Intro to Judaism - Week 4

This week's topic is prayer - and what a rich topic it is for me. I have wrestled with prayer since I was a kid old enough to start thinking about the meaning of it. I struggled with questions such as: Do we have a right to be asking for things? Are some things too petty to ask for? How does praying for someone work? And "prayer chains"? Is it a popularity contest where someone without enough prayers may die? If praying hard enough or fervently enough helped someone heal, then wouldn't the converse be true as well, and what does that say about our "merciful" God? And if praying doesn't help yourself or others with a requested improvement, then what's the point?

My sister told me some time ago, and I've since read it in Jewish texts and heard it from our rabbi, that her priest had said prayer is more about your relationship with God. I write more about that here. Prayer strengthens my faith and my sense of comfort and peace. Prayer helps me focus on my goals and desires and propels me toward action. Prayer reminds me of what is needed by those I love. Prayer centers me. Prayer impacts how I relate to others.

That one shift in perspective on the purpose of prayer and how it works has impacted my entire sense of spirituality. It made me feel like I could return to prayer, and I've slipped back into it almost seamlessly - a little awkward at first, but it was like riding a bike.

Also, to end this brief post on a random note, one of my readings mentioned that there are three types of prayer - petition, thanksgiving, and praise/worship - and that you should avoid prayers of petition on Shabbat since it is God's day of rest. Whether or not most Reform Jews adhere to this, I have no idea - but it immediately made sense to me in a sweet way, and I have embraced it as something meaningful for me. It has been an enjoyable and fulfilling challenge to spend my silent moment of prayer in services making sure that I am only offering up praise or gratitude.

Intro to Judaism - Week 3

Reading about Shabbat in the past few weeks has made a significant impact on my experience of it. Understanding its meaning makes me feel compelled to honor Shabbat. I am learning about many traditions, customs, and rituals, and finding what is meaningful to me – many things are not (or at least not yet), but I took to observance of Shabbat almost immediately. It just clicked with me.

I remember in one of our first meetings with Rabbi R, she suggested we start thinking about how to honor Shabbat at home, because observance in home life is very important to Jews. She gave the idea of lighting candles. We never did this because it felt awkward and contrived, but now I know why – because we didn’t get what it was for, not on a spiritual level anyway. It felt like we were mimicking someone else’s tradition. It didn’t feel like it had meaning for us.

Recently this has changed a great deal, just from learning about it. Now I’m eager to embrace it as my own, as something that is personally significant. The last couple of Shabbat services have felt entirely different – joyous and a little emotional. When we first began going, I looked so forward to the sermon (d’var Torah?) because that’s where I felt stimulated, that’s where I felt like I was learning; the rest of the service, while basically enjoyable, felt too long and repetitive. I felt antsy to get to the sermon, and then disappointed when it seemed over so quickly. Now I enjoy every part of the service (maybe still not quite so much the exhaustive naming of all the Yahrzeits and people in need of healing, but I understand and respect the purpose). I enjoy every prayer, every chant, every reading. It just all has a different feel, and I can’t quite explain it.

I’ve also had to start thinking about how I’m going to observe Shabbat OUTSIDE of temple. Now the idea of lighting our own Shabbat candles is nice. But I feel compelled to take it further than that. I have really relished the last few Shabbatot in a way that was entirely new to me. I felt happy and relaxed and rejuvenated. I tried not to do anything unless I took pleasure in it – so it may be considered “work” technically, but it wasn’t work to me if I enjoyed it. For example, going over to our new house together last Saturday to wash down our cabinets was refreshing, sentimental, and exciting as we prepared our new home.

I’m not always comfortable talking about my conversion to people who don’t get it, or who themselves are uncomfortable with it – and this leads to a challenge if I want to make sure I don’t work at my actual job on Shabbat. This would mean stating that I can only take the weekday on-call shifts, and that I can only work on Sundays. It could even mean having to leave before 4:00 in the winter in order not to be at work at sundown. All of this means exposing myself quite a bit, but it’s something I’m feeling increasingly strongly about, so I may have to make that leap.

Homeowners!!!

It is absolutely surreal that we became homeowners two hours ago.

We started to get a little anxious when the seller and her attorney weren't there after almost an hour. (We were there 20 minutes early.) They were both late separately, which was kind of obnoxious. We used that time to write out a few checks and sign about a zillion documents.

