The Voices

of Kol Emeth

 

The “I Am Jewish” Project

 

 

Rosh Hashanah 5766

The Voices of Kol Emeth

 

Dedicated to our rabbi for his many years of service to Kol Emeth

 

In this booklet, members of the Kol Emeth community reflect on what it means to be Jewish. They write about their personal feelings, their theology, and their life stories. This is a wonderful way to honor our rabbi for leading and guiding many people on their Jewish journeys.

 

The booklet includes the voices of a cross section of the Kol Emeth community—the ages range from teenagers to seniors; there are singles, married people, divorced people, and widowed people. There are Jews from birth and Jews by choice. As you read through the essays and poems, take a moment and reflect on what it means to you when you say, “I am Jewish.” What do these words mean to your own life? What about being Jewish has defined your past and how will it impact what goes on in the future? What do you think is important about being Jewish to pass down to the next generation?

 

Answers to these questions from a variety of people can be found in the book I am Jewish —Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl edited by Judea and Ruth Perl.

 

“What does being Jewish mean to me?” The question is not trivial. Is “being Jewish” some sort of a birthmark with which one is burdened or blessed for life? A genetic incident? How can one be proud of a genetic incident? Is it a religious belief? An ethnic loyalty? A commitment to a certain behavior or perspective? An attitude? A collection of sweet childhood memories? A language to communicate with one’s ancestors and decode their wisdom and experience? A key to the literary or ethical force of Bible stories?

 

The seed of this idea and book came from a twelve-year-old who came up with a project for her Bat Mitzvah: to ask friends and relatives what being Jewish means to them, compile the answers in booklet form, and send the booklet to Adam Pearl, so that “he would have an understanding of his heritage and his father’s words would always comfort him.” My son received this book for his Bar Mitzvah and I “borrowed” it. After reading the book, I thought it would be a great project to do at Kol Emeth.

 

I want to thank everyone who contributed for taking the time to write down their thoughts.

 

I have enjoyed this project very much. I hope you do, too.

 

Rosh Hashanah 5766

I was brought up in a fairly traditional, but not orthodox, Jewish household. My mother kept kosher and the family belonged to an orthodox synagogue. I always helped my mother clean the house before “shabbos” and together we lit the candles at the appropriate time on Friday night.

 

I also went to Hebrew school after public school Monday through Thursday afternoons, and again on Sunday mornings. And I generally went to junior congregation on Saturday mornings. They gave us all Hershey chocolate bars at the end of services, and we would get a gold star next to our name in Hebrew school on Sunday morning to reward us for going to shul.

 

In our town, there were enough Jews for two kosher butchers and two shuls, but Jews were still a minority. There were sections of the town where landlords did not rent to Jews.

 

I did not have any non-Jewish friends until I went to college. It was the sixties and I marched with Martin Luther King when he came to Boston. I began to feel that being Jewish created a wall between me and the rest of humanity. I wanted to break down that wall and so I began dating a lot of non-Jewish boys, much to the consternation of my parents. I hardly ever went to synagogue during those years.

 

But I still felt very Jewish. All my childhood memories are of family holidays. And my belief system, too.

 

Eventually, I went to Israel, met and married an Israeli, and spent seven years living in Israel. Our youngest daughter was born in Israel, and I still feel a very strong connection to the country. As a matter of fact, I am writing this from Israel. We are spending two months here this Spring.

 

My observance of Jewish law is very haphazard. But I still light candles on Friday nights and I say the first line of “Shema” like a mantra when I get nervous (during airplane takeoffs and landings, for example). I enjoy celebrating the holidays by inviting family and friends to festive meals with traditional foods.

 

I have been comforted by the ritual of sitting shiva and saying kaddesh. There were times that I attended Shabbat morning services for comfort in difficult times. Other times, I attend services because I like reading and re-reading some of the parashot and the commentaries about them. I also like joining with others in singing the familiar Shabbat morning prayers. Speaking Hebrew, singing Israeli songs, and doing Israeli folk-dancing are some of the other ways that I express myself as a Jew.

 

Being Jewish gives me a sense of connection to my own family’s past and to the history of the Jewish people. I also feel a connection to other Jews today living in different parts of the

world. For me, being Jewish is being part of this thread of community that spans time and countries.

 

 

 

 

II

 

(Translated from Hebrew)

 

I am a Jew! What does it mean to me? I can divide my identity as a Jew into two periods—Israel and the Disapora.

 

In Israel I grew up as an Israeli. I did not have to define my Judaism for myself. Judaism was something I took for granted. My Judaism was expressed through my being an Israeli. I was bought up and educated upon the Jewish-Israeli values which principally were “ l’olam lo od (never again),” “tov lamut b’ad artzeinu (it’s good to die for our country),” and that our brothers and sisters perished in the Holocaust because they were led like lambs to slaughter. So, basically I was willing to die defending the state of Israel and thus enable the existence of Judaism and the Jews.

 

When I left Israel to the Diaspora my Jewish values changed—now I have to be a Jew and an Israeli simultaneously. To tell you the truth, I am very, very proud to be called a Jew and/or an Israeli. To preserve my Israeli identity, I read for pleasure only in Hebrew either Israeli literature and/or translations into Hebrew. More than half of my friends are Israeli so that the Israeli culture continues. My connection with Israel is very strong so that I believe that my Israeli identity was preserved (I hope the same way as when I was living in Israel).

 

My Judaism (or Jewish identity) is what has changed. Things like Chagim (holidays) are obviously natural in Israel. In the Diaspora I have to work hard to keep them. In order to preserve my spiritual values, I willingly and happily joined a local congregation that became and remains a source of inspiration and enrichment to my Jewish life. Kol Emeth became my second house. The people, the community, and especially the spiritual leaders helped me very, very much. With their help, I reconnected to old sources, (or roots)—i.e., synagogue, prayer, reading from the Torah, studying the Talmud, and celebrating the holidays. My children’s participating in their bar and bat mitzvah helped me and continue to inspire me to be not only a Jew but a good and proud Jew.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

III

 

I am not only Jewish because my parents are Jewish. There is more to being Jewish than just through your family. I am Jewish because I support social activism for a better world, part of Tikkun Olam. Over the past hundred years, Jews have distinguished themselves as vocal activists for justice and freedom.

 

I am a Jew because I understand the history of my family. I understand Jewish thought and values. This year, I discovered how little my peers, who identify themselves as Jews, knew or cared about Jewish tradition, Jewish values, and the situation in Israel. I believe that it is important for Jews to know and care about those things and about their history.

 

Part of Jewish tradition is having an inquisitive mind. I have always been known for having one, and I have used it when thinking about Jewish traditions and values.

 

 

 

IV

 

[Here is a list of ideas about what it means to be Jewish]

·      Striving for life and connecting with all that promotes life. Living in spite of trials and tribulations of Job and the Holocaust.

·      Living ethically (though I cannot say I live up to such standards).

·      Praying with intent, kavannah, and trust, bitachon; this intent and trust is what I struggle with when praying, not knowing how to translate the Hebrew and even when confronted with the English translation, trying to make meaning of it in current times, in historical context, with personal, and communal meanings.

·      Reading the Torah portion each week, 35% of the time; reading the interpretations, like the Artscroll commentary and the Metsuda Chumash with Rashi.

·      It is taking one mitzvah at a time. I know the Shema says “You shall do ALL my commandments.” However, instead of polarizing the issue of following ALL of the mitzvot, and feeling rejected if I choose not to follow one mitzvah, I wouldn’t feel I had to reject all of the mitzvoth and Judaism altogether if I take one mitzvah at a time. Yet Judaism is to me striving for higher levels of mitzvot observance, in spite of those mitzvot that I choose not to do or am unable to perform.

·      Also, compassion for other Jews, and others who are kind, is what I have felt with mediocrity on my part in the past, having volunteered often (and worked) in the secular sector. To this point, this needs developing.

·      Praying over and eating kosher or vegetarian food is important to me, since finding restaurant menu items of these kinds has been difficult for me.

·      “Being Chosen” or “BEING Jewish” I sometimes interpret as in physical terms of being in exile, while striving to “learn, understand, believe in JUDAISM” are purely spiritual.

·      Believing that everything that is, was, and will be, emanates from G-d, in continual creation. Though I am not always aware, and thinking in terms of miracles at every event or second, I hope to be.

·      What would being Jewish be without Yom Kippur, and the High Holidays, Yamim Noraim? I realized I have missed much in understanding in services by not being able to read and understand Hebrew and its translation and interpretation in English. I hope to be better through teshuva, reflecting on my sins, and how I could care more for others, and strive, in quality and quantity, to do more mitzvoth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

V

 

Why I am a Jew?

 

My initial response is: because I was born Jewish, my family is Jewish, it’s who I am. However, that is a simplistic answer. In this day of assimilation and geographic movement, there is no reason to identify and to live actively as a Jew unless there is value. I am Jewish today because I choose to be.

 

I find Judaism provides a framework for my life. A framework which helps me to live in a meaningful and satisfying way. However this is an unusual framework. At times it changes and at times is fixed. It is almost like the Winchester Mystery House, a building with all kinds of rooms. There is one for intellectual study, one for questioning, one for gaining new insights, and one for studying. There is a room for connecting with previous generations and one where it is OK to say I do this because it is tradition. There is at least one room for Rosh Hashanah and for Yom Kippur, for Succoth, and Simchat Torah, Pesach and Shavouth, for Purim and Tisha b’Av.

 

Of course there is a room for Shabbat; in fact there are many rooms for Shabbat, reflecting different ways of observing and finding meaning in Shabbat. There are rooms for the different life cycle events, there are rooms that offer guidance for dealing with difficult situations, and there are the rooms that help guide one in helping others who are experiencing difficult situations. There are rooms for doing Tikun Olam, for welcoming the stranger, for feeding the hungry, for giving Tzedakah, for davening, for just being there when a minyan is needed. There are rooms for people whose observance differs from each other’s yet who share the same intrinsic Jewish values. The rooms go on and on; all I have to do is open the right door in this building built on this incredible framework which comes from Torah.

 

This building, based on this framework, can and should provide a place, an entry, a connection, for anyone who wants to enter and be Jewish. Each person, if lucky, opens the door to a room that feels like home. This room provides the venue for the person being Jewish. The person may stay in the one room forever, or may roam from one room to another, or may add more rooms that feel like home over time.

 

The above reflects by thoughts today, in 2005. I consider myself incredibly lucky that when I moved to California in January, 1974, and went looking for a Shul, I found Kol Emeth. It became my home, members of the congregation became friends and family, and the rabbi here became friend and teacher. I was a young single woman. I did not count in the minyan or have an aliyah (coming from an Orthodox family and a Conservative Shul where I had had a Friday night Bat Mitzvah); that was not a problem. I was not the stereotypical new Synagogue member, yet I was welcomed and accepted. The acceptance and inclusion provided the foundation for living a life based on Jewish values and ethics, 3000 miles from family. It provided and continues to provide opportunities to grow, to learn, to study and to explore and to evolve an answer to the question: Why am I a Jew.

 

 

 

VI

The Most Jewish Thing

 

“Your daughter said you could help me with this song. I need to understand how the lyrics are pronounced.”

 

A young French-Canadian woman approached me, speaking in that distinctive accented English that is most often heard by Americans from hockey players on TV. We were at a music camp in the Laurentian Mountains, north of Montreal. When I was a kid, I went there with my parents. Now, as a US citizen and a Californian, I migrate back with my wife and my own children.

 

This French-Canadian woman worked with the young children at the camp.

