Hanukkah Miracles

I am not supposed to write today, because it is the Sabbath, nor should I be using the computer. But it's the last day of Hanukkah, and before I get too busy doing other things, I want to share my experience of my own, personal Hanukkah miracle, or miracles, really.

This season was full of them. In fact, I could feel the miraculous energy swirling around me sometimes.

Miracle 1: My mother sent me a Hanukkah card. This is my mother, who had nothing to say when I told her and my father I was Jewish, except, "But...what about Christmas?" I told her she could have all the Christmas she wanted. I had every Sabbath, and I had Pesach and Shavuot, and Rosh Hashanah, and all the rest. So we said nothing else about my religion, and I thought she would avoid the topic altogether. Then, a few days before Hanukkah, a card arrived in the mail, which I was almost certain would be a "Holiday" card, or even a Christmas-themed card of some kind, with a cheesy saying she'd made up. It wasn't overly Hanukkah-y. It sported a watercolor of a dove on the front, with "Shalom" in Hebrew letters (a word I recognized, thanks to my Beginning Hebrew class). Inside was a message about hoping my season was filled with Miracles, and she wrote that she wished me a Happy Hanukkah underneath. So that was miracle one, that she sent it.

Miracle 2 was that the card was on time. My mom has never sent a card to me on time, I don't think, in her life. And she was never on time to pick me up from school or to drop me off at band/choir/theater practice my entire childhood. The message to me was: my life wasn't important to her. But she responded to something different this time. This time I chose what was important to me, and I didn't need her approval. I didn't even need her support. But for the first time, she was able to show for me, on time, for something that was important to me, even though it, literally, goes against her religion. Halleluia to that.

Then there was the miracle of the Latke party. Weeks ago, I volunteered to host a Monday - fourth night - Hanukkah party at my house, in which I would make my first-ever latkes for all the guests. This was through a new Minyan in the area, and many would be invited, though I knew it wouldn't be a huge crowd, it being Monday night, and my house being far from most people, in the remote town where I live.

My friend Jen had volunteered to make sufganiyot that night, and I was afraid (though I didn't say it) that if she decided to do that at a different place, then most people would go there, since she is more well-known in the community than I am. But that worked out when she decided to just cook them at my house, so that we could do a joint party.

Then, as the date approached, I had more worries. For one thing, it rained the week before Hanukkah, and where I live, rain means the ants all move indoors. That's exactly what happened, and my house was becoming steadily overrun by tiny ants marching through the bathroom, living room, and kitchen. I put out ant traps that did nothing to make them go away, and the more I tried to clean them up and destroy their ant trails, the more they seemed to invade. I nearly called the party off just because of that, because even the day before, they were everywhere, including in my kitchen drawers, where I kept tin foil and bags and tupperware containers. But I held off. I didn't pick up the phone. Instead, I went to the hardware store, and I got a liquid ant killer that I'd been eying before, and decided to try. The ants started to eat it, and I hoped that would do the trick. Then another friend came by with a different kind of ant trap, and so I put those down, too, for extra protection. Thankfully, when I woke up Monday morning, all but a few ants were gone. It was a miracle! I was ready to rejoice.

But I had another problem. Lack of work meant that cash was tight. I had bought a few supplies for the party ahead of time, but that morning I found myself without enough cash to buy potatoes. It was a sad state of affairs. But I still had to believe that the party needed to go on. I had committed to it. People were counting on me. But not only that, I was counting on me. I had a need to make this happen - to make potato latkes, and open my home to people of the Jewish community, as had been done for me the previous year. Thankfully, my friend stepped in to help again. He saw my need, and even though he'd been having some trouble of his own, he helped me out. We went to the grocery store and bought a few supplies on a very tight budget. But it all worked out well. I was even able to make a small deposit to my bank account, which prevented (just barely) an overdraft on my account that I was worried about.

So that was Miracle number 3, and 4.

But wait, there's more. When I went to make the latkes, I discovered that, of all the things I had remembered to buy, frying oil wasn't one of them. Plain oil isn't something I normally keep in my kitchen. I generally only use olive oil. So I looked, and all I had was about a half a cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil. My friend Jen offered for me to use the leftover oil from the sufganiyot, which had only a small amount of sediment in it, but still smelled a bit like doughnuts. I decided I would try olive oil. Two nights before, I had enjoyed latkes that someone had cooked in olive oil, and I thought it could work, or perhaps a mixture of the two. It looked like I had enough, and when I checked the label, I saw that it was certified kosher.

So I cooked the latkes in olive oil, and they came out delicious. They were crispy on the edges, and not too brown, with just a hint of garlic, and few other spices for flavoring. Everyone loved them, including Roger, who had invited me to be on the planning committee for the Minyan in the first place. He waxed poetic about them, holding his hand up in the air with his fingers touching his thumb, and shook it in just that way that means what he ate was just so perfect, he couldn't even put his finger on it. He said, "See? You even made me talk like this!" And he did it again. It was all worth it.

And I found out later from a rabbi that, despite the doubt some people had expressed about the viability of cooking latkes in olive oil, it was probably the most authentic way to cook them, since olive oil is precisely the kind of oil the Maccabees had needed and had found and used in the Temple after they defeated the Assyrian Greeks.

And in a way, the way I found it was very similar. I found that I did not have what I thought I needed. The oil that my friend had brought was already "defiled" by having been used for the doughnuts, and so what I had left was a small amount of pure, unadulterated, kosher olive oil, which didn't look like enough to cook the huge batch of potato pancakes I had prepared. And yet, once I started cooking, I realized that I in fact did have enough, that it lasted as long as I needed it to, with even a little left over. And my pancakes were delicious, as perfect as I could have wanted them, and kosher.

It was all an amazing success, and even more so because I had not thought it possible that it could happen.

But Hashem does make the impossible possible. Where we see blockages and hurdles, G-d lifts us over and carries us through, if only we keep walking. Because that's what I did. I could have turned aside. I could have called the party off. But I had a vision for it that it was going to happen, and I didn't want to let that vision go. In the end, it became exactly as I had imagined it. But only because Hashem blessed me, over and over again, and made possibilities appear where I had only seen challenges.

And so I realized later that, just as it had said on the card my mother sent me, my Hanukkah was indeed filled with miracles.

Parshat Vayishlach

We had a difficult reading this week. I was somewhat gratified that the woman who gave the drash chose to speak about the Rape of Dinah - sometimes called the "Ravishing" of Dinah - but I have to confess that I differ with her on some points.

She started by linking what happened in the story with the tragic incident of a recent gang rape in Richmond, which took place in front of onlookers who did nothing at all to stop it.

But I believe it is too easy to look at the story of Dinah and say, "Look, she was raped. That is bad." And conclude that the Bible, the writers of the Bible, and Judaism itself condones rape. It's too easy to say that this is a story the glorifies the desecration of women, and just "goes to show" that we live in a patriarchal society that sees women as objects to be traded, or meat to be sold. To me, that is all too simplistic, because that is not at all what I heard when the Torah was read this week.

The text says that Dinah, "Went out to visit the daughters of the land" (Gen. 34:1) So maybe she had some friends. She wanted to go shopping. We don't know. But the text makes it clear that she wasn't leaving the house to consort with men. However, we are told that Shechem, who was the son of the country's chief ruler, Hamor, saw Dinah, and suddenly he "had to have her." He had to so much that he "took her and lay with her by force" (Gen. 34:2). We don't know how she responded. We don't know if she screamed, bit, kicked, or acquiesced. If he held her by the throat, does that mean she submitted willingly? But in the end it doesn't matter. The text is clear, she was taken by force. Therefore, she was not taken of her own will, it was not consensual, and moreover, Shechem is not a Jew. If she had wanted to go with him, her brothers still might have been upset, since they were not permitted to marry outside the clan.

