe that Jesus was the messiah, let me just be clear.  I’m still waiting for the messiah, not idly, just waiting for the rebuilding of the Temple, for Elijah to let us know what’s up-you know, the world to come.

All joking aside, the fact of the matter is that December 25th isn’t yet just another day to me.  It’s still Christmas and this December 25th will be the first time I’m un-celebrating it.  I just e-mailed off an article I wrote for The Sisterhood titled, “Making December 25th Just a Day” in it I talked about what it means for me as a Jew-to-be to be getting very close to a holiday that no longer “belongs” to me.  I read it to Mirs and she thought that I sounded sad, that the article was sad.  It could be that I am sad, that it’s sad, or that I read it in a monotone voice that could be interpreted as sad.  Or, it could be all of the above.  Truth is, I’m sad but not about Christmas per se, just the stuff that goes along with it.  Family, Friends, Family. 

I’m missing my family right now and wishing that I could’ve gotten the time off work to be with them.  As much as I argued for my cause with Mirs that fateful afternoon in SoHo, and as much as I still defend my stance, I’m starting to understand what she meant.  Unfortunately, because only I am becoming a Jew, not my entire family, Christmas will always be a different thing for me versus what it is for them.  Last week when I had Shabbat dinner with my friends we were talking about what Christmas means.  The other Jew-to-be had a hard time last year, she’s been studying privately for five years.  She told us how she broke down into tears on her mother’s shoulder in her living room surrounded by all things Christmas.  It was the first time, she explained, that it didn’t feel right.  I don’t know what that feels like yet.

My apartment is decidedly un-Christmas.  There are no lights, no garland, no carols.  Just my mezuzah, my menorah, my hamsas and the many books on Judaism.  I’ve been reading Entering Jewish Prayer by Reuven Hammer on a daily basis and find the words, the reasoning behind the siddur, and the hows and whys of Jewish prayer very comforting-especially given the time of year.   I’m definitely sad that I will be alone on December 25th.  Most of the distractions I find when I find myself alone will be unavailable to me as not only the world but New York shuts down on December 25th.  It occurred to me that not only is it Christmas but it’s also Shabbat so all of the Jewish-owned stores that could be open will not be.  I’m sad that I will be here in my apartment with a feline that’s sort of an asshole rather than with my family.  I’m sad because I won’t be able to see the delight in my nephews eyes as they open the presents I’ve bought for them.  I’m sad because I’ll be alone.  I’m not sad or mourning Christmas, but what happens on Christmas-time with family and friends.

We’ve got 9 more days until this whole thing blows over.  How are you other converts and Jews-to-be doing?

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