 

These days, there is a reasonable peace between the Jews in Quebec and the “Fransoisen,” as my grandmother called them in quasi-Yiddish. There is even an appreciable French-speaking Jewish community. But in earlier days, the French-Canadian priests used to whip up the crowds on occasional Sundays, much as the mullahs do now on occasional Fridays in Jerusalem. Yesterday, when I heard my grandfather’s name at Kol Emeth in the yarzheit list, I thought of him telling me about a time when the Jewish kids and the French kids lined up on each side of the street to brawl it out.

 

That was about 90 years ago. Now, two hours’ drive from the brawl scene, two grandchildren of these erstwhile urchins are opposite each other over a Hebrew song, transliterated in French. It was “bashana haba’ah,” the song about how much better things will be next year. The Internet tells me it is by Ehud Manor and Nurit Hirsh, although generations of Ramah-niks and Hebrew school children have adopted it into our folk liturgy.

 

So we went over the words, explaining how to make the chet sounds, how the Hebrew vav and resh sounds have rather similar counterparts in French. And I wondered to myself why this daughter of a Catholic was interested in teaching such a Jewish thing as “bashana haba’ah.”

 

A few days later, at the final children’s concert, I got my answer. It wasn’t a Jewish thing at all. The kids (5-7 year olds) were singing a collection of folk songs from around the world. Israel was in the book and this was the song they ended up with. Intellectually, I was disappointed to find that there wasn’t really a Jewish message here. But then I surprised myself to feel an emotional upwelling about something else.

 

Israel was in the book.

 

Israel wasn’t in the book in my grandfather’s time. I realized that what to us is a religion and a way of life has entered the world consciousness as a language and a culture and a nation. In the time from my grandfather to me, all of us in Israel have joined the community of nations, and have become as worthy of consideration as France or Canada or the USA.

 

Such are the times we live in. Here we are, 50 years after Auschwitz. We are the generation after the fall of Jerusalem, with bodies of our dead heaped in smoking ruins, with Raban Gamliel and Rabbi Yehoshua arguing over how to re-establish the faith at Yavneh. And here we are, 50 years after Israel’s Independence. We are also the generation of Daniel and Ezra, rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem the Golden, with a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other.

 

So in the end, having those small children sing a Hebrew song was not just cute and not just a frivolous exercise.

 

It was the most Jewish thing.

 

 

 

VII

 

I’ve been Jewish all my life. Camus says we fall into habits, and at times that’s what it seemed like to me. A habit. I go to Shul, say some prayers, go home, do havdalah, and then repeat it all the next week. My Judaism was veiled beneath the dark cloak of habit, obscuring my vision.

 

A few years ago, I went to a summer writing program at Stanford. The Stanford program let us stay in dorms, eat Stanford Cafeteria food, and attend classes like real Stanford students, except that we were all there to learn how to write. I keep Kosher, and often claim I am a vegetarian so I don’t eat unkosher meat. This was relatively easy, since there was an abundance of vegetarian food, but after a while, I began to crave meat.

 

I remembered my mother’s chicken on Friday nights, the brisket, the choelent, the one time she made us duck as penance for some small offence she committed. I remembered eating with the smell of the Shabbat candles parading around the house, the sounds of zmiroth still echoing in my ears. These were the things I missed—not just my family. The culture. The feeling that I was part of something bigger.

 

My first Friday came and went at the program, and I did nothing special. Friday rolled into Saturday, and I began to feel hollow, like someone had scooped out my insides with a shovel. I couldn’t quite identify what exactly I was missing, but I was sure there was something—some rule or practice that I had not observed.

 

Shabbat!

 

It dawned on me later that Saturday. That day was Shabbat and I was observing it by doing my usual 50 pages of assigned reading and 10 pages of writing just as I did every other night. As Saturday grew into Sunday, something felt incomplete, and I decided that next week, I would do something about Shabbat.

 

At lunch on Friday, they served fish to appease the Catholics. I snagged the fish, and hid it for that evening. In the cafeteria, I also snagged a cup and a container of grape juice. I decorated the cup with a ballpoint pen underneath the table during a particularly boring class. These were my preparations for Shabbat.

 

That night, I reheated the fish, and brought it to the cafeteria. The sun wouldn’t set for another few hours, but since I could not delay my dinner, I ate first. All my friends thought I was crazy; they were not Jewish, so they did not understand. I just smiled and explained, in between mouthfuls of fish, what my religion meant to me.

 

I told them that my Jewishness was myself. It was in every molecule of my body, implanted into the fabric of my being. The cloth that obscured my Judaism was whisked away, and for the first time, I understood.

 

That evening, I said the kiddush in my dorm room. My roommate looked at me afterwards and said, “That’s it?”

 

I nodded, and drank the grape juice.

 

She smiled at me.

 

“That’s pretty cool.”

 

And I knew what she meant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

VIII

 

I love being Jewish and the way it makes me feel connected to our community and all the communities of Jews around the world. I have always felt proud of being Jewish, and I am proud of the obligations I fulfill as a Jew.

 

When I am at Kol Emeth, I sit in the sanctuary and look around at all the people who have made our life so complete from the moment we moved to Palo Alto. This community of friends is something I am very grateful to have in my life and the life of my family.

 

As a Jewish person I always want to make a difference in people’s lives and perpetuate all the good and kind things I have learned from my parents and family. I remember all the good deeds my parents did for so many and always wanted to carry on that tradition. Our heritage is one of always doing for others and helping those who cannot help themselves.

 

I know my children had their lives enriched by our Judaism and the feelings we share about our heritage and all those who have come before us. I know that feeling will stay with all of us for the rest of our lives.

 

 

 

IX

I am a Jew because I chose to be. I wasn’t born Jewish. So how did I come to make this decision? It was a journey. Like most long journeys the path that I took to Judaism was not straight. When I started, I didn’t even know where I was going; there were many detours along the way.

 

Before getting into the journey, I should note that my parents never had me and my sister baptized, as they believed that we should make that decision for ourselves.

 

I was born in 1950. In the late 60’s and early 70’s I went through a period of searching for something “spiritual” or “religious.” I checked out various Christian groups and/or churches that friends were involved with. I had trouble accepting groups who believed that anyone who didn’t follow their beliefs were damned. That seemed to be the case with all the Christian groups I looked into. I studied some Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophists, a little Kabbalah (which was a fad for awhile back then) and then moved on to Eastern philosophies. Since nothing I studied seemed to really answer my questions, I decided to put my search on hold.

 

Like many people, I multi-task (although we didn’t use that term back then). While I was searching for the meaning of life, I was also an activist trying to make this world a better place. There wasn’t a lot I could do in the Civil Rights Movement, as most of that was taking place in the Southern States.

 

In 1963 I read Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. (I was 13 at the time.) I read about it in the newspapers. This was at a time when young people didn’t normally read newspapers, have political opinions, etc. But in my family, discussing everything was normal. I was an avid reader and already in love with Russian and English literature. Due to Solzhenitsyn’s book, I looked for ways to educate myself to what was happening in the USSR. I eventually found some organizations on the East Coast who were working on behalf of what was known as the “Democratic Movement” in the USSR. I made contact with them and worked from a distance. In 1973 one of those organizations (I don’t remember which one) suggested I contact the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews (BACSJ), in San Francisco. They told me that the BACSJ worked on behalf of Jews and others in USSR, and at least they were close enough that I could do more then write letters. I contacted them and started volunteering. In 1975 I joined their Board of Directors.

 

I’m not sure in which year our rabbi here joined BACSJ’s Board, but it was the start of a long and treasured friendship. When he joined the Board, I was writing to between 20 and 25 refuseniks on a regular basis. I started contacting the rabbi before each Jewish holiday to find out what I should write about the coming holiday. After many months I asked the rabbi if there were any classes I could take to learn more about Judaism so I wouldn’t have to bother him so often. After telling me that it was “not a bother” he did tell me about the Introduction to Judaism course he was teaching. He made it clear that many people in the class were taking it to convert, but that was not a requirement.

 

In 1981 I started the Introduction to Judaism class at Kol Emeth. When I started I had no idea where it was going to take me. I didn’t know very much about Judaism at that time. I knew a lot about Russian and Soviet History, about the Holocaust, and a good deal about modern Israeli History, but nothing about Judaism.

 

As I started the class and began to learn, to just scratch the surface of Judaism, all those questions I had been asking and putting on hold were being answered. I started to attend Friday night services. After several months of attending Friday night and some Saturday services, I made another appointment with the rabbi. I told him I wanted to convert. He wasn’t very surprised, but he did try to talk me out of it. (At the time, I didn’t know he was supposed to do that.)

 

So what questions did Judaism answer? Why Judaism and not one of the other philosophies I studied? What was it that really spoke to me? One of the many things that drew me to Judaism was the fact that it isn’t enough to believe; we are required to act on our beliefs. There were many other things, but I’m not going to include them here as this would be far too long.

 

After a year of study and a visit to the mikvah in San Francisco, I became a Jew. That was 23 years ago and was only the beginning of a much longer journey, one that will continue as long as I am alive.

 

Part of the continuing journey now is to find out a little about my family history. After I became Jewish my mother told me about her great great grandmother. She was always referred to as a “German Jew.” The family were not Jewish in America, but were they Jewish in East Germany/Prussia before they left that country? So far that is a mystery. Was my becoming Jewish really a return to my own heritage? I would love to find out more but have run into a dead end.

 

Both my work with the organization now known as the Bay Area Council for Jewish Rescue and Renewal (formerly the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews) and my personal journey to Judaism came together when, as chair of the Social Action Committee, I was able to help organize and deliver a Torah to our adopted community of Pskov. When we turned the Torah over to the Pskov community, I felt a very strong connection to Judaism and to the Jewish people. The fact that the trip was made possible by the Kol Emeth Community made it even more moving. If I did nothing more in life, dayenu, “it would have been enough.” Fortunately for me, my life didn’t end there. After returning I eventually joined the staff of Kol Emeth, where I hope I can contribute to the ongoing building and strengthening of our community.

 

When other Jews find out I am a Jew by choice, they often ask me how my parents handled that decision. My parents were very supportive, and my Jewish community has welcomed them in as well. For instance, when my father was dying of cancer he had many visitors. Dad really enjoyed it when our rabbi visited. One day, right after the rabbi had visited, Dad’s (Jewish) oncologist asked him “What gives? You’ve had visits from a Catholic nun, a Protestant Reverend, a Buddhist, and now a Rabbi.” My father, with the usual twinkle in his eyes, answered “I’m just covering all bases.”

 

My Dad was very proud of my work with the BACSJ and supportive of my decision to become Jewish. When my father died, it was the Kol Emeth community that provided both me and Mom with support and comfort. My mother is not only supportive of my being Jewish, she is a frequent Kol Emeth volunteer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

X

The Talmud as My Time-Machine

 

On Sunday mornings, I leave Palo Alto and travel back about 1500 years in time via the Talmud. The Talmud, with its detailed discussions of the concerns of everyday, as well as religious life, brings those early good and bad old days more clearly in focus. The discussions in our Talmud class range from laws of buying and selling and religious observance to discussions of the most personal and even intimate items.

 

I find myself in that world in which buying and selling were very material—paying someone for a future crop that doesn’t exist was not done. In that world, a person acquired an animal by paying and then pulling the animal by the bridle, and bought land by paying and then actually walking on the land. Acquiring a bride had many of the features of buying an animal.

 

In that world, the use of circumstantial evidence to convict someone was unknown. The Talmud states that even if witnesses see someone chasing another person behind a building with knife in hand, the pursuer cannot be convicted of murder even if the witnesses find the stabbed body there. Two witnesses must observe the actual murder.

