I am a 26 year-old WASP lesbian in love and committed to my loving partner who is Sicilian and Jewish. We have been together for a year and a half and we are raising her 2 children together. Suddenly, just before setting foot into synagogue, I had this feeling that becoming a Jew would be a path that I would embark upon. After being raised Protestant and hating organized religion in general, establishing a relationship with a higher power and participating in a religious ceremonies strangely seems to be what is right for me right now.
The congregation in our small town is progressive and many members are converts to Judaism. My issue is: we’re getting married in four months and we would like a Jewish ceremony. I inquired with a few senior members of the congregation and they put me in contact with the person in charge of classes that converted Jews take. The teacher said that the classes had already begun and unless I knew Hebrew, I couldn’t join until the next go around well into the future. He also mentioned that the process generally takes a year to a year and a half. This scared me, I didn’t know I had to learn that much Hebrew and that the process would take so long. I reported back to the senior members, they scoffed at such requirements. They encouraged me to spend time with the people of the congregation to make sure this is something I truly want. They also assured me that learning a few cardinal prayers and basic Jewish terms and customs would be sufficient in allowing me to be a Jew.
My problem is, I am truly and sincerely interested in becoming a Jew and raising our children in a Jewish household, but I would really like to be considered a Jewish at our wedding 4 months from now. Where do I go from here? From what I have learned, Jewish ceremonies can most certainly exist without the presence of a rabbi. Should we roll on our own? My instinct is to continue with how I see fit and absorb what I can about Judaism until the wedding and I’ll know that although my journey has just begun, I can get married as a Jew and continue blossoming long after the wedding has ended. What do you think oh wise Yenta?
-Jonesing to Be a Jew
Dear JTBAJ,
One thing I don’t understand is, why the rush? If you want to be married Jewish and it is that important to both of you, why not wait and do the conversion full throttle? Then, at least, you can enjoy learning and transmuting your religiosity. That, and becoming Jewish isn’t about, as you pout it, “right now.” Joining a tribe, unless you scorn your wife, is a forever kind of deal.
Those scant requirements from that synagogue are nothing compared to a childhood of Hebrew School, Shabbat dinners, services, funerals, weddings and Bar Mitzvahs. What does it mean to you “To be a Jew?” And who decides, how and when? Does it matter if this congregation thinks you are Jewish at your Jewish wedding? This is an enormous undertaking, which you sound like you want to be a walk in the park.
I am of two minds when it comes to your question: the defensive Jewish mind, and the objective Jewish intellectual mind.
A 26 year-old Jewish woman is not born overnight. Your partner, myself, and other Jews in America have built an identity through familial influence AND endured the identity marker, culture and history of being Jewish for way longer than four months. That being said, you might need to be more patient. A lifetime of lessons cannot be filtered quickly into the mind of someone new to the religion. To be a Jewish American is no simple feat. It is a commitment, a beautiful multi-faceted often-tormented spiritual or non-spiritual convoluted implications-laden identity that should be approached slowly, cautiously, and if so driven, with intense conviction.
I asked an elder of mine, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, what she thought about your question. She couldn’t understand my defense, and said that Judaism is a cultural identity grounded in a lifetime of learning about Torah. She said if you want to align yourself culturally as a Jew and then embark on the spiritual learning that will carry you from now all the way to your grave, then why not call you Jewish right now.
I say marry that woman as yourself, and worry about being a Jew when and if the shoe suddenly fits. Ask yourself again the why, how, who and what of your decision to cross this religious divide. If you feel it fits now, and that you are Jewish, then start now.
If someone were converting to marry me, I think I would want them to be themselves at the altar, and with time and hard work, move towards an identity shift. Think about how long a sex change takes.
Maybe marry as “WASP lesbian” and evolve slowly into this religious shift. Take your cues from the biblical, and look at 40 days, 40 months, or 40 years as numerical markers of your Judeo-evolution. Also, look into creative Jewish ceremonies. Of the six weddings I attended this year, ALL were somewhat Jewish. One was a Jewish bride and a non-denominational minister, the next was intensely mystical and orthodox. After that a rabbi married a Jew to a non-Jew, and another was split between a spiritual Christian priestess and a rabbi as the conductors of ceremony.
Calling yourself a “WASP” isn’t the most positive self-defining moment. Don’t lose who you are in this new religious awakening. You might resent it later. See if you can walk the Jewish cakewalk while still remembering and respecting your own real and viable roots.
For more, try JewishConversion.com.
” title=”www.send-email.org”>www.send-email.org to merissag[at]gmail[dot]com.
A federal judge Thursday refused to permanently stay his ruling overturning Proposition 8’s ban of gay marriage but extended a temporary hold to give supporters time to appeal the historic ruling.
