Starting Over At New Year's - My Jewish Learning

Hmmm, was wondering how to balance Shabbat and the (secular) New Year's...

Starting Over At New Year's - My Jewish Learning

Surprised by "Surprised by God..."

Recently a visit to Kolbo netted me a bag full of books, including Surprised by God: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion, by Danya Ruttenberg. I was initially drawn to the book by its intriguing blurb and the cover photograph of a young woman fearlessly wearing her Kippah as she headed down a busy street, conspicuously facing oncoming traffic. Her back is to the reader, leaving an impression of taking the first step of a thousand-mile journey. Her rebelliousness made me smile. I wasn’t quite sure where she was going but, for a couple of a hundred pages at least, was willing to be led.


I was also drawn by the book’s subtitle: "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion." This so echoed my own skittishness regarding organized religion, which I used to see (*as the author also mentions, I believe) as a gateway drug to spirit-breaking soul-surrendering fundamentalist abdication of common sense and reason. Go to Shabbat services and come out a fundamentalist zombie. Sit in on Torah study and come out embracing religious intolerance and justified racism, Creationism, and stoning of women and wayward children.

That this book would touch upon this fear, amongst others, speaks to a candid authorial fearlessness that for me kept the pages turning. With an easy if not graceful, catching-up-with-your-BBF, tone she writes how various life incidences - including the painful death of a close family member - shook her down to her foundation and in turn opened her up to universal aspects and needs of humanity that were larger than she. The conduit between these two planes of consciousness, was her discarded, although not entirely forgotten, Judaism

That these incidences gave her more than a moment’s pause, especially in trying to figure out just where they were all leading her, and what her close friends might say, think and ultimately act, resonates with me. Although not a convert to Judaism, Rabbi Ruttenberg’s spiritual journey from hardened teenage cynic to emotionally crushed daughter and tentative follower through to rabbinical awakening, parallels and intersects some of my experiences of conversion. Whether it was coming out as queer, trans or as a fledgling Jew, I have always wondered just where my paths of (re)discovery were taking me, and just what and who I would have to leave behind along the way. I too had (and continue to have) feelings of stepping into an ancient current much larger than myself and that the only way to let said slipstream carry me away to where I needed to go was to let go of my overinflated Self.

What I also enjoyed were her insights about the nature of religion that needs to relate to a greater Cosmos however we may describe it. Drawing upon a number of sources from different world religions she plumbs some very heady depths...not in search of Truth (whatever that might be) but of her own truth, her place in the Universe.

For the convert, for the spiritual, for the philosopher or for the reader of sojourns that head down the road less taken, I could not recommend this book more.

Holocaust Hegemony | The Weekly Standard

Holocaust Hegemony The Weekly Standard

I personally try not to get sucked into the crushing political black hole that has framed the discourse regarding human rights in The Middle East - my belief is that extremists on either side have stolen the conversation and would rather debate to death rather than discuss to peace - but this editorial speaks to some formenting ideas I have had.

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe that any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic, or even anti-Israel...although I do believe that cries to dismantle Israel as a nation-state, or that it not defend itself against terrorist attacks, are. But I think measured voices from all sides are needed here.

(BTW, is it just me or has anyone else ever just stepped back to think, wow, the myopic and fundamentalist demands from both sides of this issue sound an awful lot alike. As they say in recovery, there are no coincidences.)

Notes from a Becoming-Jew on Christmas

18 tevet

Last entry from this holiday season, 2010/5771, I promise.

So it’s just after ten o’clock on Christmas night. I am shutting off the television after four straight Encore movies and a luxurious Chinese dinner I am sure will go straight to my waistline and thighs. General Tso’s, in case you were wondering, and yes, it was worth every bite.

I had the opportunity to go to the movies this evening and then go back to the hostess’s house to order in some Chinese and share some laughter, pour some drinks. There would have been about twelve other strangers there plus two friends. It was a very lovely invitation, sight unseen, from a very lovely person, although I admit I was uncomfortable with that large a crowd of strangers. One of the friends who would be there said, well, they will only be strangers until you get to know them. Fair enough, E.

