 |
| A certificate of conversion |
In the summer of 1994, I visited my parents in Arizona. The public library there had a book called
The Way of Splendor by Edward Hoffman. It was about the Hasidic movement in Eastern Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries and was my introduction to the history and culture of the Jewish people—I’d barely been aware that history existed.
After reading it, I wanted to experience a
Shabbat service and hear
L’cha Dodi one Friday evening. It was several weeks before I entered a shul. On
erev Yom Kippur, I visited Temple Beth El in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Moments after the service began, I knew that I had found my home. The prayers “resonated” with me, and Rabbi Berg’s sermon included Hasidic tales that were hopeful and life affirming.
The first Friday night following
Yom Kippur, after
erev Shabbat services, Rabbi Berg invited me to attend Saturday morning Torah study.
Each week, during services we read the weekly
parasha, but during Saturday morning Torah study before services, we studied the Torah line-by-line at our own pace, savoring each word, each idea. My first
Shabbat, we were reading about the crossing of the Reed Sea. (Thankfully, I did not say, “Hey, there’s a typo in your bible-- it’s supposed to be the
Red Sea.”)
Everyone had thoughts they shared, literary to scientific, psychological and agricultural, spiritual and occasionally Talmudic. From “Wow! Isn’t that beautiful imagery” (“and the ground under his feet… was like the very sky for purity”) to an agricultural explanation as to why one generally does not eat first fruits. There were about twenty of us who attended every week. We found gems, even when we struggled through
Leviticus.
I did not miss even a dozen Torah studies during the seven years I attended Temple Beth El (three years before and four years after my conversion.) I loved that Rabbi Berg was the kind of leader who facilitated our experience of the text rather than telling us what to think. He was—and I'm sure he still is—a leader who encouraged us to experience Judaism, not one who laid down any rules about what the experience should be.
Nothing I’d heard about the so-called “Judeo-Christian” tradition seemed to apply to this joyful, life-affirming, intelligent, spiritual community. I enjoyed the words of the prayers and rejoiced seeing the Torah being carried around the
shul. I appreciated seeing couples who seemed to be in love with each other. (One woman had made her husband a
tallis from the
chuppah she had woven for their wedding and, each week, during the closing song of the service, he would reach over and wrap her in it, too.) I adored the community and the welcoming attitudes of the people there.
During those first few months, attracted to the community and fascinated by its learning, I was repeatedly delighted to discover that Judaism was beautiful, kind, open, and so many other good things. There is always hope and it’s possible to do more than merely survive. Rabbi Berg said that we break a glass (to commemorate the Temple) at weddings because “If you remember your greatest sorrow at the time of your greatest joy, you will remember your greatest joy during the time of your greatest sorrow.”
Immediately after that first
Shabbat, I read
The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel. (Can you imagine encountering the concept of
Shabbos for the first time? I was amazed!) And then I read voraciously: everything Rabbi Berg mentioned in Torah study, many of the books in the temple library, anything I could find in the local, used book stores. (I was disappointed that I never connected with his favorite author, Philip Roth. I still don’t… perhaps because I am completely lacking in the culture of
Yiddishkeit?)
I went to
shul every Friday night and Saturday morning. I was reading and learning every day of the week.
I also learned about volunteering. There were always plenty of volunteer opportunities available through Temple Beth El. One was at an AIDS hospice. At first, I would only work in the garden. Later I worked in the kitchen area. Although, I found the idea frightening, I eventually began spending a little time with the residents.
I began lighting
Shabbat candles right away and gradually added other practices. Lighting
Chanukah candles for the first time felt familiar, as if I’d done it hundreds of times before.
There were courses offered through the Jewish community. Each spring and fall, you could choose two out of about eight classes that would be held at one of the local synagogues. They covered
Shabbat, history,
Kabbalah, music, holidays, prophets, and other topics. Scholars like Danny Matt would share their knowledge with us.
Rabbi Berg brought scholars and musicians to the
shul. He led retreats north of San Francisco. Temple Beth El was a community of people deeply engaged in Jewish life.
Community and listening to other people were major elements of my conversion: hearing how people had grown up Jewish in different areas, learning about the Holocaust from people who had escaped as children, but had lost family who had been sent to Poland or Spain (one man had been a child refugee in China during the war), learning about growing up in a Jewish neighborhood in the United States, how one woman’s mother had responded to a doctor’s orders to feed her daughter bacon.