The seller was awesome, icing on the cake. It feels so good to buy a house from someone who is warm and eager to see it go to good people. She is a middle-aged widow with six grown children, and she and her husband lived in the house since 1984 when they moved in with their two babies. Our agent had told us that she was moving because her husband had recently died, and it was all I could do not to cry when she told her attorney, "I brought Teddy's death certificate in case you need it again." They had just put work into the house, seemingly anticipating staying in the house for quite some time still. I can't imagine raising your family in a house and then leaving when your partner dies, after renovating the bathroom together, putting in custom window treatments, etc. Making it yours now that your kids are out of the house. She said the next project was going to be to refinish the wood floors. I said, "Oh we are doing that before we even move in!" and she got so excited. She said she wished she would be able to see them, and I told her to feel free to drop in next time she's in town.

She said that the house was "always busy and full of family and love," I told her we hope to give it that same life, and she gave me such a warm hug. She said she's grateful to be living near her son in Connecticut now, because otherwise we would probably start to wonder about the strange woman we keep seeing in the driveway.

Before meeting her, I felt guilty about feeling so happy to get this house when it's because of such terrible circumstances for someone else. But after we spoke, I felt so happy and at peace. She raised her family in this house, loved this house, tended to this house, and now she is passing it on to a new family to continue bringing in that same energy. It almost feels like the house has a life and spirit of its own. She seemed genuinely happy to see it go to us, and also happy for this whole process to be over so that she can have it behind her and settle in in CT, where she now has a job and a home near her son and her very young grandchildren.

After closing, we went over to the house just to see it and try to grasp that it was really ours. Nicole isn't as sentimental as I am, and is not generally able to sit for long (or sometimes at all) in a place of joy and appreciation before anxiously planning the next thing. So I had long ago let go of the romantic notion of a picnic on the living room floor or a glass of champagne or even just sitting snuggled in a corner of an empty room. I let her pace downstairs and I went upstairs and just cherished every piece of this that is OURS. I touched the wood, the blinds, the bathroom cabinet, the glass doorknobs. I pressed my lips to the wood frame of our bedroom doorway and inhaled the smell. I stared into the small middle bedroom that will someday be our nursery.

Our home.

Insurance Coverage

My agency switched insurance companies this month, so Nicole and I talked about whether it would be worth it for me to switch over to hers. Because of federal discrimination, we would have to pay taxes on whatever my insurance would cost her organization, and we still aren't sure how much that would be and how it would impact this decision. But we DID know that we want family coverage through her insurance after we have a baby, and if hers has better fertility coverage, it would be worth switching now.

I called my provider to ask what the fertility coverage is. The agent read down the list and my heart rejoiced as I heard "artificial insemination, 100% lifetime coverage." But of course I had to go ahead and ask the next question: "Is that automatic, if I were to walk into a fertility clinic, or would I have to meet certain criteria to qualify?" She linked me to the many-paged policy on their website and explained that I would have to show that to my doctor and they would have to show that I qualify based on those criteria. She said to find a fertility doctor, show them this policy and ask their thoughts, ask them the procedure number, call a different number with the procedure number to verify whether it's covered, have the doctor call yet a different number to see if I need pre-certification, and then have the doctor follow through with pre-certification if needed.

Anyone else a little overwhelmed?

The first response had seemed so simple, and was certainly very welcome, and five minutes later I felt so discouraged. Reading the extensive policy discouraged me further, as everything is called INfertility treatment, and requires proving infertility in order to get coverage. So in my case, a woman with no male partner, I would have to show twelve unsuccessful insemination cycles to prove infertility. Then my insurance would cover testing, treatment, and further insemination.

According to one particular fertility clinic that I've been looking into off and on for the past year, one cycle of IUI costs $1200. The sperm itself is another few hundred, including the cost of transporting and storing. If I got pregnant the first time, this isn't so bad - but we certainly can't do this every month. For every unsuccessful attempt, we'd have to save up for a few more months before we can afford to try again.

My insurance company's website has a link to LGBT-affirming providers, and reproductive centers were included in that list. I'm sure they deal with this all the time, and maybe they know how to get around this. I sure hope so. Twelve cycles is a LOT of money to put up front before getting coverage, and if we have twelve failed attempts, the path ahead will be rougher as it is.

Post-Sandy Shabbat

Services were cancelled last week in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, and resumed this week despite the synagogue not having full power and having no heat. We huddled in the library where they had set up space heaters, and everyone stayed snuggled in their coats until the room warmed up. I LOVED this service.

