The Defeat of DOMA and the Jewish Response

A few weeks ago, two days after my birthday, the Defense of Marriage Act which permitted federal discrimination against LGBT individuals, denying hundreds of rights, was repealed. For anyone emotionally invested in this decision and on the edges of their seats for months, they will always remember where they were when they heard that Wednesday morning.

There is much work still to be done. There are too many states where discrimination against same-sex individuals and couples is still legally sanctioned. But it is HUGE that we are now federally protected. This ensures safety for us in so many arenas that were previously denied. Disturbingly, soooo many people I know had not even heard of DOMA and thought the state legalization had solved everything.

At that Friday's Shabbat service, Rabbi worked this into her sermon. She spoke about that week's Torah portion, which just happened to be about four sisters who stood up to a law that would deny them their deceased father's inheritance since there were no sons. They didn't meekly plead, but they also didn't create a ruckus. They just said, "we should get this, and this is why." They defended their case. They were assertive and wanted justice. Moses appealed directly to God, who said that the sisters were right and the law should be changed.

Rabbi expounded on this to say that God WANTS us to challenge laws if they are unfair. (Oh look, a basis for Reform Judaism in the Torah!!) Laws were created for a certain purpose, with intentions to be protective and just, but if they ever become unjust as circumstances and times change, we have a right and a responsibility to amend them. This is much of what I love about Reform Judaism (along with, among other things, wanting people to keep ritual observance meaningful rather than just doing what is proscribed by religious law even when it is habitual and unmeaningful).

Rabbi related this to the ordination of women, and then in the end brought up DOMA. She said, "Some say same-sex relationships are wrong because of what is written in the Torah. I say God has been waiting for us to make it right."

This is not just unique to our amazing rabbi. In synagogues across the country, communities celebrated and rabbis addressed this in their sermons with joy and satisfaction. It wasn't just gay people celebrating, but Jews. For Jews, any gain in social justice is a communal gain.

Do you understand why I feel so in love and at home?

<3

The Big 3-0

(I wrote this the day after my birthday and neglected to actually post it - so it is from almost two weeks ago.)

Yesterday was my 30th birthday. I am not the person who complains about getting older every year. On the contrary, I always thank God for blessing me with another year of life. When I was in my early twenties, a fellow camp counselor, who had just gotten engaged and was sweet and full of joy and life and kindness, was killed at the age of 22 by a drunk driver. It completely shook me up, and I have not been ungrateful for any birthdays since (and honestly wasn’t before, either, just because I was very young and wasn’t feeling age).

Now, all I feel is a little bit of restlessness with goals that may not have been achieved, or things I thought would be happening by a certain age that aren’t. I think this year’s is obvious, and having a milestone birthday really makes it sink in. I think young women set high standards for what 30 should be – what should have been accomplished, and what we expect our thirties to look like. I had wanted to have my first child at 30, and a year or so ago, settled for being pregnant 30. Now I would settle even for being able to say we are TRYING to get pregnant at 30. But we aren’t there.

I won’t go further into that because I want to stay focused on my gratitude, both for life and for the people in my life who made me feel so, so loved this year.

I was pretty disappointed initially, because the two things I really wanted for my birthday wouldn’t be happening. The first was ziplining. It’s on my “bucket list” and I had tried to arrange for a group of my friends to go on Saturday, but it didn’t work out. Everyone had other commitments such as planned vacations. It took a lot of work to try to coordinate it amongst everyone, and then to be the only one who booked was upsetting. I had to cancel my reservation and we all agreed to try again at the end of the summer, but obviously it wouldn’t be happening my birthday weekend.

The second was going to see the play Once. I’ve been dying to see it, and we never go to shows just because it’s not in our budget while we are always saving money for The Next Big Thing (wedding, house, now babies). I had been set on this for months. However, tickets were far more expensive than we had anticipated and we just felt we shouldn’t spend on that right now. For the short amount of time between that and Nicole coming up with another idea, I just felt so disappointed and let down. I admit I had a miniature pity party. But my birthday ended up being so, so wonderful.

Nicole booked an excursion for us in Juneau, which was the one town that no one in our family had booked anything. She then invited the rest of my family if they chose, while understanding they may not want to spend the money to go. My parents agreed to accompany us almost immediately, and my sister and brother-in-law decided to minutes before the excursion. It was SO much fun having all of us together. We went to a salmon hatchery, Mendenhall Glacier, and a salmon bake, and it was an absolute blast. I felt so loved that they would all come on an excursion that they would not otherwise have done.