I searched through my "Concise Book of Mitzvoth" for the particular mitzvah that prohibits the taking of a woman by force. I didn't find it. But I remember reading that there are specific guidelines regarding what does and does not constitute rape in the Jewish tradition. For example, if a woman is taken by force in a city street, and she screams, but no one hears her, she is raped, and the man is punished. If she is taken in a field, where no one can hear her, if she says she was raped, she was raped, since there is no one else who could have heard her, even if she screamed. If, however, she is raped in a city street, and she says nothing or makes no noise, and she could have screamed, then she is held at least partly accountable, because she could have called for help but didn't. So there are very clear prohibitions against taking a woman by force.

But there are other prohibitions that suggest that rape is something that is looked down upon. Among the prohibitions I am thinking of, there is "Not to take anything in robbery from one's fellow-man by main force," "Not to wrongfully retain anything belonging to one's fellow-man," and "Not to covet (desire) anything belonging to one's fellow-man." In this case, "to covet" means not only "to desire" but also to take some action toward obtaining the desired thing.

I do not mean to imply that women are or should be legally regarded as "objects" to be "obtained" by men, although you could say that might have been the going mentality of the time. But I think I mean more that, through making these prohibitions on objects or things that one might desire, which are not rightfully yours, the same would apply to a woman, if a man happened to desire her. And actually, if he did desire her and "take" her - by force or through action - it is wrong precisely because by doing this he DOES make an object of her.

Some other mitzvoth that I believe apply here are the the prohibition "To do nothing whatever from which there can result hillul Hashem, a desecration of the Divine name," and "To destroy no holy thing and to erase no name whatever among the holy names [of God]," mitzvot 155 and 157, respectively. These have to do specifically with the names of God. But a mystical reading of this idea could say that in a way, we are all letters of Torah, and all letters are part of Torah, which contains the Name of God. Each person contains a spark of the Divine Light, and so the Name of God in some ways, is written by our very being. The description of this second mitzvah, 157, quotes the scripture from which it comes, "You shall not do so to Hashem your God," (D'varim 12:4). Therefore if you are not going to do it to Hashem, by extension you are not - or should not - do "it", that is, destroy, your fellow human being. "It is forbidden to break and to destroy any object of holiness."

And that is exactly what rape does. It destroys a person. It breaks holiness. It erases part of a person's name, their sanctity, their identity. It dims their light. It robs them of joy, of life, of themselves. The Jewish people of old knew this as well as we know it today.

And that's where the woman who gave the drash was right when she said that nothing has changed. But not only has it not changed that rape still can and does occur, which is tragic and lamentable. It has also not changed that people hate it now as much as we did then. This is evidenced by the reaction of Dinah's brothers, Simeon and Levi.

Simeon and Levi were "out in the field" when all this took place. Because Shechem didn't merely "take" Dinah and let her go. He brought her back to his house, and went with Hamor to Jacob to negotiate over how he could get Dinah to be his wife, because he claimed to "love" her.

This is clearly a case where we have a mixed message. Shechem "loves Dinah" and so he "spoke to the maiden tenderly" (Gen. 34:3). But he also took her by force, which means, it is not possible that he loved her in the true sense. This would be an example of love in the distorted, arrogant sense that means you believe you have the right to anything you desire. It means you think if you love a person, that person "belongs" to you. It means you don't bother to seek the other person's permission. You railroad them with your feelings, leaving them numb and invalidated. It is abusive love, at it's worst. And the Torah makes no excuse for it.

No one supports Shechem's action, except his own father, so we can assume the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And they are punished in a way a lot of us would probably like to see someone punished who degrades so severely a member of our family. Dinah's brothers take action to save her honor that most of us would not only be afraid to do, for fear of legal consequences, but we just plain wouldn't have the guts to carry out.

So Jacob waits for Simeon and Levi to come back from the field, while Hamor is there, trying to negotiate a way to get his son access to Dinah as a wife, even though he has already pretty much "had" her. The brothers come in, and we're sure they are pretty angry, but they exercise a huge amount of restraint. Rather than tackling the men right there, risking their own lives, they pretend to collude with them. And by doing that, they get more than just petty revenge. They "speak with guile" "because he (Shechem) had defiled their sister Dinah" (Gen. 34:13). They put up a challenge. If Hamor gets Shechem and all the men of the city to circumcise themselves, then Jacob will let the men marry his daughters. Meanwhile, if they don't do it, the Israelites will pack up their beautiful maidens and leave. So Shechem and Hamor, thinking they are about to get a really good deal, go off and self-mutilate their genitals.

When they have done this, Simeon and Levi wait three days, and "on the third day, when they (the men of the town) were in pain" (Gen. 34:25) (because they had just circumcised themselves), Simeon and Levi stroll in, armed to the teeth, but under no suspicion because it was believed that they were on Hamor and Shechem's side. They then surprised the men of the town and slaughtered as many of them as they could, plundered everything, and took back Dinah.

Of course, they couldn't stay there anymore, after that.

But they did defend their sister's honor.

Compare their action to supposed "honor killings" in some Muslim communities. Not all Muslims do this, of course, but for those who do, the belief is that when a woman is raped it is somehow "her fault." You know, like she looked too beautiful, or she walked just so - she was "asking for it." And this doesn't happen only in Muslim communities. Many men is Western, developed nations try to blame women for their own sexual assault. But in some extreme Muslim communities, it is acceptable, indeed, sometimes expected, that to save a woman's "honor," a husband, brother or father will hunt down the rape victim and kill her.

That happens now. Today. And it's abhorrent. To my mind, this practice is orders of magnitude worse than what occurs in Parshat Vayishlach with Dinah, and we should be much more worried about that than about whether or not this story is "difficult" to read. Of course it's difficult. Because life is difficult. And the Torah doesn't sugar-coat it for us.

Dinah was raped. There is no question about that. But nobody blames Dinah. Nobody persecutes her, and nobody punishes her. Quite the opposite. Her brothers are inflamed with anger because her body was desecrated, but not at her. At the men who took her. And not only do they seek out to harm the men who hurt her, they first use their bargaining power to cause the men of Shechem to essentially violate themselves to be in pain for three days before the brothers arrive to liberate their sister.

Every woman should be so lucky to have brothers ready to defend her honor with such passion.

An Odd Dream

It is two nights after my conversion. I had an odd dream. Here is the gist of it:

I was on my way to try to get to a boat dock to meet someone or to get somewhere. It was late at night, and the boats were not running, so I had to take a train, and then make my way through the woods on my bike. I believe I was with my family at the time, but I was going to take the train alone. When I got there, the station agent knew me. I asked to use the bathroom, and not only did he show me where it was, he checked the stall before I went in to make sure it was empty. It was a bathroom in a train station, though, so it wasn't very clean. In fact, there was a hat sitting behind the toilet, which made me think that someone was watching me. But it only fell over onto the floor when I went over there.

There were many other people waiting in the train station, and everyone was tired and bored from having to wait so long. I checked the schedule, and there were some trains and some buses, all leaving at different times during the night. I was going to take the 12:24. Like many people in the station, I had a large suitcase. But I also had a small bag. I talked to the station agent, and then decided not to take my suitcase, because it was too large and stuffed with extra clothes I didn't need. There was an old, homeless-looking man sitting on a bench behind me with a dirty suitcase behind me. "I'll watch your stuff," he said. And I gladly offered it to him. Well, not gladly, but readily, because I wouldn't be taking it with me.

I watched as he unzipped the big, black suitcase, and began rummaging through my socks and other clean things. But as I walked away to go lie down in a different room, I had the sense that I knew that he intended to take something, and that's partly why I had given it to him, but I also knew that he wouldn't. Because he was looking for dirty things, and my suitcase was only full of clean socks and clothes with bright pretty colors. In short, it was way too clean for him, not to mention girly. Not really his style. So I was safe. But I was still uncomfortable that my personal laundry was in the hands of a strange old man I'd never met before.

