Sisterhood of Avalon

How I hate writing personal essays! I keep promising myself that I'll never subject myself to that torture again. Thankfully, these were not as difficult or as painful as previous application essays I've had to write.

 1. What does Avalon mean to you? Why are you drawn to walk the path of Avalon with the SOA? 

Avalon, for me, is the metaphor Jhenah Telyndru presents in her book and that the Sisterhood of Avalon describes on this website: it is a figurative, internal place from which one can gain clarity of vision that can assist one in discerning reality and knowing oneself without the blinders of cultural or personal conditioning. It is a place where one can find empowerment with which to act constructively in the world.

However, to me, Avalon also feels more concrete than a metaphor, myth, or archetype—I’m not yet certain why—and it may be that sense of concreteness attracts me. I am also attracted to the clearly individualized personalities of Avalon’s goddesses. I don't have a sense of complete personalities when I think of the Matriarchs or Shekhinah of Judaism.

Knowing where you are in relation to places (Avalon) and other beings (the Sisterhood) helps you know who you are. In Jewish tradition, god is sometimes called HaMakom, The Place, and Jewish mysticism began as an attempt to rebuild the destroyed Second Temple internally. The sephirot, arranged today in the pattern of a tree, originally represented directions and elements; the neo-pagan tradition of calling the directions is centering and reassuring for me. I hope that rituals and teachings of the Avalonian tradition will help me ground myself and find my place.

While not extremely familiar with Welsh mythology, the goddesses also seem real to me in ways that Asherah and Shekhinah, and even the Matriarchs and Mothers do not. Blodeuwedd, Arianrod, and Avalon's other goddesses are individuals and have lessons to teach. (I also want to know what Afagdu does after Gwydion takes his blessing, after the land is poisoned, and while his mother spends a year chasing Gwydion.)

I need and deeply desire Jewish studies, but I have postponed my participation in Kohenet, the Hebrew Priestess Institute, because no amount of learning will help me serve as a Kohenet unless I first find both community and Avalon Within. Jhenah calls Avalon a liminal place; being trained in that Welsh place will undoubtedly change my Jewish experience in unexpected ways, but I hope someday to step through Avalon’s doorway to Sarah’s tent, Deborah’s palm tree, or the entrance of the mishkan.

I’m not sure I have the stamina for “the difficult path of inner process work” that Avalon requires; in fact, I have serious doubts. However, I know with certainty that *if* I can face the inner darkness, the Sisterhood of Avalon will transform me in the ways that I hope to be transformed.

2. In what ways do you feel you can contribute to a community of women? 

My two greatest skills may be of minimal use in an online community. I am a listener. It’s something I do better than almost anyone else I know. My listening allows people to speak and also helps them discover things within themselves that they might not have been able to express or even recognize before. I’m also pretty good at leading ritual. It’s only necessary to make “space” for people to participate. A little structure gives people a lot of freedom to express themselves ritually, just as Shabbat restrictions can make a lot of space for the divine presence. I am curious to see whether dialogue and connection is possible in an online community.

I’m a professional tarot reader, so perhaps my participation in the divination group will be a way to give. Volunteering seems a natural part of being held by community; I’m not a politician—if a community identifies a need, I take practical steps to get the work done rather than make speeches or draw attention to myself.

It may be that I will give nothing more than shared belief and participation. My sense of Avalon being real and concrete, of the goddesses being meaningful figures in our lives will support others on this path. It might be comparable to the simple act of moving close enough to a community so that you can walk rather than drive on Shabbat; that gives moral support to others who have also chosen to live that way.

I need community to be my best self. Independence and empowerment require a community. Community gives you the opportunity to give of yourself, (no one is really selfish enough to act just for herself) which is satisfying and helps you recognize your own worth; it gives you the opportunity to increase your strengths.

Honestly, I’m most interested in what I will gain from you. I need the Sisterhood of Avalon because I have no idea how to journey the paths described in Jhenah’s book without guidance from women who have already explored them.

3. What does the SOA motto, "Remembering, Reclaiming, and Renewing," mean to you? 

The Sisterhood of Avalon’s motto says that Avalon’s sisters value their tradition enough to excavate, preserve, and transform it. It instructs us to reach into the past to learn how our ancestors or predecessors understood and interacted with both the world and their culture; it encourages us to explore and live those ways ourselves; and, most importantly, it will teach us to weave those thoughts and beliefs into a tapestry that is vital and invigorating today.

