I Believe, With Perfect Faith. Do You?

Without explanation or interpretation, these 13 Principles of Faith, enumerated by Maimonides, are my credo. I am a Jew, this is my credo, and labels are the fire that will destroy us.

That flame inside you, that burns bright, is your neshama. Use that fire for good, for tikkun olam, for love and community, not hatred, judgment, lashon hara, or to put yourself above others.

1. I believe with perfect faith that G-d is the Creator and Ruler of all things. He alone has made, does make, and will make all things.
2. I believe with perfect faith that G-d is One. There is no unity that is in any way like His. He alone is our G-d He was, He is, and He will be.
3. I believe with perfect faith that G-d does not have a body. physical concepts do not apply to Him. There is nothing whatsoever that resembles Him at all.
4. I believe with perfect faith that G-d is first and last.
5. I believe with perfect faith that it is only proper to pray to G-d. One may not pray to anyone or anything else.
6. I believe with perfect faith that all the words of the prophets are true.
7. I believe with perfect faith that the prophecy of Moses is absolutely true. He was the chief of all prophets, both before and after Him.
8. I believe with perfect faith that the entire Torah that we now have is that which was given to Moses.
9. I believe with perfect faith that this Torah will not be changed, and that there will never be another given by G-d.
10. I believe with perfect faith that G-d knows all of man's deeds and thoughts. It is thus written (Psalm 33:15), "He has molded every heart together, He understands what each one does."
11. I believe with perfect faith that G-d rewards those who keep His commandments, and punishes those who transgress Him.
12. I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah. How long it takes, I will await His coming every day.
13. I believe with perfect faith that the dead will be brought back to life when G-d wills it to happen.

Happy Chanukah to those who believe in me, believe with perfect faith in HaShem, and to those who have no clue what to believe. Without judgment, without exception, we all have our own path and no one can tell you that your path is wrong -- only HaShem can guide you. 

Journeying to Judaism: A Square Peg

When I was a kid, my parents urged me to live by the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” They bought me a Precious Moments bible at a young age; after all, we lived just minutes from the Precious Moments Chapel in Southern Missouri and spent many holidays visiting the grounds to see the work of the artist known for cute figurines and graphics in childrens’ bibles. I even attended a wedding there once. Even now, looking back, the artwork and the artist’s inspiration are beautiful, even if his book isn’t my book.

I don’t remember a single time that my parents attended church with me, unless it was a wedding of course. My childhood experiences in church were had with friends, actually. I went to vacation bible school during the summer with my friend Annie, and I remember one summer where the theme was something about Cowboys and the Wild West. I remember wearing a cowboy hat (that I had for many years after that, until I was in high school I believe), and helping make fresh ice cream in some wooden barrel, intermixed with coloring pictures of Jesus in cowboy gear. I don’t remember the message, I just remember that the ice cream was really good and the church was massive. This was in Southern Missouri, right there in the bible belt where the evangelical agenda swirls about as fierce as the tornados in Tornado Alley. Annie was incredibly religious, and everything her family did I remember was intermixed with a religious theme. She was one of my best friends, too. One of the six that I was attached to for the first 12.5 years of my life. One of my other friends, Kendall, was a Jehovah’s witness and despite their beliefs about holidays (there are none), her parents still showered her with gifts when the rest of us were getting them – all because she was a “good girl.” She left school during every celebration, too. I was always bummed that she missed out on the Valentine’s Day box contest. I won one year for “The Love Boat.” It was a classic three-tier box with a hatch that opened for cards to be undelicately shoved inside. Oy, that was a proud moment. But I digress! They say there is a friend turnover every seven years, and when I turned 14, I stopped talking to most of my Missouri friends. I hope they all are finding what they’re looking for.