In the other room, I looked in my small bag to see what I had. I was relieved to see that I'd brought my bike headlight with me, so that I'd be able to see in the dark, because there was no real path from the train to the dock. So I probably wouldn't be riding my bike but walking, and I would use the bike's headlight as a flashlight. Soon the train was boarding and everyone was lining up. The station agent was also the person who was going to drive the train. They were very short-staffed. But I was ready to go. I was ready to leave my things behind, and hope that I could make it in the wilderness, where I knew this train was going to leave me.

~

You may be wondering: what does this have to do with Judaism? So here's my interpretation: The old man was like the rabbi/rabbis whom I spoke with in my beit din. They sought to air my dirty laundry, but what they found in fact, was perfectly clean. Too, clean, perhaps, and they kept looking, hoping to find what they were looking for, and not finding it. The fact was, though, that that clean laundry was all that I was intending to leave behind. Judaism is the train, and it leaves during the night, driven by a familiar conductor - the same guy I bought my ticket from. I'm traveling alone, leaving my family behind, and about to enter a wilderness. It's also dark outside. But I'm prepared. And after my journey, I am going to be at a place where a boat, and someone I know will take me away to where I want to be. I have no way of knowing if this will happen, but I am trusting that it will, if only I take the time and do the work to get there. What I have in my bag is a light, and it's a bright light that will show me the way. I am not afraid. Because I've brought what I need, almost without thinking. I put the light in my bag as an afterthought. And I'm leaving my old laundry behind, because it is heavy and cumbersome, even if it's perfectly clean and wearable.

Mikveh Lady

I'M JEWISH!!!!!!!

It's done. I did it. the whole thing.

My Beit Din went on for an HOUR. Only afterward did the mikveh lady tell me that that was about twice as long as the longer ones usually take. I think they told me the whole thing would take and hour. Oh well! I don't know why I kept talking. I guess they found me interesting!

And they said very good things. And there was singing and dancing. And more later. Right now I am tired and I have a headache.

I left my nice new water bottle in the bathroom at the museum...ooh, la. Time for more sleep!

Last Day

My beit din and mikveh are scheduled for tomorrow. After all this time, now there is only one night left until I come before the rabbis, and then before G-d, immersed in the waters of the mikveh.

The Mikveh Lady called me today. We talked about what would happen tomorrow at the mikveh. She explained it's a very small place, with a lobby, an office, and the mikveh itself, which also refers to the room where the mikveh is. There is a bathroom where I can prepare myself.

She explained to me how I need to remove everything, and make sure not to wear makeup or hair products, or if I do, to wash them off before going into the mikveh. And before I enter the water, she will check my shoulders and chest to make sure no hairs from my head are there, because not even a hair can come between myself and G-d.

She recommended that I take a bath. I did not tell her, but I took a bath Sunday night. I had a stressful day and needed to relax. So I put some bubbles in, put on some nice choral music, and set myself in for a good soak. As I did, I began to think of the mikveh, and what it would mean to be immersed in those waters. How would I be cleansed? How would I be made new? Would I be or feel the same or different after I emerged? These are questions I won't know the answers to until tomorrow.

Tonight, I took a long shower. I cleaned, I shaved. I realized that I was more concerned with how my body would look than I normally would be if I thought I were going to be intimate with someone. Because when you are intimate, people often don't concentrate on the details, even if we think they might. And also the light is often low. Here, tomorrow, I will be standing before a woman in a completely sane and wakeful state, under some kind of light that would most likely reveal everything my body had to offer. She would see every hair. She would be looking for them. Though body hair, she said, was okay. Still, I wanted as little as possible. I wanted to feel fresh and new. Not naked as a baby. Just as unencumbered as possible.

And I found that I became more aware of what was on my body. After the shower, I put on lotion and realized that I could not do that tomorrow. Most days when I am getting ready, I am thinking about what I can put on. Tomorrow, I will be thinking about what I can't put on. I took off the nail polish that was chipping off my toenails. I thought about perfume and decided that not even a scent that was not my own would be coming with me. Though I've decided I will wear deodorant and wash it off beforehand. There's vanity, and then there's public presence.

In all, I feel ready. I feel relaxed. It's a little bit late. I feel all of my big thinking and philosophizing and studying funneling down into one moment. But when it happens tomorrow, I'll be ready.

The Period of Nidah

I just had the most interesting conversation with my Rabbi this morning. So now a small group of men is aware of the exact status of my menstrual cycle. I feel both exposed and empowered.

On the one hand, I have to share with a group of mature men (my beit din), most of whom I barely know - and actually, knowing them makes it slightly worse - the most personal of details. On the other hand, it means that, rather than me being on their schedule, they have to be on mine.

This is something I love about Halacha (Jewish Law). It may seem biased, at first, in favor of the men, but in actual fact, this is not the case.

To say that a woman cannot go to a mikveh during her period is probably, mainly, a matter of public health. It would not do to have bleeding women in public water. Nobody would like that. But, truth be told, I think it's more respectful to the women. If that were to happen to a woman, it would be embarrassing for her - or at least it would be for me. And it makes sense to cleanse and purify after the period of Nidah.

I like that this article points out that when a woman is "tameh" from the blood of menstruation it does not mean that she is physically dirty or somehow stained in some way, personally. It means that she reaches a certain status with regard to ritual distinction, and both the separation that she takes from her husband, as well as the purification and return to her husband are both sacred. Well, the article didn't say that, but I interpreted that from what I know.

We often think we know and believe that the Jews of ancient time and possibly today, somehow believe(d) a woman to be less than human during the state of nidah, as evidenced by their ritual "impurity." But really it is all part of a sacred cycle. A sacred breathing ritual, where you let one breath out in order to take the next one in. This is the rhythm of life, the heartbeat of our human race. It is special and sacred and divine. In my opinion, a woman cannot enter a mikveh when she is menstruating, because she is simply too holy during that period. Likewise, they also point out, and I have found in my own life, that this is a wonderful time in which to deepen your relationship with someone. In that time, you find out if the person really cares for you and wants to spend their time for you, or if they are just interested in "getting in your pants."

I also know that each period changes me slightly. The emotions that I experience as my period approaches bring new notions and insights about my life. They make me do and say things I might not do the other three weeks of the month, but I'm always grateful for the new perspective. And afterward, I relax. I go back to who I am and what I know, with the relief of seeing that one first spot of blood.

For me, if it happens that the rabbis are available when my period ends and I can enter the mikveh, then this will be a very special and sacred ceremony. Not only will it be the first time that I enter a mikveh, but I will do it in concert with my body and the cycles that it makes. In a way, I think, how wonderful and strange that it chose this time. But in that way, it also seems pre-built. It was already built into the architecture of my life, before the date even arrived. This date, in fact, has been circling around me, and now it proposes to land just exactly where it should be.

When I first read the date my Rabbi proposed, I thought, or rather felt it my gut, that it would not work. I thought, "I need another week to prepare." That was my body talking, even though I thought it was me (i.e. my consciousness. Maybe no difference?). At the time, even though I knew where I was in my cycle, the connection never occurred to me until this morning, when my Rabbi asked. And I knew what he was going to say before he even said it.

So this is where the power comes in. Because my body holds the power of Halacha. Halacha does not determine my body. My body determines the Halacha. It decides the schedule of events, and the Rabbis have no choice but to comply. Just as I have no choice but to follow the cycles it creates. It is entirely even. Both sides are fair. This is justice, because no one is excluded from the power of the body, no matter how much we think we might be able to break it and control it. In the end, all we can do is relax, and take things as they come.

Another very good article about nidah or niddah, can be found here.