Back in Seattle after the cruise, my parents took Nicole and me to lunch at the top of the Space Needle. The restaurant rotates sloooowly so that you get to see the entire Seattle landscape during your meal. It was so beautiful. Because it rotates, some people leave notes on the sill which doesn’t move so that others will find them. Unbeknownst to me, my mother had put a note there saying they were from SC and were taking their daughter from NYC out to lunch for her 30th birthday. When I found the note, there was a “Happy Birthday” wish from someone in another state. By the end of the meal when we retrieved it, there were two more messages, one from Australia and one from Copenhagen, Denmark. So cool!

The Sunday before my birthday, our friend C took us on a picnic at the Nassau County Art Museum’s grounds, which were gorgeous and empty due to construction that week inside the museum. We had tuna salad, chicken salad, watermelon, cherries, grape leaves, and lemonade. C also brought a mini cake that was made in a Montauk bakery and had only whole ingredients in it. After lunch, we went to the Queens County Museum, where C bought me a cute gardening mug and a pail of alfalfa to feed the alpacas, sheep, and goats. Llamas and alpacas are my favorite animal and it did my soul good to pet and feed one.

Sunday evening, Nicole took me to dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant that is only a block from our house. On Saturday, I had asked if we could go over to her parents’ for dinner the next night because I like being around them for my birthday. Apparently she had already planned our dinner out, so she called them last-minute and asked if they would join us. Her parents, sister, and sister’s boyfriend were able to go. They gave me gift cards for Starbucks and Amazon and paid for the meal. So sweet of them.

Monday, my actual birthday, my coworkers had lunch with me (including a co-supervisor who was on vacation and came in just for this) and Allyson baked me a lemon raspberry cake from scratch. My best friend N sent flowers to the office for me. That evening, my friend C was driving down to pick up another friend on their way to Florida and stopped in to have frozen yogurt at Red Mango with us, which she treated.

Next week when we get out early the day before July 4th, N is taking me to a movie and dinner. Then later in the month, another friend J is taking me to the movies. (See a pattern here? Movies are my favorite thing and something my wife can’t do as it makes her motion sick.)

I feel so loved and spoiled.

Teaching Culture

I was reading an article the other day on Kveller (an online Jewish parenting site where various people blog) about the writer’s decision to send her youngest child to a Jewish day school after her two older children had gone to a non-Jewish private school. (The non-Jewish school was for boys only, and her youngest is a girl so she had to look elsewhere.) She spoke about all the incredible, advanced learning her boys have gotten that made her never question that decision, and then how she felt watching her daughter completely comfortable with songs, prayers, and rituals in the synagogue that her sons were awkward with or disengaged from.

This led to an interesting discussion in the comments among parents who have chosen to send their children to Jewish day schools and those who chose not to. One parent said that she resented the implication that kids couldn’t be raised to be comfortably observant Jews if they are in public school (or a non-Jewish private school). Another responded and said that this is true if you are able to maintain a strong Jewish home, but that she was not raised very observantly and her husband is not Jewish, so while she feels comfortable with the culture of Judaism that is a part of her family’s everyday life, she didn’t feel so comfortable with teaching the faith and religion and DID feel the need for the help of a Jewish day school for that. She stated that when you are not able to teach your kids much about religion at home, two hours of Hebrew school twice a week just doesn’t cut it to help your kids be grounded in their faith.

This whole conversation fascinated me (and there were many other people involved in it), but this in particular resonated with me in that I am kind of the opposite. I read so much about people having the “culture” of Judaism but not the religion, while I feel I have more of the religion and have to be taught the culture.

Right before my conversion in April, my mother-in-law revealed to me that while her grandmother was very observant, her mother wasn’t, so she was not raised with the religion of Judaism. She eventually felt the need for her children to have what she didn’t, and that is when she attempted to start involving them in a local synagogue. However, my wife and her brother were teenagers and felt uncomfortable with this and were just never interested in participating. My wife’s sister, however, who was seven years younger, immediately gravitated toward it and began attending Hebrew school and became a bat mitzvah. When my mother-in-law attended events at the synagogue for her youngest child, she says she felt an immediate connection. She felt that despite not feeling so familiar with the religion, she immediately felt like she was with her people: the way they looked, the way they acted, their mannerisms, the traditions, the sayings, the superstitions. This is what made her feel like a Jew for the first time, to realize that she IS a Jew no matter what.