 

The Talmud describes a world in which demons exist. Who would have thought that Jews would have such fears? Yet, Tractate Gittin deals extensively with advice about how to avoid these dangerous creatures. One of the longer stories describes how King Solomon is forbidden to build the holy temple using tools of steel, since steel tools are also used in warfare. He must instead search for the Shamir, a magic bug that can cleave the needed rocks. This search brings Solomon into an adventure with Ashmadi, king of the demons.

 

Gittin also provides page after page of medical advice, ranging from beneficial herbs that cure various diseases, to the placing of a dead hen on a patient’s head for an extended period of time as a remedy for sunstroke.

 

The Rabbis didn’t shy away from discussing the most personal of topics. For example, Tractate Ketubot discusses the conjugal rights of a wife: a healthy man must be intimate with his wife every day; laborers, twice a week; donkey drivers, once a week; and so on, depending on the man’s profession.

 

After an hour or so in my Talmud time-machine, I return with a jolt to Palo Alto, to a world of abstraction and virtuality, compared to the groundedness of the agricultural world of the Talmud.

 

 

 

 

 

XI

 

I was born Jewish and raised Jewish in Far Rockaway, NY, a predominantly Jewish community. I realized what being Jewish meant when my family went to the Catskills for a vacation. I remember stopping at a motel and my father inquired whether there was a room. He was told there was until he signed the register with his (obviously Jewish) name. He was then informed that there was no room. I was very young at the time but I have never forgotten the incident.

 

 

 

 

XII

 

To me, being a Jew means caring about others (family, community, the less fortunate and the wider world community) and caring about the earth. Being a Jew means that I am made in the image of G-d and that I must work to elevate the activities of daily life with consciousness and gratitude. How I care for the holy vessel of my body / mind / feelings / spirit matters. How I speak and interact with others matters. I can make a difference in the world and at home, and in fact, I am obligated to think beyond myself and to work to make the world a better place for others and for future generations. This can be done joyfully and with a spiritual partnership with HaShem.

 

I am a Jew because I was born into a Jewish family, with grandparents and parents who were committed to being Jewish. My mother’s father, “Papa,” davened every day and attended shul on Shabbat. He was friendly and interested in everyone he met. My grandmother, “Nana,” was “modern” and expressed her Jewishness through her love of her family, her own private prayers and her cooking. Pesach and Hanukkah were always special meals at her house, with dishes like kasha and mushrooms and stuffed cabbage and wonderful knaidlach and chicken soup.

 

My father’s parents came from families with observant parents. They did not keep kosher, but they did found a synagogue in Pomona, California and were pillars of the Jewish community. My grandmother wrote a family cookbook and donated the proceeds to the City of Hope. My grandfather supported the ACLU and was politically progressive, as well as being a kind and wise person to his friends, family and employees. Family was important to both Grandma and Grandpa, and the extended family would gather at their home to talk, eat wonderful food and enjoy one another’s company.

 

My parents instilled in me a joy in reading, learning and exploring the human and natural worlds. My mother taught me meditation and both my parents volunteered in the community. My family celebrated Hanukkah and Passover until I was in 4^th grade, when we joined a reform synagogue so that my sister and I could attend religious school. We added the celebration of Shabbat and the High Holidays, as well as enjoying Purim and youth activities. I became the President of the Junior Youth Group during the same year that my father was President of Temple Beth El. I even got to serve on the Rabbi Search committee as the youth representative. My Bat Mitzvah celebration was one of the highlights of my life so far, a true rite of passage into responsible Jewish adulthood and a joyful community experience.

 

During college I became involved in Hillel and deepened my appreciation for and practice of Judaism. Our rabbi there led a multi-college Hillel retreat and showed me how delicious Judaism and the observance of Shabbat could be. I realized at a new level that I loved being a Jew. In graduate school, I joined a Havurah. We took turns leading an Erev Shabbat program and enjoyed a kosher vegetarian Shabbat potluck. We even celebrated the wedding of two of our members. The group was a wonderful respite from the hard work of studying.

 

After graduate school, I moved to a small town in Indiana for a wonderful job. There were 35 Jewish members of our tiny congregation (including the children!). I taught a monthly religious school and became the President of the Columbus Hebrew Congregation. We had a visiting rabbi from the seminary in Cincinnati come once a month for services and to lead High Holiday services. We shared a building with the Friends and the Unitarians. Being Jewish in such a Christian milieu further solidified my identity and reinforced my choice to be a Jew.

 

My professional and volunteer work has been informed by my concern for the well-being of other people, of organizations and of the planet. A commitment to the betterment of the world seems particularly Jewish.

 

I had always wanted to be a mother (and someday, G-d willing, a grandmother). The prospects were slim in South Central Indiana, so I moved back to the Bay Area. I joined the Chai Society and attended the rotating single Shabbat services held at various Peninsula congregations. I was lucky to meet, fall in love with, and marry a man who was already a member of Congregation Kol Emeth. He is a son of two Holocaust survivors. This legacy makes Jewish continuity even more important. We combined my Reform background with his Orthodox background to meet in the middle at Conservative. Our rabbi counseled us for a year before our wedding. He helped us think through many issues to form the foundation for our marriage. We still refer back to our Ketuba and the marriage vows that we wrote together when we need to be reminded of our vision for our marriage and our family.

 

Now our daughters are almost 12 and are approaching their B’not Mitzvah. I feel so blessed to be part of the Kol Emeth community and to have them learning and making friends with other Jewish children. I am trying to continue my own learning, as well. We celebrate Shabbat and holidays at home and try to instill Jewish values of learning, love of family, Tikkun Olam, community service and Tzedakah. Being a parent is a constant challenge to becoming the best person that I can be, Jewishly and humanly.

 

I try every day to commune with HaShem, and to live with more awareness and skill. I treasure the wisdom of our tradition as a guide to living a good life. It is wonderful to be linked to other Jews around the world and throughout time. I believe that our tradition helps me be a better person and a better citizen of the world.

 

 

 

XIII

 

Aspiring writers frequently receive the advice to avoid the verb to be. Only weak writers rely on this verb form. But G-d is quoted as using it when asked by Moses “Who shall I tell them sent me?” “Tell them ‘I am’ sent you.”

 

With this imposing precedent I confidently state that I am a Jew. That is my state of being. “We are Jewish;” little children learn this from their parents. Most of us cannot remember when we were first told this, so early is this basic teaching given. It’s a matter of identity. We are Jews. That’s the way it is. Only over time do the complexities emerge. Yes, we’re Jews, and some people don’t like us because we’re Jews. That’s pretty puzzling to a small child. Mummy and Daddy, the most powerful people in the whole world, disliked because of this Jewishness they told me about? How can this be?

Did it affect my self-concept? Of course. The negative part of my self-concept was intensified by this sense of exclusion from the outer world. But there was a positive side too. “You are the great great granddaughter of a very learned, famous rabbi. You are therefore special and important. Never forget this.” The Jewish aspect of my self-concept feasted on this sense of consequence.

 

But England, where I grew up, remains, despite the Second World War, rather an anti-Semitic place. Being a Jew was quite uncomfortable. True, the family did not look stereo- typically Jewish, but our orthodox life style certainly gave us away to anyone who got to know us at all well.

 

So I eventually emerged into the adult world with a quite damaged sense of what my Jewish heritage represented. Nor was this in any way assuaged when I eventually married a nice Jewish doctor, a choice my parents greatly approved.

 

What they did not know was his own deep ambivalence about his Jewishness. Trapped in Nazi-occupied Europe during his formative years, he was far more deeply scarred than I. He encouraged me to drop as much of the religion as I could bear to let go of, labeling it as “barbaric.” For a few years I probably didn’t even fast on Yom Kippur. The children we had together received only sketchy information about the fact that they were Jewish. His family name was the only incontrovertible reminder of the truth of our heritage.

 

But gradually I began again to embrace at least the High Holydays. Failing to observe them always produced deep depression—I just couldn’t bear knowing my own people were all united in prayer, while I counted myself out; at least that’s how it felt. But my boys never had Bar Mitzvahs. I belonged to no shul.

 

Soon after we arrived in California, my husband and I divorced. I did receive a get, perhaps the most Jewish aspect of that marriage!

 

A couple of years later, I married my present husband, a decided agnostic. We had a humanistic marriage ceremony. I became quite active in Buddhism. Then I took a correspondence course from the Self-Realization Fellowship, an organization founded on the Hindu religion. Although I liked the course I found, to my surprise, that when I completed it, and thus qualified to join the fellowship formally, I encountered an impediment. Faced with the requirement to sign a document acknowledging the founder as my personal guru, I realized that this step was one I could not take. Jews don’t have gurus. I began to back off from Eastern religion and to redirect my spiritual path toward Judaism. One day in a workshop at Tassajara, I heard the head abbot recall that when young he had declared what a wonderful religion Judaism was, and that he would never depart from it. Sitting there in his abbot robes he said: “I have never gone back on that commitment.”

 

I deeply resonated with this statement. The young boy could have been speaking for me. I recalled how much I had loved the religion of my youth. My mother lighting the Shabbos candles. The family together on festivals. The atmosphere during Passover and Shavuoth. The songs at meal times. Singing Shir Hamaloth. Praying with my mother at home on Friday nights while my father and brothers were in shul. The love and warmth, and sense of holiness. How could I have forgotten?

 

I began, with my husband’s encouragement, to light Shabbat candles. When grandchildren came, I made sure they and their parents joined us on Friday nights. I joined Kol Emeth and became a regular attendant. I learned to chant Torah and Haftarah. More and more of my attention went into the practice of Judaism.

 

That’s what I appreciate so much about our faith: that we have such a clearly defined practice, so much Torah study, so much tefila, 613 mitzvoth to attempt to fulfill! What an abundance of reminders that life is holy, that we are blessed even as we go about quite humdrum lives.

 

I was hesitant about joining a shul. I had felt rejected in the synagogues of my childhood, all complete with mechitzas. But Kol Emeth was different. Here I felt like a full participant. Often I can complete a minyan, and rank that as a great privilege.

 

In part I regret the time I neglected my faith. But not entirely. I now count myself as a Jew by choice, not just by heritage. Indeed, should the belief in reincarnation prove to be real (the Kabbalists believe in it) I would only agree to come back if I could be a Jew.

 

 

 

 

XIV

 

I always asked my mom why she continually pestered me to attend Hebrew High on Wednesdays during this year. Most of the time I would respond with the cliché “too much homework,” or that I wanted to hang out with my friends or that I had music rehearsals, something that didn’t warrant that I get up and explore a part of my life that seemed too hard to understand, to fathom: being Jewish. Every time I asked myself what it really meant to be Jewish, the answer seemed too vague—unlike the subjects in school, where conceptually things are much easier.

 

Oh, sure, one may often stumble upon things he or she must think about a bit more deeply, and that’s all well and good. But when the question arises of faith, religion, ideology, such topics whose answers lie not at our disposal but farther out where our arms can’t seem to reach, people tend to either go for it with all they possibly can or crawl back in their shell of simplicity and simply choose to ignore what’s out there.

 

I unduly complimented myself by saying that I could be categorized in the first group of people. The funny thing is, the way I try to understand all the world’s mysteries, one would think that I’d be undergoing rabbinical studies, on my way to being knee-deep in theology. Yet among the pressures of school and everything else I claimed was more important than my heritage, I shied away from most things Jewish for a considerably long time. It was only when I was actually prompted to write this that I began to dwell on my pervasive fear that I’ll never be able to fully understand everything. All this time, I had thought about being Jewish as something that needed to be fully decoded, broken down so that I could understand what it was that I was. But that’s just it; the ethical value(s) (and I mean to say this with a dual meaning) of Judaism are what I should be working with, not some sort of twisted left-brained attempt to make being Jewish something enormous enigmatic supercomputer. And of course, there’s the misconception that I and so many of my peers have of being Jewish as a deviation from the norm in which everyone sits invariably in gray seats muttering words that don’t seem to mean anything. Praying has begun to surface with such negative connotations, and it’s a sad thing.