Destruction and rebuilding

As we come up onto Tisha B'Av, I wanted to reflect on what I did last year for this holiday, and how it means something similar and different to me this year.

Last year, I spent the holiday evening at the home of Rabbi Michael Lerner of TIKKUN fame in Berkeley, CA, where he holds meetings for his Jewish Renewal synagogue, Beyt Tikkun. We read Lamentations by candlelight, after the evening had started. Earlier, we davened and then joined together for a meal before the fast. It was a solemn night, but a joyful one as well. I felt a great sense of community and spirituality, which was no doubt helped by being so high up in the hills of Berkeley.

This year, I am sitting at home. I am not going to services, because I would be home too late if I did. If that's lame, I don't care right now. My number one priority right now is taking care of myself. I am no less observing the meaning of the holiday, and this year, at least for the time I am spending alone, I am going to fast. I have plans to be with a friend, and I will eat either very little or not at all. A full-on fast might not be healthy for me, either, but I am going to meet it as much as I can.

I want to feel the hunger. An occasional fast is good sometimes. There was a good article that a friend shared on the practical nature of fasting, and it's true, fasting does something to you. It changes you, even when you aren't looking for it. It changes you in ways you don't expect. But shaking up your usual rhythm, you are forced out of your usual ways of thinking. Maybe this is perfectly what I need right now.

Lately, I have been feeling "stuck." I have been feeling like my life is in one particular place, and I'm not getting anywhere by trying to push it or shove it, heaving this way and that, but it's not going anywhere. It's like a big rock stuck in the sand, and it doesn't want to budge. So maybe for this holiday I will stop pushing. I will stop forcing my angles on all the things I want to "change," and instead let change happen of it's own accord.

I will open my mind and let the change come in. When you stop, sometimes, and stop thinking, that's when the good ideas come in.

Like cats.

Last year, Tisha B'Av was about remembering a part of my life that was broken, a part of my life that was destroyed; a relationship that failed to flourish. This year, in some ways, is the same. I have that relationship, still mourned, still broken, still lost. Even if having it in my life would be obsolete, inappropriate or just plain useless, I still mourn it's passing. Its remembrance still brings me pain that I just want to alleviate, and don't quite feel I can. And now, I have other relationships, built and lost. Each one a temple, where I sacrificed to G-d a little piece of myself, and now those sacrifices, too, are gone, never to be returned.

But even with those losses, what this Holiday really is about, to me, is hope. Hope for the future. Hope for rebuilding those corrupted relationships, or if not those ones, then to build new, stronger, better ones. With people I might not even know yet. Or friends who are just around the corner, who perhaps I've met, but are just ready and waiting in the wings to take my life to a new level of bliss and personal satisfaction that I've never known before, and which would belie my grief, but would make it, oh, so worth it.

Pure Bliss

The day has come. Well, not THE day. But the day I found a Rabbi with whom to work on my Day has come. Hooray! At the moment, I am not going to tell you who it is.

Suffice it to say, I am Very, Very Happy. And also a little bit nervous. It's finally beginning to hit me; no, wait - it's about to hit me, but hasn't quite yet, that this is irreversible. Irrevocable. That is one of the first things that the Rebbetzin at Boston University Hillel told me: once you do it, you can't take it back.

I thought, sure, that's great. I don't want to take it back! And I still don't. But the implications are huge. I am about to BECOME something that I wasn't before. Of course, that's not entirely true. I am about to become myself. I am about to become who I already was. But in terms of the world, and how I relate, I am about to become OTHER. Other than what I was. I am no longer going to be a goy (or whatever the feminine version of that is). I'm not going to be white, exactly, though I will be. I will be in a minority. I will be in a small group of people whose influence is greater than their numbers. I will be able to identify with a community, with a people.

At first, this seems strange and bizarre to me, as a concept. But I've already been feeling a part of it. When I learned that Bernie Madoff had scammed Elie Wiesel's organization, I felt personally up in arms, because Mr. Wiesel is one of my favorite people on this earth, and he, least of all, deserves to be scammed. When I read a story recently about a young girl with a bizarre medical condition, my feeling for the family was one of neutral interest and compassion until I looked at the last picture, which showed the little girl at her bar mitzvah. Then I realized what their name meant: they were Jewish. And suddenly I felt a warmth toward them that I hadn't felt before, just by that simple piece of information.

So I am about to join this community, this tribe. I will become one of the "Chosen People." I suppose the only thing that will make me different from most is that I will have chosen myself. But maybe that's what every Jewish person does. Maybe that doesn't make me different at all. Maybe the Jewish people are chosen simply because they choose themselves. Every day, whenever the option presents itself, they say, "I choose me. I choose life." L'Chaim.

Shavuot on the Mountain

I guess it is time for my monthly post. These posts are getting less and less frequent. Not for lack of interest, or lack of subject matter. Maybe for a lack of time? A lack of inspiration? A wondering - will this process ever end?? Will I ever really convert? Or is this some fantasy that I've made up, which I will never actually achieve? Let's not go there.

Let us go instead to the experience of the most recent Holiday, Shavuot. As you may or may not recall, this was my first official holiday as a decided-to-convert person last year. That is, it was after attending Pesach Seder that I decided conversion was really what I wanted, and contacted a Rabbi to work with.

My Shavuot activities that time included making a cheesecake, picking the "first fruits" off a tree in my back yard, attending an all-night learning event at the local JCC, and studying the Book of Ruth.

It was in reading the Book of Ruth at that class, that it occurred to me that in all my years of Bible-reading, I had never once read the Book of Ruth. And yet, how strange, since my Christian Godmother's name is Ruth, and I had always wondered what the name meant, or what it stood for.

Now I know.

Ruth is the first named convert in the Bible (after Abraham). And not only is she a woman, but she is the direct ancestor of King David - his grandmother, in fact. That, combined with the fact that her life had some parallels to my own, made it a particularly revealing story to read.

This year, I had a different kind of revelation. I attended a one-night camping trip to Mount Tamalpais, where teachings would be given all night, with the added benefit of being in the "wilderness" - just as the Israelites were in the wilderness when they received the Torah, and on a mountain, no less.

I taught a small class on Ruth at this event, and had the opportunity to share my story with many others in conversation. It was nice, but it still made me wonder - when am I going to convert? When will this process be finished so that I can start my life as I really want it to be - as a Jew? When will I, officially, at least in some fashion, become a part of the community?

Because that is all I really want. To be recognized as someone who is truly committed to this religion. Emotionally, spiritually, physically, intellectually. I felt ready to convert last year. And yet, I still wait. When will it be? How long?

Perhaps I am overly anxious. It's not that I feel I am going to give up. It is just that I want to carry out the rest of my life as a Jew, and I want that to start now, or at least as soon as possible.

Because I am like Ruth. You can tell me, go back, little girl. Go back to your home, your Christianity. and I will tell you, no, thank you. That religion may be fine, but it holds nothing for me. Being Jewish is all I want.

Touché

I spent the day out in the park yesterday, with a friend for her birthday. It was also mother's day, and a few other birthdays. Just about half the city was in the park it seemed. And it was odd. I realized, as I wandered around, searching for my friends amidst the huge patchwork of families and groups of friends on blankets, that everyone seemed to be sitting on the side of this gently sloping area, all facing the same way, as if there were some sort of performance going on below. But there was not. There was only the street. And most people were looking upward, toward the sun. That, I guess, was the day's big performance.