Honestly though, tonight I didn’t want to be around people tonight for whom this was all "old hat", especially if said hat was red and white and topped with a white fuzzy ball. I didn’t want to be amongst people who had made their peace with this whole holiday season, especially since, this being my first Hanukkah, I hadn’t yet.
Does that sound strange to you? At first it did to me. I mean, why not spend time sharing popcorn, celluloid and dim sum with friendly faces? Why not toss back a shot or two, maybe even three? Why spend an evening in with overpriced take-out and a bad 1980's movie marathon? For God’s sake, they’re about to show "The Hand That Rocks The Cradle"...can anything be worse than that?

For me there is.

For me, what could be worse is pretending I’m at the same level of serenity with this day and night as they are. I’m not, I haven’t been and I need to respect that struggle.

What could be worse is forcing a smile when I don’t want to smile, joking when the last thing I feel is humor,
and end up resenting myself. I need to respect that, too. Although the intensity of these feelings have fallen off greatly in the last 24 hours, I still feel culturally isolated and put-upon.

And here’s the thing I needed. I needed to feel those emotions, let them come up and finally wash over me. I needed to acknowledge them and see they wouldn’t drown me. Judaism teaches that, that emotions are only bad when we repress them, mask them, do everything we can not to feel them. Well, for me the only way to shed hurts and confusions and angers is to let them surface straight and sober, own up to them - and then kiss them goodbye.

I think that’s what I’ve been doing this evening. I’m not sure I could have done that in the midst of a social scene, or at the end of a string of hastily tossed-back drinks. If the only way out is through, then I needed to find that Exit tonight alone.

To quote, I’m doing the best I can with what I know - and I’ll do better when I know more. I have no doubt I’ll handle next year’s December/tevet a little more socially than this year, and perhaps the year after that even more.

In the meantime, one year, one holiday season, one holy day at a time.

Shalom.

Jewish Dream/Dreaming Jewish?

Last night dreamt I was an ethereal figure in the middle a living room full of bearded Jewish men. They wore clothing circa 1930's/1940's but their facial hair was oddly trimmed in modern fashion. What were we all doing? What else - discussing/debating Torah!

It was a spirited talk, punctuated with smiles and laughter. (The corners of their eyes crinkled every time they chuckled. Given the deep crows feet, they seemed to laugh a lot.) Were they Conservative, Orthodox? Were they even rabbis? Don't know. Whoever they were, they did not seem to mind that a woman with light emanating from her every pore standing there, adding her opinion. As long as I was adding my opinion, they were chill.

They say we'll know how far we've come in learning a new language when we start to dream in that new tongue. I'm not sure how much that does or doesn't apply here, but it was still a nice dream to have had, all the same.

'Holiday' Rant for the Day - 2fer!

1fer

The scene: On campus work-study office, two desks next to each other.

Girl Sitting Next To Me: So what are you doing for Christmas?

Me:                               Er, um...nothing...

GSNTM:                       Really? Why not?

Me:                                Really? Because I'm converting to Judaism...

GSNTM:                       Wow. You're like, the only person I know who doesn't celebrate Christmas. Oh,                                oh wait a sec...I know one other person who doesn't.

Me: (cue sarcasm):         Really? One. Other. Person?

GSNTM                        Yeah!

*****

2fer:

Student leaving office today: Hey everyone, have a happy holiday...oh hell, make it a Merry Christmas!!!!

The DNA Speaks

This just popped up in my email today. Not coincidentally, it came up during this past weeked, too.

The DNA Speaks

but what is it saying, especially about the idea of bloodlines and the need for them, justifications, assumed levels of more-than vs. less-than (the idea of one Jew being more jew than the next Jew), and of course, for those of us who come to Judaism as converts.

While I agree there are many medical advantages to this type of data, I have always found it too easily co-opted by notions of purity, superiority, and even worse. (Because as some of us in the queer community have long already feared, find a gay gene and then you have a way to erase homosexuality from the gene pool.)

As a sociology major, I found the paragraph regarding the "toxic concept" of race to be spot-on - history shows it is rarely used for anything other than to "promote inequality and rationalize domination." Given how this is already happening at the highest levels of Israeli politics, do I have reason to believe it wouldn't continue?

Catching up, Part 1: May - June 2010

(Preface: Although I just started this online journal of my Jewish journeys, I have been making entries since mid-Spring on my laptop. This is when I first talked to Rabbi Zecher of Temple Israel, Boston, who instead of letting me convert that day as I wanted - and thank you for that! - suggested amongst other things that I start a diary. So I thought I would drop in those entries here just to catch up to the present day. For the most part these will be left untouched. Also the dates are approximately accurate.
I have to admit with some chagrin and love, a smile touches my lip as I reread these personal postings. I recognize the voice, the person and the incidences. These are quite a testimony of just where I was in my life. Some of my questions have found answers, which have led to more questions. Some remain elusive.Fair warning: not all of this is pretty and speaks to some very emotional life incidences that I make no apologies for. )

(May, 2010)

"Shabbot Shalom!