 

When I say that I’ve lost my sense of identity this year due to uncertainty, it is the absolute truth. I’m sad to say that all the advice I’ve given my friend about the importance of uniqueness should be focused a lot more on me. As an unvarying minority in this world, it’s imperative that we stand together, especially in these dire straits. Personally, I vow to dedicate a lot more time to the Jewish aspects of my life, not because I get mail about USY, AZA, Madrichim, etc. etc., but because I have begun to realize that the first steps to getting to know myself better lie in my roots, and roots are what keep the trees standing strong and true.

 

 

 

 

XV

 

In Loving Memory of My Father

 

As I thought about this wonderful question, I realized I couldn’t remember a time when I didn’t consider myself strongly identified with being Jewish, even through my earliest memories. My late father was raised in an Orthodox home, and my mother, now 85 (Baruch HaShem!) grew up in a Reform family, both in Dallas, TX—but when they were married and moved to Denver (partially because my Dad suffered latent anti-Semitism when he tried to get a job as an engineer after WWII, they became major participants in a growing Conservative Jewish community in Denver. In fact, they were founding members of Congregation Beth Joseph, helped build the schul’s first building, helped find and hire the Rabbi and the Cantor—and they were involved deeply in all aspects of this new congregation.

 

My mom later became President of the Sisterhood, my dad was active in the Men’s Club, and he even taught Sunday school in the earliest days of this congregation (in a Unitarian church, before we had our own building. All of this started when my brother, sister, and I were kids—and their active involvement and friendship with members of this community continued until we moved from Denver to San Diego and then later, to Dallas. And because both of my parents grew up in Dallas, my Mom re-became active in Hadassah and my dad’s parents and their friends had helped found Congregation Shearith Israel, the first major Conservative schul in Dallas, in the early 1900’s.... So the legacy of my family’s involvement with Judaism and the Jewish community has continued to this day.

 

In addition to remembering the wonderful Pesach sedorim we celebrated each year, as well as Chanukah, Purim, the other Chagim and the High Holydays, I have one strong memory from my childhood attendance at Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur services: There was ‘dichuning” (blessing of the Cohanim) at our schul each Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. I remember hiding getting close to my dad when this happened, as it was a very strange ritual for me…but my dad usually excused himself and exited from the congregation each year when this happened. I didn’t understand why he did this, as I knew he and my brother and I were Cohanim; but my dad never went up to the Bimah to join his fellow Cohanim in the Birkat Cohanim. In fact, he usually excused himself at this portion of the service so that he wouldn’t be present—and when I was old enough to question why, I asked him about this practice. “I’m not holy enough to join these other, much more pious and observant Jews, in doing this mitzvah,” he told me, “and if you are a Cohain and don’t participate in the mitzvah of Birkat Cohanim, you shouldn’t be present in the congregation.”

 

This was a year that was close to my Bar Mitzvah, so I asked him more questions—and especially, what was going on under the tallesim with these people shrouded in this mysterious rite. So he began to show me how they held their hands, what they did, etc.; and one year, I convinced him to stay during the Birkat so we could see it together. I know this made him uncomfortable, but he stayed because I asked him to do this—and he was such a natural teacher that he knew my questions (and probably, those of my older brother, as well) were an important part of my growth as a Jew. This ritual was later to play a very important role in my adult life—as I (and now, both of our sons), have been doing the Birkat every year since I can remember at Kol Emeth…. And it has even more meaning because of our rabbi’s discovery later in life that he, too, and his brother, and all of their sons are also Cohanim—and have joined us in this mitzvah and ritual for several years now. This is my first theme of what it means to be Jewish—mystery, questioning, and experiencing something spiritual that is beyond logic—and the importance of a family bond in seeking out meaning.

 

My own active Jewish involvement had somewhat of a hiatus after I was confirmed, although our family’s celebration of Jewish holidays and periodic attendance at Shabbat and schul continued through my high school years. While I joined AZA (mostly for the social aspects), I didn’t find it a very satisfying experience, especially because I was a newcomer to both the San Diego and then the Dallas Jewish communities. My older brother and I continued our Jewish practices to some extent when we were both at Berkeley—and we had our first opportunities to hold and lead our own Pesach sedorim. This is the first time I remember realizing how important a connection to Jewish community was in terms of being really strongly identified as a Jew. So active participation in a community—both giving and receiving mitzvahs and their blessings—is my second strong theme in what it means for me to be Jewish.

 

My next main identification with being Jewish happened when I first visited Israel when I was in college—and several years later, when I took what I thought would be a one year leave-of-absence from my PhD studies at Cal to go live in Israel. My sister was also spending her junior year abroad there at Hebrew U. during that same year, so we had a chance to reconnect and get much closer to one another than we had been in years. One month after I arrived in 1973, the Yom Kippur War broke out—and this began an adventure of both Jewish and cultural exploration that was to last for two years, rather than one. I played a lot of music when I lived in Israel, met some of the most creative and exciting education people I’ve ever known, and experienced truly what it was like to live as an Israeli, both during and after the Yom Kippur War.

 

I also found out more about the mystical side of Judaism, as I had been introduced to Kabbalah not by someone Jewish, but by one of my mentors who, while not Jewish, knew more about the wisdom tradition of Judaism than I did. And I learned about the power of the Hebrew language through “shoresh” (word roots)—and through living use of the language, not just praying in it. This led to my third major theme in why being Jewish is important to me: Jews have always had a strong tradition of both literacy and lifelong learning—and in fact, were probably the original proponents of what we now call the “constructivist” view of knowledge and knowing that’s the core of my educational philosophy and practice as a professional educational technologist. As John Dewey said, “Knowing is literally something that we do.” The Torah said our response at Har Sinai was, “Na’aseh and Nishmah”—we will DO (first) and/so then, we can/will understand.”

 

I was also told by a rabbi at a Yeshiva in Jerusalem that I had a legacy as a Cohain; since the Cohanim didn’t own any land of their own, many of them were teachers and educators. This was to become my own profession—and I wrote a letter of thanks and gratitude to my father for helping me learn what it meant to be Jewish—and to tell him about this discovery of my heritage. He copied and distributed this letter to all his friends and members of our families, and I know he treasured it. It was also to be one of our last written exchanges we had before he died, which happened just after I returned to the U.S. and to Berkeley…so I, too, treasure having written this acknowledgement.

 

Finally, I had several very important musical connections to my Jewish identity during my Israel experience. First, I played trumpet in one of Israel’s first jazz bands at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem—including often playing jazz concerts for neighborhood kids and families in poorer areas of Jerusalem, where they had never heard jazz before. Also, two personal musical “explorations” were especially important to me on both a personal and creative level: One day, while I was staying at Midrashat Sde Boker (right next to David Ben Gurion’s kibbutz) near Beersheva, I took a hike at dawn to Eyn Avdat, which some call Israel’s mini-Grand Canyon. I also took a portable tape recorder, and I discovered that by bouncing the sound of my trumpet off the walls of the canyon, I could play chords by timing the echoes of my sounds just right. I was amazed—and in a wonderful, creative state of mind.

 

I later did the same thing from the top of Massada above the Dead Sea—a solo trumpeter playing chords by waiting for the sounds to bounce off the walls of the surrounding wadis. I later bought my first Shofar in Jerusalem (which I had never played or blown during Rosh Hashanah)—and after I returned to Berkeley, this Shofar was to become a major part of my annual celebration of Rosh HaShanah. Here was a connection to my Jewishness from my playing music and using my breath as a means of making sound and music—both through ruach and neshamah (which I later connected to Jewish meditation)—and as a part of the act of creativity. Also, this legacy has now been passed down to both of our sons (also brass players), both of whom also know the power of the sound of the Shofar.

 

My bond with Israel continued, and my Jewish identity grew when I returned to Berkeley to complete my PhD studies…and also when I met my wife through my best friends, who were to be our shadchanim. They and their friends/families all had strong involvement and identity with Israel, Soviet Jewry, youth movements, and campus activism in support of Israel. After we were married, they made aliyah to Israel, and we have continued our relationship with them, as well as our many friends, for our 24 years of marriage. Both of our sons have attended Jewish day schools, have been to Israel as children, and both will (b’ezrat HaShem) go to Israel again to visit, live, and experience this land as young adults. And our older son has become very aware of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic press and media bias during his first year at college—and has written several letters and emails to counteract these biases. So this is another of my themes—Israel is a living connection to Jewish history, culture, science/technology and innovation—and a tribute to the Jewish people’s ability to survive—and one that can follow from one generation to the next.

 

Finally, it has been our wonderful experience to be active members of several Bay Area schuls, from Beth Israel in Berkeley, to Kol Shofar in Marin, and for the past 18 years, Kol Emeth. We are connected to this schul and this community because of its active participatory nature, the level of understanding and practices, and our wonderful rabbis—and to their families. May HaShem give us strength and health to continue our involvement, and that of our sons, now and in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

XVI

What is it about Judaism?

My relationship with Judaism continues to evolve. As the evolutionary process has yet no end in sight, I prefer to describe it in terms of the process.

This process is like getting in shape. It yields rewards as a function of my investment in it. As the results of exercise demand the effort of exercising, so do the fruits of Judaism require the effort of studying it. And, as with exercise, it must be balanced by the perspective of regular distance, rest and reflection.

Early on, the simple beauty and comfort of the rituals, the songs, the identity, and the intellectual stimulation of digesting Jewish tradition and history comprised my experience of Judaism. Connecting with Judaism connected me with my family and my origins.

In adolescence, I entertained other philosophies and began to question Jewish ideas in comparison with them. The intrinsic merit that justified the preoccupation of Judaism as an ideology with its own survival was not self-evident to me.

Yet I believed that it was important to preserve aboriginal cultures and their contribution to the world. I practiced Jewish ritual because it was mine. I would say that if I were Hopi, I would do rain dances. But the fix was in. I needed to connect to Judaism because it was in my blood.

When I had children, it became a priority to clarify what values they would learn and carry into the challenges life would hold for them. At that point, I began to engage with Jewish values and ideology, relative to their competition, with something more at stake than dating and celebrating.

What I found impressed me. It was rational, life-affirming, down-to-earth, yet grounded in a higher vision of the possibilities of humanity. Judaism taught free inquiry, personal dignity and responsibility for moral choice. These teachings could guide and fortify my children against the evils, hardships and temptations that they would face in this world and in this gloriously and frighteningly free society.

I grasped that my personal example would influence my children more than my words. To get the job done, I had to deepen my own knowledge and practice of Jewish tradition.

As I began to do so, I discovered more than great moral and philosophical insight. My people’s tradition stored some of humanity’s greatest literature. The poetry of David and Isaiah matched Homer for richness and inspiration. The Ethics of the Fathers could go toe-to-toe with Lao Tzu. Joshua and Samuel and Judges stood up well on the shelf with Thucydides. The liturgy teemed with cross-references lingering below the surface to be revealed like Easter eggs in software.

Buried treasure in my own backyard! Our own tradition endowed the root teachings for billions of people around the world. Forget the Da Vinci Code and the map on the back of the Declaration of Independence. The guidebook to the numinous powers was not-so-hidden within my heritage. And I had the rare opportunity to struggle with these works in the original. The keepers, guardians and trustees of the source code were—us!