After a good while, I managed to find my friends. We shared a Meyer lemon torte, baked by the birthday girl herself, fresh strawberries, cherries, and all sorts of baked treats. At one point, a dog came over and decided to be my friend. I am really more of a cat person, and this was a big dog. He looked scary, with a thin black scar across his muzzle, and the choke chain his owner had on him. But he seemed friendly. He came over, I put my hand on him, and he sat down immediately, and put his paws on my leg. Everyone was amazed, including his owner, and myself. He didn't seem to want to leave my side. The woman who owned him said that he had been abused as a puppy. That's why he had the scar on his face. His owners at the time had put a wire muzzle on him. He looked like a dog that could do some damage, but for the most part, he didn't want to. He had a wise aspect to him. Wise and worldly. He knew what cruelty meant, and he wasn't interested in being a part of it.

I didn't mind sitting next to the dog. It felt nice that he wanted to be with me.

Earlier, however, a guy I know had joined the party and sat down next to me. This man is also converting, and has been for several. Perhaps he is having a hard time making a decision. And I haven't asked, it's possible he'd have to go through circumcision if he isn't already. At one point I thought to ask him, but at present, I think I would rather not know. That is not what bothers me about him. What bothers me is the way he touches me.

At first, it was exciting to meet him. It was at a Hanukkah party, night one. We bonded over conversion and the fact that we both lived in the East Bay. However, I for some reason did not feel comfortable giving him my number. I saw him at a subsequent event, where, when he greeted me, he touched my arm lightly, just above the elbow. I was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, and so his finger just brushed against my skin. It was a touch that almost could have been an accident, but wasn't. It was meant to get my attention, but in an ever so subtle way. I didn't like it.

The thing about it is that this man is gay, at least as far as I can tell. Perhaps he is bisexual. I don't care. Those are touches that I crave, but something that I want from a source that I designate, from someone that I love. No one is allowed to touch me like that without my permission. I let that first touch slide, only because I figured he might have a crush on me, but my intent was not to respond, and hopefully he would stop.

We saw each other again, though, at a Purim party, and again, he touched my arm in a way that I detested. And when he did, I couldn't get away fast enough. Perhaps he didn't get the idea. Perhaps he doesn't know what his touches mean.

Then, at my friend's birthday picnic, he sat down in a big open spot on the blue blanket next to me. I smiled and said hello. He then proceeded to brush his finger lightly on my thigh, to get my attention, quite unnecessarily, as he then told me he had met someone I know over the weekend. I let it go, but then, for emphasis, as he was talking to me, he touched his finger to my bare calf. This was unacceptable, and so I looked him directly in the eye, and I said, "Would you mind not touching my leg, please?" I didn't smile. I just held his gaze as he decided if I was serious or not, and then he said, "Uh, sure."

We sat in awkward silence then for several minutes. I hadn't wanted to shut him down completely, but what was I going to say? I'm sorry? I wasn't sorry. I wasn't sorry for feeling violated by all his little touches, which maybe he justified to himself as being "nothing," but let me tell you, they were something.

All touch is sacred.

I learned this from a Chasidic Rabbi who showed up at yet another of the Hanukkah parties that I went to last year. He came, driving a big white pickup truck with a massive menorah in the back of it. When he introduced himself, I offered my hand, which he declined to shake. He said that he couldn't, and someone else explained to me that did not shake hands with women. I might have thought this was misogynistic, except that it wasn't. And that's when he said, "All touch is sacred." The point was not that he didn't want to shake my hand because there was something wrong with me, but that if he touched me it would mean to much. He respected that power, and respected me enough not to touch me in the face of it. And it was because touch was so sacred, that he was reserving all his touch of women for his wife. Men he could touch, but women were off-limits to him. And to me, this was a great relief.

I thought of all the times I have been forced to shake a man's hand for purely social reasons, and then regretted it afterward, wanting to wash off the feeling, but being unable to. And it is especially bad when the man looks you in the eye and gives you that leering glance he may not even know he has. He may shift his finger in your palm, or linger for one second longer when you would rather let go. All these things are things that become a part of your body's memory, whether you want them there or no.

And in a way it is like stealing. You steal a touch from someone because you want it, but that person does not necessarily want your touch, when you take it without permission. Like this man, who is my friend, but whom I come to trust less and less as he touches me without my allowance. As if he has some right to my body that he did not request, and which I did not grant to him. If I knew him better and said okay, then okay. But I did not. Perhaps he misinterpreted me, but that is his misinterpretation. Perhaps I have left the door left open now.

I would be happy with a tradition that says not only should men only touch their wives and not other women, but that I, as a woman, am not obligated to touch any other man that I do not wish to touch. The moment that choice is taken away, all pleasure goes out of the exchange.

It is possible that I have a strange relationship to touch. Sometimes I think I am more sensitive than others. But there are good touches and there are bad ones. Not all touch is bad, and not all touch is good. When I am uncomfortable, I have to say something. And at least I was clear on my stance yesterday. I made sure to talk to him afterward, but he did seem slightly hurt. Oh well. Better than me feeling more uncomfortable by sitting there not saying anything.

In Relationship

All good things come to an end. And, I like to think, some of the bad things never began in the first place.

Let's take my last "relationship" - if you could even call it that, since that's being mighty generous, in my opinion. And even though I don't normally use this space as a place to put my musings on my personal life, I feel this is the best place for me to do it now, since all relationships are in a way a relationship with G-d. That, and the fact that my relationship with Judaism is for me the primary relationship in my life right now.

I was upfront with BG about this in the beginning. I told him on multiple occasions that I was converting to Judaism, starting on the first date. And I made sure he was okay with this, really trying to gauge his reaction to the idea in general. I also told him I didn't want to "date anybody" right then - partly because of the conversion, and also because I suspected I might one day be interested in dating a Jewish man. And even conversion cannot give him a Jewish childhood any more that it can for me. And that's something I am interested in, discriminatory as that may be. On the other hand, true love takes all tricks, and in the face of that, I'm sure I'd have to reconsider what I "want." These ideas are merely guidelines. Probably essential to this trope is that I did not love him, then or now.

I dated him - why? Because he was there. Because he seemed to care for me and wanted to support me. And he seemed to understand where I was coming from. I also seemed to understand him, and so we had a connection, but it was a superficial connection at best. It was a connection of external references, whereas deep in my core, I felt very much alone, and very unacknowledged, no matter how much he said that he cared about me.

I think I knew all along that it was not a good match, and yet, it seemed, the world at large was supporting our relationship. A good friend of mine, as well as other people, told me what a good guy he was. He had a decent job. He wanted a girlfriend. And that's not always the case. It was almost too easy.

But as things went along, I became more and more uncomfortable. It was fairly disconcerting, to say the least, that it was only after we solidified our relationship that he decided to tell me that he'd had an inclination to convert to Judaism all this time. This was two months and many conversations since our first date, when I let him know that my conversion was very important to me. My only assumption could be that when I had told him I suspected I might want to date a Jewish guy, so suddenly he wanted to be that Jewish guy. Maybe that is when I lost all respect for him. But I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, even though it was clear that he hadn't really given the matter much thought - at least not in the sense that would lead me to believe that he really knew what he was getting into.

Fast-forward a few months. He moves in. He moves out. We fight. I get the sense he is operating on some level other than mine. I get the feeling his ears are open, but he isn't really listening to me. I am unsatisfied, both physically and emotionally, and I just about can't take it any more.

I was willing to try and "make it work," but he insisted on moving out. So I let him, and I decided that the best thing would be for us to break up. But we still saw each other. Almost as much as when we were dating. For about a month, we dating without being an actual couple.

And then it dawned on me that this whole time, he had been seeing a friend of mine, without my knowledge, and that both this friend and him and kept information from me, either by outright lying, or simply by omission, and that whenever I found out, he would make some excuse or try to justify it in some way. I said, uh-uh. No way, that's not happening. There are a lot of things I can take, but dishonesty isn't one of them.

So he got the boot for real this time, and so did my friend. I saw her briefly for coffee one day, and then said, "See you later." I wasn't mean. I merely suggested they should date each other. I think that I probably have done them a wonderful service. After this, they will realize, on their own separate steam, that they were made for each other all along, and I was the catalyst that helped make it happen.