U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who overturned the measure on Aug. 4, agreed to give its sponsors until Aug. 18 to appeal his ruling to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Walker said that same-sex marriages may resume at that time unless a higher court blocks them.
Walker said the sponsors of Proposition 8 do not have legal standing to appeal his order because they were not directly affected by it.
My 7 year old: “Mommy, my birthday is in sixteen days! I am so excited!
Me: “I know sweety, what would you like for your birthday this year?
My 7 year old: “Same thing as last year…..CASH!”
Me: “But Meir, you never spent last year’s cash. Don’t you want a present, something you can play with? What do you need cash for anyways?”
My 7 year old: “I’m saving up for a house. Maybe a car.”
Me: “Meir, you’re 7. You don’t need to start saving for a house. When you grow up and get a job, then you can buy a house with the money you earn working.”
My 7 year old: “But mommy, the economic recession is bad, there might not be any jobs left by the time I grow up.”
Me: “What do you want to do when you grow up?”
My 7 year old: “I don’t like to cook….. I like baking though!”
Me: “Great, you can open up your own Bakery!”
My 7 year old: “I need my older brother to help me with that. Maybe my sister too.”
Me: “I’m sure they’d be happy to help you, you can call it- Meir’s Bakery!”
My 7 year old: “So, no cash this year?”
Me: “ I don’t think so.”
My 7 year old: “How bout an I-pad, an electric car and a huge water slide instead?”
Me: “How ‘bout twenty bucks? For the Bakery of course.”
That means the Christian convert who became a ward of Ohio because of fear that her Muslim family would abuse her because of her choice of faith is out on her own. Here’s what the AP had to say:
Bary, who had argued that she feared harm from her parents because of her religious conversion, planned to celebrate her birthday privately with friends, her attorneys said.
“She looks forward to preaching the word to all the nations — and those are her words,” said Angela Lloyd, one of her attorneys.
(skip)
“She has views and she has beliefs, and the sooner the parents come to understand and recognize that, the sooner there could be down the road some reconciliation,” Kort Gatterdam, another Bary attorney, said in his first public comments after a gag order dissolved with Bary’s birthday.
As you can imagine, Bary’s parents aren’t too found of her attorneys.
“But Jesus was not a victim. He was a conqueror…Jesus conquered death. He wasn’t victimized. He chose to give his life….If he was a victim, and this theology was true, then Jesus would’ve come back from the dead and made the Jews pay for what they did. That’s an abomination.”—Fox television host Glenn Beck, July 13, 2010 ————————
When I started this blog, I resolved to avoid writing about Glenn Beck for as long as possible. I don’t watch him or listen to his radio show, and what I do know of his politics doesn’t exactly inspire me to do either. Nevertheless, after receiving more than a dozen requests by Jews and Mormons to clarify Mr. Beck’s recent comments about Jews and deicide, I feel the need to clarify Mormon beliefs concerning this sensitive issue.
On a personal note, I have always found the claim that the Romans bore sole responsibility for the Crucifixion to be rather disingenuous. I understand why Jewish leaders make this claim, but the New Testament does not support it. Although the Romans carried out the execution of Jesus, Christian scriptures clearly indicate that the Jewish “chief priests,” “scribes,” “elders of the people,” and Sadducee High Priest Caiaphas organized His arrest and trial (Matt. 26:3-5, 47, 57, 59-66; 27:12, 20). If there is blame to assign for Jesus’ trial and execution, then those Jewish officials must receive their fair share. However, many Jews did accept Jesus, including almost all of the apostles and chief followers. Presumably, they played no role in the proceedings and cannot fairly be lumped together with Jesus’ accusers. Ditto for the masses who lined the streets and celebrated Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.
Unlike many professing Christians, Mormons do not have creeds. The closest creedal document in our scriptural canon is the Thirteen Articles of Faith, akin to Maimonides’ 13 Principles of Judaism. The Second Article of Faith states, “We believe that men will be punished for their own sins…” We aren’t punished for others’ misdeeds, so it is obviously unfair to blame “the Jews” for the actions of a group of scribes and Sadducees. Mr. Beck was in the middle of a broadside against liberation theology when he made the above statement, so I’ll assume that he was so worked up that he simply misspoke. Although I don’t know him, I’m willing to bet that he did not mean to imply that all Jews living at the time of the Crucifixion were guilty of killing the Christian Savior. I’ve heard many sermons and Sunday School lessons in my 31 years in the LDS Church, and have yet to hear anyone state that “the Jews killed Jesus.”