I went to my first Shabbat service and Torah Study today and thought it an excellent spiritual experience. Although I understood not a word of the service (spoken in Hebrew? Yiddish?) I did gleam their feeling of giving thanks to their Higher Power, which always leaves me uplifted.

I also loved their talk/study afterwards, how they brought their passage home. It was some verses about spies Moses had sent to go scout out the Promise Land - historically, um, er ok, morally am not sure, but the rabbi brought it all back the personal.

I love how Jews can laugh at themselves and discuss. They really like to discuss. Not necessarily debate - they are not trying to be right - but they like to question, to examine, to turn things inside out, to try to find its truth.

I like that Judaism allows this, that it fosters questioning and questions and can even readily admit it does not know the final answer (or even if one exists.)

I like that it brings its lesson back to the personal that it discusses human psychology. That it does not claim a victim mentality, nor harnesses everyone with the yolk of original sin. No, their lessons left me today feeling good and empowered, something I never experienced w/Catholicism

Christianity always left me feeling less-than, especially as a pansexual person of transsexual experience. I have always felt I have been saddled with original sin and must spend the rest of my existence trying to scrub my soul clean enough for a Father figure who will only let me know if I’ve done a good enough job when I’m dead. Christianity sees my transsexuality as a handicap, a horror, something to be shunned, hidden away, pitied. It hates diversity, glorifies group-think and keeps a militaristic tone.

At this moment I see Judaism as the antithesis of that. I see it as a discourse amongst individuals, a way to bridge the gap between the religious and the secular, the human and the divine. It does not glorify on the lottery-type miracles but instead focuses on the daily miracles of human interaction. It brings the divine down to street level. It is earthy, somehow. It doesn’t concern itself so much with the dogma of fundamentalism and patriarchal mythos but with everyday interactions, emotions, the sensuous Life.

This strikes me as very psychological-based. For instance, yesterday’s teaching ended with a call not to shrink one’s self in the face of adversity, no matter the size of the giants before you, not to diminish one’s own self, but to stand tall. I can’t think of ANY Catholic sermon that ever carried that message. Catholicism seems to preach the opposite - stay bent under the crushing weight of invisible sin and be thankful for the opportunity to be indentured to a Master God. This is like an abused child being told to be grateful for having an abusive father. This is a poor starving person being told to by the rich at the dinner table to be thankful for her or his every crumb. Really? Is it not better to invite to a place at the table (without the pressure to make them conform to one’s own religion?) Is it not better to teach them how to cook? Help them get educated to get a job so they can live on their own? .

Jews know about slavery - but they also know about freedom. Freedom from Masters. Freedom from group-think. Freedom from ignorance. Freedom from the resignation of Fate. Freedom from the impossible weight of constant sin. Freedom from the angry demanding Father Figure who judges without reason from a Zeus like throne somewhere in his Olympus-like Heaven.

As for the local Socialist movement -

um, I’m starting to have a big problem with their anti-Israel focus and fervor. Not that I agree with what the IDF did but why the sole focus on Israel and not Hamas? Both sides have killed, why choose only one to focus on? Are they a socialist platform or a palestinian platform? By the way, exactly how does Socialism see itself fitting into this argument? It’s weird because I don’t see them taking on other Muslim protests around the world. I don’t see them fighting for Muslim rights in France. I never saw them standing up for Muslims post 9/11. I don’t see them fighting for the rights of Muslim women in Turkey, Iraq, Iran...yet this vehement focus on Israel.

I will grant you I do not know the history of the conflict well enough and do not know Zionism well enough to offer up an informed opinion yet. Some of the stuff I am seeing is definitely making me feel uncomfortable. But then, so is Hamas. And so are the socialists’ one-sided protests. Did they protest during the bombings or cheer them on? Must find out. Disturbing, no matter what.


Israel: Questions to be answered. Is this only a Jewish state, a Zionist’s wet dream? What is Zionism? Is there any justification for it? (In other words, do Jews have a claim to Israel the way Native Americans have a claim to territories in The United States? Are they an indigenous people?) How was Israel granted to them? By whom? What considerations, if any, were given to those living there on the land when Israel was formed? And by whom? Who fought who in all the wars that followed?

