The Timeline Shifts: When Did I Know?

At the beginning of 2011, I started analyzing my journey to Judaism in this post, trying to figure out exactly when I knew. People ask me that all the time: How did you know? When did you know? As if you can pinpoint a moment in time when it suddenly arrived: My neshama is Jewish!

Alas, it isn't that easy. It's steady, gradual, and after years, it becomes a haze of memory. I always feel like it was Spring semester of 2003 that I began my foray into Judaism, with an Intro to Judaism course, but clearly it came before that. How do I know? I just found this in a journal from 2003:

Weird, right? Super weird. January 2, 2003, I knew something. Clearly, the talk I remember having with my friend that made me go out and buy Anita Diamant's "Choosing a Jewish Life" must have happened in Fall semester 2002.

Can you pinpoint the moment you knew?

Shabbat Thoughts.

I want to stress to the readers that when the Tanakh talks of the ger, it is not referring to the "convert." Rather, ger means "stranger" or "sojourner" in the midst of the nation of Israel (גר is the Hebrew, which is used even today as the verb "to reside"). In the Tanakh, there is little conception of a convert, and I think that this concept might have been very foreign to the people of Biblical times. Throughout history, conversion to Judaism has been outlawed, and the danger of converting meant low numbers converting to Judaism. It is only over the past 60 years or so that conversion has become the booming "business" that it has, with new freedoms and new nations allowing this possibility to really flower.

That being said, the rabbis spend much time about the ger and how to treat the ger, because, for the rabbis, the term came also to refer to proselytes (converts) to Judaism. The terms used by the rabbis throughout the literature, then, are ger tzedek and ger toshav (toshav means "resident"). Thus, today when we see that blasted word, we assume it always refers to converts, when, in fact, it doesn't -- especially in the Torah. 

Okay, now that that's out of the way, I wanted to impress upon my readers and all those worried converts out there, as well as all of those born Jews who don't know how significantly the rabbis impressed upon born Jews to make Judaism work for the gerim (referring specifically to proselytes). These are bits taken from my D'var Torah from Parshah Sh'mot, which actually can be found in full on the righthand side there (it was largely about Rahab, my tour de force, but got into the discussion of the rabbis and converts).

Numbers Rabbah 8:2 says, “Why does the Holy Blessed One love the righteous (referring to a discussion of converts being loved as the righteous)? Because they have neither inheritance nor family. Priests and Levites have an ancestral house, as it says, “House of Aaron, praise the Lord. House of Levi, praise the Lord” (Psalms 146:19). If someone wants to be a kohen or levite, one cannot because one’s father was not. But if someone wants to be righteous, even a non-Jew can, since that is not dependent on ancestry.” The midrash continues with a parable about the stag that attaches itself to the king’s flock. Daily, the king instructs his shepherds to take care of the stag, and they ask the king why he cares so much abvout this one animal:

"The king responded, 'The other animals have no choice; whether they want or not, it is their nature to graze in the field all day and to come in to sleep in the fold. Stags, however, sleep in the wilderness. It is not in their nature to come into places inhabited by man. Is it not to a sign of this one's merit that he has left behind the whole of the wilderness to stay in our courtyard?' In like manner, ought we not to be grateful to the proselyte who has left behind his family and his relatives, his nation and all the other nations of the world, and has chosen to come to us?"

This parable responds to the unvoiced question/critique of the native Israelite: "Why does the Torah provide all of these protections for the convert? Does God care more about them than about me?" The midrash responds, "Consider what the convert has given up."

This section of the midrash concludes:

"Accordingly, God has provided the convert with special protection, warning Israel to be very careful not to do any harm to converts, and indeed, it says, 'Love the convert' (Deuteronomy 10:19) … Thus God made clear safeguards so that converts might not return to their former ways [which God fears they might do if native Israelites treat them poorly]."

Although some tannaitic midrashim voiced suspicions that the convert might fall back or that the convert might not entirely abandon his past beliefs, this later text places responsibility for backsliding converts squarely upon the native Israelites – that means YOU! Born Jews! 

... I think that many people today could learn much from the rabbis discussion of Rachav and other converts – our great sages viewed these converts as truly magnificent, unique, and key to the future of the Jewish people. 

