Alyssa Stanton: The convert, the rabbi, and the spotlight.

I am not usually a fan of the online J-magazine Jewcy, but this story popped up in my email and grabbed my attention. I was at the ordination of Alyssa Stanton, but not because of her. I was there because friends of mine were also being ordained (at HUC-JIR, Cincinnati) and I was there to support them. So, it has been interesting to see all of the press coverage over Stanton, all the while knowing that my friends are deserving of just as much attention because of the amazing people they are and rabbis they will be. Obviously Stanton has received so much attention because she is the first African American woman to be ordained. But, as the Jewcy article points out, she isn’t the first African American to be ordained, nor is she the first woman of color to be ordained, yet the country and the world is still fascinated (see the article for more along this line of thought).

So, what is our fascination with Alyssa Stanton? I think part of it is the fact that she converted. Conversion is not only an increasingly hot topic within Judaism (one just needs to look at the frustrating situations in Israel re: conversion to see just how many lives are affected by differing views of conversion and converts), but it is controversial on many levels. If you convert via the Reform movement are you a full-fledged Jew? Will you be recognized by the Conservative and Orthodox movements? What about a Conservative conversion? What about a Modern Orthodox conversion? Will you be recognized by the Ultra-Orthodox? Who gets to say what constitutes a Jew and a legal conversion? Can a female rabbi be on the beit din?

Every article is quick to bring up that Stanton is a convert, which is important only in the context that it is a part of her history, her story. Jews are not really supposed to remind converts that they are, in fact, converts. Once you convert you are a Jew and should be referred to as such. Stanton converted some 20 years ago, so how incredibly frustrating to her to be referred to as a convert over and over again in local and national media. I’m sure she stopped thinking of herself as a convert long ago; I’ve only been Jewish for a little over 5 years, but it has even been a couple of years since I stopped thinking of myself as a convert and simply as a Jew. It is true that being a convert instead of a Jew-by-birth brings with it a different view of traditions and history, which would in turn inform someone's rabbinate, just as our history informs all that we do. But, you have to wonder: when will we just be Jews? Will there ever be a time when we won't need to explain our background or how we got where we are?

Becoming a rabbi is a remarkable achievement for anyone. Becoming the first African American rabbi is a footnote in history. Her race will not make Stanton a better or worse rabbi; her training, her commitment, her love of Judaism – these are what will determine Stanton’s quality as a rabbi. You have to wonder whether all of this attention on Stanton’s race and her first-of-a-kind situation is setting her up for either failure or disappointment. How can someone with so much hype actually live up to it? And what happens when the media attention fades? When the spotlight is off of her, what kind of rabbi will Alyssa Stanton actually be?

I think of my friends who were ordained alongside Stanton that day in June and I know that they will be great rabbis, spiritual leaders who will be attentive and loving throughout their careers. They do not have the spotlight on them, but perhaps they should. Or perhaps we should leave our spiritual leaders to what they do best: teaching, counseling, leading us in prayer, comforting us in grief, rejoicing with us in happiness.

Reading Job, An Article, and the HHD (not related)

I've had a number of posts bouncing around in my head, but none of them have really formed into anything substantial, so I'm just going to dump them all into this one post so I can move on.