Given Christianity’s centuries’ worth of Crusades (which some still glorify) can they be an objective critic to Judaism’s claim on the land?

What is Life like in Israel? Is it really an apartheid state? I would find it incredibly hard to believe that writers such as Erica Jong and David Mamet would support any system that would encourage that sort of racial divide. Is Israel the new South Africa? I have been told there is a divide amongst its residents that borders on civil war regarding Gaza. I don’t think white South Africans had that view. Inside of Israel Jews and Arabs seem to be living in accord - not necessarily peace but in accord. Is that really the case? If so, what does that say? If not, what does that say?

And finally, Gaza. If the citizens voted in a terrorist organization, what does that say? Some say it was in reaction to Israel, yet look how hamas treats them. Didn’t the Germans vote in the Nazis prior to World War II? Wasn’t that in part in reaction to how the rest of the world treated them? And would the answer justify Israel’s violence-making? Or hamas’s missiles? At what point do people simply say stop? At what point do people simply say, Killing is Wrong, Justified Violence is still Violence?

Too many questions to seek all the answers today. The only thing I can come away with is knowing that I have much further to go before I come down on one side or the other - if any at all.
Shalom....."


June 13^th, 2010

"Something else I find I really like about Judaism. It does not try to convert the world; it does not see prosthelytizing as its mission. Attraction over promotion. Why? As explained on wikipedia:

"Righteousness, according to Jewish belief, was not restricted to those who accepted the Jewish religion. And the righteous among the nations that carried into practice the seven fundamental laws of the covenant with/wiki/Noah Noah and his descendants were declared to be participants in the felicity of the hereafter. This interpretation of the status of non-Jews made the development of a missionary attitude unnecessary.The dogma and beliefs of Judaism, although revealed by God in Judaism, consist of universal truths applicable to all mankind

" So in other words, there are some basics to being morally/ethically good. If you do that in your ordinary

Life, than it is the equivalent of acting Jewish....

Also, regarding individualism in the greater Reform Judaism Movement:
"...personal autonomy still has precedence over these platforms; lay people need not accept all, or even any, of the beliefs stated in these platforms. ...if anyone were to attempt to answer these two questions authoritatively for all Reform Jews, that person's answers would have to be false. Why? Because one of the guiding principles of Reform Judaism is the autonomy of the individual. A Reform Jew has the right to decide whether to subscribe to this particular belief or to that particular practice." Reform Judaism affirms "the fundamental principle of Liberalism: that the individual will approach this body of mitzvot and minhagim in the spirit of freedom and choice. Traditionally Israel started with harut, the commandment engraved upon the Tablets, which then became freedom. The Reform Jew starts with herut, the freedom to decide what will be harut - engraved upon the personal Tablets of his life." [Bernard Martin, Ed., Contemporary Reform Jewish Thought, Quadrangle Books 1968.]"

"The Dance of My Jewish Muses" - Poems

(I am, amongst other things, a writer, poet and spoken word artist. It was inevitable then that I would find my muses along my Judaic journey. What a surprise - each carry a tamborine in one hand and are holding out the other for me to join them in their dance.) 

(I will also be posting them in chronological order, as they also chronicle a Jewish awakening that's been a rather revelatory, empowering and ultimately sweet chapter in my Life)

(Spring, 2010)
Don’t Wait
Don't wait on lottery tickets. Make your miracles happen.
Don't wait on heaven. Make that paradise here.
Don't wait on family to come around. Find your tribe.
Don't wait on the past to catch up. Move into the future.
Don't wait on apologies to forgive. Let go and let love.
Don't wait on creeds to manifest. Do deeds now.
Don't wait on change.
Change.
(copyright 2010, Stephanie Bonvissuto)

(Summer 2010)
Here are your nails back.
I’m climbing down off this rotting old cross.
It can’t hold my flesh anymore.
And besides
I’m tired of just hanging around.

Here are your wafers and wine.
Had my fill of this never-ending last supper.
Stuffed with cannibalstic salvation;
I leave hungry
for manna more filling.

Please take away your original sin.
I am done carrying the burdens
of a couple naked innocent kids
you saw fit to
damn all of Humankind by.