So, my diverse readership, take to heart these words that the rabbis wrote for a reason. Why do we so readily ignore these words today? Why is the weight of the world placed on the convert, in the crossfire of politics? I don't know. I can't be sure. Paranoia, fear, a tumultuous world in which trust is something people know not of. Think on this over Shabbat, speak about it with your table guests, discuss your fears and what you don't know and then go out and educate yourself!

Shabbat shalom, friends!

Swallowed Up in the Mikvah

I just stepped out of the bathtub, after watching steam rise from my legs and feet, the air much colder than the water and the now-temperature of my body. I sat in the tub, candles oozing light, music crooning, and I tried to imagine myself back at the mikvah, standing in that warm pool of water, after taking the literal steps into a Torah-binding agreement with HaShem. I couldn’t. The experience, a true one-time experience, is best left to the memory in its warm and welcoming embrace of the wings of the shechinah. But I want to do my best to share some of it with you. It’s just who I am to tell a story.

The entire thing happened suddenly, in a swirl of phone calls, organizing, and haste. I’d anticipated at least the weekend to consider names, to call friends to be there, to let everyone know. And then, in a quick whish of winter wind, the plans were made and I was set to be at the mikvah on Friday, not today as originally planned (which, by the way, was quite surprising and sudden as it was). To describe it as a whirlwind experience would be understating the actual whirlwindedness of those 25 hours.

You see, I met with my beth din, for the second time, at 10 a.m. on Thursday. By the next day, at 11 a.m., I was sitting on a couch in the very nice waiting room of a very nice mikvah on the Upper West Side. I didn’t sleep Wednesday night, and I surely didn’t sleep Thursday night. I was tossing around names, scenarios of what we’d do if the weather got bad as it had been Thursday morning (every route into NYC was closed for a time, and by the grace of G-d all the rabbis made it in). But everything, miraculously, went like clockwork.

On Friday, I arrived at the mikvah, I spoke with the mikvah lady, I prepared, I went into the mikvah, I accepted a variety of covenantal and binding sentiments and laws upon myself, I dipped, I said a b’racha, I dipped again, I said another b’racha, and I dipped again. I ascended those literal stairs, I entered my dressing room, and I cried. I cried with a smile that I cannot even put into words. I can feel the feeling right now, the confusing smiling, laughing, crying, crying more, and smiling feeling. I stared at myself, drenched in mikvah waters, in the mirror and I could see the change. I stand firmly by the idea that my entire life I have carried within me the Jewish neshama that has shined so brightly these past six or seven years. But standing there, looking into that mirror and later listening to the rabbi bestow upon me my name as a Jewess, I felt different. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me back up.

In the mikvah (if you want more details about the procedure, feel free to email me, but this is just for those going through the process who might want to know what to expect), the water was warm, at a temperature that I can’t even describe. “Warm” doesn’t do it justice. Similarly, it didn’t really feel like water. It grazed my skin like a thick liquid, holding me firmly in place, pressing the heat against my chest, like I was being cradled tightly with the kind of pressure that is welcoming. I’m not a very touchy-feely kind of person. I shy away from hugs, and as a child my father couldn’t cradle me, he had to cross his legs and place me there in order for me to stop crying. But the warmth and pressure of the mikvah waters were the most comforting I’d ever felt – those waters, they cannot be replicated. I could see the rabbis reflection in the water beside me, and as he spoke I answered confidently with tears in my eyes “I Accept” with every statement he issued. And as each statement came, I shook more and more. Like tons of little shivers up and down my arms, I was shaking, almost shivering in the warm water. I was anxious, nervous, excited, and my body was processing the emotion in any way it could.

At last, I was told to dip. I grabbed my breath, and dropped into the water, floating freely, fingers apart, toes apart, my body a mess of limbs in the warmth. Through the echo of the water I heard a muffled “KOSHER!” being yelled by the rabbis as they departed the room. And the funny thing? I couldn’t find my footing afterward, I floated, my short little limbs unable to find the ground. After all, the water reached up just at my shoulders, and that was with me on my tip-toes. I was swallowed up by the water, and it was beautiful. At last I found the floor, and the mikvah lady assured me I just need to be down for a second. I guess for her, it’s nothing new. For me? I could have floated freely without air, mindlessly twisting and turning, wrestling with the shechinah in that water for eternity. I dipped two more times, after saying the b’rachot clearly, and heard the mikvah lady shout “KOSHER!” (I have to tell you, this was one of my favorite things – hearing that KOSHER! being yelled really loudly; it was empowering and affirming!)