• This Thursday will began a 3 week adult education class at my temple titled "The Book of Job: Why and How Modern Jews Read This Ancient Text." I'm looking forward to it, not the least because I can actually attend the entire class (usually adult ed begins 30 minutes into the hour long Alef Hebrew class I teach). But, I'm also looking forward to it because my knowledge of the Nevi'im and Ketuvim is sorely lacking. So, to prepare myself for Thursday, last night I read the Book of Job. It took approx. 90 minutes and it was fascinating. I knew the basics of Job before reading it, but I don't think I ever knew that nearly the entire book is a conversation between Job and these 4 men. I am now even more eager to attend this class and to learn about what the heck it all means.
• I read an essay in the OU's online version of their publication recently that stirred up some frustration. The essay is titled "An Unintentional Intermarriage" and is written by a woman whose mother converted under the Conservative movement before the writer was born. In the past few years the writer has become more observant with her husband and has discovered that she is not really Jewish (according to the Orthodox), which in turn caused heartache on her part. My frustration grew not from the complete dismissal of all conversions not done under Orthodox auspices (though I do have a problem with it, that's a whole other can of worms), but rather from the idea that this woman, who had been actively involved in Jewish life for some 40 years, whose entire identity was that of a committed Jewish woman, would suddenly call her life into question. I think this situation created heartache where it need not have been and just reaffirms why, no matter how many mitzvot I observe, I doubt I'll ever consider myself anything but a Reform Jew.
• I have recently procured myself a copy of the Reform machzor (Gates of Repentance) and have on order from Amazon a copy of Reuven Hammer's book Entering the High Holy Days. Years ago when i first began attending services every week I was concerned that I didn't quite get the Jewish idea of prayer, so my rabbi recommended Hammer's Entering Jewish Prayer. I found it incredibly helpful and a wonderful resource; plus it was easy to follow and not over-written. I've decided that it is time I delve further into the prayers of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
  

Happy Anniversary

Today marks 4 years since I became a Jew. It feels like not long ago I was nervously stepping into my rabbi's office for our first meeting and yet it was 5 years ago. Trying to place myself back in that time is difficult; I was a different person then, not as sure of who I was, just beginning to figure out my place in temple life, just beginning to figure out my place in Jewish life. As I enter my 5th year of being a Jew I do so as a Hebrew school teacher, as a sometimes-Torah-Study-leader, as a member of Sisterhood, as a wearer of a kippah and tzitzit, as someone making efforts toward a kosher diet. I am certainly not the same person, but at the same time I am. I still hunger for knowledge, and I still fervently love being a Jew.

Torah As An Entry Point

The following was originally written out free-hand and kind of meanders through a number of concepts that I've been mulling over.

I think that one of the major challenges facing Jewish converts is the concept of Judaism as a people hood. How do you convert to a people? How do you legitimately adopt what can be seen as ethnic customs? How can you do so and at the very least feel legitimate? We have this hurdle, and it is one that can be, at times, insurmountable, and at others like stepping over a crack in the sidewalk. We did not grow up with traditional, or even nontraditional, customs that our fellow Jews have. We can feel like pretenders when we try these out. I think it can be difficult to separate the rituals that we do to sustain our religious lives from those that sustained the culture of the Jews. Lighting candles, praying, studying, putting on tallit and tefillin, keeping kosher--these are ways, rituals, that enhance our religion (and by extension, culture). We should never feel illegitimate by adopting these, but it happens.

I think it is important to emphasize the concept of a Jewish people hood to converts, but to do it through Torah, through religious aspects. Not through food or Eastern European customs or Yiddish phrases. Torah should be the entry into Judaism, for all Jews, not just converts. Developing in people a love of Torah is essential.

When I was going through my conversion, each Saturday my rabbi would allow us all to come up to the bimah with him as he read from the Torah. And as I learned Hebrew and the stories I was hearing, I had this amazing physical connection to the Torah that I don't think a lot of people in the conversion process do. It wasn't just a spiritual or intellectual connection. And as I write this now I find myself thinking about how ironic it is that I don't kiss the Torah--clearly I feel a connection to its physicality, but to me the physicality is human-created manifestation of God's word and so I don't want to kiss the object of the Torah. I want to kiss the words of the Torah through my devotion to learning it, my quest for a closeness to God, my yearning to be holy. I don't want to fall into revering this physical presence more than I do the presence of God in the words.

I read Torah for the first time 2 years ago, though it wasn't on the morning of my bat mitzvah, but rather a few weeks prior. And it was such an intense and emotional experience it truly cemented my love of and connection to Torah. It is was the combination of how hard I had worked + the fact that I was reading from the scroll which I had been seeing my rabbi read for years + the feeling that for the first time I was really speaking the word of God. For those few minutes I was completely overwhelmed by God's presence--I had opened myself up to it and sought Him by seeking out the Torah and there He was.

