#gerut

I just got back from the mikvah and I’m “officially” Jewish. I have so many thoughts and emotions right now! But I feel so good, and so right. Seeing my name written in Hebrew, ben Avraham avinu v’Sarah imeinu, was so indescribably perfect and good. How I managed not to cry is beyond me.

After studying the 39 categories of Shabbat prohibitions tonight, I realized that I already keep 29 of them. I have decided I am going to slowly work on them one by one - and this week, I have decided I am going to begin avoiding purchases on the Sabbath - so as not to handle money.

I have so many feelings about my amazing experience at shul on Shabbat - still processing everything...just going to say for now that if someone had told me six months ago that I would be where I am today, learning what I’m learning today, studying Torah and Jewish theology in every spare moment...I would not have believed them. Yet I am so thankful for the grace and wonder that this exploration has opened up in my life.

My partner came with me to the synagogue for Shabbat two days ago. He's been hearing a lot about everything I've been reading and experiencing and exploring, and - curiosity killed the cat. He also knows that if I do this I would be committing to raising children in the Jewish tradition, and so he would have to decide whether that's something he can live with. It went well - I was more confident davening than I've been in the past. Part of that, I think, is that I downloaded Rabbi B's audio files of Shabbat and Torah service, and burned a CD I've been listening to around town, trying to practice and remember. We sat near two cantors, and it was an incredibly moving evening. I found myself looking forward to it all day and I found what I'd been looking for. I felt part of something, in that what we were reaching and striving for as a community was more than what I could reach for on my own, particularly at this point in the process, but maybe always, I don't know. There was power in praying for peace, and celebrating Shabbat - we were making meaning. I felt the veil between what I can process analytically and what I yearn for spiritually was less opaque. It was a time to be grateful, to crystallize a desire for building a better world and then to let it go, to acknowledge the things both in and out of our control. I felt at once reverent and celebratory. Celebrating the knowledge I have been able to acquire and the immense possibility of how much more I have to learn and appreciate. The atmosphere was catching - Aaron almost left with his borrowed kippah, but didn't - however he did leave with questions and curiosities and an enthusiasm that we shared for hours afterward. I was glad he'd come - I wonder what he saw. Frankly, I critically examine what I see in Judaism, too, though - and I wonder about what other Jewish people see. I find myself increasingly confident that the answers are out there, if only I give myself enough time to find them.

I’ve been thinking lately about what I’ve heard people refer to as my ‘spiritual autobiography.’ It occurred to me that I’ve been saying the same thing about myself approximately since I was twelve - and now, almost ten years later, I am wondering if I’ve done myself a dis-service. The narrative, by rote, goes like this: I was raised in the Southern Baptist church - and then when I was twelve, I went to summer camp to study philosophy, and came back agnostic. But that’s not entirely true, as Rabbi S pointed out to me when I first met her - because while her understanding of agnosticism was questioning the existence of G-d, I was also telling her that I didn’t believe creation was a mathematical anomaly, I believed in a Creator, I just didn’t know how to connect with Him - and so these things cannot be true at the same time. I am thinking too that it is a blatant misrepresentation to say that I have not developed spiritually in almost ten years - since I hit puberty. After all, every other aspect of my life has changed - why not my sense of the ineffable? After some consideration last night, and an effort to set aside my pride - I think that what happened when I was twelve was that I met people who were educated, and they had a sense of superiority to those who had faith - and, as an impressionable child surrounded by students who were also older than me - I had no desire to be condescended to or looked down upon. I also became disenchanted with religious institutions who claimed their way was the only way to G-d - this seemed arrogant and unrealistic to me. For years, I made what I saw to be the easier choice - to abstain from struggling with faith at all, and I’m at a point now where I’m not sure how proud I am of this any longer...

Today I called in sick from work - I felt dizzy and nauseous, probably the affects of poor hydration. After I felt functional, I thought to myself, I don’t feel sick enough to lie in bed all day, and I also don’t feel well enough to spend hours out of my home. I was reading some Heschel when I decided to go to the evening minyan at the synagogue - usually with working nights my schedule doesn’t allow me to do so, so I thought, I should do this since I don’t know when I’ll get to do so again. It was...a little overwhelming. At first, all of the women that came into the sanctuary wore kippot, and I thought, do I need to too? How major a faux pas is this, if I don’t? What if I go and put one on, and then it turns out I’m not supposed to? How clueless do I seem? Probably about as clueless as I am. Crisis averted - a middle-aged woman whom I had seen at Shabbat last Friday came in without one on. Deep breaths. But then we opened the Siddur Sim Shalom, and I thought, oh my gosh, I do not know Hebrew. I’ve relied pretty heavily on the transliterations in the Siddur Lev Shalem, but there is SO MUCH HEBREW on these pages this was a mistake I’ll never figure this out what was I thinking...deep breaths. I hummed my way along and tried to find my voice when I occasionally recognized melodies. I v’imru-amen’ed at all the right points, though, and I was surprised at the things I was able to follow along with. Don’t get me wrong...there were a lot of moments that I simply read over the English in my head, but. All of those are the things that happened in the space of the sanctuary - but the feelings I was left with were of a different order. I felt brave, like I had taken a risk and gone out on a limb and it was worthwhile. I felt like I was beginning to carve out a space for myself in this community, meeting people and demonstrating my willingness and sincerity to learn. I felt respectful, of this tradition which has gone on for so long, awed and humbled to be a part of this minyan reciting daily prayers in the time between Pesach and Shavuot. Driving out of the parking lot at the synagogue, I felt at peace, like I had gone looking for meaning and closeness to G-d and like I may be finding it, one step, one choice at a time.