Postcard from Elul, 5773

16, Elul, 5773 -

Welcome to the middle of Elul, that last month of the Jewish calendar, that runs right up to the shofar blast that announces the arrival of Rosh HaShanah and with it the Days of Awe, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Simchat Torah, 5774 and...well, everything!

More than a place marker on a calendar, Elul has become a meaningful time for me as a Jew. My first year at Temple Israel of Boston I was still in the process of converting and undergoing some serious life challenges. I was afraid I would not be able to celebrate the High Holy Days with the congregation I was now thinking of as my Temple Family. So I was completely taken by surprise when the Rabbi I was converting with came up to me in the quiet before Shabbat services and handed me an envelope with a ticket to HHD services. My eyes grow hot with tears.

The following Elul was my first post-mikvah and the HHDs took on special relevance and reverence. I surprised a good many people by choosing to go to the more traditional Yellow-ticket service as opposed to the Temple's widely-regarded eclectic Purple-ticket service. (This was also the year I had just started a new hormone regiment which completely waylaid me in the middle of Yom Kippur prayers and I got to spend the afternoon in the local Emergency Room. One of my Rabbis checked in to see if I was okay. One more reason to <3 my Temple.)

Last Elul (5772) found me wandering in the middle of some heavy emotional strife, or what one of my Rabbis called a "wilderness moment". It was a pretty frightening place for me to find myself in, especially being so unaccustomed to processing feelings. I was able to talk to some of my Rabbis in the days before Rosh HaShanah and glean enough insight and garner enough spiritual strength to take those doubts and fears with me into the HHD and Days of Awe.

This Elul has been less dramatic than some past seasons but no less meaningful. I have been filling up the pages of my Jewish diary with thoughts and reflections, fears and hopes, doubts and dreams. I have been focused on those sins which only I could claim and how to ask for forgiveness, especially from myself. Why is that always the hardest plea to ask for? I am not a fan of holding up the mirror to me and am always shocked at how badly I can treat myself. But I have come to think that before approaching anyone else I have wronged, I must start with that reflection in the mirror. Hillel the Elder had it right; go, Hillel!

Always looking to glean more understanding of the holiday, I have also been spending serious time with Beginning Anew: A Woman's Companion to The High Holy Days (ed., Gail Twersky Reimer and Judith A. Kates). This anthology offers some challenging perspectives on locating and listening to women's voices and perspectives from both within and without the traditional HHD Torah readings (e.g. - Sarah, Hagar, Hannah, The Akeda, etc.) I have been finding these stories problematic with complications and complexities that have left me unsettled as a feminist-minded member of the Tribe. Until now I have blamed my uneasiness on my status as a (relatively new) convert. This volume has revealed that I am not the only Jew who feels this way. In true Jewish tradition, these writings offer no easy solutions or any answers at all but instead provocative insights and dialogues that garnish further questions and impetus to delve deeper into the upcoming holiday. I couldn't recommend this book more!

Finally, as with every past Elul, I am enjoying the seasonal Rosh Hashanah music videos. These always leave me uplifted from the inside out and put a ridiculously joyful smile on my face. Below is a short list of some finds this season - please feel free to add to them!

So whether this month finds you deep within the pages of a journal, an anthology, listening to music or simply sinking your toes in the sands of your favorite beach, may these days of reflection and renewal lead you to the Gates of Rosh HaShanah. שנה טובה!‎

The Book of Good Life - The Maccabeats    
(Nope, don't know the song it's based on, but I always love The Maccabeats smooth sound...)

Erev Rosh HaShanah - Avigail Cohen
(Beautiful.)

Call Me Maybe Chana Tova - Agence Juive
(Why yes, it is in French. il pas une grosse affaire.)

Soul Bigger - The Rosh HaShana Song: Unique New York Productions

  

What is my worth as a childless single Jew?

1 Elul 5772

So lately I have been wondering what my communal and individual worth is as a single childless Jew.

I know (thanks to some very long nights with the Internet’s glow as my only nightlight) and acknowledge and appreciate that I am neither the first nor the only Jew to have asked this question. What solace I derive from this, while being poignant, also feels somewhat scant. Some Friday nights all I can do is sit awkwardly among the families and couples during Shabbat services, or note how I was the only single childless person at my last Pesach, or even amid the High Holy Day crowds. (I was blessed when, having fainted during last year’s Yom Kippur – yes, I was that person whose new meds and adherence to fasting landed me in an ER – I had an impromptu escort from the congregation who knew I was without family and did not want me to be alone. Just one more reason why I heart my temple.)