When I was 13, we moved to Nebraska, and I also happened to fall into a religious group of friends. In Middle School I ran around with a crowd that belonged to a large church downtown that frequently had lock-ins and activities for the younger kids. One fall I managed to stay up 72 hours straight: one day was a dance, the next a lock-in, the next a sleepover. Those were the days. But I don’t remember doing anything religiously motivated at that lock-in. I just remember a friend chugging a bottle of Mountain Dew and subsequently hurling all over the rec room. In high school, my group of friends came from a variety of backgrounds: Protestant, Lutheran, Catholic. I learned early that a friend’s parents weren’t really accepted by the Catholic Church for one reason or another. I spent holiday services at different churches, and at one point I remember taking communion because everyone else was and I still don’t even know what it was that I did, but I remember knowing that it was wrong. One Ash Wednesday I went with friends and got ashes placed on my forehead and I remember thinking how weird and uncomfortable I felt. But it was pervasive around me – everyone was Christian, everyone was religious. Everyone with ashen marks upon their foreheads. It was how I rolled. I was the secretary of Fellowship of Christian Athletes and went on several “Weekend of Champions” adventures in Nebraska, including a trip in which I was “saved.” I was in Campus Life, where Jesus was presented through large assemblies on Club Day and it was more about having fun than getting or experiencing Christianity. I wanted so badly to fit in and feel the way my friends felt. That unbending faith that you didn’t have to worry about a thing because Jesus died for you. It was easy peasy. Just believe, and you’re saved. That’s all it took. And even that time, when I was saved, it was a lie. I didn’t believe it. I wanted to believe it. My entire life I’d wanted to believe it. But I couldn’t.

The last straw of my social Christianity, my trying to fit into the mold that was pervasive around me, was in college. I attended services with my friends, and I really liked them. The singing was powerful and intense, and the pastor was so hip and friendly. I remember during emotional services he’d call students down to pray at the front of the shul, if they were suffering. I stood there, wanting to go down, wanting to try, that one last time, to make it work. But I didn’t. And then the pastor confronted me at a dinner and handed me a copy of a book that is known for turning people toward Jesus. I put that book on my bookshelf and never looked back.

I’d spent my entire life attempting to fit into the mold around me because my friends were all devoutly religious individuals comfortable in their Christian skin. Whenever I’d bring up a controversial topic, wanting to discuss what scripture says about modern topics that need practical applications, I was shunned, given a bible verse, and sent on my way. It had never sat right with me, and my questions always were left unanswered. Christianity, in my experience, had become an easy out that I just couldn’t grasp. It would have been so easy to just believe, to put all my faith in a single idea, and let the rest of my life waft by. But that wasn’t my mold. So much of my unhappiness throughout high school and into college was supported by my never-ending attempts to make it work, to fit in, to force myself into the Christian club. There are so many experiences I could write about in my efforts to fit my soul into Christianity. Retreats, discussions, arguments, fights, lost friends …

These, my biggest problems in high school resulted in a deep depression. I tried hard to fit, but I didn’t. Anywhere. I was the Christian Girl in Academic Decathalon and Quizbowl, Math Club, but also Choir and sometimes Volleyball, Model UN, honors society. I went a variety of avenues. I attempted to perfect who I was. But it always came back to the search. The Big Search. I was helpless, hopeless, lost. I kept pushing the square peg in the round hole. I’d done it my entire life. It hadn’t worked, but it was an effort. It was something.

And then? Judaism. Out of the blue, the word was whispered to me in a conversation about beliefs and religion my freshman year. My knowledge of Judaism was the Holocaust, a topic covered by my 8th grade teacher Mr. Smith. I met a Holocaust survivor, I watched the movies, we talked about the catastrophe. But the Jews were a distant people and I didn’t know a single one. Eighth grade came and went and the Jews were never affiliated with anything more than the Holocaust. In high school, my junior year, we did Fiddler on the Roof – never a more distant musical topic for a group of Midwestern Christian kids. But we didn’t talk about Judaism, or why we were singing certain songs, or why the chuppah was important or why Shabbos was so special. I played Mottel’s mother, and that was that. He was 6-foot something and I was 5-foot something. It was implausible, and the musical was more about getting a chance to step out in my musical prowess than about the characters, the history, the story, of the Jews.

How funny to think that me, the little girl who delighted in ice cream at VBS in Joplin, Missouri, and the Precious Moments Chapel’s Christian Bible depictions, who tried her entire life to be a devout and serious Christian, would be at the doorsteps of Orthodoxy, stepping over a threshold of thousands of years of memory and tradition. Even in the six years that I have pursued Judaism, I still vividly remember all of my experiences living the way I thought I was meant to live. I remember taking my little brother and older brother to a Christmas service at my friend’s church – urging my parents to come with, but them denying attendance. I felt so proud then, bringing my little brother to something he’d never known about or understood (he didn’t grow up with the pressures that my brother and I did with friends and school).

But here I am. Still giggling about Jesus in cowboy boots, wondering if I grew up with Jews and just didn’t know it. Smiling, knowing that my children will be brought up with not only the golden rule, but a tradition deeply embedded in my soul. My children will have the right and will be encouraged to embrace what is truly true for them as my parents allowed for me. But at the same time, I hope that I can raise my children in a way that they will respect, connect, and cherish who they are as Jews, carrying on a tradition that their mother’s neshama traveled so long and so hard to give them.

