As my friends & family, Rabbi Lizzi, and my dear Mishkan Conversion Cohort all know, the decision to formally join the Jewish faith has been, for me, a 30-year journey. I’ve been what I call “Jewish-ish,” quietly living Jewishly, raising Jewish kids, celebrating Jewish holidays, being active in Jewish communities and causes, for all this time. But for whatever reason, I wasn’t quite ready until this past year to go the mikveh and make it real.
At first, I couldn’t articulate what it was that made this the right time to convert. I only knew that, after a period of feeling particularly dark and discouraged after the elections in the fall of 2016, I was suddenly able to get in touch with my desire to move from “Jewish-ish” to “just Jewish.”
Before I entered the mikveh, I asked some of the Jewish women in my life to share a favorite blessing with me. One said, “To me [being Jewish] means to leave room for miracles. For the sea to part, the oil to burn and the persecuted to persevere. For the Cubs to win the World Series. For the sunrise and the sunset and nature’s cycles. It means to create eternal life through remembrance and storytelling.” I loved that.
Then this week, Wednesday was a day of really discouraging news, not unlike Election Night 2016. Meanwhile, Rabbi Lizzi had asked that morning whether any of us wanted to talk about our conversion journey at tonight’s service. I decided to take myself to the movies and see the documentary about that great Presbyterian Rabbi, Fred aka Mister Rogers. Toward the end of film, there is a bit of tape about from a TV special he came out of retirement to host, after September 11th. He looked right at the camera, right at ME, and started by saying “We are all called to be Tikkun Olam, repairers of creation.”
I audibly gasped. Right there in the movie theater, I’m as certain that God spoke personally to me, through Mister Rogers, as Moses ever was about that Burning Bush. So I’m here to remind you, from one Jew to another, my friend was right. There are miracles everywhere, and Judaism, my Judaism, is about seeing them, hearing them, naming them, and understanding my part in making them happen. Thank you, and shabbat shalom.
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