THIS is what I feel the need to teach and pass on to my children. I feel 100% comfortable with the religion of Judaism. It’s not so different from the faith I grew up with, after all, and no different from what I have believed for the past ten years of my life. That part of conversion was nearly seamless for me. It is the culture that I have had to become accustomed to. It is the culture that I crave, that I want to be at home with. I am an eager immigrant who received my citizenship but will still always feel like an outsider in a way. This is not in a bad way – I don’t feel ostracized or isolated or left out. I just feel an eagerness to have what I can’t, because my love and sense of belonging is so strong.

I want my kids to grow up identifying with their Jewish heritage not just in their faith and religious practices, but in the way we communicate as a family that matches what they see in other Jewish families, patterns of relating that Jews can affectionately joke about because they know it about themselves and see how it sets them apart. And this is yet another (if newly realized) reason that I want to raise our family with an active temple life. They will get some of the culture at home; some of it has rubbed off on Nicole from her upbringing by a Jewish mother (certainly her way of communicating, which is very different from mine!), some of it has rubbed off on both of us from our exposure to our own Jewish community at our temple, and some of it we learn piece by piece and incorporate into our lives as we go along without even meaning to or realizing it. But what we miss, I hope they are able to pick up elsewhere. And if not…then they will grow up with their mixed culture of being an observant Jew raised by a convert and a former agnostic, and that’s okay too. It will all be part of their story and will make them the beautiful people that they will be.

Edit: I was talking to my friend Allyson about this over lunch yesterday, and she said that because I chose Judaism and because of my passion for it and the way I am already practicing it, my kids will have much more of a culture than unfortunately most American born Jews are giving their kids. Hearing that perspective put me a bit more at ease too.

Our "Last Hurrah" (as my wife has named it)

For my parents' 35th wedding anniversary, our entire family (three of us "kids" and our spouses) went on a cruise to Alaska. This has been spoken about and planned for close to two years, and booked for over a year. Nicole and I spent a few days in Seattle on our own before the cruise, and then we had a full week of fun and relaxation with my family. It was amazing, and I could have journaled a full entry every day if I'd had access to Blogger. I did bring a hard journal, but ended up using it more for written prayers in the form of letters to God. Totally unplanned but was a perfect and natural way to express my appreciation of all that was around me, and considering it is my most comfortable form of expression, I'm surprised I haven't done this sooner.

But I digress. Since I did not journal while I was away, I need to keep this to a normal length, and will try to do so by just bullet-pointing the highlights for me to cherish further down the road.

• The Inn at the Market - We splurged on two nights at this sweet inn right in the thick of Pike Place Market. We used the beautiful rooftop patio overlooking Puget Sound so many times in those couple of days, and almost always had it to ourselves.
• Seattle Aquarium - It hung over the sound, used fresh water directly from the sound for its exhibits, and had wave pools for fish to mimic what they're used to in shallow waters.
• Shabbat service in Seattle, and Shabbat non-service on the ship - I will have to do a separate post for this! I love, love, love making field trips to other synagogues, and travel is the perfect opportunity since we are torn from our beloved home temple anyway.
• Spending laidback, quality bonding time with my sister-in-law and brother-in-law, and likewise having us kids watch our spouses bond and interact. Irreplaceable.
• Being served hot toddies in our room to enjoy under blankets on our balcony while we watched the calving of glaciers right before our very eyes and heard the thunder of their crash into the ocean.
• Taking a train through the mountains to a snow-capped peak, winding our way on a track that would be far too dangerous for roads and cars, feeling totally enveloped by the pristine Alaskan wilderness.
• Seeing humpback whales breaching while we were at breakfast.
• The abundance of bald eagles in their natural habitat, perched on pilings and icebergs.
• Mendenhall Glacier - WOW.
• Nicole taking me on an excursion to a salmon bake as an early birthday present, and being accompanied by my parents, sister, and brother-in-law as well. Eating fresh-caught wild Alaskan salmon cooked over an alderwood fire and then toasting marshmallows in the rain.
• 11:08 PM sunset and 3:53 AM sunrise
• Floating in Lake Union on a duck tour in Seattle, with a view of the Space Needle, houseboats, kayakers, and a seaplane taking off.
• Dinner at the top of the Space Needle with my wife and parents as an early birthday celebration while we could all be together. Rotating around in the restaurant and finding a note my mom had planted on the stationary sill which now held birthday greetings from tourists from Copenhagen and Australia.
• Sunshiney days in Seattle while it thunderstormed back in NYC.