Heschel says that "to sense the presence of God in the Bible one must learn to be present to God in the Bible" (God in Search of Man, 252). We must make ourselves open to the idea that the Bible is a living document, a living ideal, and that God lives through it. We cannot just study the Torah for its historical meaning, or for literature (though those are both legitimate studies). We must be willing to see the spiritual realm of the Torah for God to be present when we read and study it.

I am a fairly rational person--I want good reasoning behind the whys and wherefores of things, but when it comes to Torah, I'm okay not having a rational explanation for the parting of the Red Sea or for the prophets or for any of the miracles. Because God is not rational. Belief in God cannot be reasoned out.

Heschel also says that "we do not explore first and decide afterwards whether to accept the Jewish way of living. We must accept in order to be able to explore. At the beginning is the commitment, the supreme acquiescence" (282). And I disagree with that. While my belief in God may not be rational and reasoned, my journey into and through Judaism is. Because Judaism is my approach to my belief in God I feel it is vital to do what is right for me. And blindly accepting traditional Judaism and then learning about what I've accepted just doesn't make sense to me. And I think this is how many serious Reform Jews approach their Judaism--we believe in God, and we accept that, but we aren't willing to just accept everything and every practice within traditional Judaism. I think it is somewhat insincere to accept the idea of Judaism without informing yourself about what you are accepting.

But, you might say, what about when the Israelites said (and I paraphrase) "we will do and we will hear?" Is it truly antithetical to Judaism to learn and then decide? I don't believe so because we are not standing at Sinai as the Israelites did. The Judaism we would be accepting today is not the Judaism that they were accepting at Mt. Sinai. And honestly we each do have our own Sinai moments where we accept the idea of God and then try to hear what he wants of us. "Even the laws of the Torah are not absolute," (415) Heschel writes. Therefore the laws that man derived from the Torah are not absolute. Heschel says that "nothing is deified: neither power nor wisdom, neither heroes nor institutions" (415). But has traditional Judaism not done just that? Is it not just as big as sin (by traditional standards) to break the laws that man derived from the Torah as the actual Torah laws themselves? If the laws of the Torah are not absolute, and by extension the laws of man are not absolute, isn't it being a responsible Jew to study and to learn and to make informed decisions about what is right?

Let's Be Honest w/ Ourselves

I'm going to take a break from recounting my experience at the Biennial to write about something else, something I think that as a serious Reform Jew, one who converted through the Reform movement, I should address. And that is conversion itself. The following might be controversial and is a bit jumbled but here it is:

I just read a post on a blog (here if you want to read) that deals with the emotional frustrations when confronted with born Jews or Orthodox converts who believe that you aren't "really" Jewish. The poster, a Reform convert, had a troubling conversation with an older Jewish gentleman whose questions about her observance and her process, and his eventual pronouncements on her actual Jewishness, seemed to really shake her foundation of how she sees her Jewish self. I think this highlights the problem that people going through, or have gone through, the conversion process within the Reform movement face: their feelings of inadequacy when faced with more traditional Jews. It is something I don't know if rabbis address enough, and I think it is damaging, not just to the converts, but to the entire Reform movement. Because at the heart of the matter is what is considered "authentic" Judaism and who is an "authentic" Jew.

I began my formal conversion process 5 years ago, and became a Jew, officially, on March 30, 2004. But, in reality my process began much earlier, in college, and by the time I had my beit din and received my Hebrew name, I had felt Jewish for a long time. I am a Jew. I don't equivicate that and say I am a Reform Jew. I am, simply a Jew. I belong to the Reform movement, and I am proud to be affiliated with it. I am not Reform because I want to do the least amount of observance. I am Reform because I believe in figuring out what is right for you and not just blindly following tradition; that is one of the many problems I had with my Catholic upbringing. I believe that tradition and observance is important but only if there is meaning behind your actions.