Jhenah says Avalon may never have existed, but I think the study of its myths and the culture that supported those myths is like building a temple where women can become priestesses. We do not need to be victim’s of Avalon’s absence; we are her discoverers and, perhaps, her creators.

Jews were expelled from our place of worship in 70 AD; sixty years later, we were nearly exterminated. We took our trauma and confusion and transformed our memories into a portable culture. We preserved the oral tradition of our culture and our memories of Temple ritual. We turned an image of a destroyed Land, Mother Zion, into a new goddess, Shekhinah; we felt abandoned by god, but envisioned a Mother going into exile with us. No one could have imagined Judaism surviving the destruction. Composing a prayer book, writing down our memories of Temple-era practices, radically changing our culture in response to new situations, and developing a mystical tradition is the Jewish example of the Sisterhood’s motto, “Remembering, Reclaiming, and Renewing.”

Personally, I hope to find wholeness in the Avalonian tradition, a place to encounter her priestesses and her goddesses. I hope to walk through that liminal place into Sarah’s tent with a newfound ability not just to *sense* the Shekhinah or recognize her in our songs or texts, but to actually encounter her.

In Judaism, learning is a conversation within one’s community and within the generations, three thousand years of texts. Each conversation renews the old and builds anew. Little can be gleaned from Torah if you study alone. I hope the same can be said for self-discovery within the Sisterhood of Avalon.

Since each of us may explore a slightly different Avalon within, we can weave our unique and shared experiences into a tapestry. Immersing in that tradition will transform our vision. It seems to me that learning the Welsh language must be a huge part of the path, but I will be focusing on Hebrew. Hopefully those sisters who are transforming themselves with language can share some of their insights with those of us who are not.

I hope that learning with the Sisters of Avalon will help me find my inner priestess and build a mishkan, a dwelling place, for the feminine divine presence. Learning with other women and sharing experiences will help each of us remember, reclaim, and renew the ancient place of the priestesses of Avalon.

My Kohenet Application

Four days of writing and crying have finally yielded a completed application. I will let it simmer for a day or so, and make revisions before submitting it to Kohenet.

KOHENET APPLICATION:

Here are my answers for all of the application essays. I have put them in a different order to make it easier for you to understand my responses.

6) What are your practices and priorities of self-care?

My self-care includes extreme caution with respect to any Jewish community. I've learned that if I can’t discern any warmth or welcome, I should get out as fast as I can.

I went to rav school in 2003/2004 and was ostracized because I am a convert. It was entirely unexpected, as the Jewish community had made such a positive difference in my life during the previous nine years.

Although I was one of only two people in my class who passed all my courses, all I felt was hurt, confusion, and, most of all, shame. After that, I longed for Jewish community, but was afraid to walk into a synagogue, and I spiraled downward. When I forced myself to go to shul, I couldn’t pray because the Hebrew letters danced around the pages of the siddur. I became again an awkward thirteen-year-old, terrified of people and my own voice.

Even then, my reaction seemed out of proportion to what had happened. Now I recognize that many events were reminiscent of traumas I’d had as a child and adolescent.

I have not found a safe Jewish community since then. Five years ago, I mistook another Jewish community for a caring one and was shamed and humiliated. I have not recovered from either experience.

Writing the “why did you convert” essay for my aliyah application was agony, even though it was about a joyful period that began the best decade of my life. And the first four times that I attempted to answer the Kohenet application questions, my insides knotted up and part of me curled up begging, “No! Don't make me do this!” Reflecting on my Jewish experience is hard. My Jewish identity is central to me, but it is also a source of pain.

Participation in Kohenet might be a very healing experience and a transformative one. However, it could be also be triggering. I know that I cannot recover a third time. It’s a risk. I had hoped to test the waters by taking online classes with both Taya and Jill before August, but Jill will not be offering an online class. Without some experience of her teaching or of Shoshana’s I won’t have enough information to risk myself.

There are many alternatives to Kohenet, but even the two that sound very good to me, The Greystone Path and Sisterhood of Avalon, are not what I truly want. I want a Jewish path, but the risk of a Jewish program may be too great.