At the same time, I feel deceived, used, and abused by people who supposedly called themselves my friends. But they weren't friends. They weren't looking out for me. They were barely looking out for themselves. I did myself a favor by getting out of there. And not a moment too soon. Maybe too late. But not too late to learn something.

Aleph and Nothing

I began a class on the Hebrew Aleph-bet this past week. I need to learn Biblical Hebrew, to help me understand what I am reading during services, and I found this class that focuses entirely on the Aleph-bet, going through each letter individually, and allowing the class to connect with each one on a deeper level. This seems to make sense to me, given that, in Hebrew, the letters seem to have a kind of life. They are alive, like people. They have characteristics, traits, and habits, and in reading or writing Hebrew, it seems you get to know them, like friends that form a constant conversation that surrounds you and becomes the fabric of your life.

It is not insignificant that "In the beginning, was the Word..."

And I was not the only one taking the class who had little or no background in Hebrew. Many born Jews were there, either preparing to take Hebrew for the first time, or else wanting to revisit it, since the last time they had studied it was when they were nine.

Naturally, for the first class, we looked at the Aleph. It seems fitting that the Aleph-bet begins with this character. It is the letter that represents G-d, and it also has the numerical value of one. This being the case, it follows that when Jews pray the Shema - "Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad" - they are literally saying that G-d is One. And while Echad may have more of a unifying sense rather than just the number, there is no denying that one is one, Echad is tranlated as "one," and if Aleph is one, then G-d must also Aleph. If A = B and B = C then A = C.

So G-d is represented by Aleph. But not only in the numerical sense. It is represented in the inexplicable nature of the letter itself. Here is what I wrote during the class:

How can a letter with so much presence, so much shape, that it dances across the page, arms reaching, with that bold, diagonal stroke across the center - how can such a letter have no sound? Surely it deserves a sound. And really, what's the point of creating a letter that has no sound? Why waste the ink? But it's not wasted. Just look at it. It does make a sound. It makes the sound of your soul. It makes the sound of existence.

And what is amazing to me is that they did not just create a letter with no sound, which could be like, for example, in Greek, a small mark to represent an aspiration or lack thereof preceding an initial vowel. The Yud is small, but it makes a sound. And while Aleph's nearest equivalent is our "A," Aleph literally stands for no sound at all, and it only gains sound by means of other marks and letters around it. In practice, it is a big, complicated symbol, meant to depict exactly no qualities, no vibrations, nothing. It represents nothing, and yet it is something, it is a letter.

I think it says a lot about the Jewish people that they, or whoever was creating the Aleph-bet, took the time to create a letter that represented nothing. It is exactly, as our instructor said, the "paradox of existence." And that is what we find in G-d - a paradox of existence.

G-d exists. G-d doesn't exist. Both statements are true. G-d exists, but G-d is no thing. G-d is only something when you put your mind on It and focus on It. In Quantum physics, when you look at the tiniest particles of life, they become so tiny that we cannot really look at them. We have to look at behaviors. And there are some particles and particle behaviors that exist only when we are looking at them. By the mere act of bringing our attention to them, we see something that did not exist otherwise. Like the letter Aleph. Silence is there. But until we acknowledge it it is not there, because there is nothing, in fact, to signal it. But this nothing is all around us. It is pure presence.

That is why I say the letter is like a dance. Because in a dance, you manifest your physical presence, you become manifest, you become something that attracts more attention, and yet you say nothing. Words detract from the dance. Only the dance itself is important.

And we know how important dancing is to Chasidic Judaism. Countless tales of Rebbes involve people - the Rebbe or someone else - dancing, or singing a niggun, and through the wordless expression of joy, find something more great and transforming than all the words in the world.

And this idea is embedded in all Jewish writing in Biblical Hebrew. In the beginning was the word, and in the beginning of the Aleph-bet is nothing. The word begins with nothing. All creation begins with nothing. And yet, somehow, we are here.

Mitzvoth and Humility

This morning, I went to an interview with an employment agency that I've never been to before. But they were recommended to me by a former employer, and I know several people that have worked through them and liked them.

During the initial part of the interview, they had me fill out all their customary paperwork. The receptionist showed me each form and explained what they were, including one that had a "spelling test" at the top. It looked very silly, and she smiled sheepishly as if to say, I know it's dumb, but we just do this.

So I dutifully filled out all of the information on employers and past job experience. I put my signature on the line for my federal tax forms, etc. Then I came to the spelling test. Now, initially, I was excited. I thought, I'm a writer, I'm going to ace this thing! Then, I just felt insulted. Here I am, supposedly a capable adult, and I am being made to circle the correct spelling out of two possibilities for words like "Acceptable."

More insulting to me was that the list included primarily common spelling mistakes, of the kind I have tried to avoid since high school, and earlier. But the truth is, I was afraid of spelling tests as a child. I can remember failing at them miserably in first and second grade, and feeling miserable and stupid because of it. I went on to take Latin in middle school, and Greek in college, and a few other languages in between. I focused on my writing and made a point of learning the rules of spelling so that I would never be tripped up again.

Now I am one of those annoying people who read books and get distracted by spelling mistakes. I read my emails about ten times over to make sure there isn't one misspelled word, even when writing to my friends. And I can't stand when people spell words like "definately" instead of "definitely." And yet, I wondered, with the mimeographed sheet there in front of me, is this a joke? Or does "Misspelled" really only have one "s"? Suddenly I was doubting my knowledge. And of course I would never misspell any of these words in an actual piece of writing. I thought, maybe I should say something.

So I got up and informed the woman at the desk that I was in fact a trained journalist and wrote for a living and had also previously been a writing tutor. I was prepared to get out my report cards for Latin in middle school and show her every spelling test I'd ever taken, if I could have found them. Never mind that I still make a practice of doing what one high school teacher suggested, which is to write down words I am not familiar with that I come across and look them up later. She smiled at me and nodded in a friendly way. She didn't care.

I sat down and looked at the next section, where I had to correct four sentences using appropriate punctuation marks. I wasn't sure if this was easy or difficult, and I began to doubt my instincts. Then I felt embarrassed thinking about what I had just said - how my mistakes would seem worse now, since I had set the bar so high. I can only hope I got them right.

There were some sections with more word questions, and did some arithmetic on the back. Some of it was easy, but some, though easy enough, were not problems I could do in my head. Yes, I was allowed use my calculator. "Just do it," essentially, was the idea.

So I finished the "test" and handed the receptionist my papers.

The rest of the interview went smoothly. But throughout the day, I kept thinking about that test. What was the point? Were they actually concerned that their potential temporary employees could not do basic spelling and arithmetic? Or did the answer lie somewhere else? Then it came to me. It was like that "test" teachers sometimes gave students in class that asked a bunch of silly questions and then, at the end, instructed you to put your pencil down and not to take the test at all. It was a hoax.

This test was not a hoax. But it wasn't about the answers to the questions. It was about whether or how I took the test. It was about whether I followed directions, even if the activity was stupid, or annoying, or possibly seemingly obvious, and maybe even a little bit humiliating. They were trying to see what kind of employee I would be - the kind who does the job willingly, or the kind who and asks questions.

I guess I gave them the answer to that one. But it seems to me much like the mitzvoth. And in much the same way, we are asked, in Judaism, to do many things that may seem stupid, or trivial, or beneath us. Like putting tin foil on our counters at Passover. But there is always a point. And we are supposed to swallow our pride and do these things anyway. Because it's not about whether we like what we do. It's about the fact that we are doing it. It is about showing that we are dedicated because we are not so worried about our personal appearance, or our abilities, or loveliness, or super-star qualities. We are just like everybody else. All human. All on the same level. Some of us are not exempted from life's requirements just because we happen to have studied, or been well-bred, or had a certain kind of experience or education. We can be as brilliant at Einstein, but when it comes to being human, we still have to cross our i's and dot our t's when it comes to dealing with life and our interactions with other people, no matter how demeaning it may seem to us.