This sentence is going to be contentious, but it is what I feel: being a serious Reform Jew is hard, harder than being Conservative or Orthodox, because a Reform Jew must inform themselves about what they are doing. You must educate themselves and discover the whys of doing something and not just do it. You aren't just told "this is what Jews do, so just go and do it." Each level of observance I take on is a very conscious choice that I debate and struggle with before I take it on. I've recently started down the path towards keeping kosher, and it is a path that I have gone back and forth on in my head since before I converted. Was this meaningful me? Would it be meaningful for me? I needed to make sure that I wasn't choosing to do something simply to take on a traditional observance.

People who convert through the Reform movement with the idea in their head that they will eventually convert again through Conservative or Orthodox to be "more authentic" are dishonest. Those who convert Reform, seriously, and are later drawn towards Conservative or Orthodox, well I believe that if they come to the conclusion by being honest with themselves and not out of some sense of inadequacy, it is valid. However, I find it troubling to read or hear these Reform converts doubt their own Jewishness or allow others to question it and not be able to defend themselves. I think this is a failing of their rabbi. I think it is just as important for a rabbi to help the convert learn about the what of Judaism as it is to learn about the why, especially the why of converting in their specific movement. Reform rabbis who are working with people in the conversion process MUST address the inevitable questioning that these people will get about themselves and their Jewish identity, and they must do it in an open and honest way, with no pressure, no agenda. I think that if someone goes into the conversion process with some doubts as to the movement they are going through, this should be addressed at the beginning. Why Reform? What does being Reform mean in the 21st Century? What does being a committed Reform Jew mean? These rabbis need to be able to help converts find and feel comfortable in their identities as Jews. If other people can make them doubt their own Jewishness (as opposed to genuinely being drawn to a different movement) then the rabbi has not done a good job in helping to shape and solidify that person's identity.

It is vitally important that Reform rabbis help the people studying with them towards conversion understand what it means to be a committed Reform Jew. They need to stress that this isn't the "easy" way towards conversion and that it isn't Judaism-lite. They must help instill a pride in being Jewish, and pride for the Reform heritage they are coming into, for the Jewish heritage they are coming into.

Converts will never have the same experiences that people born Jewish have. We won't have the experience of Jewish summer camp, of learning to our prayers for b'nei mitzvot with our friends, of being a part of a Jewish home from an early age. This can cause stress and sometimes depression in people who are converting, and it must be addressed by rabbis. It should be talked about, frequently, and with many people. It is not just enough to talk to rabbis. It is just as important to talk to other Reform converts who are comfortable with who they are as Jews. I think it is probably difficult for a rabbi to fully understand the stress that converts can feel unless they were converts themselves.

It is completely valid to have these feelings; at one point I had them myself--I was surrounded by people who had experienced all these life events as Jews, while I was attending mass and Catholic school. But after awhile I realized that my past experiences were just that--the past. What I did with my present and my future was going to be important in shaping my Jewish identity. In a sense I felt lucky because I didn't have the family baggage or expectations weighing me down. Who I became as Jew would be up to me and me alone.

So, I ask fellow Reform converts and those in the conversion process: let's be honest with ourselves. Be honest up front with why you are converting through the Reform movement. Is it because they temple is closest or it's the only game in town? Is it because you like the rabbi? Or is it because you genuinely feel that this is how things should be done, that the Reform approach of informed decision is what is right for you? Do you think that somewhere down the line you will convert Conservative or Orthodox to be more authentic in the eyes of more Jews? Who is your conversion for? You or a future spouse who may or may not see you as Jewish? Or is it for the faceless others who you feel will judge you and your conversion?

Becoming a Jew is becoming part of a larger whole, a people. But it is also about becoming YOU. It is important to feel a connection with the Jewish people, but it is just as important to forge a personal relationship with Judaism, and in the ultimate end, with God. Because when it comes down to it you are presumably converting to Judaism because it is how you are connecting to God and that is the most important thing. I think we get so caught up in what makes a Jew a Jew that we lose sight on the fundamental reason for converting in the first place is our relationship with God, not our relationship with man-made constructions of identity.

I am a Jew because I believe Judaism to be the best way to connect with God. I am a Reform Jew because I believe it is the most authentic and valid way for me to forge my Jewish connection to God, opening up a world to me that is precious and genuine.