I need to know that Kohenet’s leaders are invested in their students participating in the program, learning from it, and completing it, and I and need to know that other students will be kind, welcoming, and open.

4) What do you most deeply desire from the Kohenet Training Program?

I hope that the Kohenet Training Program will help me heal my Jewish self—it’s who I am and yet it’s my vulnerability. I want to learn to love myself and I want to become more resilient.

There is potential in me to become a mekonenet, a comforter of the bereaved and prompter of speech—but in addition to that important work, I want to find what joyful/fun priestess work I am called to do.

I aspire to be a kohenet to deepen and broaden my Jewish knowledge and to learn texts and traditions from a different perspective. I want to be part of a community of women transforming our culture.

1) Please briefly describe your spiritual path and practice.

My path for the last twenty-one years has been a Jewish one. And I just received my aliyah approval! So I will be living in the Land at the beginning of August or the end of August, depending on whether or not I participate in Kohenet.

Although, I've come to dislike the "C-word," I am a convert, and for many years, I was proud and happy about that fact. I've learned that being a convert is something to conceal. In The Hebrew Priestess, Rabbi Hammer related the midrash of Sarah nursing the children of local princesses and the idea that “all future converts to the Jewish people descend from those who nursed at Sarah’s breasts.” Although grateful to be Jewish, I was never felt comfortable calling myself “daughter of Abraham and Sarah,” because I am, in fact, the daughter of Roland and Dolores. The image of Sarah nursing one of my ancestors feels like a true description of my place within my people. It gives me a stronger feeling that I am part of our lineage.

Time spent in Israel made me recognize that I belong to the Land. I want to encounter Shekhinah / Asherah in her Land. For now, I commune with the saguaros and the spirit of the desert in Tucson. After a recent trip to Washington State, I discovered that I have become a lover of the desert. I named myself Toshevet Midbar because I am energized spiritually when I hike there.

Before I encountered Judaism, I was the ritual leader for a goddess circle. While being seduced by Judaism, I wanted to find meaning in Shekhinah and Rosh Chodesh circles—but I couldn’t. That wasn’t the Judaism that called to me. I left goddess spirituality and my women’s circle to embrace a more mainstream Judaism. I've often wished I could build a bridge between the two. Rabbi Hammer provided the connection between Judaism and goddess spirituality in her latest book, but I don’t think I could have heard her if I had not first journeyed a more typical Jewish path and been transformed by it.

A Jewish perspective changed my world view for the better, but it also changed how I experience the Divine Feminine—she is harder to find. I have only an amorphous awareness of Shekhinah. I feel ecstasy when the Torah is carried around a shul. During the singing of Lecha Dodi, I see a glorious woman entering and approaching the ark. Shabbat and community gave me a sense of the Divine Presence, but I do not know Shekhinah in a way I can describe.

I have written about the goddess Hestia; I could not do the same for Shekhinah. I am constrained from an experience of Shekhinah because she has been preserved but hidden in our tradition and, for the most part, I am looking for her there. Shekhinah is woven into the fabric of Judaism and Jews who seek her aren't rejecting our culture. Non-Jewish women are free to pick and choose goddesses, to find what they want or need, to understand goddess stories in light of their own stories. But what are Shekhinah's stories?

If we are constrained from finding her, then she is constrained or restrained in some way, too. Jews are commanded to care for the widow and orphan, but a solitary woman's place in Jewish society is precarious; she is invisible. Shekhinah has been invisible, a neglected widow, hungry, afraid, restricted by convention. She is a bound woman, a kind of agunah.

How do I approach that figure? I must be willing to draw near and wait patiently until she reveals her face to me.

2) What is your relationship to Judaism, to earth-based & embodied practice & to the sacred feminine?

Judaism is a lover and a heart-breaker. Hiking and being in nature are healing; I belong to the Land of Israel. The sacred feminine is a reflection of our desire to be one with the Force and Source of Life; She may be its desire for us.

3) Which of the thirteen priestess-archetypes (see Priestess Paths section of this website) do you resonate with most? Which do you feel least connected to or least comfortable with?

I feel most connected to the Mourning Woman Priestess and the Shrinekeeper Priestess and least connected to the Maiden, Mother, Queen, and Midwife.