Many times in Q&A sessions following interfaith dialogues I am asked about the generational blood oath uttered by the people in Jerusalem (Matt. 27:25) at the trial of Jesus. This verse has probably caused more Jewish blood to be spilled over the centuries than any other. Thankfully, it is not emphasized in the LDS Church. If Matthew is to be believed (he is the only Gospel writer who mentions the statement), the people gathered at the feast in Jerusalem clamored for the release of Barabbas the criminal and pleaded with Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate to crucify Jesus. When Pilate washed his hands of the affair, saying that he was “innocent of the blood of this just person [Jesus]” (Matt. 27:24), the crowd declared: “His blood be on us, and on our children.” Pilate then ordered the Roman soldiers to scourge and crucify Jesus. For many centuries anti-Semitic Christians used this scripture to justify exacting cruel “revenge” on innocent Jews living in Europe.
My response? Mormons don’t believe in a God who listens to lynch mobs. This was not the Sanhedrin speaking: there is no indication that the crowd had any authority to represent the Jewish people and their offspring, and it is nonsensical to believe that God would somehow feel obligated to persecute generations of Jews because a group of murderous Jerusalemites had once requested that their descendants be held accountable for the spilling of Jesus’ blood.
It must be mentioned here that the Book of Mormon does have a few harsh things to say about the “priestcrafts,” “iniquities” and “abominations” of the Jews, which caused God to punish them and led them to “stiffen their necks” against Jesus. Moreover, the book includes this ringing indictment: “there is none other nation on earth that would crucify their God. For should the mighty miracles be wrought among other nations they would repent, and know that he be their God.” When these verses are considered in the context of a book that recounts how descendants of Israelites came to the Americas, kept the Law of Moses, built temples, and looked forward to the coming of a Messiah, it is clear that they are not anti-Semitic in nature. Rather, they were written in the same spirit as the lamentations of the Talmudic rabbis who blamed murder, idolatry, and sexual sins for the destruction of the First Temple and sinat chinam (baseless hatred) for the demise of the second one. As for condemning the conduct of ancient Israelites, the Book of Mormon can’t hold a candle to Jeremiah.
I will deal with the Jews’ rejection of Jesus when I address theodicy, persecution and anti-Semitism in a later post. For now, it is sufficient to note that there is nothing in Mormon teaching that supports blaming all Jews, past or present, for the murder of Jesus.
Last month, I decided that I was ready to start exploring new opportunities and felt that my time working a Beit T’Shuvah should begin coming to an end. I entered into their residential program exactly three years ago this month, and my eyes have become open to all that the Jewish Community has to offer. I knew that I would be making a bold move considering I was not sure where I would want to be employed next. I was hesitant to give my notice prior to having something else lined up, but I knew within myself that this chapter of my life was coming to an end and that ultimately, I would be okay. Each day, I continue to put one foot in front of the next, and have not let the fear of the unknown hold me back. Neither have I allowed myself to feel doomed because of the lack job availability. While it is obviously true that these are tough economic times, the biggest hurdle for me would be my own self-doubt. My faith today comes from my belief that G-d does not give me more than I can handle, and that I will be placed in whatever situation G-d feels is right for me. Along my journey I am encouraged by beshert blessings that are happening all around me. People are being placed in my life at exactly the right times, and I believe that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.
As if looking for a new job is not hard enough, at the end of August I am moving as well. I am very excited about both looking for new employment, and moving into a beautiful new home. I will be moving from Santa Monica to Silverlake to live with two of my favorite people, Asher Gellis, who is the Executive Director of JQ and the fabulous and super cool Tera Greene who is also a blogger for Oy Gay. JQ International is a Gay, Lesbian, Bi and Transgender (GLBT) Jewish movement founded to serve as an infrastructure and community building space for GLBT Jews. It provides an opportunity to connect with others and build programs and services that foster a healthy fusion of GLBT and Jewish Identity. Living at this house, where a great deal of JQ’s events are held, I will often be surrounded by young Jewish people just like me.
I was raised in Tampa, Florida in a culturally Jewish home, yet growing up I felt estranged from Judaism. Part of my discomfort came from the fear of not being accepted within the Jewish community because of my sexuality. Growing up, the fear of not being accepted forced me to hide behind masks and pushed me to detach from what was going on around me. For many years going to Hebrew school, becoming a Bat Mitzvah and attending holiday events, I felt disconnected from Judaism and had difficulty embracing the teachings. I feel as though I have a lot of Judaism to catch up on and have a deep desire to learn as much as I can. Being a part of the JQ community is helping not only strengthen my relationships with other Jews and members of the LGBTQ community, but it is also helping me integrate two very important things in my life. This new chapter will be one step closer to wholeness.
