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Monday, December 31, 2012

My Jewish Christmas

This year's Christmas was quite different from Christmases past, and while this distressed my nostalgic self several months ago, it turned out to be a blessing. It was a reminder that traditions change and evolve for many reasons, and that my conversion is not the sole factor.

As kids, we spent Christmas just the five of us because our extended family lived 13 hours away. We spent Christmas Eve going to church (I went off and on once I turned 18, my brother stopped completely, and my sister always went) while Mom set up the Christmas Eve snacks and got the movie ready for our return.

On Christmas morning, my sister was always the first to wake up, and as a small child I was usually the last, coming down around 8:30 or so. I'd come downstairs, blinking and yawning, to see my sister and brother ecstatic over the unwrapped gifts (large or awkward items like a bike or a Barbie dreamhouse) and their plundered stockings. Then with me present, we could now all tear through our individual piles of gifts.

In the post-Santa age, we started putting presents under the tree in advance and then "played Santa," an idea we took from the movie A Christmas Story in which one person (usually me, I loved volunteering for this role) would deliver one gift at a time. This helped make the gift-opening last longer in an age where we were getting fewer, pricier gifts. It also allowed us an opportunity to watch each other enjoy each of our gifts, rather than being absorbed in our own greed-induced frenzy.

Throughout our lives and across our developmental phases, Christmas meant not getting out of our pajamas, snacking on stocking treats til mid-afternoon dinner, and lazing around watching Christmas movies.

This year was very different - except for maybe that last paragraph. My sister and her husband didn't get in until 1:00am Christmas Day because he had to work and then they went to Mass, so they weren't a part of the Christmas Eve festivities. My brother did come (which is very unusual the past 10 years or so, as he used to live across the state) and brought along with him his new wife. On Christmas Day, my brother-in-law slept in and, when he awoke, we went through our stockings. Mom had told us this would be the last year for stockings, as it was a lot to fill for each couple, and now that we are all married, we should be responsible for our partners' stockings. So we relished each little goodie, knowing this tradition would be gone next year.

We also did Secret Santa this year, and had agreed not to exchange until my brother and his wife got there; they were spending Christmas morning with my brother's stepkids, ages 7 and 9, and coming over around 11:00. So until they got there, my parents exchanged gifts with one another, as did my sister and her husband. Nicole and I had exchanged during Hanukkah. Then when my brother arrived, we watched the kids open their gifts from my parents before we did our adult Secret Santa. We haven't watched kids on Christmas morning since WE were kids, and it really made us feel more adult on this holiday than we ever have. Once their excitement settled down, the adults exchanged, and the gifts were delightfully modest since we'd set a modest price limit (also a change from years past - but honestly a welcome one).

It was a fun day full of family togetherness, and yet so different from Christmases past. As Rabbi stated when we met on 12/22, this is a reminder that traditions change and evolve throughout the life cycle for a myriad of reasons, so it isn't just religious conversion that is affecting this. Seeing that in action did really help. I was able to enjoy the day just as fully as ever, if not more so, despite the differences in how we normally celebrate and the difference in its personal significance to me. This gives me confidence that Nicole and I can create equally meaningful traditions in our own little family without feeling the profound loss I had half-anticipated.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Intro to Judaism - Week 7

The suggested topic for this week has several questions - but the last one is about Hanukkah, and my idea of Christmas has been so loaded that I feel compelled to focus on that. As with so many things during this journey, my thought process and beliefs have evolved so dramatically within such a short period of time that I wish I had approached this topic sooner, rather than having to try to capture it all within one post. I'm going to do my best, but it may be a bit scattered.

Earlier in the year (er, maybe even a couple months ago), Nicole and I had discussed keeping Christmas celebration to honor the culture and traditions of both of our families and what we have grown up with. We made it sound so great, right? Except that it was really a justification to keep something that seemed too difficult to give up. Celebrating Christmas in addition to the Jewish holidays made sense in Nicole's home growing up, and makes sense in many homes, because they are interfaith families. Having both come from families that celebrated Christmas does not make us an interfaith family. Our faith is Jewish, and our traditions and holidays should be Jewish (or secular, such as Halloween and Thanksgiving). And no, Christmas is not secular. Trying to make it so feels disingenuine, shameful to my newly forming Jewish identity, and irreverent toward a religion from which I separated myself with much respect.