My Christian friends reading the Bible so dear to them had to detect whiffs of its essence through the filter of centuries of clumsy translation and groping doctrine. I could probe and reflect on the subtleties and mysteries of the Torah with the aid of trope and commentary set down by heirs to the oral tradition delivered with the original. These enormous gifts to humanity were so directly accessible to so few. What a beautiful trust and service to so many of the peoples of the world, what a splendid responsibility, to enjoy and safeguard this tradition, so close to the source of our own as well as others’ religious teachings.

It went deeper. Scholars of other persuasions, as well as Jewish scholars, recognized our tradition’s authorship of the great moral foundations of Western society. What our own scholars uniquely perceived and taught, I learned, was that our job in this is not done. The Jewish People offer more than just a Great Books program. Jewish tradition retains an ongoing historical mission to grapple with, refine and clarify the wellspring, and make available its inspirations to those who seek them.

Our legal and political systems, though perhaps humanity’s greatest inventions, and however inspired by our biblical tradition as they may be, have not yet brought us to the messianic era. Our tradition teaches that humanity still has a purpose and destiny. God is not done with us. The lessons of the dignity of humanity and the visions of moral responsibility, freedom and inquiry are not complete for us or for others. As long as the future challenges humanity, I learned, it remains the obligation of Judaism to investigate and probe the guidance for our common destiny. I was and remain awed by the honor of this undertaking.

Then my marriage and business crumbled and my physical strength and kin faltered. Passing a legacy of strength to my children presented challenges I could not answer with financial resources or with the strength of a whole family.

I needed more, too. I had to tap the source of spiritual leadership to guide my will and emotions over and through my circumstances. What could Judaism offer in this dimension?

The liturgy and literature offer up clues only as my ears and heart are tuned to them. I could only start with their comfort and elusive form. They began to mean more though, when I reached out for spiritual dialogue, guidance and strength. Now, as I read this liturgy and literature, they reverberate and seep Theology, ever a new dimension for me. Big surprise! Theology pervades Judaism!

It was easier to talk about great literature and moral teaching than to talk, at the risk of sounding a little batty, about the source of the teaching. It dawned upon me that the story of Judaism is the story of dialogue and partnership with the Source, the One Who Must Be Named, as it falls to us in the dialogue to make ourselves available for it, by addressing, calling out to, striving to name, our un-nameable Partner in the dialogue.

Having admitted this much, I realized that most every line of the liturgy and the literature and the traditional philosophizing is about grappling with, reaching out for, trying to characterize and participate in, this very personal and intimate dialogue.

What is it about Judaism? At this turn, it is about Partnership, capital “P.” Judaism teaches me that I am a partner with, in a partnership with, God. It shows me how my ancestors and forerunners sought to engage in this dialogue, and challenges me to find the place wherein God and I might dialogue and interact as partners. It calls me to learn what this Partnership demands of me, and what it provides to me in order to enable me to fulfill my mission in it.

Now I talk with my children in a kind of crazy language. I have to try to tell them about things they can find out only for themselves, things which no science can validate. I have this loony idea about a leap of faith, in which I stand out there alone and engage in a dialogue with a Partner you can see only if you look at things that way.

This tradition provides a safe place and a vocabulary for people to engage in this kind of crazy talk. At the same time, it allows people the latitude to have it “their own way,” so you can have this kind of crazy dialogue, or ignore it and just sing along without worrying about taking it all too seriously; and nobody stares at you too much either way. If you want, you can talk like this all the time, like saying blessings over food and such, and people will act graciously as if you are just using metaphors or something rather than having this kooky dialogue with your Invisible Partner. You can wake up and put in your pocket a virtual commission with the title “Partner” and pretend you are just going to your job, except then moment by moment you have to try to figure out what is expected of a partner in this Partnership. Schedule permitting, you can squeeze in attending a minyan and mumble along together with other people who are at their own place along this path, trying to find a way to address their Partner and Master.

Other people apparently also feel this sense of Partnership. We can talk about it, through this tradition, in somewhat guarded and unguarded terminology. We know that the words in the prayers are only a kind of signpost left by others who traveled the path: they are neither necessarily the path itself nor the conversation that you have on it. Nevertheless, as I engage in this dialogue, these resonate ever more deeply.

I also have some criticisms of the Jewish community. In pointing these out, I recognize that these are not any fault of others, but challenges of responsibility for my own active involvement and leadership.

The communities of evangelical Christians, who make it a priority to pay attention to the needs of their constituents, are succeeding vastly. I see by comparison that Judaism is suffering in important respects. In youth, the weakness of support structures of the Jewish community made it necessary for me to look outside the community to answer my social needs. As a single parent now, the community offers scant support. And on another front, I find that Jewish education misses dreadfully one of its most important functions: moral teaching and guidance. We focus on ritual observance without taking time to dwell on awkwardly specific and uncomfortable issues of right and wrong in daily life. We fail our children if we fail to correct this deficiency.

So now I think we have some things to learn from our Christian friends as well as things to teach them. They took a lesson from our moral and spiritual foundation, and they strive to learn from it how to care better for one another. We can return the favor, by taking a lesson from them about how we, too, can care better for one another in our community.

 

XVII

 

Judaism is my roadmap for living! I thrive on following good directions. Yes, I am a person who asks for directions. Why go blindly through life when living a Jewish life brings me closer to Hashem?

 

I am Jewish because I was born a Jew; however, the reason I continue to remain a Jew today is because Judaism is my roadmap for living. I am a Jew because through the study of Torah and Talmud, I continue to evolve as a spirit-centered, practicing Jew. In my daily practices, through Kashrut, kissing a mezuzah as I pass through a doorway, study of Jewish texts, now reciting the Kaddish twice daily for my beloved mother Lillian, may she rest in peace, I am enriched as I lead a spirit-centered life. I am not perfect in my practice, but I recognize that Hashem is the center of my life and that I am a child of G-d. Each day, I thank G-d for my life as I make a daily decision to lead my life to honor Hashem.

 

Ok, I admit the pull of strong childhood memories forming my positive Jewish experiences. I grew up in Brooklyn, NY. I lovingly recall sitting on my Zade’s lap as he read the Forward (Yiddish Newspaper). I helped Bubbe prepare for Shabbos and picked up the newspapers she put on the floor after she washed the floor for Shabbos. Bubbie explained that the newspapers were to keep the floor clean for Shabbos! I remember davening with my Bubbe in the women’s section, walking to shul on Shabbos and Yontif, and of course the family Pesach seders with my uncles, aunts and cousins. I even recall the live carp swimming in the bathtub Bubbe carried home from the fish market to make the gefilte fish! I have happy memories of my beloved Mother, may she rest in peace, agreeing with me when I insisted on going to Hebrew school at age 9. My Zadie did not believe that girls needed to attend Hebrew school. I even had my shul, Rishon L’Zion, across the street from my apartment building! Each time I walked out of my building, the first building I would see was the two-story shul with the huge Menorah on the roof lighting up the sky during Chanukah. I also never had an excuse for being late to Cheder!

 

As an adult I have always chosen to be a part of a Jewish community wherever I lived: in Los Angeles, Anaheim, Las Vegas and Cupertino. Since 1981, the Kol Emeth community has been my spiritual home where I can daven, learn, grow as a Jew and share in Jewish lifecycle events. I feel accepted and I can contribute. I have shared in the joy of raising my three sons in the Kol Emeth community.

 

What a joy it is to attend Thursday morning minyanim, dance and sing at our raucous Simcahs Torah celebrations and learn at the all night study on Shavout! I have benefited from the Jewish role models at Kol Emeth as I learned to read Torah with my beloved teacher (sensei). A friend is always ready to support me when I attempt to chant from the Torah. I have even begun the study of Talmud (it is a life-long process) with scholarly teachers for the past five years. I was truly inspired seeing a woman lead services. I had never seen a woman lead services before 1981!

 

Our family has been enriched and blessed by deep friendship. I am grateful to the families who willingly come to complete a minyan. The family who has shared in the simchas and challenges in our life. One of our friends made the decision to attend our son’s Bar Mitzvah and miss a family wedding in London. Now, you can see why I am blessed to be a practicing Jew.

 

I have been lovingly supported by my community as I mourned the passing of my beloved father, may he rest in peace, and now the death of my beloved mother, may she rest in peace. Yes, I even had the privilege of having a Torah in my home for the week of Shiva for my mother, as the community came daily to support my family as my brothers and I recited the Kaddish twice daily.

Baruch Hashem, I am blessed to be part of the Jewish community. My life has been enriched. I can’t imagine not clinging to this extraordinary (my son’s adjective for our community after participating in the Shavout all night study in 2005) community. As a committed Jew, I gratefully follow the roadmap for Jewish living. Now you know why I am a Jew!

 

 

 

 

XVIII

 

Why Am I Jewish?

 

Why am I Jewish? I ask myself,

Why am I Jewish? I say.

I’m Jewish because I’ve always been,

And I know I’m Jewish to stay.

 

I’m Jewish because my ancestors were,

I’m Jewish because I’m me,

I’m happily Jewish and rightfully so,

I’m Jewish because I’m free.

 

I’m Jewish because it’s in my blood,

I’m Jewish ’cause how I was raised,

I’m Jewish because I want to be,

I’m Jewish ’cause God should be praised.

 

I’m Jewish ’cause I like to question;

When you’re Jewish not all answers are right.

I’m Jewish because it’s what I need;

I’m Jewish through the day and the night.

 

I’m Jewish because it’s a faith,

I’m Jewish because I believe—

I’m Jewish and for that I’m thankful,

I’m Jewish for what I can achieve.

 

I’m Jewish because of study,

I’m Jewish because it’s in me,

I’m Jewish for unknown reasons,

I’m Jewish for community.

 

Why am I Jewish? I ask myself,

Why am I Jewish? I say.

I’m Jewish because I’ve always been,

And I know I’m Jewish to stay.

 

 

 

 

 

XIX

 

I am the child of older parents. Although I am only 49 (born in 1955), my father was born in 1898 (he immigrated to the United States in 1907) and my mother was born in 1915. Because of this, I have always felt an intimate sense of the early 1900s. The Judaism of that period feels close to me. My father and mother came from religious families, but neither of them were deeply spiritual people. However, they were extremely involved in the Jewish community. My father and his brother helped to found the JCC and Jewish day schools in Buffalo. My mom has always been the typical “temple lady”, serving on boards of the temple, day school, etc. She still handles the money at the gift shop at age 90!

 

The level of observance in our house was mixed. We went to shul every Saturday morning (a conserva-dox shul much like Kol Emeth) and kept strictly kosher at home. However, we drove to shul and went out to eat at the diner afterwards. I was not allowed to cut, sew, write or do homework on Shabbat. But I could watch TV and play piano.

 

As for me, I have always been a deeply spiritual person, with a strong feeling of connection to God and mystical ideas. This was shaped by a variety of experiences, but I think, at some level, people are just born that way. At the time I went to the day school in Buffalo (1960-1967), the only people who would send their children there were either orthodox or committed to the concept. In my class of 12 children, the 7 boys were all orthodox and the 5 girls were not. Our school began with a half hour of davening every morning. The boys were always pestering the girls to say each word with our lips and to keep our feet touching during the amidah, of course with all the proper bowing. By the time I was in 3rd grade, I knew the entire shacharit by heart, including all the various psalms. There was deep kavanah there. I have a vivid memory of the day Kennedy was shot. Our school was housed in the orthodox shul at the time. We all went up to the sanctuary and prayed. It was intense. We cried and sang our lungs out. It was like screaming to God for mercy. So different from the indifference to prayer seen in many of our day schools today! Nearly all the boys’ families moved to New York City after we graduated in 6th grade so that they could go to yeshiva. Two or three of them became rabbis.