This ache of mine comes with an exacting irony. For the longest time being childless was my narrative. Various aspects of my past informed this personal chronicle. While I won't share all the details I will say that seeing so many family members and friends end up divorced was influential. (Honestly, how many times can you sit with someone who has either cheated on, or been cheated on by, their spouse and not wonder if being single is the equivalent of dodging the proverbial bullet?) Also - and this is hard to admit – I was sure I would make the world’s worst parent. I had my fair share of personal excesses, which while never landing me in jail or causing anyone else harm certainly made my judgment questionable at the time. Additionally, I existed for the longest time in the back corner of what felt like the universe’s deepest, darkest closet, shackled by shame over who I was. How could I expect to raise a child to grow into their best potential Self if I could not do the very same thing? Hypocrisy and I make for some very poor sleeping mates. (If you're reading this, sorry hypocrisy.)

Some of my partners had children and we got along pretty well, although I was often told that as I was not their biological parent, what did I expect? All the same it was a particular gut-wrenching anguish to have the children I watched grow up during the course of a thirteen year relationship turn away when I came out. It felt doubly so to be told not to contact most of my nieces and nephews during this same time.

Finally, I was given the opportunity to correct a long-standing medical problem – but in exchange I would lose my reproductive abilities. If you have been reading so far you can probably guess what my decision was. I made my choice convinced I had no regrets (if by “convinced” I mean ignoring and ultimately justifying away all the doubtful twinges).

So here was my narrative - childless-by-choice, wiser than the average divorcee - a story written chapter by chapter, decade after decade. I refuse to label this a “fiction” as I think that diminishes its importance. Instead I will call it a necessary false-consciousness which I eventually convinced myself was my truth. (The sociological equivalent term for this is known as developing a “taste of necessity”.) Looking around at all the ruined marriages and relationships (including my own), seeing how the coming-out process had stripped me of so much family, I felt comfortable that I had safely distanced myself from so much costly damage and eventual wreckage.

Then I converted to Reform Judaism and so many things changed.

No doubt some of you are thinking, “Well, ye-ah”. (I know I would be.) But whoa nelly, not so fast. At the risk of sounding like Donald Rumsfeld, while I certainly expected some changes and I even expected some unexpected changes, I did not think these particular feelings were going to float to the surface and make themselves known.

   

IMPORTANT WAIVER HERE!!!! I have to tell you that my temple, from the clergy and board members to the congregants and staff, have never made me feel less-than in ANY way shape or form. I can tell you that I currently carry forward more self-esteem than ever before, in no small part because of my spiritual family. This diminishment does not stem from my environment but from me.

Yet I would be disingenuous if I said that this very same environment did not give significant importance to family-making and had no effect on me. I would be telling untruths if I said that being a happy witness to weekly Jewish life-cycle acknowledgements such as marriage blessings, baby-namings and bat/bar mitzvahs Kiddush chanting hasn't made me more aware that I am without a family. I would be less than honest if I told you that when the rabbi said I would raise my children as Jews during my blessing my heart didn't lurch in a profoundly sad way. I would be lying if I told you I never felt like a Jew with limited worth. Not all the time, mind you. Perhaps not even often. But yeah.

Of course, Jewish worth is not based upon one’s capacity to mother, father or raise a household but by I would imagine one’s being a good Jew. And apparently there have been quite a few remarkable good childless Jews before me (including my Biblical namesakes). There are also quite a few commentaries, for example here, here, and here. (Trigger warning: some promote the idea and attitude that not having children or being single is a singular “disadvantage”, which tells you something of the author’s sense of normative.)

I wish I had some clever denouement to leave you with but honestly, being this transparent saps away any potential wit. Here’s what I know as today’s end credits roll: I remain grateful for my spiritual family; I am grateful and proud to be a Jew, and I cannot believe the worth of these two truths can and/or will be solely defined for me by the capacity to have or raise a family. So I leave you with this: Rabbi Harold Kushner writes in his book To Life! that being a good Jew isn’t defined by the amount of prayers you pray or how many times you end up at your synagogue (or, I imagine, how many children live under your roof) but rather, by always striving to be a better Jew. 

I may not know where any of my answers await but just for today, that goal seems like a good place to start from.

Shavua tov!