My next step was to see if we could just have a Christmas tree, even if we otherwise tried to downplay the significance of the holiday. The idea of not having a Christmas tree hurt more than almost anything else. I can do without a lot of other decorations, I can do without lights on my house, I can even do without a pile of gifts. But I couldn't imagine not having a tree sparkling in the corner, filled with ornaments that have so much meaning and mark my path through life - new home ornaments, first married Christmas ornament with our wedding photo in it, a Christmas frame ornament with a picture of my beloved cat who died of cancer a few years ago, ornaments that I made when I was little.

Then I did the readings for class. *sigh* And like everything else, they make so much sense for me and detail what I know in my heart to be true, but with better context than I could have given it all by myself. How do you celebrate Hanukkah, a holiday that recalls a story in which a small group of Jews resisted assimilation into the larger culture, and then follow its tail by doing just that? What kind of message will I be sending my children?

It was hard for a while to think of not "giving" my children Christmas. And by Christmas, I don't mean the story of the birth of Jesus. I mean Santa and the excitement of waking up Christmas morning to a pile of gifts. But then I remember another conversation Nicole and I had when we first started house-hunting. It was so difficult for me to picture my kids growing up on these tiny plots with houses practically on top of each other. I grew up with a field next to and across from me in one house, and woods and a creek in my backyard in another. How could I not give my kids the experience of spending a Saturday afternoon building forts in the woods, playing "office" in a field, letting Barbies go for a dip in the creek? Then Nicole, who was born and raised here on Long Island, pointed out that she didn't feel that she herself had missed out that experience because she didn't know any different. Such a childhood is sentimental to me because it was MINE. My children won't know that, and their own sentimental memories will be about their little backyard and going to the playground up the street at the elementary school and taking trains into the city for events. Is that any less valuable?

Remembering that conversation helps me with this. My kids will not know Christmas. As sad as that may sound to some (Nicole's brother was in absolute shock and almost angry at what we are "denying" our children), what celebrations are YOU missing out on because they're part of someone else's culture, not yours? Being fun isn't reason enough to incorporate something into our lives that goes against what we believe in.

In one of the readings for this week, it said something to the effect of, "It's only hard to be a Jew if you don't like being a Jew." Being Jewish comes with year-round celebrations that our kids will be able to enjoy. Do they need Christmas when get to dress up in costume and celebrate Purim, and have major family celebrations and feasts around Passover and Rosh Hashana? They don't need everything - and what they do need is a solid sense of their Jewish identity with parents who are strong enough to make the best decisions for our family despite outside pressures.

I do want our children to be able to take part in the celebrations of their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. But it should feel like it would for my parents coming over for Passover seder - an opportunity to spend time with family on a day that is festive and important to us, but still clearly not their own holiday. And we need to be sure to set boundaries to ensure that we aren't walking like a duck and talking like a duck but claiming not to be a duck. For instance, we could start our own tradition, since we will always have Christmas off of work and school, to go to a movie together and then maybe go to my in-laws' for Christmas dinner. Sure, they can give our kids a gift for Christmas, as is their tradition - but I would ask that they give the majority of them for Hanukkah, and I wouldn't want our kids going over there first thing Christmas morning. Or if we use the school break to travel to my parents', we should probably do it the week between Christmas and New Year's so that they aren't waking up in their home on Christmas.

Christmas is everywhere, both in our families and in our largely Catholic neighborhood, but we're not alone in this. We are a part of a large community of people who face the same saturation this time of year and who also have to help their kids navigate it. And it doesn't have to be easy. We certainly aren't giving our child a father because it's hard to be different or to miss out on an experience that most other kids have, and why should we feel obligated to do so with Christmas? Our family is already different, and being different is going to require many conversations and a lot of work that I am definitely willing to do.


Thursday, December 13, 2012

Material Girl

I have a decent level of guilt about being insistent upon giving birth, considering my views on adoption and how humans are destroying the Earth. There are so many children out there who need homes – I work with them every day. Knowing that, knowing what humans are doing to our planet, and knowing that pregnancy wouldn’t just “happen” for me because I’m in a same-sex relationship, it would seem like an obvious answer that I would choose to adopt. But I just can’t let go of the idea of being pregnant. It’s something I crave with every fiber of my being, and have since I was a little girl breastfeeding my dolls. I know that I will regret not having the experience.