 

I also had a fairly close relationship with our rabbi, who was prominent in the Conservative movement. He wrote the Judaism 101 book still used by JTS—A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice. I have my own copy, inscribed to me personally in Hebrew. The rabbi also wrote many responsa for the Conservative movement, including the ones on kashrut of cheese and swordfish, and on abortion. I did a report on his military service in 7th grade—he was a Jewish chaplain in WWII and was one of the first to liberate the concentration camps. He gave me some of his own military paraphernalia and pictures to include in my report.

I was also close to my Baube—my mom’s mom. She was only a few years older than my dad—a confirmed Galicianer (in contrast to my dad the Litvak). She ruled her home, was extremely superstitious, and made the most amazing blintzes and knishes. My grandpa was a sweet man who died when I was 5 or 6. He would sit in the back of the shul and kibbitz with his cronies. They would pinch my cheeks and slip me a chocolate bar each Shabbos. My childhood shul was housed in a converted gothic church. It was a fantastically inspirational place with vaulted ceilings, dark wood everywhere, deep red carpet down the aisles, and stained glass. I loved our cantors. They instilled in me my love of hazanut. I loved singing in shul and was called upon to lead junior congregation many weeks. When our cantor davens at Kol Emeth, it brings me back to my childhood and the voice of my first cantor. I love the old melodies. I had some truly transcendent experiences in that old shul, especially on Yom Kippur—and some rowdy ones on Simchas Torah.

 

Three other things have helped to shape my Jewish identity: Camp Ramah, Israel, and my father dying when I was 15. I began to go to Camp Ramah in Canada in 1966. Camp Ramah in the late 60’s and early 70’s—that was glorious! For me, it was a perfect fit—Judaism with a hippie gestalt. An idealistic kind of Judaism. Judaism with long hair. My dad died suddenly in 1971 and I was devastated. I became even more spiritually connected, reading Torah every night by candlelight. In 1972, I went to Israel with USY and spent the next 5 summers there. Two close friends made aliyah. Over the course of those summers, I had two boyfriends in the army—one used to go AWOL every Tuesday night to meet up with me in Tel Aviv. I was an ardent Zionist and had an Israeli flag over my bed freshman year of college. I was considering aliyah myself, but for a variety of reasons, decided against it. On my way back from my final summer in Israel, in 1976, I was in London at Speaker’s Corner. I listened to a Palestinian and Israeli up on the soap boxes. It was an epiphany for me—I suddenly fully realized that I had only learned one side of a very complex story. I felt very deeply let down. In recent years I have tried to do something with those feelings—by working for peace via dialogue and mutual understanding.

 

After this point, I went along a typical path—finishing college, graduate school, marriage, children. I reentered Jewish life in earnest with the birth of my children. My husband was brought up ultra-reform and was totally alienated from his Judaism. Over the years, I have slowly familiarized him with the kind of Judaism I was brought up with and loved. We even worked at Camp Ramah in 1999 and 2000. This was a turning point for him; he finally felt comfortable in Kol Emeth’s Conservative service, even if he still can’t really read Hebrew.

 

Ultimately, my love of being Jewish is spiritually based. My connection to God is a Jewish one—that is my family, that is my tribe. But I am also a human being and I feel connected to all human beings. The part of Judaism that I love the most is the part that is open and mystical. The morning shacharit prayers that talk of universal themes—of God’s essence emanating from the smallest corner. The call at the end of the Aleinu for a unified mankind. I feel alienated from extreme forms of nationalism and fundamentalism in Jewish life.

 

So why am I Jewish? Because that’s my connection to the universe. But I know that I am also connected to everyone else in the universe as well.

 

 

 

 

XX

 

I am 36 years old and I am still learning the ways to be Jewish.

 

I grew up in a reform Jewish home and had little understanding about how to be and why we are Jewish. I have all types of friends from different types of backgrounds. I enjoy learning about other cultures and religion. However, I find that being Jewish is about learning about yourself and “thy neighbors.” I have a hard time understanding why any living person can take away another life when “most” religions tell us to “respect and love thy neighbor.”

 

Even though I grumble about our observing holidays such as Yom Kippur, Passover, and Tisha B’Av, the purpose is to teach us “the value of life.” I guess that is why our ancestors created these kinds of holidays so that we never forget and take life for granted. Because someday we may not have nice houses, money, food, cars, and cell phones, etc. It’s our health, family and friends that make up our world.

 

I hope that my children will someday understand “the value of life” and why we are Jewish and remember it when asking, “Why are we fasting?”

 

 

 

 

 

XXI

 

As a Jew, I feel connected—however undeservedly—to a peoplehood, which (arguably) out-of-proportion has provided some of history’s greatest contributors to medicine, the sciences, literature, and other noble human endeavors. Whether this is because of our theology, communal practices, external pressures or other factors is a question for another forum; but to try—at least in some way—to help Judaism and Israel be sustained is a minimal requirement for my maintaining a sense of contributing to humankind.

 

 

 

XXII

 

When I was in high school, there was a racial riot on campus. As a swarm of students rushed across the lawn, I just sat there mesmerized. As a response, the National Council of Christians and Jews set up a camp in the mountains and invited gang leaders and student body leaders from all different high schools to come together and talk. Since I was student body president, I was fortunate to attend.

 

There they asked us many hard and interesting questions: Do you think of yourself as a Cadillac or a V.W.? I was a V.W. and the gang leader next to me was a Cadillac.

 

Are you more Asian or American? Jewish or American? African or American?

This was the first time I had ever contemplated that question. The Asian girl broke down into tears and said, “American,” though my parents and I fight about our cultural differences all the time. I said, “Jewish” and wondered what the implications were. I noticed that most of my friends were Jewish, though not all, and that I knew little about my heritage as a drop-out of a poorly taught Sunday school program in a reform synagogue.

 

This question resurfaced again while I was in Chile in my graduate school years. I was lost in a very small town and forget what I needed, but I wondered to whom I could go to for help. I noticed a Star of David above the door at a home I passed. I thought, I bet I could ask them for help. And I did.

 

Little things like this give you direction, literally, in your life. I later experienced my first Shabbat with my husband’s family in Ecuador when I was 28. I had my first Chanukah where my breath was taken away as I witnessed the beauty of the candles all lit at once in about 20 chanukiot; I consider this my first Jewish spiritual moment when I look back.

 

Later, I ironically went back for training as a Jewish educator at the same site where I was turned off from Judaism 22 years before and saw how far I’d come.

 

I crossed the bridge into my Jewish identity formally when I changed my name from Cristy to Chaia, which began when I needed to put my name on the 12 books for the Jewish community I’d written. No longer was I comfortable hiding behind a “safe” identity, where no one would know for sure that I was Jewish. I didn’t worry about anti-Semitism, which my mother had experienced growing up and therefore (subconsciously but somehow) taught us never to outwardly demonstrate our Judaism, specifically with jewelry. I now fully embrace a Jewish spiritual existence and try to contribute to the community I consciously joined by imparting the love for Jewish values that I came “home” to as I teach my classes at Kol Emeth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

XXIII

 

I am Jewish because Judaism is filled with permission. That freedom comes with responsibility, of course, but it is an empowering choice. I can be an imperfect human being, but I am not expected to remain so—or free from the responsibility of trying to improve. I am encouraged, supported, and constructively chastised. I experience affection, tolerance, respect and kindness from fellow Jews which give me the courage to express these qualities to others.

 

 

 

 

XXIV

 

Three Data Points

 

I

 

When I was in high school, in New York, I remember asking a rabbi if I were still Jewish if I didn’t keep kosher, didn’t attend Sabbath services, and wasn’t sure about the existence of God. He said I was still a Jew, but that I was a bad Jew.

 

That stayed with me for a long time.

 

II

 

My father died when I was 16; and for the entire year following his death, out of respect for my mother, I attended the local synagogue services every morning and evening, put on Tefillin each morning, and observed every holiday without fail. And I did this in a synagogue where only Yiddish was spoken by all the congregants, who were elderly men. I barely understood Yiddish, and they hardly spoke English.

 

Years later, my mother told me she always wondered why I spent that year that way.

Clearly, there was a communication problem.

 

III

 

When I met my future wife and was introduced to all her friends in the congregation, I’m certain I must have gotten on their nerves, constantly asking them if they believed in God. I was looking for clues that would help me define my own sense of spirituality.

 

__________________________________

 

As a child, I grew up in New York City in a setting where it didn’t feel special to be Jewish at all. In college, being Jewish was an entry into social circles and provided a forum for interesting intellectual discussion. It was beginning to feel special, but only because of its increasing uniqueness in decidedly non-Jewish settings. My Jewishness took the form of facilitating a sense of community and taking pride in our long and complex history as a people; that feeling persisted until I met my wife. Here was someone I loved and respected, who blossomed in her Jewishness in a way that I didn’t understand at all.

 

I value more than ever the sense of community and identity being Jewish provides, but my personal task, and this consumes me, is to define my concept of God in terms that work for me. I experience wonder at the world around me and feel gratitude for the gifts I continually receive. My wife wants to know to whom I feel gratitude.

 

I’m working on that.

 

 

XXV

 

Why am I Jewish? That’s an easy question. Because I love being Jewish! Living Jewishly brings out the best in me and guides me as I try to become the best person that I can be.

                                

Living Jewishly is a great way to live. Observing and celebrating Jewish holidays enriches my life. Following as many mitzvot as I can helps make each moment of my life as meaningful as possible. In his book, The Sabbath, Heschel wrote, “Judaism is a religion of time aiming at the sanctification of time.” I believe that.

                                  

I also believe that Judaism has the right mix of living in this world while simultaneously trying to better this world.

 

My father was born in Poland in 1940. He was hidden in concentration camps with my grandmother from 1942 to 1945. They were liberated from Bergen-Belsen in 1945. The fact that my father is a concentration camp survivor is an important part of me. However, it is not why I chose to live as a Jew. I am Jewish because Judaism helps me sanctify life.

 

There are also a few significant people and experiences that have positively impacted my decision to live Jewishly. When I was an undergraduate at UCLA, I met the Hillel Rabbi. For the first time in my life, I experienced the joy of celebrating Shabbat through food, z’mirot and tefillah. I still remember the wonderful feeling of celebrating Shabbat in his home.

 

While attending UCLA, I took several classes about Judaism and Jewish history. I not only learned a great deal, but these classes made me want to continue learning, which I have.

 

The first time I went to Israel was for one month during the summer between college and law school. Wow! I fell in love with Israel. I was awed and inspired. I remember seeing an Israeli flag on an archaeological site in the Judean Desert and just feeling so inspired and proud. I went back to Israel while in law school and spent two weeks on the Volunteers For Israel program. After law school, I lived in Safed for three months on a community service and religious study program called Livnot U’lihibenot. It felt good to learn Judaism in the morning and do community service projects in the afternoon, like paint the apartments of new immigrants or build a park for local children. Finally, my wife and I visited Israel for a few weeks early in our marriage. I can’t wait for us to take our young daughters to Israel.

 

Getting married, to a wonderful Jewish woman, and having children has only strengthened and reinforced my belief that living Jewishly is a great way to live.

 

I am so proud to be a Jew. My parents instilled Jewish pride in me. I feel blessed to be part of a people who have made such an extraordinary contribution to the world. I really like Jewish people. I feel that we are one big extended family.