Thankful that I didn't keep a regular journal while I was there...there would be a heck of a lot of transcription going on right now. These highlights will have to do. And since a picture is worth 1000 words...

Divided We Fall

I read an interesting article the other day about Hebrew Union College possibly not admitting rabbinical students who are in interfaith marriages. The article was by a Reform rabbi in a same-sex marriage. The debate in the comments was fascinating, and while the author had originally made a very convincing case, the resulting conversation showed me both sides of it and now I don't know WHAT I feel!

But what struck me most in the comments was the openly hostile attitude from many Orthodox Jews toward Reforms. There were soooo many commenters who just dismissed the author entirely and wouldn't even engage in a conversation around this because she is Reform and because HUC isn't "valid" anyway. The remarks weren't just dismissive or condescending - they were angry and disgusted, with the interfaith marriage bit being just a detail on the side. There were people saying that it doesn't matter what this author does since she isn't really a rabbi. Others said it was silly that the HUC would worry about anything since there are no standards as it is for ordaining rabbis. Others said since this rabbi is part of a movement that completely dismisses and undermines the Torah anyway, it isn't surprising that she would take this stance.

The attitudes were just devastating to me. Is it a surprise to me that many Orthodox Jews do not see liberal Judaism as valid? Not at all. Reform rabbis are duty-bound to inform candidates for conversion that their conversion will most likely not be seen as valid in the Orthodox sect, and my rabbi let me know this from the get-go. It was mildly irritating in an eye-rolling way, but not something that affected my decision. I see it in my Orthodox colleague's lack of recognition of me as a Jew - no congratulations upon my conversion, no "Chag Sameach" at holidays we both share in, nothing. I feel it, and I have to let it roll off me the same as someone who is anti-gay chatting merrily with me until something related to home life comes up, when they suddenly nod and smile and look away as they try to find a way to wriggle out of what seems to me like normal conversation.

Now that I know more about the other denominations, I think I could just as happily have converted to Reconstructionist or Conservative Judaism (equally dismissed by Orthodox), but never, ever Orthodox. If my only option in Judaism was a strict, literal interpretation of the Torah and accepting institutionalized sexism, I couldn't have gotten on board. There is a reason so many Jews broke off from this. But to think that so many Jews, our own brothers and sisters (though they may not see US that way), dismiss us as Jews is hurtful. I wanted to yell back at some of the commenters as they talked about not taking the Torah seriously - I dare them to sit in ONE service or Torah study with my rabbi and not feel the absolutely infectious love and respect she has for Torah.

I think what frustrates me is that I don't have a negative view of Orthodox Jews. I respect them for their discipline in following Torah the way they feel is right. I am grateful to them for being fruitful and multiplying, since Reforms aren't quite as good at that and tend to have smaller families. I can allow them room to be a little skeptical or disagree with how liberal Jews of all denominations interpret Jewish law. But why the hatred? What good does it serve any of us to dismiss, look down upon, and express anger and disgust toward one another? And for what, when we are all just trying to follow our hearts and our God and live good, holy lives? I can't imagine using up any of my energy on directing hatred toward my kinsfolk. There is so much to be grateful for, and so much to do in the world, and that's where my focus is. If another Jew isn't hurting anyone, I'm really not worried about what she's doing or how she's practicing. I guess it's just hard for me to understand, and it is certainly disappointing.

My First Shavuot (I barely knew what it was last year)

Shavuot commemorates the receiving of Torah and the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, and is also a harvest festival in that Jews in ancient times counted down from Passover to Shavuot (the period after liberation from slavery in Egypt in which Jews wandered through the wilderness until revelation at Mount Sinai) by giving offerings of barley, culminating in a wheat offering on Shavuot itself. (Was that run-on sentence long enough?) Now the counting of the omer (a unit of measure for the offerings) is observed through steps toward personal refinement to prepare oneself to spiritually receive the Torah on Shavuot, remembering the moment at Mount Sinai and recommitting to accepting the Torah for oneself.