I came out after having dressed, and cried, and laughed, and was greeted by mazel tovs from friends and the rabbis. The rabbi read a document aloud for everyone to hear, proclaiming me Chaviva Elianah bat Avraham v’Sarah, and I cried again. Chaviva is the name I chose at my Reform conversion in April 2006, it holding the same meaning as my given name, Amanda: “beloved.” Elianah I chose because I wanted something that included and named HaShem. I had very, very little time to officially decide, and I chose Elianah, meaning “G-d has answered,” because I felt as though my neshama was officially, finally, being recognized as having been at Sinai as my deep visions and memories have shown me. Thus, Chaviva Elianah bat Avraham v’Sarah was born on the 15th of Tevet 5770.

And then? Well, we’re back to where I left off.

My first thought, after everything, was this: No one, NO ONE, can deny me anything as a Jew anymore. Period. No one. I immediately thought back to my having applied to Aish HaTorah’s birthright program and being turned down, told harshly and degradingly that I wasn’t a Jew, and issued materials on conversion programs. I thought to myself, “Now, now they can’t do that to me. NO one can treat me like that!” Everyone is quick to assure me that they’ve always thought of me as a member of the tribe, and I’ve always thought of me as a member of the tribe, too. But this one thing makes it different: No one has to feel it anymore, because it’s so. It’s halakicly so! It’s so empowering, I can’t stress this enough.

After the mikvah, an outing for bagels, and wishing farewell to friends heading off on a cruise (oh, and seeing Alec Baldwin!), we headed out to prepare for Shabbos. After a flurry of calls to family and friends, and the realization that my voice was going – fast – I stopped, let my arms fall to my side, and told Tuvia that I was exhausted. I’d been running on adrenaline the past two days, not to mention the past two years, and I was ready to stop. My neshama looked at me and said, Chaviva Elianah, it’s done, it’s really done, and we need to rest now. And so I slept all of Shabbos, save for mealtime (of course). I really can’t put into words that feeling, that exhaustion that I felt (and still feel a little bit) after such an arduous journey.

And that, I suppose, is the rest of the story. I feel like I’m leaving so much out, but the memory, well, it’s so much my own. I want there to be some mystery, some mystique, some feeling that is just between me and that mikvah and HaShem.

As an aside: I’ve received emails, calls, Twitter replies, Facebook messages and comments, and so much more, from dozens and dozens of friends and strangers alike, wishing me mazel tov on my conversion. Save for one individual, the response has been nothing but welcoming and positive. This weekend, there are meals in honor of my simcha. Something else I fail to put into words is how I personally am reacting to everything, that being the mazels and the welcoming and the kind words. It is, in a word, overwhelming. Don’t get me wrong, it’s overwhelming in the most positive way, but I’m the kind of person who shies away from praise, I always have been. To put it simply, I honestly don’t know how to take a compliment. So, over the past few days, I’ve been overwhelmed by the kind things people have said to me, and I almost feel as though I am not serving people right in my responses. I say thank you, I say thank you again, I feel awkward, and I say thank you again.

Am I alone in this? This is such a big thing, and I know that I’ll experience this again when I get engaged (if?) and married and have kids and all of the other major simchas. Will I ever learn how to be properly responsive? I feel as though others think I’m being ungrateful, but the volume is hard to respond to. I love my friends, my blog friends, my Twitter friends, my Facebook friends. I think I am the most blessed and lucky person in the world right now. I’m quite good at writing, especially when it comes to experiences and emotions, but this is just something for which I can’t figure out how not to be awkward. Sigh. Just know, I love you guys. You and this blog and everything that surrounds my efforts to really light a fire under every neshama out there, those are the things that keep me going, that keep my hopes high and my fingers tapping.

Why am I converting Orthodox?