 

 

How Belonging To Kol Emeth Is An Expression Of My Judaism

 

By belonging to Kol Emeth, my family and I express our commitment to Judaism and the Jewish community. I come to Kol Emeth almost every Shabbat to pray, relive our ancestors’ triumphs and travails in the Bible, and socialize.

 

I really like that there are many people more Jewishly knowledgeable than me at Kol Emeth. I appreciate having other people to learn from and be inspired by.

 

 

 

 

XVI

 

I grew up with a strong sense of the importance of belonging to the Jewish people. We weren’t religious, but we belonged to the one synagogue in Manchester, CT. That’s what the Jews did. My mother and her mother instilled in me the importance of being Jewish. To them, it was more cultural and ritual than religious.

 

To me, it’s the importance of knowing that you belong, that you can trace your history back three thousand years, that when I’m preparing for a holiday I know that other Jews are doing what I’m doing. I feel this most strongly during our preparations for Pesach.

 

In second grade I was called a “dirty Jew” by a boy I was playing with. I didn’t understand why he called me that. I asked my mother about it later. Suffice it to say that I wasn’t allowed to go to his house again, and was told some people just didn’t like Jews.

 

June 1967, I was 10. I have a vivid memory of two of our Israeli Hebrew school teachers being visibly upset at Hebrew school. They told us that Israel, their country, a Jewish country, had been attacked. They explained that all Jews had to stick together and help each other out. Prior to that I had no idea there was a Jewish homeland. My parents didn’t talk about it at home. We watched Walter Cronkite on the nightly news talking about the Vietnam War, not what was going on in the Middle East. More questions and insignificant answers from the adults around me.

 

I had the 1970 version of a Bat Mitzvah. I led the Friday night service, chanted 8 lines from my Haftorah, and read the pre-written speech. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the experience. I liked that my friends and family were there. It was quite an accomplishment for me, since learning Hebrew was difficult for me. It was another connection to the Jewish people.

 

In high school I joined USY, and that was one of the turning points for me. I was exposed to how being Jewish could be done joyously and with meaning. I looked forward to the kinnusim, especially my senior year when I served on the regional board. I used to live for the weekends.

 

Going to Israel for the first time, after high school, was another life-changing experience. I spent 7 weeks with an AZYF group. We spent four weeks on kibbutz K’far Masaryk. I picked a lot of pears and apples, and helped where needed. I felt as if I were contributing to the society. We were paired with a kibbutz family. My kibbutz “parents” were some of the original founders of the kibbutz. Between hand gestures and a mixture of Hebrew and English, I learned about their lives, and how proud they were to be Israelis and kibbutzniks. They had fled from pre-WWII Europe. After leaving the kibbutz, we spent 3 weeks traveling and getting a feel for the country. It is a feeling that has never left me.

 

I made four more trips to Israel, including a one year program called WUJS (World Union of Jewish Students). I decided after I had been out of college for about a year that I had to spend some time in Israel and make a contribution. I had heard about WUJS while at the University of Connecticut.

 

WUJS was an incredible year for me. I learned enough Hebrew to help me get by and met incredible people from all over the world who had come to Arad to do the program. The first half of the program we lived in Arad, studied Hebrew, studied about Israel, and studied about Judaism. We had dynamic teachers who made the classes interesting. We had wonderful trips to help us get an appreciation of the land we were living in. The second half of the year, I lived in Jerusalem and worked as a physical therapist at Hadassah Hospital. It was exciting, challenging, humbling, and at times frustrating, but I wouldn’t change my experiences there for the world.

 

I met my husband due to my WUJS experience! My roommate in Israel was from Palo Alto. After that year, I moved back to Atlanta. My roommate moved back to Palo Alto. Neither one of us was meeting anyone special. We decided to move to L.A., where we hoped we’d have better luck. Through her and another friend, I met my future husband. The rest, as they say “is history.”

 

Being Jewish has been a journey for me, geographically and religiously/spiritually. I have ranged from being unaware, to observant, to questioning and struggling with my Judaism. I have found the Jewish community to be very important, wherever I have lived. When I lived in Altanta and L.A., one of the first things I did was to find a shul I felt comfortable in.

 

Israel has always been very important to me, and always will be. I think that the existence of today’s Israel is vital to the survival of the Jewish people. Ask my family—I’m usually listening to David Broza or Rami Kleinstein’s CDs, even though I don’t understand what they’re saying. I just like the Hebrew, the music, and I think about the times I spent in Israel. In shul, I read the prayers without understanding what I’m reading, but I like knowing that I’m reading a language that connects me to the worldwide Jewish community.

 

The Kol Emeth community has been very important to me. I came to Kol Emeth since that was my husband’s shul. Within a few weeks people had figured out my connection to him. I was welcomed with open arms, and lots of questions. The rabbi married us. Two years later, our son had his brit milah at Kol Emeth. During the service, our son used to say “Bye Torah” and everyone would enjoy his youthful enthusiasm. Three years later, we had our daughter’s baby naming at Kol Emeth. She made herself known as the “girl without shoes.” I’m happy to report that she now wears shoes. Two years ago, my mother died in Florida. I came back home to finish sitting shiva and was embraced by the warmth of this community. Last year we celebrated our son’s becoming a bar mitzvah at Kol Emeth. Kol Emeth has been part of many life cycle events for our family.

 

So, my Jewish journey continues. I do not know where it will take me; but having a road map, so to speak, is helpful. I may not always follow it, or agree with it, but knowing it’s there for me keeps me going.

 

 

 

 

 

XVII

 

Being Jewish has always been important to me, and it has meant different things to me at different stages in my life. I grew up in a traditional household in Denver. My parents weren’t religious and neither of them knew Hebrew, but it was important to them that I went to synagogue and Hebrew School. My parents were born in the United States, and they would speak Yiddish when they didn’t want me or my two younger brothers to know what they were talking about.

 

I have fond memories of my mother lighting “Shabbos” candles and getting on a ladder to take down the Pesach dishes. She wouldn’t let anyone else climb on the ladder. One of the best memories I have of my dad is related to the Yom Kippur service. I would drive with him to the synagogue and sit with him at Kol Nidre. The part I liked the best was when we would walk home together after services. We left the car near the synagogue so that the entire family could drive home the next day after Yom Kippur services were over. We lived about a mile from the synagogue.

 

When my dad died when I was a senior in high school and my mom died in 1995, it was very important to me to say kaddish for eleven months.

 

After college, I got a job in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and the Jewish community was an important part of my life. It was very easy to be a “big fish” in a small pond. The Jewish community consisted of about 50 families. During my eight and a half years there, I was a Sunday school teacher, Sunday school director, B’nai B’rith president, and a member of the Los Alamos Committee Against Soviet Anti-Semitism. I bought frozen kosher meat that was shipped from Chicago.

 

When I first moved to California, I met the rabbi here because of my work for Soviet Jewry when I was in Los Alamos. I remember driving to San Francisco with him on a regular basis to participate in the silent vigil outside the Soviet Consulate.

 

Kol Emeth has been an important part of all the major milestones in my adult life. I have wonderful memories of the rabbi marrying my wife and me; the “bris” of my son; and the baby-naming of my daughter. The “Volunteers for Israel” program was my first trip to Israel and gave me a lot of time to reflect on what I wanted out of life.

 

One of the biggest surprises to me was how my ideas about being Jewish changed when my son was twelve and started preparing for his Bar Mitzvah. I was pretty comfortable with my level of observance and beliefs until he started asking me questions: “Why go to services that are boring?” he asked. “If I don’t believe in God, why should I pray?” “Why should I go to Hebrew School if I’m not learning anything that’s useful?” I found that my son had a lot of positive energy when it came to computers, video games, movies, and music, but that he couldn’t find much to be excited about with Jewish institutions.

 

I was Jewish because my parents were Jewish, but now I was seriously questioning what kind of Judaism I wanted to pass down to my children. I felt that it was important for Judaism to survive, but what kind of religion was I exposing the kids to? What does Judaism have to offer for the future generation?

 

Originally, I wanted my children to learn Hebrew so that they could be able to go into any synagogue in the world and participate in the service. As a result of my son’s questions, I realized that I needed to look for something more.

 

About the same time, I got a phone call from our other rabbi, and she asked me if I wanted to be on the ECE committee. ECE stands for Experiment in Congregational Education and was an outreach program from the Hebrew Union College. At the first meeting in San Francisco, they used text study as a way to motivate changes in congregations. We read the “T’filat Haderech”—the prayer for travelers—and then discussed how we would be going on a journey to change our religious schools. At another meeting, we read how the Jews wandered in the desert for 40 years and then discussed how we hoped our changes would not take 40 years. The text raised a lot of questions about how people make changes. For example, the generation that left Egypt was not the generation that entered Israel. This was exactly what I was looking for—it was possible to use old texts and make them relevant to something that was happening in my life.

 

I now feel that text study is the basis for what it means for me to be Jewish. What’s important to me is not whether Jews are Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform, but how seriously they look at Jewish texts and struggle to make them relevant to the modern world.

 

While I’m interested in what commentators have thought, I find that it’s important to take the next step and decide what the text means in a modern setting and in my own life. I was very proud of how my son studied “Nitzavim” for his Bar Mitzvah with the rabbis and related the phrase “choose life” to his Bar Mitzvah project of raising a guide dog for the blind. He created a wonderful PowerPoint presentation to organize his thoughts and was able to present it on Bar Mitzvah since it was held on Labor Day Monday.

 

I’ll always remember how wonderful it was to get involved in a “grassroots” Torah Study group and then invite my son the night we read the story of the Sacrifice of Isaac. We discussed whether Abraham passed or failed God’s test and what it means to have blind faith.

 

I now believe that Judaism has survived for thousands of years because each generation has been able to read the Jewish texts and make them meaningful to their lives. I believe we need to take literally the words of the Shema and teach these texts “to our children.” The Jewish texts have stories just as compelling (and perhaps even more compelling) than the latest books or movies. The challenges that people faced thousands of years ago are many of the same challenges that we face today. Thanks to my children, I’ve started on my own Jewish journey so that I can take hold of the wisdom that is found in ancient words and pass it proudly from one generation to the next.

 

 

 

XVIII

 

Living in Silicon Valley in 2005, I have a million choices to be whatever I wish to be—a Buddhist, a nudist, or…well you get the gist. I choose to be Jewish!

 

3,318 years ago, my ancestors stood before Mount Sinai and received the Torah, whose laws became the guideposts and foundations for Western Civilization.

 

I am a proud inheritor of these laws, traditions and customs which have been passed down to me for over 100 generations. My life is enriched by the brilliant Jewish rabbis, teachers and commentators of previous generations, whose wisdom has been written and preserved for me. The answers to so many of the questions in my life are at my fingertips in the books that these sages wrote to pass on our culture to future generations. And if I cannot fully understand the answers, I have my rabbis to help me interpret and understand this wisdom of the (s)ages.

 

Being Jewish satisfies my needs on many different levels: it fulfills my belongingness needs, my esteem needs and ultimately, my self actualization needs.

 

For the past three thousand years, the words freedom and liberation have been spoken with a Hebrew accent. In our Jewish history books and in our holidays, we celebrate freedom and redemption. I am proud to have witnessed and participated in the redemption and freedom of our Jewish brethren. Through our efforts, we were able to liberate over a million and a half Jews from the former Soviet Union—the largest peaceful migration of people in modern history. Miracles not only happened in our past; they continue to this day. Sometimes they happen in front of our noses, and we simply are not able to recognize them.

 

I am proud of the many contributions that Judaism has made to societies.

