Am I being *that* kind of convert?

Yesterday an acquaintance posted how she had found a bit of Jewish ancestry in her family history and changed her FB name to reflect that. I hadn’t even known she was looking and sent her a quick Mazel Tov reply and a small note to acknowledge her joy and mention my own conversion process. Her response was a measured (if not awkward) Er, um, thanks. I imagine her thinking, okay, we haven’t spoken in months, trade a couple of Facebook posts every now and then, and you felt the need to share this with me?

Of course, I’m reading a tone that I can’t possibly know via the Internet and am totally projecting my own insecurities as a convert onto her eight word reply - just as I was totally projecting my feelings onto her original announcement. This has given me reason to pause and wonder, uh-oh. Shit. Am I being ‘that’ kind of convert? You know, the one who just can’t stop talking about her process, who finds joy in the more commonly shared aspects of her new experience, who wakes up with ‘Miriam’s Song’ in her head, who wants to absorb so much she might as well write Sponge under "Occupation" on her tax return, go from Zero to Psalm 150 in 3.5 seconds. Not fanatical or even obsessive, but rather a state-of-being just shy of ‘Ecstatic’.

I think about the amount of attention I give my Judaism. A few minutes devoted to prayer in the morning, blessings for the new day, maybe some more to my self-driven Hebrew lessons (that is, if I’m not feeling particularly intimidated by Bet, Pei versus Fei and all the sofit forms).During the day I try to incorporate A Jewish way of thinking informed by my evolving awareness of Jewish values. The latest ishes of Tablet Magazine, Jewish Journal and New Voices get dropped off in my email. If I have the time I’ll give them scan and post the more relevant pieces. In the afternoon I say the Amidah (again, if I remember). I try to always give blessings at meals but yeah, often I don’t realize until halfway through the salad.

On Sundays I realize the majority of my neighbors are going to their house of worship; for them the week won’t begin until tomorrow. Shavua Tov! Sometime around Wednesday I’m thinking about Shabbat on Friday, Torah Study on Saturday morning.

Admittedly it’s more than this. I feel like my Jewish awareness is slowly rising like the new dawn over the horizon, its light shining upon things I would never have contemplated so deeply before. Like Israel and the Middle East or looking at the world through the lens of tzedakah and tikkun olam. Like contemplating the word ‘chosen’ from a dozen different perspectives. Like feeling my heart weep when I visited the New England Holocaust Memorial and anger over how the country of my birth spurned European Jewish refugees, sending them back to their likely deaths, during World War 2. Like how uneasy and annoyed I feel when someone will describe a blizzard as a ‘snow-ocaust’.

All of which leads me to wonder if my simchat is too much simchat, and if so, by whose standards am I making that judgment? By my FB acquaintances? By my real-life friends, some who seem to look a tad uncomfortable when I remind them I can’t go to their Friday night protest or party? By my Catholic family’s? Or am I simply measuring this by the yardstick of my own insecurities?

A friend back in New York once gave me these words of advice: something becomes a problem when it adversely affects your life. I sometimes worry if said "something" has become so huge as to have taken over my life, would I even know it? Or would I be oblivious until I see (or imagine I see) the cringing wince in someone else’s face?

I like that I’m excited about my spirituality. It’s been years (if not decades) since I found such joy in relating to the universe. I am attracted to Judaism in its many forms for many reasons. It’s new. It’s bold. It’s encouraging and challenging. It’s adventurous. It’s Life-affirming, spirit-enhancing and soul-supportive. It’s joyful and dance-able. What better an evolution/ revolution in my life?

Will I always feel this way about it? I don’t know - that concern I will let go and Let G-d. Let me cross that bridge when I come to it, and when I do may I face it with grace, serenity, emotional knowledge and love.

And, of course, as a Jew.
　
　

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.]"