After my post of frustration yesterday, and a conversation tonight with a Reform rabbi friend, I decided to write this because I don't know that I've written anything like this before. It's long and wandering, much like my path so far, but give it a go if you will. I might write more on this again, and if I do? Well, I hope it's well-perceived.

For a long time, I thought that the fact that I converted almost three years ago under the auspices of the Reform (not Reformed, folks) movement was to my advantage in my pursuing an Orthodox conversion. I mean, I know the rules of the game. I've studied for almost six years now. I've learned halakot, traditions, customs, prayers, songs, holidays, you name it, I know it. The neshama says feed me, I give it lots of Jewishly oriented foodstuffs, and it wants more. My neshama is an overweight 6-year-old with a penchant for Manischewitz, kugel, and everything challah.

But then, just last night, someone asked me why I felt like I needed to re-convert. This person, a respected friend (I think I can call him that), said that he has a problem with people who nullify or negate their Reform conversions when they convert Conservative or Orthodox. And that really got me thinking. Do I really have it so lucky?

You see, people who come at Orthodox Judaism with a fresh face, from a Christian or Atheist or Pentecostal or Muslim or Buddhist background are going at it straight. They say, "I chose Judaism" and it's left at that. There's no questioning why they chose specifically Orthodoxy as their conversion method. There might be, but it doesn't come with the question: "So what? Reform conversion not good enough for you?"

A long time ago, when I started this whole path down the road of Orthodoxy, I made very clear that I'm not re-converting. I don't need the certificate. I have one, and it's really pretty, and I'm quite a fan of it. It's in an envelope, and every now and again I pluck the envelope out of my file cabinet and look at it. The white out spots because the rabbi accidentally wrote the location of our shul and not the location of the mikvah and beth din. It has personality, a history, it's where I began. That shul? It's my family. It's like that family you can't ever forget. Because, first and foremost when you convert, is you can't forget where you came from.

I have a first family, my nuclear family. They were my "the golden rule is the rule" family who never made us go to church and insisted upon pride, truth, and the pursuit of honesty. Then there's my second family, the shul family, who helped shape me and show me that my Jewish soul wasn't just a figment of my imagination. They helped me grow and thrive and become Chaviva, the Jew, the girl who has traced both sides of her family back to the 1700s without finding a single Jew (lots of Quakers though!). And now? I have a third family, my Orthodox family. A community of people who insist upon dinners and stay-overs and challah and kindness and smiles and hugs and helping me affirm my Jewish soul, the Jew, Chaviva. To them? I'm nothing but Chaviva. A girl who will someday dip in a mikvah and will come out the same as she is right now this very second.

So it's not, I repeat not, re-converting. I'm reaffirming my Jewishness. It's a reaffirmation of my neshama, my path, and acknowledging that I'm still moving on that path, and that I've arrived at another fork in the road, I've come upon another family, that here I am in this beautiful place with these beautiful people and my Jewishness is thriving and springing forth in a more observant, traditional, skirt-filled, and heckschered-food kind of way. You're not looking at a photo here, folks. This is a motion-picture. A movie. No stills here.

I can't really express how much I am not nullifying or discounting or throwing out my Reform conversion. How can I? It's what got me started on this path. You've heard it before, and you'll hear it again -- Reform Judaism (for me and many others I know) is the gateway drug. It's the most opening, welcoming, easy-to-feel-at-home-in form of Judaism that's out there. Without my Reform family? I wouldn't be here. Had I just gone to that grumpy ole' Conservative shul way back when, I probably would have stopped dead in my tracks. I would have said "goodbye Judaism! hello ______!" Reform Judaism was my starting point, I was there hashkafically and it made sense then. Now I'm here. My ending point? I don't know.

I'm not exactly sure what will happen some day when I feel more observant, more Jewish, whatever. It's a process -- a process of evolution and reevaluation and reconsideration and most importantly, reaffirmation. That's why we have such important milestones within Judaism. You have a naming ceremony or bris, an upsherin, a bar or bat mitzvah, an engagement, a wedding, a first baby, and the cycle repeats. Some men have second bar mitzvahs. There are all of these cycles that we honor, we affirm that we're Jewish and these events are significant in our growth personally and spiritually. And for me? Well, the conversion under the auspices of the RCA and Orthodox movement just means that I'm hitting another milestone (here's hoping the next is engagement, eh!?).