So, because I cannot put aside this selfish desire without pretty severely impairing my quality of life (drama queen, I know), I am making a commitment to try to make my family have as small of a carbon footprint as I reasonably can. I have long wondered how a registry would work for a baby shower of mine when I am hoping for many gifts of lightly used items that would otherwise just get thrown away. Why do I need a brand new crib, for example? Why do I need a brand new infant tub? High chair? I would be sublimely happy if a shower included people bringing items they would otherwise toss aside, and kept me from having to consume new products.

While this sounds so great in theory, however, I was tested this weekend on my own consumerist attitude. Yes, while I have noble intentions, it’s still there. I’m a product of my society like everyone else.

We fully moved into our house last week Tuesday, when we were settled enough to bring the cats there. This past Sunday, we went back to the apartment at my in-laws’ where we spent the last three months, and we packed up everything that was left and took half of it with us that day. While doing so, my mother-in-law came downstairs to help with cleaning and pointed out Nicole’s baby furniture. There was a desk and headboard bookshelf looking thing, and she said there was a matching dresser in storage. She offered it to us, saying we could take it whenever we need it, it would be there waiting for us. Nicole got so excited, both because it’s her baby furniture and nostalgia is a powerful thing, and also because she loves the way it looks. The issue is – I don’t so much. It’s cute, it’s sweet – but it’s very dated. It has sort of a fake wood laminate look, which was all the rage in 1983 but not so much in (fingers crossed) 2014. The next issue is that they don’t have the crib anymore. How will I get a changing table and crib that match this stuff?? What kind of mishmash will my nursery look like? They’re so old-fashioned, and not in a cute vintage way, and not in a way that would go with anything else I would want to buy.

As I’m saying this, I’m realizing maybe this is more of a little-girl furniture set, not a nursery set (what infant needs a desk?) so it may be able to be saved for that and may not be such an issue. But I’m going to finish my thought anyway since I’ve already written four paragraphs, and the point remains.

I talk dreamily about repurposing other people’s items so that I can minimize my consumerism in having a baby, and then as soon as I’m offered perfectly good furniture which my wife loves, my heart sank at not being able to have my own, or more accurately, not having that perfect matchy nursery that you see in magazines and on TV. Do I need all that stuff? Am I going to need a cutesy teddy bear lamp that the kid will outgrow in a few years, or will that perfectly good lamp currently in the guest bedroom that won’t quite match do just as good of a job?

Not only do I not need or wish to contribute to the purchase of more new items and ultimately more garbage, but I also don’t need to spend money that isn’t necessary. Buying a house outside of NYC is no joke – our property taxes alone are more than what most people pay in rent in most of the rest of the country. We are going to have to budget carefully to have a child, even on two decent salaries, and I don’t want to throw away money that isn’t needed.

I guess I pictured myself as being this humble earthy mother who was one step from using a dresser drawer as a crib like in the olden days. This one flash just made me realize how much following through with this ideal will truly be a challenge for me, at least more than I would have liked to think.

Intro to Judaism - Week 6

The suggested topic for this week is “How do I feel about a Jewish wedding? What do I think about an afterlife?” While seemingly two unrelated subjects, this is a continuation of discussion and readings on the Jewish life cycle, and I do want to touch on both.

After much thought, I decided that I wanted to convert to Judaism about six months before our August 2011 wedding. What I did know right away was that (1) it was too late, too much was in place (particularly our officiant, the mother of a friend who happens to be a Wiccan priestess!), and we knew too little to majorly impact or alter our wedding plans, and (2) I did not want to rush this process just for the sake of having a Jewish wedding; that wasn’t my motivation. So we let it lie until after our wedding, and then began “temple-shopping” so we could get the feel of services before reaching out to a rabbi and moving forward from there.

I enjoy reading about what a Jewish wedding entails, and I do learn about pieces of it that I think it would have been nice to incorporate. However, our wedding was so meaningful to us that I wouldn’t change it for anything. We had a personal and spiritual connection with our officiant, we created our ceremony entirely on our own, and everything was laden with meaning personal to us. We did decide even before our wedding that we would like a ketubah (a wedding contract), but it seemed that it would be more significant, and would just make more sense, to create it after I have converted. We still plan to do that, and I also would like to see if our rabbi would marry us again so that we have our union blessed by her. I’m not sure if that’s something that can happen, or if there is some other somewhat private ceremony we could do that would have similar meaning, but it’s something I’d like to find out about because it would mean a lot to us. My parents did that when my mother converted to Catholicism several years into their marriage, after having gotten married in a Baptist church.