Mekonet, Mourning Woman Priestess This is one of the two most compelling paths for me. I feel that “comforting the bereaved” is one of the most important mitzvot. The rabbi of my first Jewish community facilitated a culture in which people attended every funeral and shiva. His serious attention to mourners, his compassion for the deceased, and his respect for the process of death and mourning are beyond compare. Rabbi Alan Berg is a masculine face of Shekhinah and I want to understand what he knows that makes him so good in those situations. I want to be a mekonenet. I don't know if I could do the work of a shomeret and, since the local chevra kadisha needs only male volunteers, not female ones, I won't find out any time soon.

Tzovah, Shrinekeeper Priestess This is the other path that is most compelling to me. Thirty years ago, I first learned of the Goddess through Jean Shinoda Bolen’s book, Goddesses in Every Woman, and I recognized Hestia in myself. Later, I even recognized her archetype in my Jewish self when taking challah, making Shabbos dinner, lighting Shabbos candles, welcoming guests, keeping a kosher kitchen, and immersing in the mikveh for the anniversaries of my conversion. My home felt to me like a Jewish shrine.

The words "home" and "shrine" have many unarticulated levels of meaning for me. When I was growing up, my family moved about every six months. The idea of home obsessed me, but I was unaware of a sense of place. I did not expect to cry when I landed in Israel. I did not understand why I felt like I belonged to the Land. I had silently wondered why I thought Native Americans were like Jews, not realizing the obvious: Jews, too, are an indigenous people, belonging to the Land.

In Heschel’s The Sabbath, his description of Sabbath as a sanctuary in time amazed me. Can you imagine encountering the concept of Shabbat for the first time! But honoring our sacred places is important, too: not only the Kotel, but also places like the temple in Tel Arad, where we brought first fruits until the Muslim conquest, and the tombs of our ancestors in Hevron. There is archaeological evidence for a few of the high places; where else might there have been bamot?

Sacred space is important to me. After my mother died, I moved in with my father. He wanted no changes, so I couldn’t bring my things into the house or move anything to create a small altar. Both tradition and my own inclination told me I needed a single place to pray. I needed a portable altar and I immediately found one in an art co-op where an artist had just created her first portable altar. It was made of sheepskin and deer leather from the Navajo reservation and could be rolled up to carry on hikes. I inserted a belt into the roll and carried it across my back whenever I hiked. Each time I unrolled it, I would decorate it with whatever natural objects were in the area, rocks, small branches, leaves, and mistletoe.

I make a sacred space for others when I serve them tea or read tarot cards; I help them find their voices. People find my home restful and rejuvenating. But there’s another sanctuary I want to locate. Raised by a mother who was abusive and emotionally absent, I have always sought connection to women. The story of Demeter and Persephone always seemed incomplete. Jill completed the story for me when she related the kabbalistic myth that Binah and Shekhinah, Mother and Daughter, meet in the holy of holies on Yom Kippur and become one.

Oreget, Weaver Priestess I feel an attraction to the path of weaver.  When meal offerings were brought to the Temple, the priests would return ornate vessels to their owners, but they would keep baskets in which flour and oil and frankincense had been presented. I just took a beginning course in basketry from two Tohono O'odham Indians, Della and Fred Cruz, using materials native to the southwest. I want to discover what plants indigenous to Israel could be used to make baskets. I’m only a beginner now, but can’t help dreaming of extravagant possibilities: a Sukkot water basket without a base to stand on, a first fruits basket with a design of ravens, a pomegranate shaped basket, small Asherah shrines…Unfortunately, I don’t have enough years left to pursue this with the single-mindedness it would require.

Ba’alot Ov, Witch Priestess There is a bit of the witch in me, but not enough for me to follow this path. She is a diviner and, although I enjoy reading tarot for others, I am not a real diviner. What I do is use the imagery of the cards and girl-talk to let clients find their own answers with their own intuition.

I need something from the path of Ba'alot Ov: to learn to rely on my intuition. My trust has been violated too many times throughout my life, often because I failed to heed my own intuition. I need learn how to trust others appropriately and to trust my own intuition.