I'm not affirming my hashkafah amid Orthodoxy because I'm worried about having fully Jewish kids who won't have to suffer through conversions or questions or because I want my wedding to be legit for my future Jewish husband and his family (though these are definitely bonuses to the whole shebang). It isn't for a sheet of paper. It isn't because -- like I said so long ago -- that I will jump through as many hoops as Orthodox Jews want so that they'll see me as REALLY Jewish. No, it's because I want to affirm where I am Jewishly, where my neshama is Jewishly, where my body is Jewishly. Sitting before a beth din and having them ask me if I'm going to raise my kids Jewish, if I'm going to cover my hair and go to mikvah and all of these things, well, to me that makes sense. It is me affirming where I am now.

The question was then posed -- if I had originally converted Orthodox, and decided to go Reform, would I insist upon a Reform conversion? And my answer was no. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. It's nice that we can float so fluidly between belief and observance and everything. I've oft referred to myself as an Underconstructionist Jew and I think that's how ALL Jews should identify. Labels create havoc and confusion and frustration. They create the "us and them" philosophy, and they are what is driving the right further right and the left further left. The middle? It's a lost art. But wouldn't it make sense, if people really thought about where they were? Am I an observant Jew? A non-observant Jew? Am I pro-Israel? Anti-Israel? Am I pro-mechitzah? Anti-mechitzah? And think these things without feeling like there's a suffocating pressure to actually CHOOSE a side, or to do so with the fear of oppression and dissection and being picked apart by the other side. If only we could feel safe to define ourselves and affirm ourselves. To define ourselves by what we ARE and what we BELIEVE and not by what we are NOT and what we don't believe.

I refuse to define myself by what I am NOT.

So this is all I can say. I see myself as a traditional-seeking, mitzvot perfecting, mechitzah loving, GLBT and women's rights believing, hopeful, realist Jew who happens to feel cozy right now in the modern Orthodox community. As such? I feel like it's a good time for me to reaffirm my Judaism. Once upon a time, I refused to even consider that someday I'd be Conservative or Orthodox. Why? Because people told me, and I read everywhere, that it was oppressive, hateful, condescending, secretive, unwelcoming, archaic, and wrong. It was anti-forward thinking. It was stuck in the past. It was not what Judaism is meant to be. But then? I realized that wasn't the truth. At all. It was the opposite. What I experienced was different. And I chose to NOT define myself by what I wasn't and instead take a look at what I was and what I felt and believed.

And here I am. Reaffirming, reaffirming, reaffirming.

But the most important thing? I'm doing this for me. It feels right for me. I was planning this before Tuvia. Before Connecticut. Before all of this. I'm not doing it for anyone or to prove anything. I have nothing to prove. It's how I feel. It's what my heart sings, and if it's right for me, if it's what I feel is necessary for me, for my neshama, for my own heart and mind and body, then that's all that matters. And if you don't agree? Well, you can have your own conversation with G-d to battle that one out.

Because, really? It's between G-d and me.

(It would be nice to have everyone on board with me here, though.)

The potpourri: Movies, Books, and Electrocuted Family.

So many things to say, so little space to make it all relevant and/or connected to every other thing that needs to be said.
Firstly, the Sex and the City movie. I guess I won't say as much as I was planning to, simply because it just isn't worth the space. But beware, reading this might ruin the movie-going experience. Wait. On second thought, this stream of consciousness has made me think that maybe I should post my thoughts at the end of the blog so if someone wants to read all the other junk, they're not tainted by my spoiler. Moving on ...

Secondly, I got a bunch of documents in the mail today from the St. Louis Dispatch archives. It amazes me that I can get a couple or three or four documents from one location for a whopping $6, whereas getting marriage licenses from various counties in Illinois is going to cost me upwards of $50. How does that happen? Mom has suggested it isn't worth it, but I'd rather collect the docs now and not have some relative trying to track them down in the future. Better to do the leg work and get it done than wait, eh?