Seeing people huddled in one room, with a small ark that could only hold one Torah, and an oneg table set up in the same room instead of in the reception room outside the sanctuary - it just felt so makeshift, and yet just as holy as in any other setting. It immediately brought to mind how Jews still observed Shabbat and holidays and rituals even when persecuted. How while fleeing Egypt and in the Holocaust, they would honor Shabbat as closely as possible even while in hiding and in concentration camps and in the wilderness. In our own much less serious situation, the sense of community did not change despite the fact that we were small and cold and crowded, and in fact I actually felt a stronger sense of community than ever before. We were all absorbed in our own post-disaster struggles outside of temple, but we were still able to come together with a spirit of celebration.

It was a smaller group due to the circumstances, and in a very small space. I would think this would make me less of a participant, because I tend to feel self-conscious about it in general since I still feel like somewhat of an outsider and am still learning everything that is going on. I would think being in a smaller group would make me even more aware of myself because I can't hide. But it did the opposite. I sang louder than I ever have, and I chanted loudly and with confidence. Chanting is difficult because you have no way to know where the inflections are except by becoming familiar with it. After ten months of services, I am finally able to join in, and it is AMAZING. I used to follow along in the English because there just wasn't much other way for me to participate. This time I chanted in Hebrew, and FEELING that was more important than knowing the words I was saying.

One of my closest friends, Allyson, who is an observant Conservative Jew, surprised me the other day by telling me that she isn't fluent in Hebrew and that most non-Orthodox Jews aren't. She said Hebrew school is mostly for learning how to read the Hebrew letters (right now I'm reading the transliteration) but that they don't just speak it to one another, and though they may know enough to get the general gist, most Jews in services don't understand every word spoken. I wrestled with this, wondering what the point is of praying, singing, and chanting in a language you don't understand. Last night I understood. There was something about being a part of worship with an entire community that felt so amazing. And "amazing" is a generic word I'm using because my vocabulary is too limited to find the word that encompasses the experience for me.

I remember Rabbi telling us early on that the biggest part of feeling ready for conversion is when you go from seeing the Jewish community as "they" to seeing them as "we." Last night I felt such a part of it, and that clicked for me. I didn't feel like such an observer. I felt comfortable and moved and connected. I have been feeling increasingly more comfortable, of course, but that service was essentially the "breakthrough" moment for me. Since the last service we attended on 10/19 (10/26 was my best friend's birthday celebration, and the next week was the hurricane), I have started my Intro to Judaism course (10/25) and have done SO many readings. These readings have been incredible, but they have also had me intellectualizing Judaism. I've been craving this for many months, and have enjoyed the opportunity to stretch my brain, to wrestle with God, the Torah and Judaism, and to reflect on all this in my journal, which has always been my most natural and comfortable mode of expression. But without services, the emotional and spiritual piece was separate, without my even realizing it. I've been at a distance from it, curious and fascinated and eager, but not connected. Feeling at home, comfortable, and revived in our own temple with our beloved rabbi, at our first Shabbat service since beginning the course, completed the circle for me.

I feel so happy, at peace, and where I'm meant to be.

Intro to Judaism - Week 2

This week's topic is about what I believe about the Torah. There are specific questions posed, but I'm better at sort of free-writing so I'm going to keep it at that simple summary and go from there.

I was so relieved to read about Reconstructionist Judaism, which I believe is the most recent denomination, if I remember correctly. The founder's view on who wrote the Torah fit like a puzzle piece for me, and actually made me panic for a nanosecond that maybe I should have explored Reconstructionism and what if it fits me more than Reform? Of course I continued reading and realized that Reform still most closely fits how I feel, think, and believe. But in Essential Judaism, it says of the founder: "The sacred texts, he said, are not the product of divine revelation but are the creation of the Jewish people. As such they represent four thousand years of Jewish aspirations towards God." As I read it, I got so excited - "YES, that!!!" This articulates a belief that I have struggled to explain even for myself, and validated a way of thinking that I wasn't sure would be accepted. It seems so...non-religious.

I'm self-conscious of my tendency to intellectualize my spirituality, as if to make it more palatable for myself, to change it to fit me rather than change myself to fit religious truth. But I digressed so much from religion for an entire decade that I can't just abandon my intellectualism in order to re-embrace it. Coming back to religion requires reconciling science and religion, and that is a huge part of why Reform in particular appealed to me. So even though this is a Reconstructionist view, Reform seems, in my limited experience, to allow freedom for this kind of perspective.