This week, I marked my 47th birthday. I know. It’s a pretty non-descript number. More significantly though, the birthday marked 20 years since I entered the congregational rabbinate (I can’t believe it.) So in celebration, I’ve put together the list of:
10 Things I’ve Learned in 20 Years as a Rabbi.
I hope you find them useful, whatever you do in this world.
(1) When you’re being criticized, listen closely. There’s at least a 50% chance that you’re about to learn something that will make your life measurably better.
(2) When being thanked for something you’ve done, don’t minimize your deed or insist that you don’t need to be thanked, even if your humility is sincere. Words of thanks are being given as a gift. It’s hurtful to turn them down.
(3) “90% of life is just showing up” may be an overstatement. But I know that I’ve never regretted a decision to show up. You just can’t hug someone over the phone.
(4) You are never more yourself, than when you are being selfless.
(5) Listen to other people’s problems even though you know you can’t solve them. Most of the time, they’re not asking you to solve them. They’re just asking you to care about them.
(6) It’s just not possible to make everyone happy. But it is possible to remain on friendly and respectful terms with everyone. And it’s worth the effort.
(7) Anger is the least productive of all human emotions.
(8) Words spoken in public, especially when spoken by someone who is thought to carry moral authority, have the capacity to heal miraculously or to harm irreparably. Never ever speak thoughtlessly in public.
(9) When you sincerely apologize to someone, you don’t experience shame. You experience joy, for the future is now filled with hope and new possibility.
(10) Years and years later, people will tell you about the way you impacted their lives for the better. And you never had any idea. This, is a taste of the World to Come.
To be sure as Orthodox Jews we believe that God gave the Torah to be relevant for all times (yemot hamoshiach and the kashrut of bacon aside). Often it is argued that it can not be the case that something in nature has changed which would render something in the torah to no longer be true or observable. For instance, it is often pointed out in kiruv circles that the torah states that a pig is the only animal which has cloven hooves but does not chew its cud and since the Torah is true not only has another animal never been found with such criteria but one never will. From what I am told this is utilized as one of the many proofs of the Torah’s divine truth by many orthodox outreach organizations.
Another example: It is widely claimed in many segments of the Orthodox community that homosexuality must result from nurture and not nature. This is so, it is claimed, because God gave the torah for all times, so it must be the case that everyone can in theory marry someone of the opposite gender. Indeed the torah commands “Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife.” Since the Torah forbids homosexual acts and commands heterosexual marriage it must be the case that all Jews are able to be or at least act heterosexual with the right help.
Why is it then that kashrut organizations can forbid certain vegetables, telling us there is no way to check them for bugs and we do not bat an eye? Does not the torah tell us in Birashit that all the “growing things are for you to eat?” If the torah is applicable for all times and there is no way to check brussel sprouts for bugs why doesn’t this bother us theologically as much as claims for the genetic etiology of homosexuality? Is it perhaps that a culture has developed among us whereby when it comes to forbidding something we have no problem expanding the torah, but when it comes to finding ways to include and permit we do? Perhaps the case, as Rabbi J. Telushkin has said, “Though Hillel wins in the Talmud, it is Shami who wins in Jewish life today.”
What sort of diet helps people lose more weight? Do overweight people lose more weight on a low-carbohydrate diet (like Atkins) or on a low-fat diet (like Weight Watchers and others)?
A carefully designed study published in the current issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine answers that question. The study enrolled over 300 obese adults and randomized them to a low-carbohydrate diet or a low-fat diet. Importantly, patients with diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure were excluded. The low-carbohydrate diet group was instructed to restrict carbohydrates and to have as much fats and proteins as needed to feel satisfied. (This is essentially the Atkins diet.) The group randomized to a low-fat diet was instructed to limit total calories to between 1200 and 1800 kcal per day, with less than 30% of total calories from fat.
Both groups attended periodic behavioral group sessions to discuss their progress and learn skills for persevering with the diet. Both groups were also instructed to pursue an exercise program consisting largely of walking. The groups were followed for two years.
The authors’ were trying to show that a low-carbohydrate diet would lead to greater weight loss, but actually the weight loss was the same in both groups. Each group lost an average of 24 lb after one year and 15 lb (or an average of 7% of their body weight) after two years. About a third of the participants in each group had dropped out by two years.
One lesson from this study is that perseverance in any diet program will yield meaningful weight loss. It doesn’t matter which diet. The second lesson, highlighted by the large numbers of drop-outs, is that this is hard to do. So get started, and don’t quit.
Important legal mumbo jumbo: Anything you read on the web should be used to supplement, not replace, your doctor’s advice. Anything that I write is no exception. I’m a doctor, but I’m not your doctor despite the fact that you read or comment on my posts. Leaving a comment on a post is a wonderful way to enter into a discussion with other readers, but I will not respond to comments (just because of time constraints).