 

I am hurt by those who hate Judaism and Jews.

 

I am proud of the contributions many individual Jews have made in the advancement of the arts, music, science and medicine.

 

I can travel around the globe and enter a Jewish Community and just need to know two words in order to be welcomed—‘Shalom Aleichem.’ I love Jewish warmth and hospitality. I love Jewish food (“soul food,” as I call it.) I love Jewish humor and comedy.

 

By logic, Judaism should have died out long ago. Too many evil people in history (from Pharaoh to Saddam) wanted to destroy us and our religion (and still do). We have survived them, often miraculously, in spite of all odds. Einstein once said, “G-d doesn’t play with dice.” There are reasons things happen.

 

My Judaism helps me understand what I am able to understand as well as knowing that there are things that go on that I will never be able to understand. I am reassured in my life by my belief in G-d.

 

As a practicing Jew, I am able to become a better Jew every day. There are many mitzvot to fulfill. I am proud of what I am able to do and am humbled by knowing how much more I need to strive for to become a better person and a better Jew.

 

I know who I am, where I have come from, and thus have a good sense of where I am going. My Judaism is my guidepost for my life.

 

 

 

 

XXIX

 

I once heard someone say that all Jews in America are Jews by choice. Although I understood this on an intellectual level, in my heart and soul, I don’t feel that I have a choice; it’s part of my DNA. There is something primal about my connection to this tribe—to our people, to our history and to Israel. I have always felt this even while growing up in a very non-Jewish area. Although we weren’t particularly observant, we were definitely Jewish and different than most of my neighbors. When I was 11, I went to Jewish camp for the first time, and I remember it felt like coming home. I still feel that sense of home and connectedness when I’m with other Jews, be it in synagogue, on the beach in Tel Aviv or at the Israeli festival in San Francisco.

 

 

 

 

XXX

 

As a Jew I am proud to be part of a people who treasure the thousands of years of wisdom embodied in the teachings of the Torah, prophets and great rabbis. As the son of working-class immigrants, I grew up influenced by their liberal values, concern for social justice and commitment to the State of Israel. These plus my mother’s disdain for hypocrisy seem to coalesce in the words of Isaiah that we read in the morning Haftorah every Yom Kippur:

 

Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the fetters of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke and to let the oppressed go free and that ye break every yoke?

 

Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry and that thou bring the homeless to thy house?

 

My wife and I first met in 1979 after a presentation about Ethiopian Jews. At that time I was actively working on projects to end world hunger and to save Argentine Desaparecidos, and she was involved with the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jewry, helping Jews get out of the Soviet Union. We shared our passions for these concerns and for each other, became engaged and were married at Kol Emeth. We chose to become members of Kol Emeth largely because of the rabbis’s advocacy of social action.

 

Ever since my cheder days as a child, the liberal-minded Rabbi Hillel was my favorite Talmudic rabbi. I still marvel that while a Roman soldier stood on one foot, Hillel had the ability to distill all of Jewish teaching down to “What is hateful unto you, do not do unto your neighbor.” Now that I’m retired from the electronics industry and in the process of writing a book on the history of the international Soviet Jewry Movement, I am reminded of Hillel’s three questions:

 

            If I am not for myself, who am I?

 

         But, if I am only for myself, what am I?

 

         And if not now, when?

 

I see affirmative answers to all three questions in the Soviet Jewry Movement, and they reaffirm my own commitment to Judaism and Jewish values.

 

First, there was the handful of courageous Jews who, surrounded by three million silent and fearful Jews, proclaimed: “I am a Jew and Israel is my fatherland.”

 

Then there were thousands of Jews and Gentiles in the free world who did everything they could for oppressed Soviet Jews from carrying signs that declared “I Am My Brother’s Keeper” to petitioning our government for support of free emigration to traveling to the Soviet Union with material and spiritual aid for refuseniks.

 

Finally, the formation of Kol Emeth’s Soviet Jewry letter-writing group was the immediate response to an inspiring speech in San Francisco in 1983 by Father Robert Drinan, who had been a congressman from Massachusetts. He urged us to write letters to our government leaders, to Soviet officials, to the refuseniks and prisoners. There were a minyan of us from Kol Emeth at the event; and that evening, we decided to launch the group that eventually adopted refusenik families and expanded into a highly effective Social Action Committee.

 

 

 

XXXI

 

I am Jewish

 

I experienced this most profoundly on a Shabbat morning as I stood with other Jewish women, and we passed the Torah gently, like a baby, from woman to woman until every woman in the room had received the Torah into her arms, cradled the Torah and passed it along. In this experience I felt as if the whole of the Jewish tradition was being placed in my hands, and it was my responsibility to tend it during my lifetime and to nurture those who will continue to do so after I am gone.

 

I am Jewish and I know the world is in need of repair. I know I must help in the work of repairing. I know the task is overwhelming and often feels futile. And yet I continue to hope and know that I am not alone in this.

 

 

 

XXXII

 

I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in Chicago, where being Jewish was taken for granted most of the time. But the first time I remember truly experiencing Judaism as a core element of my identity occurred when I was twelve.

 

My elementary school was planning its Christmas program. (Although most of the students were Jewish, this was not overtly acknowledged. It was 1951, and Jews kept their heads down and didn’t make waves.)

 

To my great excitement, I was offered the lead solo in the Christmas program: singing “O, Holy Night!” I really wanted to do it, yet I couldn’t immediately accept. I agonized: the words were: “O, holy night! O, night when Christ was born!” Could I, as a Jew, actually sing those words? If I did sing them, would I still be a Jew?

 

My ever-supportive mother (knowing that I really wanted to sing the solo), assured me that these were just words, and that I would still be the same person inside.

 

In the end, I did sing the solo, but I didn’t really enjoy doing so; every moment of the time, I felt as if I were betraying my true identity. I decided then that I would never again submerge my identity as a Jew.

 

 

 

 

 

 

XXXIII

 

I am a Jew because it is part of who I was born to be—it is as core a piece of my identity as being a woman. I was lucky to be born into a family that valued the rich traditions and celebrated Shabbat and chagim wholeheartedly, and with joy. Judaism became associated with special family times, with the magic of candlelight every Friday night and every Saturday night (at havdallah). Keeping Shabbat was so important to me as a college student that it was a “make or break” factor when I started dating Howie. (Obviously, he bought into it also!) At 17 I went to Israel for a year, and my Jewish identity was deepened exponentially; from then on, Israel and Judaism became inextricably connected and a huge part of my life. For me, being a Jew is a gift. Where else might I find such a heritage and way of life that includes a Book that is endlessly fascinating (Torah), a world-wide community with a shared destiny, family rituals and traditions that strengthen the interactions and relationships between and among family members (I love the way my grown children say the s’hma with their children as part of the bedtime ritual) and an unbelievably pluralistic panoply of wonderful choices for a serious Jew living in Palo Alto in the 21st century.

 

For me, being a Jew is being someone who asks questions about the world; it means someone who is always learning and always curious. It means someone who recognizes that I (along with all other human beings) was created in the image of God.

 

Professor Isadore Twerksy (z’l) wrote a short piece “On The Goals of Jewish Education” in June, 1990, which expresses many of my feelings about being a Jew. I love what he says and so am including it here:

 

“...the goal of Jewish education should be to make it possible for every Jewish person, child or adult, to be exposed to the mystery and romance of Jewish history, to the enthralling insights and special sensitivities of Jewish thought, to the sanctity and symbolism of Jewish existence, and to the power and profundity of Jewish faith.”

 

Having a career in Jewish education has inspired, challenged, and humbled me. It allows my identity and my career to be in full alignment. Professor Twersky says that “Education, in its broadest sense, will enable young people to confront the secret of Jewish tenacity and existence, the quality of Torah teaching which fascinates and attracts irresistibly. They will then be able, even eager, to find their place in a creative and constructive Jewish community.”

 

May we all be blessed to be part of a creative and constructive Jewish community for many years to come.

 

 

XXXIV

 

I am Jewish because I’m lucky

Because G-d spoke to Abraham

Because my ancestors knew when to jump

Because my parents never moved anyplace without a Conservative shul

Because my parents never had a Christmas tree

Because my sister is doing the same thing on the other side of the world

Because God wants me to be

Because Judaism works

Because Judaism lasts

Because Judaism is meant to bring out the best in people

Because there is so much in here that one could spend a life exploring and never see it all.

 

 

 

XXXV

 

Had I not been born Jewish, I doubt that I would have actively sought out any religion—and certainly nothing as complex as Judaism. A new language to learn? I don’t think so! But being born Jewish in a predominantly Christian culture meant that there was always this “thing” hanging over me—eventually it became something I had to confront. Being Jewish means I have the opportunity to grapple with the big theological questions on a daily basis.

 

From the moment I arise and recite “modah ani…” I see myself in relation to G-d. I see myself being given another chance to “do it right,” to reach upwards to the qualities of G-d I wish to emulate, to reach inwards to my deepest truths, to reach downwards to remember my connection with the physical world—and to reach not only backwards in time to all those who came before me but outwards also to all those who stand in prayer at the very same moment I do.

 

Each time I read prayers, I find a line jumps out that I never really took in before that expresses for me the words I need to connect in all those dimensions. The language of Judaism works for me, and the rituals help ground me at times when I feel lost. It was my great good fortune to have found my way to Kol Emeth when I got around to remembering that I was Jewish. The support for my searches—my pains and my joys—and for confronting Torah has always been here.

 

 

 

XXXVI

I’ve been struggling for a month on what to write. But it all came together last week at services. Several months ago our rabbi told me that every week there is a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, she looks down at the family just when the Torah is being returned to the Ark. As the congregation starts singing “Etz Chayim,” the parents’ eyes fill with tears as they see their child take part. And now each week, even when I don’t know the child, my eyes fill with tears at the beauty of the moment for another family.

 

For me, being Jewish is about a fabric of life that contains laughter and tears. I grew up in a secular family that did not know how to celebrate, and did not know how to see the spiritual dimension of our daily lives. Generations of living in America had erased much Jewish knowledge—partly through apathy and partly by choice. Unlike others who write these essays, I don’t represent the preservation of a lineage with strong memories of a Jewish past and traditions that are handed across generations. I come from a lineage that hangs by a thread and that must be recreated in this generation, or it will be lost.

 

There are family memories and stories—escaping from the boredom of yeshiva by coming to America; changing names to avoid anti-Semitism; founding Reform synagogues here in California. Yet, as I grew up in a small town I was allowed to go to church only twice with each friend who asked because “I was Jewish.” When I was in college, one rabbi asked me at Friday night services, “Why are you here? You are so fair, you could pass.” And that same complexion led me to be inadvertently included in some racist and hateful conversations by those who fear Jews.

 

Somehow, I was born with a spiritual hunger. As a young teen-ager, I announced I would live my life differently… and I did. As a young adult, I studied and learned. I went to Israel. And it all confirmed that my place was within the calm and open space of Judaism—other religions always felt claustrophobic and sad to me. I don’t think these words are often used to describe our religion, but to me there is a calmness that has comforted me through dark days and an openness to argument, questions and curiosity. One of my best friends made aliyah, and I see these two qualities in her as well; a calmness that she made the right decision, and an openness to the adventures of her chosen life. I am often thankful for the accident of who I was at birth, that I can see this additional dimension, our world.

 

No big earthquakes of faith, no dramatic moments. I just treasure how the fabric of life is colored and shaded by the spiritual. I revel in the celebrations of family and village, big and small. I know my kids see that it means much to me, and that I expect them to figure it out for themselves. It will be their thread to weave as they wish, but I’m not worried; I think the fabric is magically strong.