I have believed since the age of 19 or 20 that there is no absolute truth that humans can be aware of, and therefore no one correct way of perceiving and explaining God. This is why I sort of shed religion for a while - not because I was an atheist, far from it, but because I felt like I had no right to determine that any one path to God was right or wrong and therefore couldn't determine my own. How could I firmly assert that MY religion was correct, just because I had been raised with it? Wouldn't people in other religions feel the same? Why am I any different? Why am I so sure that I'm right? How can anyone be so sure? Okay, so that's where faith comes in - but then faith must come down to an active choice to believe over common sense, over a broader world view, that your path is the best one - or at least the best one for YOU. And that's how I began to develop mine.

I do believe that an interpretation of God depends on your culture and historical context. I believe that an understanding of God is filtered through the minds of humans who are desperate and eager to understand more than they are capable of. Does that make the stories fables of a sort? Not really. I believe there is truth and fact behind all of it, but that there is an undeniable spin on it that is a result of oral tradition passed down through many generations before being written down. I value these stories for how they have kept God alive for an entire community of people for thousands of years. I value the traditions as part of my wife's culture, which I don't yet feel I can call my own (will I ever feel that I can?), but which will be our children's. I do believe - at least right now, though my faith is constantly evolving - that the Torah is not "the product of divine revelation" but rather "the creation of the Jewish people," and deserving of as much respect and study as if I believed it to be God's own direct word.

The Jewish people have spent millennia studying and interpreting the sacred texts, and (with the exception of Orthodox?) attempting to disentangle the lessons from their historical context in order to apply it to their modern lives. I look forward to doing the same.

Hurricane Sandy

At first it was kind of fun. I remember Hugo hitting when my family lived about 30 minutes from the South Carolina coast. We woke up with our above-ground pool in the neighbor's yard, but as an 8-year-old, it felt like an adventure. We were stocked up on food and water and hunkered down together, all sleeping in one room so us kids would feel safer. Some part of me thought it would be like that this time, except with less damage.

I'm not 8 anymore.

Board games by candlelight and cooking a random assortment of thawing food wore out its welcome after about 24 hours. Then I started to feel crazy. I read on the living room floor, up against the glass doors, and start to feel panicky as the sun sets. I wake up and shower in the cold, and get dressed in the dark, and feel depressed and antsy to get out. I walk around the neighborhood and see trees through people's roofs and on their cars. I see telephone poles snapped in half. I hear on our emergency radio that 100 houses burnt to the ground in Queens. I have to figure out how to get to work with no Long Island Railroad, very limited subway service, and a city out of gas. People are desperate and panicked, siphoning gas from other people's cars, breaking into fights in lines at gas stations that just got a shipment, forming lines over a mile long waiting for gas that just came in and then having it run out when they pull up to the pump eight hours later. Grocery stores are empty because they're without power. People who depend on hourly wages are struggling to feed their families until their workplaces open again and until they can get transportation there. Lower Manhattan is in complete chaos - dark, flooded, and with no subways. Rats are roaming the streets because they got flooded out of the subway tunnels. Homeless people are camped out in the lobbies of apartment buildings whose electric security is down. Cabs are out of gas and the few running subways stop at 34th St and are so packed that you literally get carried onto the car by a mob. Roads are packed the first day after the hurricane because no one can use public transportation, and empty the second day because everyone is out of gas.

It's eerie and post-apocalpytic. For every story of someone helping someone else, there is another of someone taking advantage. Nicole and I are huddled in our cold, dark basement apartment, refusing to leave the cats as neighbors around us (or at least those without generators), and ultimately even my in-laws, flee to the homes of generous family and friends whose power has been restored.

We were supposed to close on our house Monday. All closings are adjourned and pending re-inspections at the bank's expense. We are trying to figure out our next step when we are in oases of power, like at work or at Aunt Laura's a mile away. Our Halloween rock-the-dress photo shoot was canceled and our photographer is cheerfully reaching out to us to try to reschedule when we can barely keep our sanity intact.

I'm grateful to be alive, grateful that both the house we live in and the house we are buying are both okay, grateful that we filled on gas before the storm and stocked up on dry goods and water, grateful to wake up in our cold apartment with our cats happily snuggled up against us for warmth, grateful for salaried jobs where we can take days off if needed without affecting our ability to pay bills. But I'm also tired, depressed, lethargic, and, six days later, really ready to have this behind us as a memory.