The Ba’alot Ov communicates with ancestors, but I did not know my parents well or my grandparents at all. I never connected with the Celtic mythology of my physical ancestors, even though my great-grandmother’s name was Brigit. I want to know more about the four matriarchs and the four holy mothers and I invoke them before tarot readings and prayer.

The witch priestess is also a shaman. I journeyed twice without any training or guidance. After years of wanting to, I finally took a shamanism workshop last summer, but I could not journey during the class and I haven’t been able to journey since. It’s disappointing, but the paths that I believe I’m capable of walking will be satisfying, too.

Neviah, Prophetess Priestess This is not a path I could follow at all, but I honor it. Prophets were people who could see clearly into the currents of the present time, but people today who can see into Torah are prophets, too. If we hadn’t moved from a land-based religion to a text-based religion, we wouldn’t have survived to return to our Land. In trying to eliminate much of our culture, King Josiah and the Deuteronomists saved us; I believe or hope that they also (inadvertently) preserved the Jewish divine feminine because she was already woven into the fabric of our religion. I wish I could read Torah creatively and see what is hidden there. But I can’t, so Neviah is not the priestess path for me.

Leitzanit, Fool Priestess If there is a best path, this is it. Sadly, there is nothing in my personality that would allow me to follow this path. My best friend, Rene, was undoubtedly a Priestess of Laughter. Despite all the years I knew her, I could never predict her jokes. She looked at the world in a very skewed but very accurate way. At her memorial, I wanted to say, “If Rene were here she’d be making us all laugh,” but I didn’t have to say it because everyone else did. That’s a gift I simply don’t have, so Leitzanit is not my priestess path.

Maiden, Mother, Midwife, Queen – I do not connect with the unselfconscious dancing of the Maiden, the childbearing and child-rearing of the Mother, the literal or metaphoric roles of the midwife, or the empowerment of the Queen.

5) How do you engage and envision your leadership in the world? How do you serve, or have you served your community?

Leadership? Goodness, no! I’m an ISFJ. Just tell me what needs to be done and I will make sure it gets done. You won’t even notice I’m here.

I’m a listener in my tarot practice and I’m a prompter of speech in mourners. And BJ (Before Judaism), I was good at leading ritual; you just make “space” for people to participate. A friend and I do phone rituals on solstices, equinoxes, and cross-quarter days; they’re great. A little structure gives participants a lot of freedom to express themselves spontaneously, just like Shabbos restrictions once made a lot of space for the divine presence in my life.

Comforting the bereaved is like creating ritual or reading tarot. In a way, it’s simply girl-talk; in another it’s like being a bridge between here and elsewhere, now and other times, self and self.

When I went to rav school, my aspiration was to serve as something I didn’t know there was a name for—a spiritual director. I don’t believe I’ll ever have the maturity or wisdom to do exactly that, but I think I could do little things that are similar to it. During my second semester of rav school, I took a hospital chaplaincy course and spent many hours with patients in a hospital. I was good at it and believed that, with training, I could become better. (I also feared that it was service that would eventually cause me to "burn out.")

My first synagogue encouraged volunteering. The activities I participated in that I recall most clearly were the library committee and working at an AIDS hospice. I regularly attended all services and every Torah study. At my second synagogue, I helped organize and advertise erev Shabbat services and dinners for the Young Adults Committee; when I moved within walking distance of that shul, others thanked me because they felt I was "supporting" their observance. I attended the entire service every Shabbat morning, and made a point of helping make a minyan for mincha/maariv on weekdays.

7) Do you have any health issues or special needs that may affect your participation in Kohenet or that would be helpful for Kohenet staff to be aware of?

I am sometimes uncomfortable when everyone in a group is required to hold hands or put their arms around each other. I often cringe at forced, non-consensual touching no matter how much I want to be part of a group. I know people can be hurt when I refrain. Do you know how I can avoid hurting or offending people in those situations? I don’t want to offend—I want to make friends.

It seems to me that a priestess should be able to sing and dance. I can’t carry a tune and I can’t dance (except with Reggae music). If there are ways to gain just a little ability in those areas, I would embrace learning them.

גִיוֹרֶת

Writing this essay was a required part of my aliyah application. At the time, I resisted writing about this experience, let alone revealing so much of myself to strangers. Now, however,  I'd like to share it.

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.

Meyerbeer's Hallelujah