"He keeps turning events by His stratagems. that they might accomplish all that He commands them throughout the inhabited earth, Causing each of them to happen to His land, whether as a scourge or as a blessing." Job 37.12-13 [JPS Tanakh 1985]
So let's talk about some oddities. Nothing big. Not at all important. A rational mind might pass them off as quirks in reality... until I began to see a pattern like pearls on a string... We live life forward but see its hidden wisdom only in hindsight.
Let me digress for a momentary tangent:
Ever since that terrible day in September of 2001, Cynthia, my friend and companion for the last sixteen years, and my wife for the last thirteen, has had a "problem" with believing in "a good God that would allow this to happen". God should not allow such evil. I might add that humanity should not either but we'll save that for later.
You must understand something. Cynthia has been my saving grace. My Shekinah. She has been the light of my life and incomperable friend in ways I cannot explain. We drew each other up out of dispair and loss. We have comforted one another. Challenged one another. Taught one another. Healed one another. But here my friend and lover has turned away from what I have always believed to be her secret well spring of goodness, joy, love, light, and comfort. I have bided my time and kept believing in the Spirit within her that makes her the kind loving person she has always been.
So what happened?
She got a part time job working in the Synagogue Judaica shop.. then spurred on by the fond memories of her Jewish childhood and its community, she started to go to some of the evening classes at the Synagogue. She had been occasionally attending the Judaism 101 classes which present the history and the beliefs of Judaism for a "general" audience and occasionally other classes or lectures or events.
One of the events she attended was a three rabbi "forum" discussion. There was a orthodox, a conservative, and the reform rabbi of the synagogue where she works. [It don't remember what the topic was but it was certainly one that the three main branches of Judaism have different views].
After the forum Cynthia fell into a conversation with the Orthodox rabbi. He found himself very surprised when Cynthia claimed to be an Atheist. Imagine you were a rabbi and someone your mother's age telling you they were an Atheist. The poor fellow was agast!
I guess this kind of gnawed at the rabbi as several days later the rabbi called her and asked if she would like to go out to coffee some time. So they made a date to have coffee about a two weeks before the evening I asked her my question. The expressed intent was he wanted to talk to her about her avowed atheism... but the odd thing about this is:
The job, the classes she visited, all happened before I asked Cynthia what she would think about my converting.
It was before I had ever gone to Shabbat services with her.
It was before she'd noticed how much of my music seems to have roots somewhere other than where I grew up. [Only after I'd asked about becoming a Jew did she suddenly realized how "Jewish" my lyrics are]
It was before she ever admitted to me that she had always wanted me to look at converting but would not ask because she feared I would be angry with her. She is of the opinion that both my father [who is a Mormon now] and I have "Jewish Souls". For all of her "bohemian" ways she is really just a traditional Jewish girl... who wanted a Jewish husband.
It was before she stood in shabbat services and heard: "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah" and realized as her eyes brimmed with tears that this is what her father had taught her. He was not considered by her relatives a "good" Jew.
[A little footnote: A story is told about Rabbi Hillel who taught in Jerusalem from ~30 BCE to about 10 CE was approached by a "wise ass" that was thinking of converting and was asked "Tell me the whole of the Torah while I stand on one foot." To which Rabbi Hillel replied: "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Now go study."]
It was before she decided to learn Hebrew [she did not have a "Hebrew School" education] and has been been very pleased to have been able to read a few words in a very short time.
It was before I went out to dinner to a Japanese Restaraunt with Cynthia and her family. I ate with chop sticks [I'd never eaten with them before] and was generally in a good mood. Afterward she told me she'd had a wonderful time... then she asked me what I had done with her husband... as he doesn't eat sushi or pick food from other people's plates.
It was before I walked into Guitar Center on a Sunday afternoon trip to find more Jewish books for my studies. But just "on a lark" I decided to stop into the "toy store" first. I never made it to the book store. It seems G-d sometimes makes other plans.
I found an expensive guitar [An $1900 Taylor acoustic-electric] that I had wanted for a long while, discounted $900. Cynthia had said a while ago she had wanted to buy it for me [She told me later was her "dream" to buy it for me] but we did not have the money or the credit. Or at least so I thought. She insisted I apply. The credit check came back with a limit of three times the price of the guitar. [Needless to say the guitar came home with us...]
On the way home I made a remark to Cynthia about how much has happened since I asked her about my converting and how wonderful it was to have this guitar. That's when a "still small voice" in my head spoke up and said: "It comes with a Mitzvah: You must play it!".