And yes, I’m returning your paradise..
Don’t want entry to any gated community
where homogeny rules and eternity
is define as a looping
reruns of Father Knows Best.
(Copyright, 2010 - Stephanie Bonvissuto)



the last bullet fired
My heart aching, I tried to follow the trajectory of
the last bullet fired

which had felled the oxymoronic armed peace protester who had been
busy beating back the armed IDF soldier who said he was just
trying to stop the next missile from landing in the middle of a classroom,
launched from the outskirts of a desperate border town
flattened by steam-rolling tanks hoping to outflank
the desert terrorists
(or were they revolutionaries?)
who had blown their own bodies up
along with others on loaded buses
in the holy frustration of those inside an occupation
overseen by those set upon on the day of their birth
by neighbors on the other side of barbed wire strung up by strangers who,
after being bombed themselves by the desert terrorists
(or were they revolutionaries?)
eager to re-establish a sanctuary from
the red-hot ovens and gas-laden showers
and a world’s cold-bloodied indifference,
evacuated to their calmer distant shores,
negating the political promises made to
the indigenous people who claimed they were there before
those other indigenous tribes...

wait, hold on.
which ‘others’ again?

Oh, you know...those others...

Always another ‘other’ to
denigrate, depreciate,
detonate and exterminate
until sweet Shaddai’s Promised Land
and the Prophet Mohammed’s (PBUH) sands
become a carpet of bodies and limbs
of unknown nationality.
(copyright, 2010 - Stephanie Bonvissuto)

Rosh Hashanah 5771
I dip my days through the plate
of sweet thankfulness,
tasting gratitude on my tongue.
(copyright, 2010, Stephanie Bonvissuto)




(Fall, 2010)
The Law of Return
Somewhere under the inconstant moon,
wrapped in a tallit of stars,
its fringes dancing in warm winds,
this then
is what the desert road tells me -
That it does not matter how far I go
along this hidden road
nor
just where the night may take me
guiding with invisible hand,
And
it will not matter what bed I should awake in
nor
the loving stranger, cloaked in perfumes,
I shall roll over to find
And
I should not be concerned
about all those new tastes
that
will tango across my tongue
or
the strange rhythms my heart
will want to beat along with.

All that matters,
all that has ever mattered,
is that
with every new direction
and every new beat
and every lingering kiss
I get
one step closer
to my tribe
and that I keep on
coming home.
(copyright, 2010  Stephanie Bonvissuto)

My First Hanukkah, from the outside looking in....

A good friend of mine here in Boston, who is also a convert to Judaism, remembered her first Hanukkah. "It was hard," she recalled in a distant voice one usually reserves for recalling their first root canal. "It’s okay when the two holidays overlap or are really close on the calendar but when Hanukkah comes early in the month..."

At the time I simply nodded, with no real expectation or appreciation of what was to come. It’s kinda like trying to imagine what your first session of sex is going to be like from talking to your BFFs. You’ve heard things, some of which might actually be true. Then it happens. There are emotions you weren’t expecting. Maybe you were even hoping for love. You read the stories, see the pornos, and every now and then heard it was actually really painful for the first time...

I am thinking about all these things and more. Today is Thursday, December 16 - 9 tevet. My first Hanukkah has come and gone and was, like all the High Holy Days have been so far, a mix of wonder and intensity sprinkled with moments of introspection and yes, even fun.(This latter aspect I totally blame on my friends Molly and eeka, who never fail to remind me there’s always a reason to laugh at, and with, Life.) Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were quite awesome in the literal meaning of the word. Simchot Torah found me literally dancing in the street with a Torah in hand - what was not to love?

My first Hanukkah was different. At first it was terribly confusing. I was told it was a home celebration, not a synagogue festival, yet my synagogue made sure to sing The Dreidel Song (not this version, though: South Park's Dreidel Song) during Shabbat services and brought in an Israeli jazz band for Oneg Shabbat. (Seeds of Sun, in case you were wondering. Seeds of Sun. As a closet jazz fan with a NY conceit I thought they were pretty sweet.) I was told it’s really not a gift-giving holiday, and yet my fave Judaica shop here in town (Kolbo) was having sales. I was told no one really sends cards yet there were Hanukkah cards on display. Should I send one to the rabbi who is guiding me through conversion? I got two hesitant affirmatives and one contemptuous no. As for that gift-giving thing, I read it’s only on the first night - no, the fifth evening - oh, wait, it’s every night? (Pretty good for a non-gift giving holy day.)
Irony abound, especially when I finally found out those eight days were in celebration not only for the miracle of the oil but as a visible symbol of resistance to assimilation. (More thoughts on both to follow.) I hung out with friends for a couple of those nights, sharing some gifts and spinning some Dreidel (eeka’s a total shark, by the way), losing my gelt and learning the Barenaked Ladies Hanukkah Blessing (Barenaked Ladies Hanukkah Blessing. The Leevees "Nun Gimmel Hei Shin" was pretty cool, too.