The afterlife – now this is something I was eager to learn about! About two years ago, I asked my close friend Allyson (a conservative Jew who has been an awesome mentor throughout my journey) what the Jewish view was on the afterlife. This was when I was first considering Judaism, and really just trying to get more information. I wasn’t sure what I believed, but I did know I didn’t believe in a concrete view of a Heaven – golden gates, clouds and sunshine, milk and honey. She was kind of stumped and said, “I don’t really know. We don’t focus on that so much. We focus on how we live our lives on Earth.” That was the best response I could have gotten.

Now, almost two years later, reading about the Jewish perspective on the afterlife confirms what Allyson presented, and gives me a better understanding of it. Jews believe the soul is immortal, but do not have much more structure or clarity than that. There is not a “heaven” that is seen as a reward – Jews believe you are rewarded on Earth with how faith enhances one's life, and that you should focus on prayer, Torah study, and acts of charity, in working toward the Messianic age. (Christians believe the Messiah already came, so it makes sense that they would have a different concept of the afterlife.) Likewise, there is also no “hell” that is seen as a punishment. When you atone for your sins on Yom Kippur and pray to be written in the Book of Life, that is a prayer to live another year. You are not atoning and asking to go to heaven, you are atoning and asking for a year of health and life. I am handed religious tracts on the subway pretty frequently, and they almost always start with, “Do you know where you’re going when you die?” The implication is that one should live a more righteous life (and/or ask for forgiveness through Jesus Christ) in order to be sure of a place in Heaven. For Jews, it is not so much about eternal reward, but about your life on Earth – a reward of peace and spiritual strength through a righteous life. It just makes so much sense to me.

There are references to "the heavens," but as a place where God and angels are, not as a place for people. There are references to "the world to come," but that is for all righteous people, regardless of their religious affiliation or level of religious observance, which is just kick-ass. One of the things I struggled with when I began to withdraw from religion was the idea that there was one right way to believe that would get you to "heaven." I remember my aunt, who is born-again Christian, saying that people who don't know about Jesus will not be punished in hell because they didn't have the opportunity, they never knew. But people who are told about Jesus, learn about him, and still reject him, will spend eternity in hell. My first question for her was, "Then why would you tell people about Jesus when you know that if they don't listen, they're now going to hell? Wouldn't you want them to stay safe?" Of course the answer was that it's better to try because it's so important that they be saved. But still, the whole idea has always bothered me. I love that even a religion that speaks of a "chosen people" acknowledges righteous people across all demographics and honors them equally.

When I wrote my first journal entry for this class, I wrote that one of my concerns was getting answers to my questions that I can’t agree with and might jeopardize my ability to sincerely convert. The biggest question in my mind as I wrote that was about the concept of Satan and Hell. That was one of the first things I let go of as a questioning young adult that resulted in my moving away from Christianity. It didn’t make sense to me with my idea of a merciful and compassionate God. It seemed like a primitive concept that was intended to motivate people to act a certain way (and yes, I’m very aware that one could also say that for Jews about being written in the Book of Life). Jews believe that seriously evil people do not have a place in "the world to come," and if bodies are indeed resurrected in the Messianic age, theirs will not be. But they do not go to a place where they are eternally tormented or in fire.

Jews leave a lot of possibilities, acknowledging that you can't know much of what happens in the afterlife. I love that because it's so honest, even if it offers little security or comfort through hard truth. "The world to come" is when the Messiah comes and ushers in an age of peace and then God will restore people to their bodies (questionable how literally this is meant?). Where do the souls of the deceased go until then? Well, there's really no way to know for sure. You could believe that they just sort of float around Earth, hanging out with their loved ones, or you could believe in reincarnation. There are so many possibilities and no way to know the truth.

Speaking of the Messiah, liberal Jews have interpreted this to mean that we are waiting for the Messianic age - so it may not necessarily be one individual who comes to save the world, but could be a time or place in which the world is saved. This brings in the concept of "tikkun olam," which is my agency's motto and means "repair the world." The idea is that we all have a responsibility to bring this age about. I love the idea of taking on that responsibility ourselves and working to improve the world and bring about peace, instead of waiting for that mystery person to show up and do it for us.