I have been fortunate enough to belong to a temple that has offered many ways to observe the counting of the omer (which by all means is not observed by a majority of Reform Jews) in a way that is meaningful and relevant. This has included the rabbi working elements and themes into services and Torah study, as well as offering a four-part series on “Great Jewish Books” and a four-part series of meditation workshops. I have recently discovered that this is pretty unique to our synagogue and our rabbi, and that many, many congregations do not provide such opportunities for meaningful observance. Maybe this is because it is technically a “minor” holiday, or maybe it is because, as I recently read in an article in Tablet, modern American Jews struggle to find meaning in the holiday and are largely unobservant of it, and it is hard to continue offering something for which people are simply not showing up. But I also think that non-participation can be a self-fulfilling prophecy; it takes time, thoughtfulness, and energy on the part of the clergy to infuse all aspects of religious observance in this period with connections to Shavuot in order to get people engaged and invigorated. Once you do that, it is up to people to choose whether or not to engage and participate, and you certainly can’t force them to get excited and find meaning in it - but without at least the information and the opportunity, you would have no one! And that seems to be exactly what is happening in many places.

I feel so lucky that there have been plenty of opportunities within my synagogue to be observant of this very special holiday, opportunities to keep our brains engaged and to focus on our own spiritual development by challenging us to watch how we are living and make conscious efforts to refine much of that through the smallest of choices in how we behave. I even have an awesome “My Omer” app on my phone that has allowed me to check off each day and has given a meditative exercise based on the weekly themes.

This period culminated in a mini Tikkun Leil Shavuot last night. This is a study session that traditionally goes all through the night and provides continued and intensive opportunities to mentally and spiritually prepare for Shavuot. There are many places in Manhattan that offer all-night study sessions, which my old soul with my 10:30 bedtime would never be able to accomplish, as much as I’d love to. I was grateful for the opportunity to get a taste of it, and to do so with people I am becoming familiar with in my own temple. The first hour was led by our cantor, who taught a lesson on “eco-poetry,” which involved discussion and analysis of nature-themed poems by Israeli artists. The second hour was led by our rabbi, who taught from different texts about the Torah. I can definitely see the appeal of staying up all night having discussions like that. What an awesome way to bring in Shavuot! We ended with a sweet ritual in the sanctuary, in which we recommitted ourselves to the pursuit of Torah and each got to hold it. (So glad I got to practice that for my conversion or I would have been terrified! It went much more smoothly this time.)

This morning was the festival service, and I had asked permission to come to work late so I could attend. Let me preface this by saying I knew this holiday would hold more significance for me than is probably typical, compared to other more major and highly celebrated holidays. This is simply because it is soooo relevant to my recent – and current! – experience as a Jew-by-choice. The holiday commemorates what was basically a mass conversion, where each person chose for themselves to accept Torah and follow God through Jewish practices and teaching. And on top of that, there is a reading from the scroll of Ruth about her decision to follow her deceased husband’s faith and commit herself to God, Judaism, and the Jewish people even after his death, when she had the option – and was even encouraged – to return to her community of origin. I mean, how could this NOT be a major holiday for me? But I really didn’t expect to be as emotional as I was. As much as the Tikkun Leil Shavuot had fueled my brain and overall energy, this service fed my heart and soul in a way I could not have anticipated.

I became very and uncontrollably emotional at a totally unexpected moment, before the Torah or the story of Ruth were even read. It washed over me almost out of nowhere. Rabbi encouraged us to envision ourselves at the foot of Mt. Sinai (midrash says that every Jewish soul that ever was and ever will be was there accepting Torah) as we took a moment for our silent prayer and meditations. I sent up a very simple and brief prayer. All I thought was, “Thank you, God, for leading me here and allowing me the opportunity to accept Torah and Judaism.” After that it was all emotion. It overwhelmed me even as I finished those words, and I just started crying. I didn’t have sobbing breaths, but it was definitely more than damp eyes. Tears streamed down my face and I felt unexpectedly and undefinably overcome. In that instant, I felt like I had just come out of the mikvah again. I felt a similar sense of awe and humility, and probably an even more intense feeling of gratitude.

From that point on, it was over for me. Fresh tears came over me as the Torah was brought around, then again as Cantor chanted the Ten Commandments from the Torah, and yet again as I recited the most powerful and emotional “Sh’ma” of my life. The intensity of my emotions completely surprised me, but were also very welcome, and I didn’t feel self-conscious at all. I just felt a bit of effort to hold myself together and not let myself completely go, as I was definitely on the verge and easily could have gone into full weeping. How incredible to unexpectedly feel so emotional just days after I had finally started feeling myself even out!

I kind of wish I could make an addendum to my beit din, for when they asked what my favorite holiday was, my answer was something like, “They are all still so exciting and new that I don’t yet have a favorite. I love them all equally. But I’m sure that will change as I experience them a few more times, get more familiar with them, and make different personalized associations with each of them.” I'm pretty sure I have a clear favorite now!