I caught sight of other candle lights in distant windows and didn’t feel so all alone, at least for eight days. At work I proudly put up a menorah and made time for the Campus Hillel group’s Hanukkah Dinner. For awhile there it was good and cool and even a bit righteous to be so visibly a Jew. (Of course it is every day, but during Hanukkah it’s a sweet celebration!)

And then, with the turn of a calendar day, it was over. The last candle burned down in the window and the dawn brought just another cold December morning to Boston. And that was okay. I was sad and that was okay, too. I think there’s a direct relationship between the more meaningful a ritual and the emotions lingering behind when it’s over.

But the holidays, I found, were not over yet. In fact, the shopping season was just getting into full swing. Colorful lights now adorned the majority of homes. Wreaths and trees tied to the tops of cars. Every other commercial spoke of "the" holidays to the sound of soft carols and warm kitchens. My roommate, who is a big fan of Yule, spent a recent weekend day camped in front of the television watching holiday specials. When I get off the T at night I hear Christmas songs reverberating around the neighborhood. All holiday specials, no matter how secular, eventually lead back to Christmas, Santa, reindear with red noses, miracles in mangers, a baby in swaddling clothes, ‘the-reason-for-the-season’. People who are unaware I am converting keep asking me what I am doing over the holidays. When I inform them I already celebrated mine they give me an er-um-ohhhhh sideways look and quickly end the discussion. Who knew being a Jew would be such a holiday buzzkill?

The funny thing is I have never been crazy about Christmas even when I did celebrate it. The pressure of gift-giving and meeting others’ expectations usually left me emotionally strung out. I did manage to glean some joy from Rudolph and The Grinch and, in my more warped moments, could appreciate hearing Ode to Joy in the background as Bruce Willis wrecked a skyscraper on Christmas Eve in the original ‘Die Hard’. (Ode to Joy - Die Hard)Then, when I was a practicing Pagan, I would light my candles on Solstice Eve to chase away the dark and celebrate the ever-so-slow return of light. As pagan rituals went, it always left my cheeks aglow. Unfortunately I often held this ritual alone or with only a few people. Large covens usually tend towards more dogmatic ambiences, in my opinion.

Yet, even with rituals as theologically different as the Solstice is from Christmas there is a strong philosophical connection between the two, mostly due to the Euro-Caucasian roots of both. Listen to Jethro Tull’s "Solstice Bells" if you don’t believe me. You might not find many Roman Catholic priests and Pagan priestesses agreeing on it but historically Christmas and the Winter Solstice are long lost cousins. Think about that the next time you’re tossing back your Wassail.

What this means is, the common holiday cheer has everything to do with celebrating Christian beliefs and nothing to do with Jewish ones, which leaves the Jews standing outside the cultural country club looking in. It is different and therefore treated as less-than and ‘other’. There is no widespread celebration or recognition of Hanukkah, no federal closings, no secular school closings, no Jewish holiday songs slipped into the rotation of your favorite rock radio station, no cultural connections being made between Jews and celebration. There are certainly no grand musical specials from Washington, D.C. as there are for Christmas. (I’m soooo glad there’s a separation between Church and State in this country - oh, wait...).

As I am finding out, if you follow Hanukkah instead of the state-sponsored holy day in this theocracy, well then baby, you’re just out of luck. The world will not stop for you and your beliefs, your neighborhood will not be rocking out to your holiday songs; the TV will not change its programming to reflect the meaning of your holy day; the radio will not be buzzing with The Maccabeats latest hit. Granted, the advantage is your holiday will not be commercialized to death; of course, the disadvantage is you will be buried in a cultural avalanche of overt and covert Christian propaganda that may or may not kill you. I exaggerate, of course, but some days (daze?) it feels like only by a little stretch.