I Stood at Sinai.

Several years ago -- I do not recall when or how or where or even why -- I began remembering.

There I was, surrounded by thousands of people, all dressed similarly in fabrics of tan and brown with shades of subtle and quiet color, clothed as one would be in the midst of the desert to shield the body from the sun, to shield the face from a windy mess. Around me, there was a dark sky, loud thundering, wind blowing from every direction, flipping my hair into my eyes, around my face. I reached up with dark, tanned skin, to pull the long dark hair away from my face. And there, on my hip, in cloth wrapped around me in a swing, was a child, no more than a few months old. People around me spoke in low voices, calm but fearful, curious and questioning. But I, standing in silence, stared at the clouds swirling, the wind whipping, the light and darkness molding around the mountain. The wind continued to blow, the baby began to cry, and the cloth around my feet whipped around me, my hair again in my eyes. We were awaiting words from G-d, from Moses. I stood at Sinai, and this is what I saw.

This isn't creative fiction or narrative. It isn't me being thoughtful or pensive or hopeful as to what maybe it would have been like to be at Sinai. I've had these memories, the vivid imagery that I cannot even put into words appropriately here. The colors, the smells, the sound of the wind and the voices. It's the truth I have to accept, my neshama stood there with a child, it seems, awaiting the Torah.

Believe me if you want, if you will. Or take my words as creative fiction, my mind molding a history it could only wish for. Either way, every time I go to shul, every time I daven, this image plays out in my mind. I don't know where it came from, I don't know how it got there, but it was placed in my memory for a reason I imagine.

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 Grumbling Neshama.

This morning, my heart was jumping in and out of my throat. I couldn't eat breakfast, I couldn't smile, I couldn't breathe. I got the shul almost 30 minutes early, I sat in the car, I freaked out. The weather was gloomy, overcast and looking as if the sky would drop at any moment. At 10 till, I got out of the car and walked into the shul.

I sat down with the rabbi this morning, to have our first conversation about my eventual, hopeful, conversion to Judaism within Orthodox Judaism. I sat on the couch, he sat across from me. I was hopeful, I was trying to be positive, optimistic. And then? The questions. Why not Conservative Judaism? What are you looking for? Are you keeping kosher? Shomer Shabbos? You live dozens of miles from shul, how do you want to work it so you keep Shabbos? So many questions. And stories about past, failed, regretful conversions of people who just, well, couldn't crack it. The rabbi told me that the neshama is a delicate thing, it's like a light bulb. A rabbi doesn't take the neshama lightly. You can't rush things, you can't force things.

Perhaps the most fascinating thing, that put me at ease, that settled my mind and my soul for just a few minutes, was that he said it wasn't an Orthodox synagogue -- it was a synagogue that was Orthodox. He wasn't an Orthodox rabbi -- he is a rabbi who is Orthodox. I wish more rabbis, more congregations, more JEWS had this perspective on things. There is the synagogue, there is the rabbi. Our way is our own, no?

He suggested I need to start praying every day (I agree), I need to be serious about kashrut (I wish I didn't like eating out so much or that Hartford had eating-out places for observant Jews), I need to find a way to make Shabbos happen. So? He suggested I start staying with a family every Shabbos. Luckily, we know a family that is more than willing to have Tuvia and I in their home on Shabbos. It can happen, and we'll make it happen.

Where there's a will, there's a way, right?

The rabbi said that, the intellectual side is there -- I know what there is to know -- but that he sees that my neshama is hungry, and he wants to help sate that hunger. So? Every Thursday I'll be studying with the rabbi. I'll be at shul every Friday/Saturday.

But I left the synagogue this morning feeling overwhelmed. Kind of distraught, but mostly overwhelmed. I worried about my relationship with Tuvia and my living situation (should I move to W. Hartford? buy a car? rent an apartment? quit school ...?). I sat in the car for a long time, talking to Tuvia, listening to myself. Wondering and wishing for answers.

I do not feel differently about where I'm going, it's how I'm getting there that is difficult and frustrating. If I lived in a city? Things would be easier. Life would be easier. Without a car, without a home near a shul, without being within the community, there are questions that must be asked and answers that must be sought.

But, let's just say, my neshama might be overwhelmed, but it's still hungry.