And so I was humbled by my experience today. In fact, I realized even as I was speaking to the woman at the desk that my words meant nothing. My experience meant nothing. And afterwards, I just felt arrogant and obnoxious. It was such a small thing, and yet in my mind, it seems that stupid little test was probably one of the most important things that they had me do during that whole interview. How I responded gave them the real flavor of who I am, for better or for worse, more than I could ever say or put on paper.

And perhaps this is the kind of thing that is meant by saying that "the stone that was rejected shall be the chief cornerstone." Not that one thing that is rejected will turn out to be the most important thing ever. But that many of the things that we deem to be trivial or unimportant will turn out to be carrying a significant weight in our lives, and supporting us without our realizing it. And if we dismiss those things, well, then we might lose our balance and have to start building all over again. Building from scratch, with little things. Hoping that some small stone can be placed again right exactly where it is needed.

Kosher Kitty

This past weekend, I went to a shiur on how to prepare for passover. It was at a woman, Becky's, lovely apartment in the Mission, and there were all of two of us present. But to tell you the truth, I was okay with the small turnout, being as I know little about how to prepare for Passover. I know about the going around house with a candle and a feather part, and getting rid of chametz, but only generally. I knew there was much more to know, and since the title of the gathering was "everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-preparing-for-Passover-but-didn't-think-to-ask," I figured I was in the right place.

Perched on comfy sofas with lots of pillows, Becky told us how to pour boiling water over the counters, then cover them with aluminum foil. And to get an extra set of plates - but not too expensive. No need to go overboard.

She asked me about my roommates. I don't have any roommates, I said. Just my cat. "And your cat?" She's kosher, I blithely stated. Of course, it's not really true. She's really a bit overweight. But she's fit for me. As far as I am concerned, she is kosher. It never occurred to me my cat might need to eat kosher as well!

Of course, her food is full of wheat and ash, and most certainly all kinds of unkosher meat products. Who makes kosher cat food? I wondered. And then I reminded myself that I needed to go out and get her more cat food.

Becky told me not to worry about it. Since this is one of my first years, I shouldn't drive myself crazy. Just worry about the human food for now.

But what about the Israelites? Didn't they have to leave out the chametz for their animals as well? For the people and for the beasts? On fast days, weren't the animals meant to fast also? We say now that our animals, our pets, are like part of the family. But I think for the Israelites, their animals were truly part of the clan. Even sacrifice, while seemingly cruel, was I think a kind of reverence for the fact that the animals were so much appreciated.

So the next day I did indeed to go get more cat food for my dear kitty. And as I did - I didn't think about it ahead of time - I wore my JCHS T-shirt with the Hebrew below the letters. As the girl rang up the three cans and the bag of dry food, I said, "I don't need a bag." I had a special bag attached to my bike. She smiled at me, and I couldn't tell, but I think she had a look at my shirt. Then I found myself wondering if she was Jewish, and if she was aware that the cat food I had just bought was full of leavening, and this just two days before Pesach.

Walking out of the store, I felt suddenly self-conscious and even a little bit wrong. Here I was, sporting some kind of Jewishness, and yet doing something that, while obscure, could actually be deemed un-Jewish. I was about to feed my cat chametz instead of matzoh for Passover.

Why couldn't I just give her matzoh soaked in chicken broth for eight days? Maybe I should. Maybe I should do that. Then I'd have a really kosher kitty.

Purim

Well, I have been out of the picture for a while, I guess. Things happened, I guess and somehow or other, I was not posting! So, sorry for the disappearance. But I have been practicing Judaism. Basically living my life, I guess. I have a few stories for the week.

1. My boyfriend and I went to a Shabbat dinner at a friends' house.

2. Purim Party in the Mission

3. I met up with an ex-boyfriend from college, who is Lutheran and is now in Theological seminary, and had the joy of telling him I am converting. It went well.

Right now, I am going to write about number 2 on the list - Purim!

This was my first Purim, and the bar is high. Arriving, I wasn't quite sure if everyone would be wearing costumes during the reading or not, so I hedged my bets and had a costume that wasn't too crazy, but was at least funny enough to be different from my usual self. I was relieved, when we got to the place to see a man in bunny ears in line ahead of me. It seemed to say I had made the right choice.

we waited as the room filled up. And filled, and continued to fill. Some men got on stage and started to say blessings, but nothing could be heard above the din, except the occasional "brichu."

Finally, after what seemed like a longer time than I was expecting, the reading began. Our first reader was a woman I knew, but barely recognized, as she was dressed, very convincingly in a Wonder Woman outfit. Bare flesh exposed, breasts lofted high by a red and gold bustier, tight short-shorts, and wristbands, she had the whole thing going on. And in this costume, she swayed back and forth, confidently and lyrically singing out the Hebrew as if it were any other Sabbath morning service. She was brilliant. Gorrilla men, kings, and bunnies filled the room. Princess Leia, dancing girls, and many nondescript costumes held people listening, rapt, to the story of Queen Esther, Haman, and Mordecai.

We dutifully cheered at each mention of Haman's name, but I have to say, I felt a bit wrong about that. Sure he was almost certainly not a nice guy. But what did I have against him personally? And furthermore, what good does it do to boo and hiss, when he got what was coming to him - impaled on a stake, no less?

I am confused about this whole issue of Jews and "others" as a kind of "us against them" theme. I realize it is popular and recurring. But the Judaism that I have found, which I like, sees people as more of all one race. And the Jews are part of that race. Plus, as a convert, I see all people as potential Jews - of only they knew. But I'm not out to proselytize.

When I told my ex-boyfriend that I had gone to a Purim party, he said, is it one of those parties where the Jews celebrate by going around and bashing on other Jews? I was offended, on two counts. One, as I said to him, Do you really think people in San Francisco would be like that, and if they were, do you think I would hang out with them? (What I didn't tell him, but which is true, and made me laugh, is that my friends are the most mild-mannered, bookish people you will ever meet.) But I was offended in a way even to know that other Jews do that. Sure, it happens in the story. Instead of all the Jews in being killed, they go out and kill thousands of the descendants of Amalek. I fail to see how that is such a great victory. I should think that just celebrating the sparing of their lives would have been enough. But I guess in that day, with a more militaristic, survivalist mindset, maybe they had to do that in order to establish their social power. Nasty and mean. And also outdated. Obviously, we don't think that way anymore. Plus, it says in the reading that the prescribed observation for the holiday is feasting and merriment - not repeating the conquering of other tribes.

And that's the way I learned it - that to celebrate Purim includes a commandment to get drunk so that you can't even tell the difference between Haman and Mordecai. You stop knowing who is good and bad, and simply enjoy yourself and enjoy your life.

So the idea that Jews now, today, in Jerusalem, Brooklyn, or anywhere, would "celebrate" Purim by reenacting an out-moded tribal violence seems both incongruous and offensive. And not valid, in terms of my belief. If we are to love each other, we must recognize we are all full of mistakes and transgressions. As the Talmud says, "Even the transgressors in Israel are as full of good deeds as a pomegranate is of seeds" [Eruvin 19a].

Orthodox

Last week I visited a Modern Orthodox synagogue. It was my first American Orthodox experience (my first one ever was in France). And it was probably my first Modern Orthodox time, to my knowledge. And I found out I liked it. I really liked it. In fact, it is kind of shaking up my pre-conceived ideas about how I found myself finding Judaism how much I liked it.

I've always known that I liked Orthodox ideas. I just was never sure how much I would like it in practice. I am a little scared of those cult-like communities I hear about where Ultra-Orthodox Jews live all together and hardly go out of their community. But this was not that.