So I received the obituary of my great-grandma's brother, Edward Weilbacher, who had died of electrocution in 1922. It sort of threw me because here's this 19-year-old kid dying of electricity in the early 20s. I was assuming perhaps it was some sort of fratboy incident gone wrong, but as it turns out, he died after being electrocuted while using an electric floor scrubber. The sort of mysterious part, though, is that supposedly it killed him because of a weak heart. His football couch marveled at such a thought (which is why there was an inquest) -- this was a healthy, athletic kid. How could he have had a weak heart? The story in the Dispatch is pretty long for some kid getting electrocuted, and as it turns out, the reason it was such big doings was because he had been the star quarterback and team captain of his high school football team. He was also in a fraternity, so chances are the listing of "scholar" on his death certificate means he was attending university. Where? The obit doesn't say. The obit does list his brothers and sisters, including one brother I was unaware of who isn't buried at the family plot. The mystery woman buried there could, however, be this other brother's wife I guess. Either way, how nifty that he died in such a tragic way. I mean, it isn't nifty ... but finding out these quirks in the tree is fascinating. The funny thing about it, though, is that after he was juiced, they hosed him down and put him back to work. Had they taken him immediately to the hospital, he probably would have survived.

Thirdly, I finished one book and got about 1/3 of the way through another book during flights and airport time this weekend. I finished reading Marc D. Angel's book on Orthodox conversion and then started reading Chaim Potok's "The Promise." The later is an incredibly quick read, and the former was as well. The thing about the former is that it wasn't what I expected in a conversion book. Most of the books I've read are very much about the ins and outs of the process itself and what people do or do not believe. Rabbi Angel's book detailed the history of conversion, the rabbinical rulings and responsa, historical fluxes in the acceptance and avoidance of converts, etc. He talked about the different types of converts and why they choose the path they do, and he included various essays from converts of varying backgrounds and what led them to the Orthodox route. (In more cases than not, the converts started on the Reform route because it was easy and/or accessible, only to find themselves reconverting later or finding a difficulty associated with their original route that led them to the Orthodox beth din.) I'm sort of zipping through books, which is a good thing, considering I have so very many of them to read, and the moment I get to graduate school, my reading style and habits will change greatly.

Fourthly, we come back to the firstly. The Sex and the City movie. I have to say my company was outstanding, and the way all the women in the audience were dressed gave us endless conversation. The estrogen abounded, and my movie companion was definitely outnumbered. But cripes. I found myself so upset at the end of the flick, in dismay, frustrated. Maybe I'm just worn out with the Happily Ever After movies. The scenario that everyone gets what they want, or rather, what we -- the audience -- want for the fictitious characters. Yes, it's a movie. We go to them to be entertained, to escape the sad and lonely existence of life. To watch characters fall in love and live happily ever after. Or, in the case of SATC, we see characters who don't necessarily fall out of love, but fall back in love with themselves. Not everyone in the movie ends up in love and with a spouse and the kids and the car and the house and the dream. But for Samantha, the dream WAS being alone -- being a sexy vixen who can have sex with anything and everything that moves without consequence. It's essentially who she is. So she, too, lives happily ever after. I guess I yearn for surprise. I yearned for Carrie to not end up with Big. For her to somehow realize that all the tumult, the shit, the mess, the breakups and get-back-togethers over 10 years were a sign that it wasn't all meant to be. Nothing's perfect, but anything that is so broken for so long must be like Humpty Dumpty, right? Maybe I just wanted validation. To know that ending my nearly three year on-again/off-again with the supposed man of my dreams was the right choice. Because for the length of that relationship it had been this Carrie/Big comparison, though I knew that there was no comparison. For starters, I wasn't in my 30s. I wasn't a cosmo-drinking sex column writer. I wasn't Carrie and he most certainly wasn't big. The comparisons continued though, as I dated a Russian and other exotics in between the on-agains. It was ridiculous how my friends and I made the connections. Maybe that's why the movie's end irritated the hell out of me. I wanted them to break as my little fantasy had broken six months ago. But it didn't, and life goes on. We want the happily ever after, because it rekindles that hope that maybe we can have what we want. That we should really fight for it. If it can happen in the movies, then ... right?

A girl can dream, anyway. Maybe I had the Mr. Big character in my life all wrong.