Everything I have read and studied has just made me feel more at peace and more sure of my decision. With every question that gets answered, another piece fits into the puzzle.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Intro to Judaism - Week 5

To cut or not to cut? Never before was that a question.

When we first started talking about conversion, I told Nicole that I felt so strongly against circumcision that no way would I allow "them" to pressure me into it if we have a baby boy. Even if it meant being ostracized, I couldn't do something to my child that I felt was wrong just to fit in or receive approval.

Don't try to tell me it's "cleaner." The American Medical Association stopped recommending it years and years ago, acknowledging that there was no medical benefit. Circumcision for non-religious reasons is really an American and Canadian phenomenon - why is that? Is all of, say, Europe just filthy people? And if it's so much cleaner, and we can't just teach our boys how to properly wash themselves, shouldn't we start removing labia so we don't have to teach girls how to clean between them either? Sure would make it easier and "cleaner."

There is an evolutionary reason for the foreskin. It's protective and it maintains the sexual sensitivity of the glans by keeping it moist instead of dry and callused. And for every story of someone who had issues with their foreskin as an older child or adult and had to have it removed then, there is a story of a botched circumcision that left the male with discomfort the rest of their lives. So don't give me those anecdotes as a reason to circumcise either.

What it comes down to is that I have trouble with the idea of making a permanent alteration to my child's body without their consent, when I see no necessity for it. I've had a couple Jewish people mention how it's cleaner and "looks nicer" - which is of course entirely subjective, as I've only ever been exposed to an uncircumcised penis (my first sexual partner and boyfriend of six years) and think THAT looks nicer - but no one is going to win me with that argument. A religious conviction that this is the best thing for my child would be the ONLY thing that could convince me. It doesn't make sense to me for a Jew to try to convince me of the cleanliness of it, or other perceived benefits, when Jews have never circumcised for that reason.

I told Nicole that I can't wait to actually sit down with our rabbi to talk about this, because I have such a high level of respect for her that I think, if she can approach it sensitively with regard to my concerns and reservations, she might be able to get to me. Unfortunately we have struggled to make appointments with her - we took a break for the Jewish holidays which would keep her very busy, and then the hurricane happened and threw everything out of whack.

Then I read the assigned readings in regards to circumcision, and DAMMIT if they don't know how to get to me. The writers acknowledge that there is no other reason to do it except for the fact that it is a covenant with God. The fact that they don't try to convince the reader on other reasons for it took down that initial guard I have up when the topic arises. I found myself being less resistant and more open to what I was reading, and understanding better the reason for it. I also found myself feeling less scared of the actual procedure, which seems so different in a loving, celebratory home environment in the arms of a godparent than strapped to a board in a hospital.

I'm still struggling with it, and probably always will, but I think that's okay. I do have to say I'm surprised that I'm even considering it, though. And while it's a relief in some ways, it's also a bit of a disappointment. I've been such an advocate against circumcision (mostly just against doing it based on myths - I think parents should do their own research before making a decision instead of just going along with it) and it's kind of a let down to be going backward. I still feel uncertain and I still have a hard time with making such a permanent alteration to my child's perfect body, but I also don't want my own militance on the issue to compromise my son's sense of spirituality and connectedness to his God and his community.

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Almost There!

We are almost moved into our house, and it feels so amazing. Nicole and her father and cousin moved all the furniture and boxes in Friday morning, and then we spent today cleaning, arranging, and unpacking the kitchen. We just need to get the cats over there, pack up the clothes and dishes from our current temporary apartment and take them over, and then we can really move in. Our living room is so cozy and our bedroom is so bright and sunny. I am in absolute heaven.

My father-in-law has been painting the rooms for us, and today he did the future nursery. Seeing it finished, in a soft yellow, just made it so real. Even Nicole, who is often resistant to talking about babies because it makes her nervous about finances, said, "There's really nothing else this room can be. It's really ready for babies." I get lost gazing into it, imagining starting our family. When I flopped across our just-put-together bed, I pictured the kids running in early on a Saturday morning to make sure we're up. I can't believe we're here, in our home.

Happy doesn't even describe it.