I even like the Mechitzah. Who would have thought I would like a mechitzah? I found it comforting, in a way. It was like, I didn't have to worry about sitting next to guys I didn't want to sit next to. The only awkward thing was that it meant only women were going to come up and greet me. But a very nice man did come out to see me when I came in the front door, and told me where to go. I was grateful for that.

And I liked the room. I really liked the room. It was odd, because it didn't look very big or special from the outside, but on the inside, it was very big, and it felt very special. Perhaps because it was somewhat of a secret. You didn't know what was inside from looking at it from the outside. The pews were nice. The lighting was nice. The Mechitzah was low - not a full mechitzah - and it, too, was nice. Visually appealing. There, but not too distracting. And of course the Aron was nice. Understated, but clearly attractive in a respectful sort of way.

The most unusual thing about the room was that it was a very large space, with a high, peaked ceiling - it occurs to me now that perhaps I like it because it reminds me somewhat of my parents church from home, only with more rugs. And, like my parents church, it is a dark room, with lots of wood, but that somehow lets in a lot of light. I figured out the secret. They had several rows of small, widely spaced, yellow-glass windows set into the sweeping, high sides of the ceiling/roof. And on the patio side, the women's side, light came in through large glass doors, each of which sported a very large and clearly visible exit sign with an arrow pointing toward the door. I was reminded of the Mitzvah of removing all hazards from your home. This seemed very much in line.

I asked the man who greeted me whether I needed to keep my head covered (even though I'm not married). He said I did not, but that it was perfectly appropriate. I kept my hat on.

The only part of the Mechitzah I did not love was that when the brought the Torah around before and after it was read, they only carried it through the men's section. And as they did that, the women would line up along the wall to reach over and touch the torah scrolls with their hands or siddurs. It felt low, to me. It felt base. I felt I was being asked to do something undignified. Of course I love the Torah. But if you want me to kiss the scrolls, you are going to have to bring it to me. Even if it means handing it over to a woman. I am told this is done in some synagogues, and I think it is a perfectly acceptable compromise. Otherwise, don't ask me to participate in this ritual. I did it this time, but never again. That will be my protest.

Other than that, I had no problems with the separation of men and women. Children, of course, ambled up and down the aisles of both sides, boys and girls. It got to the point where the rabbi had to stand up and ask parents to go and gather their children ("now"), because there were "roaming gangs of short people." Not that they wanted children silent or out of sight and mind. Just that they were getting a little unruly.

And strangely, it did not bother me that only men read from the Torah, and spoke from the dais. A little boy even sat up front in one of the big chairs beside the Aron. And the rabbis seemed young to me - they were not much older than I was. And only the men wore prayer shawls. But this was somewhat relieving. I respected the fact that they wore prayer shawls and read from the Torah. I appreciated it more because I realize it is a big task to read the Torah, and a large show of humility and devotion to display your faith by wearing a prayer shawl. None of the women wore them, unlike the Conservative synagogue I have been attending. But even though I like wearing a shawl at that synagogue, I appreciated the fact that I was not expected to here. It made me feel that I don't have to measure up to guys on their level. They have their own expectations of who and how they are going to be in Shul, and I have mine. The expectations of me as a woman are different. Not better or worse, just different.

And men don't separate women away because they don't want them to be near them. Quite possibly the opposite. My sense is that they don't want to have a conflict between devotion to God and devotion to their female partner in the same moment. It is upholding one by upholding the other - not diluting each by trying to do too much at once. I respect that. I even appreciate it. And it makes me respect the men more for being who they are, and for not feeling like they have to spend every minute of every day chasing after the feminine in their lives. It is good for them to take time out and focus on something else.

but that didn't stop them from turning around and scanning over the women's section of the room (which was decidedly less full than the men's), blithely, as if we couldn't see them looking at us. And we pretended we didn't. Or at least I did.

And maybe what you have just read will confirm your beliefs that Orthodox Judaism is way off, out of date, and irrelevant to modern society. That may be right. But maybe that's why I like it. It holds onto itself despite what outside ideas and pressures might seem to say. It doesn't necessarily think it's better or more right, just that it's better and more right that it continues to do what it has been doing for a long time. And this Shul, by comparison to many, would probably be considered "loose." But again, I have to say it was scary to me how much I liked it. Scary in an exciting way. Scary in a new way. A way that makes me wonder if Orthodox Judiasm isn't something I want to look into more. Perhaps it isn't something I should be afraid of. Perhaps it is something I have been looking for all along. I don't know. But I guess we'll see.

Menses

I think, at first blush, it might appear that the Orthodox convention of not touching a woman during her menses because she is "impure" is a nasty, mysogynistic, patriarchal trope. But that's only looking at it from the man's side.

What about the women? Who asks the woman, do you want to be touched during your period? My feeling is, it may even be a highly reverential convention. In fact, I kind of like the idea. Because if you ask me, I would rather NOT be touched while I'm menstruating.

It is hard to explain some of the things that occur to a woman during her period. Quite possibly, there is no explanation, so it is futile trying. It is more a question of accepting a series of facts - something men find difficult, because they like the idea of having control over their immediate surroundings. The fact that they cannot (and nor can the women) control their periods then probably appears quite frightening for them. And disturbing, given the essential nature of the event.

But an essential fact, at least for me, is that I become quite sensitive at that time. Beforehand, it takes the form of emotional volatility, and after it begins, it becomes a physical sensitivity, wherein I do not want to be touched, because to be touched by anyone amounts to sensory overload, and what I need is sensory deprivation. It's like there is so much going on inside me, that I can't quite understand, and so it is unhelpful for people to try and make it better by putting their hands on me, because that would actually make it worse.

In general, I don't want to be asocial, but those first few days of menstruation almost always cause me to get the sense that I'd like to just crawl into a cave for a few days and not go anywhere.

So in that sense, I think the Biblical injunction for a man not to touch a woman during her period makes sense. MAYBE THE WOMEN DON'T WANT TO BE TOUCHED. But it's hard to get the men to "hands-off" with their hands-on propensities. Therefore psychological reasoning has to be employed. There is almost no way, I am sure, to get a man to not want to touch his wife, and so by calling the whole episode "ritually impure" could quite possibly be the only way.

In our language, the ideas of "impure" and "unclean" have immoral connotations. But I wonder if this is really the case with the original intention of the commandment? Does calling something "unclean" or "impure" necessarily mean that it is evil, or just that it is something that should not be approached or messed with? I vote we should turn the idea around. Because English has obviously corrupted the idea of what this whole process is supposed to mean, I suggest we should call the menses "holy." They should be set apart. But they should be untouchable. Even a woman herself cannot mess with her menses, and so why should she be forced to interact with a man during that time, who understands even less about what is going on with her than she does?

I suggest we elevate the status of menstruating women to almost or nearly a kind of "holy of holies," since it is not only an incomprehensible force of nature, it is also the force of nature that allows human life to continue. It is the sign and the wellspring of human procreation. It is a reminder of the trauma that brings us into life, as well as the end we will eventually meet. It is eternity and death, entwined together, in one bright, crimson flow.

Who could touch that? Who could say, I will have my way over you, in that time? That time is sacred, as it should be. The woman should have every right to wall herself away, and say, hands off me. That is the time when men DON'T get to say what happens. It is when a woman's body says, "This is my time, you will obey the order of my universe." There is no arguing with such a command. Argue at thy peril, I should say.

And if you choose to do otherwise, that's your choice. If there is one thing we have, it is free will. But on my time, and in my life, I have to say, if I could enforce this commandment in my life, I would be grateful for a few days off, and a little bit of time for myself. Everyone needs that once in a while. Just how lucky are we that we have it built in for us?

1-15-09
Taylor M.