I didn’t know enough to ask the questions I should have. Why did Reform Jews say “
Gut Shabbos” and call the temple a
shul? I didn’t have the awareness to ask more about the
Shoah and I still don’t understand one friend’s feelings about seemingly innocent words he said, as a small child, to his parents shortly after
Krystallnacht.
There were
Pesach dinners with Marion Dolgoff’s family and with the families of Frank and Ingrid Jonas, the afternoon
Yom Kippur walk I took with Bobbie Freedman each year, and
Rosh HaShanah dinners with Bobbie Freedman and her friends, studying
The Book of Jonah from a different perspective each
Yom Kippur with Rabbi Berg and others between services,
Chanukah with Laine and Joel Schipper, conversations with Evelyn Holzman, women’s gatherings, the
sukkah at the
shul. (My deep regret, years later, when I realized how I had failed to be supportive of Marion Dolgoff.)
Ingrid and Frank became like family to me. Many times, I cried with gratitude, driving home on Friday nights, because of the joy and love I felt with them. And I was able to express my love. Each year, at
seder and Thanksgiving dinner, I saw Frank's children, and they began to feel like family, too.
I went to services and Torah study every week for a long time before I seriously considered conversion. Then, I began meeting with Rabbi Berg to ask questions and learn more about a number of topics.
I had taken basic, prayerbook Hebrew and other classes, attended
Shabbat and holiday services, and been invited to people’s homes for holidays. Rabbi Berg had me memorize certain passages, for example:
Shema/V’ahavta, Kaddish, Ma’ariv Aravim, and Kiddush.
He discussed holidays with me: the significance of
Purim and how to approach
Yom Kippur. I didn’t truly understand
Purim until just a few years ago. Sometimes I think that I am still converting to Judaism. Obviously, there will always be more information to learn, but understanding deepens over time, too.
I had read several books about the Jewish holidays before Rabbi Berg and I began formal study.
The Jewish Way by Irving Greenberg (his perspective and Rabbi Berg’s are a little different) and
Keeping Passover by Ira Steingroot are still references for me. Rabbi Berg recommended a number of books to help me increase my understanding of the High Holy Days, including Shmuel Yosef Agnon’s
Days of Awe.
He wanted me to be familiar with the philosophy and origins of the Reform movement, but also wanted me to be aware of some traditional practices and he recommended the experience of keeping kosher. (Among many other books, I read
How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household by Blu Greenberg,
Kashrut by Samuel Dresner,
Total Immersion by Rivkah Slonim, and
The Rise of Reform Judaism by Gunther Plaut.)
In community and Torah study, I had felt the presence of god, but was unable to describe that experience in words. When I mentioned this, Rabbi Berg said words aren’t always necessary; we each have a private image of god, just as we each have a private image of revelation at Sinai.
Rabbi Berg emphasized the importance of people-hood and, having felt the support and love of the community, I began to understand that, too. We discussed, among many other books,
Jews, God, and History by Max Dimant. Over the years, he had recommended historical fiction, like
The Last of the Just by Andre Schwarz-Bart, as well as books such as
Night by Eli Wiesel,
Altneuland by Theodor Herzel, and
The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt.
My love of Judaism, my appreciation of Torah and community, gave me a new perspective on life in general, and also on my own life. They gave me confidence and hope. Since god gave us Torah, each of us has value.
My childhood had not prepared me for adulthood or the outside world: we had moved about every six months, my mother was unwell, my father was angry. (Later I realized that what looked like rage, was in fact, constant fear.) They didn’t like me to leave the house or have friends, but they didn’t interact with me except when they were angry, at me or at each other. I had trouble speaking, and I was terrified of people. Social skills eluded me; I didn’t even understand them.
My time at Temple Beth El changed me. Like me, the people there enjoyed books and ideas—they weren't bad things!—but I had never met people who listened respectfully to each other (they listened even to me, even when I had nothing really worth saying) and they truly communicated: shared ideas and explored ideas together.
I was welcomed immediately. In many dreams that I had then, Rabbi Berg and his wife, Bonnie, appeared as my parents. On some level, I had found a new family and was experiencing childhood again. I had found a community and, against all probability, they loved me.