Now I know I am neither the first convert nor Jew to foster this particular lament, nor will I be the last. But I am the person I know I am going to sleep with tonight and wake up to tomorrow morning so right now in this moment, my feelings matter. Being on the outside of the dominant culture’s religion I am being made keenly aware of its over-arching pressures and influences. It kinda feels like the first few days recovering from an addiction. There is relief and some sadness. There are moments of wondering what to do next, where to go next, what’s safe for my emotional well being and what is now disastrous.

Here’s what I know. I am finding my first year celebrating the Jewish calendar has been filled with both moments of unexpected joys and dislocations, of feeling embraced by community and of feeling stranded, adrift, impossibly alone. It’s a struggle I was warned about but could not fully appreciate until the conflicts began I do want to emphasize I harbor no ill will to any of my Catholic and Pagan friends and truly wish them all the best of holidays. But like so many others, perhaps even a few Catholics and Pagans amongst them, I cannot wait for this cloying season to pass.

Q & A

12, Tivet, 5771:

Why an online journal?
When I first told my rabbi that I intended to convert she suggested I keep a journal. I began with all good intent and energy, but soon a new semester and new job sapped most of both. Now that I have started an Introduction to Judaism course the same suggestion was made to the class (not coincidentally, by the same rabbi.) I thought, GPA and paycheck be damned, it was time to make a committment to myself along this Jewish journey of mine. I could let it pass by unobserved, focusing merely on my mikveh, or I could appreciate everything I was seeing/tasting/smelling/thinking along the way.

Why write online? To open myself up to discussions, an exhcange - and no doubt a crash at times - of thoughts. How else does anything in this universe grow except through friction? (Yeah, I know - "That's what she said.")

Why "Sarah, Ruth & I..."?
Some of my fave Jewish role models - Sarah, the first female Jewish convert, and how hard must that have been? You don't take many larger leaps of faith than being the first at anything (especially when it6 deals with spirituality.) And Ruth so passionately believed in her conversion that it became its own Book in the Jewish canon.

What stream of Judaism are you following?
Reform Judaism. Have really connected with its message of social justice being intertwined with spirituality. (Something I wish my Paganism had been more in tune with.) Love its ongoing discussion regarding religion (so unlike Christianity, which I was dragged up on.) Also love that it accepts me as I am - not as "handicapped", a "mistake" or just freakish, as some other religions have. (In case I hadn't mentioned it, I identify as a queer woman of transsexual experience).

Where do you go to Temple?Temple Israel, Boston - a welcoming community that greeted me so warmly from my very first Shabbat. (I currently go there for my Shabbat, Torah Study, Introduction to Judaism Class and Riverway Project Shabbats). The clergy and congregation have gone out of their way to remind me that the gates here are always open. They are resoundingly and unapologetically Pro-Israel (although they do feel free to question and act upon the country's less than liberal human rights record), left of center, and embrace the LGBT community (as in couples, families and singles.).http://www.tisrael.org/  Riverway Project Ohel Tzedek: Tent of Justice http://www.tisrael.org/gblt.asp

General Misc.:
Reading:
Just finished "Surprised by God" by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg and couldn't recommend it more. Although she is a culture Jew and needed no formal conversion, I found many similarities between her journey and my own. In fact, my copy of the book is embarassingly annotated.Surprised by God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion


For my class I am reading "Living a Jewish Life," a very accessible book by Anita Damant, and "Settings of Silver" by  Stephen Wylen.

Other books read and recommended:

"The Sabbath" - by Abraham Joshua Heschel The Sabbath

"Seasons of Our Joy" - Arthur Waskow Seasons of Our Joy

"Choosing a Jewish Life" also byAnita Damant

"On Both Sides of The Fence"by  Vladka Meed

"Maus: A Survivor's Tale" Volumes 1 & 2 by Art SpiegelmanMaus I & II

"Chronicles of The Holocaust"

Music:
As I post this I am listening to cuts from The Josjh Nelson Project. I had the absolute joy of listening to them live at Temple Israel, Boston's Soul Food/Riverway Project. http://joshnelsonproject.com/

Fave Local Jewish Organizations/Store
Keshet - Keshet ("Rainbow")

Kolbo - Kolbo

Shalom

Me: Dragged up Roman Catholic, did her Pagan thing, now coming out of the wilderness (or so it feels) to Reform Judaism.

This blog: Frequently spewing shiny Judaism. Question marks? Exclamation points! Simcha between the lines.

Expect: See above. Only more.