This may not be true all my life. What I find personal and meaningful and emotional even ten or twenty years from now may be very different. My conversion may even be a distant memory amidst a busy, full emotional life in which I have come to take my Judaism for granted and am focused on and distracted by so many other things. How intense my joy and pride after high school graduation just twelve years ago, and yet I am barely nostalgic for it now. I know intellectually that it was a time of pure, unbridled ecstasy and excitement, but no photos can invoke that feeling in me again now. It already feels so much a part of my past. I’m hopeful that my descriptive journal entries will help me be able to re-experience all of this on an emotional level, as I do with things that happened as long ago as 2004 when I really began intensive journaling that was more about my emotional processes and less about chronicling events. But even so, it would take intentional reading to evoke those feelings again. I will have to work to provoke that nostalgia. It will not always be such a part of my everyday emotional makeup, and therefore Shavuot may not always hold such meaning for me.

Although even as I say that, I realize that it may still hold just as much meaning, even if the emotions aren’t as raw and fresh. It will likely never again feel the way it did a mere three weeks after my conversion, and for that I will be able to cherish my first Shavuot forever. But when this is all so normal and I’ve forgotten the intensity of it all and the emotions aren’t as powerfully overwhelming, may the celebration of Shavuot always serve as my reminder that I chose Judaism long before it became official, and will continue choosing it every day for the rest of my life.

Settling In (as a Jew)

It's finally happening. I am coming down from the high of my conversion, which I was riding long before it actually happened. (Jewish) life is settling in around me, and I am content. I am still eager to learn, but with a more normal and sustainable level of excitement, rather than with the urge to run and dance and jump around that has had me swept up for months. No high can be maintained forever, and the silver lining is that I know now what being Jewish feels like from a typical, everyday perspective - it feels comforting and content and secure and stimulating. When Rabbi asked me a few weeks before my conversion how I thought it would feel on April 20 (the day following my conversion), how I feel now is exactly what I described - normalcy, calm, a seamless fit in my everyday life. But it took me a few weeks to get here.

I haven't lost my passion and excitement. They are just at a different level because Judaism is infused into my life rather than something I'm excitedly reaching for almost outside of my life. I will never lose the shine in my eyes for Judaism (as Rabbi said to me on the bimah April 19 as I positively glowed) and, as a Jew by choice, I don't think it's possible to completely take it for granted. I sure hope not. But this feeling of normalcy makes me feel even more authentically Jewish, because now it's just what I do, it's just my life. Just like my everyday life with my wife makes me feel more happily and contentedly married than the giddy honeymoon glow that I knew would not last forever, and what would it be followed by?

Another silver lining to this is that my comfort level has increased even more. I feel just slightly more comfortable talking to Rabbi when I see her (still not completely, because I will always be socially shy) and even more comfortable than before talking and asking questions during Torah study and other events. Again, still a level of shyness, but not so much self-consciousness like there was before. I'm still Rabbi's #1 fan and think she's amazing, but it's a little less "OMG we have to go to such and such, I want to hear Rabbi and just be around her, she's so incredible!!!!" and a little more just admiration and respect for the level of intelligence and insight and spirituality she brings into every discussion, a feeling I'm sure I share with every other member of our congregation. I feel less like a fangirl, and more like a member on equal footing.

Today this same brilliant and lovely rabbi made a beautiful point in Torah study about the opposite but equally important concepts of God as almighty and awe-inspiring (malchut) and God as an indwelling presence within our world and within each person (shechinah). She used the last verse of Leviticus juxtaposed with the first verse of Numbers to show this, in that the first is about God speaking to the people from Mt. Sinai and the second is about God speaking to the people within their own space. This led to an awesome conversation about "peak" experiences in our own lives, miraculous or very emotional events that makes us feel over-the-moon connected to God, which is like God revealing Godself at Sinai in such a massive way, versus our more common baseline experience with God where we have to search a little more to find God within ourselves, our daily lives, and the small moments around us.

Finding that subtle difference in nearly identical verses and being able to expound on that in a way that makes it completely relevant to our lives is just incredible to me. Never before in my life would I think the Torah portion on census could have anything to do with me! Judaism is so intellectual and so spiritual at the same time, and I remain smitten around every new corner. I never would have thought it possible to sit down with a clergy and have these kinds of conversations full of light-bulb moments.

Yes, I may be more settled and less dancing down the hallways, but I am building a deeper and more mature love every day. I hope my kids, who will be blessed to have the ability to take their Judaism for granted, can find and develop this same love.