Spiritual Journey

I have removed a few paragraphs that I read to the rabbis in order to respect the privacy of those involved.
Otherwise, here is the spiritual journey I read aloud at my bet din. 

Spiritual Journey


Both of my parents grew up in religious households, but they raised me in a completely secular environment. My next door neighbor first described angels to me when I was 8. I ran inside and asked my mother if angels were real. Her answer: "Angels are real if you believe they are!"

Although I was afraid of any crowd consisting of more than two people, I started asking schoolmates if I could tag along to their various places of worship. I visited a large Catholic church first. My friend confessed to someone who didn’t know her middle name but expected to be called Father. I was favorably impressed by the architecture, but negatively by the saints people prayed to for various reasons like getting well and selling a house. God was atop an enormous staircase, with uncountable religious officials blocking the way. Then there were saints, Mary, Jesus and finally God.

Seeking a new perspective as an adult, I visited the National Cathedral twice. I lingered in the blue marble room where a white marble Mary bristled like a porcupine with gilded rays, searching the faces of other women present. I saw mostly boredom, concentration and impatience with the wrigglings of children, but on a couple of faces, I saw dewy transcendence.

I wanted to feel what those women felt. I also unrealistically wished for a dramatic vision like I had during my epileptic fits. Since I felt nothing, I wanted to belt out “It Ain’t Necessarily So” from Porgy and Bess. Maybe if God were present in the Cathedral, He would rattle those magnificent stained glass windows in answer.

I continued to visit churches until I was 30. I usually felt like Huckleberry Finn. I toured the public part of the Mormon Tabernacle in Maryland. I whispered to a guard: did he know David Ben Gurion was converted to Mormonism posthumously? I climbed aboard a Moonie bus, where I very cautiously nibbled on a cookie. I attended an End Times lecture on campus. I engaged in a friendly debate on vegetarianism with an orange-robed man at Dulles Airport. I listened aghast as a Moonie woman in a sushi bar described her marriage to a man she had never met in California. She said she loved him. I wondered at the cost of the gilded dome of the Buddhist Temple in northern Virginia. I enjoyed the rose gardens and chants in the Franciscan Monastery in DC. (I grinned over the Chuck Taylors and Nikes the monks wore under their plain brown robes.) I pondered the charisma of Jim Jones and the Bakers. I read the King James Bible four times and the New Revised Standard twice, cover to cover, wincing often. I sought out religious paintings in the National and Virginia galleries of art. I read about Buddhism, Shintoism and Native American beliefs. I became friends with Rastafarian musicians in Richmond, even visiting their makeshift church on the third floor of an un-airconditioned brownstone on the day Louis Farrakhan spoke there. The band told him I was cool, even though I never partook, because I was a dj for a reggae radio show.

At 21, while driving through Maryland, I saw a synagogue and impulsively pulled into the parking lot. I had never attended a single service; in fact, I had virtually no experience with anyone Jewish. (There was one girl in high school who was too thin for her enormous glasses and boys would yank her gym shorts down to see if she had any pubic hair.) I can’t say what motivated me to tell the office staff I wanted to join. A woman disdainfully ushered me into an office where I spoke with a man I assume was the rabbi. He said I needed a mother, not a new religion. Embarrassed, I left and didn't set foot in a synagogue again for 23 years! It occurred to me only recently that since I was very thin and looked 15, perhaps he meant what he said literally.

I was married briefly to a Buddhist who rotated bouts of drinking with bouts of meditating in front of an altar with candles that made me wheeze. I was also married briefly to a Shinto who didn’t participate in any religious ceremonies.

I dated the son of a minister from a Baptist church in a poor neighborhood. I attended Revival and was impressed that the congregation was so involved. The minister, in a beautiful tenor, spoke of peace, love and helping family and neighbors quit their vices. The congregants sang gloriously, arms around each other, sweating, smiling and crying. It was better than a movie. I wanted to be saved, too. But when Revival was over, they sat quietly in their pews, listening or nodding off. Within two weeks, I was bored.

I also dated the son of a Methodist minister. Every sermon he gave moved me. I thought they came easily to him, but when I caught him frowning in his studio, he told me he often spent 15 or more hours on them every week. He wished I believed in the divinity of Jesus, but he knew better than to try to convince me. (Once I cornered him and asked, since Jesus kept kosher and said "I came not to change the law," why was a whole new religion based around him?)

I believed that not God Himself, but the searching and longing for God made people like this minister good. God no longer reached out to us because we made a terrible mess of religion. I myself only felt God in the absence of other people. When I moved away from big Virginia cities out into the country, I looked at the stars and felt God.

After moving, I stopped visiting churches, thinking since I had little talent for religion, I could be excused for expending little effort. I did begin to pray in thanks, but never for assistance. I thought praying for favors was like putting money in a celestial slot machine. The machine had no reason to care what I wanted and the odds were great I wouldn’t receive it.

I started telling people I was a secular Jew while I lived on the farm in Virginia. When I got pigs, I thought, “I shouldn’t be doing this”… but I made money on them. While eating sandwiches with health conscious Christian friends, I was tempted to ask if they knew how the Ezekiel 4:9 bread was baked.