I became able to speak and eventually to articulate (sometimes) my thoughts. Several friends, who became
b’not mitzvah as adults, insisted I must have the experience. So in 2000, three years after my conversion, I did. I gave a
d’var Torah that had no objective value, but what mattered to me was that it really expressed my thoughts and feelings about
Ki Tisa and about being Jewish. Being able to understand and express myself for the first time felt like a miraculous gift. It was possible because I was surrounded by the love and support of my community.
One of the most important things I learned from the community and especially from Rabbi Berg cannot be boiled down to something that fits on a syllabus: how to approach death and mourning.
Rabbi Berg's example of serious attention and compassion toward mourners, and the culture he facilitated of attending every funeral and
shiva had an impact on me (and my expectations) that I didn't fully recognize then. Many people from the Torah study group and many from the general congregation went to every funeral and every
shiva. We cooked. We spent time with the mourners. Rabbi Berg ensured there was a
minyan at the home every day.
At first, I cooked to calm my own feelings about death and I spent
shivas in the mourners’ kitchens, helping. Gradually, I began interacting with friends and distant relatives of the deceased; to those most affected, I said little beyond “Sorry for your loss.” But I watched how mourners behaved and how people I admired responded to them; I learned things that I remembered later.
Perhaps, of Rabbi Berg's many gifts as a rabbi, his greatest is caring for the bereaved and for their departed, of knowing its importance. I admired his wife because her brain and heart worked together and I guess that’s what Rabbi Berg was able to do, too.
Once, I went with everyone else to attend a funeral that Rabbi Berg led for a man who had not been a member of Temple Beth El. Earlier that day, I had happened to be in the front office briefly while he met the man’s family in his office. I heard him encourage the family's recollections and, even in the brief moment I was there, I recognized the seriousness he gave their words and unspoken feelings. Later, he gave a eulogy that the family clearly found meaningful. I am grateful that I “had” to go to that funeral. The memory reminds me of how I learned the importance of comforting the bereaved; it reminds me of being surrounded by people with love and caring in their hearts, in their minds, and on their lips.
Of all the wonderful things about Judaism, I think that particular
mitzvah is one of the most important and I continue to try to learn how to do that with something of the enormous care and attention that I saw Rabbi Berg offer.
There is a book called
Jewish Views of the Afterlife by Simcha Paull Raphael. It describes a great number of Jewish beliefs about the afterlife, but it was people who taught me what was important in our response to death: supporting the people who are facing it.
Bill Fein was a Torah study regular who had studied for his conversion with Rabbi Berg. His father had been Jewish, but his mother had raised him in a fundamentalist church in the South; he had wanted to leave and become Jewish since he was very young. His enthusiasm for Judaism had always filled me with joy. (He expressed his enthusiasm in many ways, down to a rodeo-style belt buckle engraved with a
Magen David.) Bill Fein was proud to call himself a convert.
Bill was hit by a car while walking to
shul during a visit to Scotland. We were all thinking of him and waiting for news of him while his wife flew to Scotland. He died there, far away from his community, but I think if he could have chosen a manner of death, dying on the way to
shul would have been okay with him.
Although he and I had not been close, his passing affected me profoundly. We all missed his presence in our community. Conversations people had about his life made me realize how deep my feelings about Judaism were. Evelyn Holzman said that he died happy with his life, his marriage, his child, his work, and happy with being Jewish; a moment later, I realized that I wouldn’t really be alive in any meaningful way unless I made the commitment to become Jewish.
After I told Rabbi Berg that I was ready to begin formal study, he said that he had been a proponent of my conversion for a long time. My formal conversion took place in September 1997. The
beit din included people who had become my friends. There was an indescribable moment in the
mikvah, and when I emerged from the water, I was a Jew.
At
Rosh Hashanah services, a few days after my conversion, someone thanked me for converting. I was dumbfounded. I had converted for me. I have done nothing for the Jewish people except want to belong.
Once I believed that being Jewish meant preserving Torah, but now I think that being Jewish is seeing the world differently than other people do. It’s about actions you take because you share Jewish values. It means caring about the continued existence of the Jewish people. It’s about contributing to and being revitalized by community. And, for me, it’s about going home, to Israel.