I am sure you know what a Mitzvah is from your reading but if you've forgotten: [to quote] "It is a commandment. The purpose of a mitzvah is to help the individual and the nation come closer to G-d and to holiness." There are 613 Mitzvah in the Torah. Today the slang meaning of Mitzvah is "a good deed" but I think in this case it was a "commandment".
So after we had dinner that night I pulled out "my second best guitar". I had not played it much lately. It is a black acoustic-electric Washburn I bought for around $600 in 1996 to go gigging with. It had been "second" to my 1960 Gibson J-50.
I put it in it's hardshell case and we went over to Wendy's house. I wanted to perform a "mitzvah" in the slang meaning. I gave that guitar to her husband. I had been thinking about giving him the guitar for a long time.
To which I got bewildered looks... It seems that he too had wanted a "dream guitar" so he had bought an $1100 Martin cutaway acoustic the previous August but had not told me [I think because he thought I'd get upset] but he had been afraid to take the Martin out any where to play it because it might get damaged.
I did not even know he had the Martin but I did know that he needed a good guitar which he could use for teaching [he teaches guitar] and for performing at Synagogue [which he does upon occassion]. So I gave it to him... because it was the right thing to do... He now uses it daily.
So all of this has happened and Cynthia was happily perplexed because somehow just by asking a question I have changed... Yet none of this would have happened if she had never gotten the job working at the Synagogue .
The day before my interview with Rabbi, Cynthia playfully asked me: "Why in the world do you want to be Jewish? Don't you know we are the most picked on people in the whole world?"
I replied. "You don't understand. I've been picked on, beat-up, kicked, sworn at, and picked last for kick ball all my life. What would be different? What will be different is: I won't be alone any more!"
The previous week I had picked up a book "Choosing a Jewish Life" by Anita Diamant which was written to answer questions about the conversion process. I read all of the questions and problems that other converts to Judaism have and do face. I don't have most of the problems that others have experienced. My problem is very different.
I kept asking myself: Why I am doing this? There are a many subtle things that seemed to point to "something".
Twenty years ago I had burned down my life. I destroyed it and myself. Yet something wonderous happened. Cynthia came into my life... and she stayed even when I told her that she shouldn't.
One night, shortly after we met, we had gone to sleep I woke up crying from a dream that was so real. A vague dream that long ago I had lost her and now I had found her again. I'm not one to believe in re-incarnation, at least not the "garden variety" that is popular. It flies in the face of the non-linearity of time.
If you recall in my previous post, when I wrote to Rabbi to introduce myself I had mentioned Cynthia's idea that I had "a Jewish soul". He had written in reply: "There are many who believe the old Jewish mystical concept of Gilgul: that there are Jewish souls born into the wrong body and who are torn and sometimes spiritually tortured until they find their way home. Perhaps . . ."
So I did some checking. The "gilgul" concept comes from the teachings of Kabbalah, the mystical works of Judaism.
I am not a stranger to Mysticism. I grew up with it.
Yes. Perhaps. Then perhaps not.
Yet I have cried at every seder I have attended these last four years. I've cried when I attended Shabbat or when Cynthia lights the Shabbat candles.
I finally decide that if there is any question that I have. it's one I believed the Rabbi cannot possibly answer at all: Am I worthy enough to make "God's people, my people and their ways, my ways"? I do not feel worthy. I feel very unworthy.
The question gnawed at me and more than once brought tears to my eyes.
So I met with Rabbi about conversion. I told him about Cynthia asking me why I wanted to become part of the "most picked on people in history" and what my response to her was. He smiled. He asked me if I had any questions. I told him my gnawing question.: Am I worthy to become a Jew? He replied by quoting "rabbinical sources" [I later learned it comes from the Babylonian Talmud]:
"Our Rabbis taught: If at the present time a man desires to become a proselyte, he is to be addressed as follows: 'What reason have you for desiring to become a proselyte; do you not know that Israel at the present time are persecuted and oppressed, despised, harassed and overcome by afflictions'? If he replies, 'I know and yet am unworthy', he is accepted forthwith, and is given instruction in some of the minor and some of the major commandments." [Yevamot 47a-b]
The Rabbi finished by saying with a smile: "Of course you still have to take the classes..." Our meeting concluded with his acceptance of me as a "candidate".
Let me make something really clear here: I did not know any thing about Yevamot 47a-b before the meeting. Cynthia asked that question all by herself. I asked my question of the Rabbi all by myself.
But wait there's more! but you'll have to wait until next time.
HaGedi
No comments:
Post a Comment