After I moved to Oregon to be near Mom, I began having dreams about being Jewish. They were rare at first, but frequent by the summer of 2009. After a major health scare in September, the dreams became relentless, as if I were being nagged. In one of these dreams I was lobbying on behalf of Jewish interests in Congress. In another, a public figure I have admired for a decade divorced his wife and asked me to marry him; I said I could not because he was Christian and I was Jewish! I told him my religion was as important to me as his was to him and I knew we'd never be happy.

During my recovery, I was visited by people of multiple religions, trying to convert and save me in case I died. They came to my home and both of my jobs. I told them I was Jewish, which instead of stemming the tide of proselytizers, actually increased the flow of Jehovah’s Witnesses. One afternoon a Baptist lady who had herself come to preach to me (and told me I wasn’t a very good Jew) watched three people come in during one hour. She said, "Wow, God must really want you!"
The light bulb came on.
I switched it off.
Weeks later, I started reading about Judaism online. I bought the CD "Songs in the Key of Hanukah" and played YLove’s Yiddish rap over and over so I could sing along! I watched videos of Hasids performing a dance that resembled a Cossack dance my father used to do after a few drinks.

During Christmas, I was visited by a Jehovah's Witness at my night job. He preached for hours, leaving when morning customers arrived. The following night he came back. I told him that I was happy with Judaism and didn't want to endure another three hours of his proselytizing. He unleashed a violent torrent of "Jesus killer" insults until I got my mace out and threatened to call the police. He wrote a seven page letter to my employer saying I behaved badly towards him because I felt guilty for killing Jesus. I made a copy just in case he turned into a stalker and I needed court evidence later. Thankfully, I haven't seen him since.

On January 3rd, the first day I came home from the library with a stack of six big reference-type books, the excessive dreams and attempts to convert me stopped. I soon exhausted both county libraries and began buying books whenever I found them inexpensively on Amazon. By this time I wasn’t doing it to keep the proselytizers away. I was hooked.

I was still struggling to find God when I found Maimonides, who may have considered himself the next best thing. Maimonides said no human could understand God. This worked for me; I reasoned that if humans were capable of knowing God, we would have only one religion. I decided there was something holy in the attempt to learn the unknowable.

In the book Finding a Home for the Soul, Temple Beth Israel was mentioned favorably so I decided to move to Eugene. I enrolled in TBI’s Intro to Torah class while I still lived an hour away. I was invigorated, surrounded by real Jews (!) in a real synagogue! I cornered Rabbi Maurice after the third class and told him I wanted to convert. I was disappointed to hear I'd have to wait a year!

The Egyptian Habiru means "stateless people." The Greek diaspore means milkweed. Milkweed seeds, in a tuft of down-feather fuzz, travel far from the mother plant. For nearly my whole life I wandered from city to city and through assorted religious institutions. Only my hair stayed the same. After talking with Rabbi Maurice, I dreamed that I cut my hair short. I understood this to mean my conversion would require obvious personal change.

I published an article on Biblical Kashrut laws in Douglas County News. I also posted it online on my food blog, which has a pretty decent readership, and on my Jewish blog, which does not. This was my public coming out.

I asked my family about the religious backgrounds of our relatives, who have lived in New Mexico and Oregon 200 years. Those for whom we do have religious records were Christian – except for one on my mother’s side. He might not count, though, since he converted to Episcopalianism and was buried with honors by the Ku Klux Klan.

The first Friday night after I moved near Eugene, I drove to town, armed with my Kol Haneshamah and Torah, but suddenly decided I was underdressed. I went home, said a little prayer over wine I’d bought just for my first service, blessed my dogs to be like Ephraim and Manasseh and felt ashamed of myself. In the morning I procrastinated, but finally went to Torah Study for the first time. I was late. I tiptoed in and sat off to the side. Rabbi Yitz motioned me to the table, where there was an empty seat between two men. I blushed, but within a few moments, I was participating in the discussion.

After class, I sat by myself in the sanctuary. Rabbi Yitz came over to introduce himself. He said I may be disappointed because sometimes we didn’t even have a minyan at Saturday morning services. I answered that I was scared of crowds. He brightened, “Well, then, this is the service for you!”

I was stunned when a man with tattoos and leathers was called to carry the Torah scroll! Apparently I wasn’t underdressed the night before!

I was also amazed by an elegant Sephardic looking girl at her bar mitzvah in June. She sang hundreds of words in Hebrew. She carried the Torah scroll in the procession. She gave a devar. I checked the expressions of the others attending. I noticed the man in tattoos and leathers. His face shone with sweet pleasure. No one else looked surprised over the poise, intelligence and lovely voice of this young girl. This is not an unusual occurrence, I thought. Singing before us was justification for the extraordinary effort to keep the Jewish faith and culture alive.

I confessed to a friend at the conclusion of service that I wanted to give a devar, but felt inadequate. It seemed to me that Jewish people were born with the confidence to speak and sing beautifully before a crowd. Perhaps, I said, the culture creates that poise. He smiled, “If you come to services for ten years, you learn.”

In Torah study on Saturday July 17th, Rabbi Yitz, who came to Oregon in a VW bus in 1971, confessed his discomfort in knowing that some anti-Semitism is influenced by how Jews are portrayed during a surface reading of the Torah. I was glad to hear him speak thus. It bothered me, for instance, that Hitler adopted the name of Pharaoh’s murderous plans, “The Final Solution.”

Something I have struggled with my entire life is feeling like I’m just another speck of dust here on earth – I never had the other piece of paper, that I was also the stars. Only dust. It’s hard to be motivated to do much if you think it won’t matter. Early in my studies I read that we are here to deal with the character flaw we need most to work on, and that Torah law gives us the tools. It is true. Torah prescribes many small virtuous actions, which if done daily by everyone, would build a society worthy of the stars in the heavens.

During the Tish’a B’Av service, I wondered if some ancestor of mine caused pain to an ancestor of someone in the room. I remembered the conclusion of Middlemarch. The protagonist, an intelligent woman with grand desires, contented herself with reaching out kindly to her community. On the way home, I thought, can I begin a little domino effect? If I become able to radiate peace, can I influence others to radiate peace? First I must find peace myself, which will require being satisfied with who I am.

Also as I drove home I decided to commemorate the 9th of Av by eating small quantities of flavorless livestock fodder like people ate in concentration camps. I didn’t know that fasting was part of the holy day. Just in case there was a Heaven, I wanted to show an honest effort to understand the pain of those in it who suffered.

For several days I ate rice or potatoes. I had no revelations from on high, but I wasn’t exactly starving, either. On the 4th morning I was reading a Talmudic discussion about Passover. As they were wont to do, the rabbis digressed. Could people be responsible for mice who carried hametz into their homes? A gluttonous man would make his wife a widow, his children orphans and bring “himself, his children and all his grandchildren for generations into disrepute…Abbaye said people will call his children ‘Son of the oven heater’… Rav Papa said ‘Son of the pan licker’… Rav Shemaia said ‘Son of the one who collapsed on the ground.’”

Although I laughed, it occurred to me that no one would ever call anyone “son of a pan licker” today. We are all pan lickers, unless we are instead bottle drainers and match lighters. Although the quality of my diet is excellent, I eat because food tastes good, I am bored or because I am trying to substitute food for sleep. I suffer from subtle gluttony. This was my revelation. I turned this light bulb off, too.

I finally worked up the nerve to attend Erev Shabbat services on July 23rd. David and I said hi in the foyer and sat together. We didn’t know each other yet and spoke very little. The mandolin in Adon Olam reminded me of my father’s balalaika music; I tried to hide my tears from David. He saw and insisted I not drive home. So we walked in a park. Within the hour, I began wondering if he could be my beshert. I mention this because our love inspired several major spiritual epiphanies.

When I later read that God arranges marriages, I was stunned by the thought that David could have been preordained to marry me before I was even born. Moreover, if God arranges marriages, He must indeed care how we live our lives and even becomes an interested third party in the marriage. I stopped wondering why it took so long for us to find each other. David had been coming to synagogue off and on for only three years; he got serious a few months before meeting me. You’re already familiar with my talent for avoidance. Once we began coming to services and classes, reading, praying and working to improve ourselves, then we merited each other.

David is attracted to Hasidism. At first I was afraid to be a Hasidic wife; I read books in which women, like female goats, were always pregnant or in milk. I watched videos in which grooms placed on their brides veils so thick they could have been dishcloths. Women who could neither see nor be seen leaned on others on the way to the Huppah. As I read more and watched lectures on Torah Café, I began to understand. I recently met an Orthodox and Hasidic wife; neither seems like they would stand for being blindfolded. I am no longer afraid.

It is amazing how much braver and more social I have become in a year of living as a Jew. If I had come alone to the High Holy Days, when cars stretched around several blocks, I wouldn’t have even have gotten out of my car. Now I am itching to visit the synagogues in Ashland and Corvallis. One day I was daydreaming aloud about traveling in a motorhome to Jewish communities throughout the country, writing about the disparate ways Jewish people live and worship for one book and recording the stories of the children of immigrants for another. David told me I was like someone born again except that I wasn’t obnoxious.

I started posting devars on my blog, even though no one reads them. They are long, comparing and contrasting Torah and Midrash, and also contain a lot of my personal thoughts. I also posted a link to my epiphanies on love on Twitter, and within a week I had four rabbis following me. Perhaps one rabbi read it and liked it and sent it to another. Once a couple began following me, I became searchably Jewish! When a female rabbi chose to follow me, I thought, “Score!”

Several times I’ve caught myself wishing I had started this process earlier, when I was young enough and healthy enough for rabbinical school to be a viable option. I would like to learn more about the services themselves so I can eventually give a devar, sing a song, carry a scroll. Starting late has given my studies a sweetness I may not have felt as a Hebrew school student: I anticipate eagerly my future religious duties.