Converting to Judaism

I haven't written in this blog in a while, so I guess I've neglected to mention that I recently joined a writer's group! It was something I'd toyed with doing for a while, but hadn't actually done anything about (like oh, so many things in my life). My first meeting was two weeks ago, and I attended a second one last night. Most of the meetings are taken up by readings by members. It's delightful to sit and listen to people reading stories and so far I've been impressed by the quality of the writing and storytelling by this small group of people.

Going in last night, I had decided I should jump right in and get my feet wet. I'd thought about writing something specially for the occasion - perhaps a short story based on a character from one of the two Big Ideas I have for novels. But in the end, I played it safe (and easy) and chose a personal essay I'd written in 1993 about my experience as a young girl converting to a new religion. I'd had it on my website for a while and it had received a lot of positive feedback, so I was confident it would go over well with my new writers' group. So, here it is...

CONVERTING TO JUDAISM
Patti M.
Copyright 1993
(No part of this work may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the author).

At the age of nine, it's not likely that a girl will choose to take her own path, when that of her mother follows a new direction. So when my mother asked me if I wanted to convert to Judaism with her, I said yes. And so did my 6-year-old brother.

As children, we were only expected to learn the rules of the Jewish road before being formally accepted. Somewhat like memorizing the traffic laws before taking your driver's test. So we were enrolled in Hebrew school right away and twice a week, after our regular school day was over, we were driven to the Jewish school on the other side of town, and tutored in the laws and language of the Jewish people. We also had pay weekly visits to Mr. Masor for special tutoring to help us catch up to the "real" Jewish kids. We'd lost a lot of time, being born Anglican.

Our classmates seemed to feel we were intruders of some kind. Spies infiltrating into the privileged ranks of the "Chosen People." After a couple of years among them I beat them at their own game by becoming the top student in my class, able to spout Jewish law with one hand holding the Talmud behind my back. My teachers loved me.

And so, I found, did the pre-Bar Mitzvah crowd, who somehow managed to find me exotic and alluring. They contrived to sit behind me in class, passing love letters and poking me with their pencils. One of them proved his devotion one frigid winter evening by filling my toque with the contents of an industrial-sized pencil sharpener.

I guess in the end I was only doing all this to please my mother, who was also attending classes of her own, with a bona fide rabbi no less. When she had first approached him asking to be converted, he had sent her away, saying she had to prove that she really meant to devote herself to the Jewish faith. No way were they going to let her in the door unless she went all the way to Orthodoxy. She had to prove that she would be a good pork-shunning, candle-lighting, sit-in-the-back-of-the-synagogue Jewish woman. The real thing. She even had to go out and buy three more sets of china and silverware -- the ones we aready had would be kept for milk meals, one new set was designated for meat meals and the other two sets for milk and meat meals during Passover only. This was probably the most difficult part of the whole procedure for my mother, considering she was barely managing to support us, a single mother with three jobs. The expense of all this dinnerware must have been staggering.

But she practiced her target religion with the fervent devotion of the convert, adopting bizarre foreign customs, performing strange rituals in the kitchen on Friday nights, and trying all the while to make it seem like fun for Casey and I.
Finally the day came when we were to be converted. The three of us piled onto a Greyhound bus one bright winter morning, and headed to Montreal. Of course, everyone knows, only the best Jews live in Montreal. Our first stop was the Mikvah.

The Mikvah ritual is not unlike baptism. It takes place in a special building which houses what could be described as a big, tiled hot tub without the water jets. Orthodox Jews believe that a menstruating woman is unclean. Well, at least Orthodox Jewish men believe that. The most devout of them will not even share a dinner table with their wives while they have their period. Once the offending natural process has been over for a few days, the woman must take herself to the Mikvah to be purified again before she may touch her husband. So here we were, two dirty little heathen children, needing to be purified.

I was made to remove all my clothes behind a big white towel that a strange woman held up for me. The rabbi stood just a few feet away, and I was terrified that he would see me naked. When I was finished undressing, I was told to walk into the Mikvah and duck myself completely under the water. As I did, the rabbi chanted prayers in Hebrew and watched to be sure that every tiny bit of me was touched by the sanctified water. He kept telling me, through the Mikvah attendant, to duck my head under over and over, because he could see that a few strands of my long hair were floating on top of the water, and they had to be soaked before he would be satisifed. Most amazing of all, I even had to open my eyes underwater, so they would be purified too.

Once he was convinced that all my wicked Anglican flesh had been well doused, he directed me to get out of the water. I walked shyly up the tiled steps into the waiting towel, and as I was rubbed and dried by my mother, my little brother was given the treatment that I had just received. (A few days later he confessed to me that he had refused to open his eyes underwater. I couldn't help thinking that meant he was still partly Anglican.)

Afterwards, shivering in our towels, the rabbi asked us what our Hebrew names were to be. We had been warned about this part, so we were prepared. Casey boldly said he would like to be named David. "Why David?" the rabbi asked him. "Because David was a King!" Casey responded confidently. So, Casey became David.

Then the rabbi turned to me and asked what I would be named. I had give this question much thought, and proudly told the bearded man I wanted to be named Ruth. "Why?" "Because Ruth became a Jew like I'm becoming a Jew, and she said your people will be my people, your God will be my God". I could see the rabbi was impressed. I knew he would be, after all I was at the top of my Hebrew class.

Casey and I were ready to bust loose after all that, but there was one more thing that needed to be attended to. After dressing, we followed the rabbi down the street to a nearby building and then up a narrow flight of stairs to a waiting room with comfortable chairs and a woman typing behind a desk. My mother and I were directed to sit down, while the rabbi took my brother by the hand and led him to a door on the other side of the room. The rabbi knocked and shortly the door was answered by a man who I could only describe as looking like Santa at a funeral. When he opened the door, I noticed that it was deeply padded with leather, like the back of an easy chair. I asked my mother why was the door padded like that. She just stared, wide-eyed.

Casey was led into the room, the door was shut, and I amused myself with the magazines laid out on a table before me. I figured I would be going in there soon myself. But a moment later, filtered through the thick padded door, came two short, muffled cries. The kind of sound a person might make if they could see the guillotine descending down upon their neck. And then a scream as clear and piercing as if he had been standing beside me. Then silence.

I jumped up off my chair and instantly started to wail, as much in fear for myself, as concern for my brother. Mom grabbed me and buried my face in the wool her still-frosty coat. I asked her what had happened to Casey, and when she told me, I felt my stomach attempting to rise up through my throat. But I was no longer afraid for myself. You see, my wide-awake six-year-old brother had gone into that room to be circumsized.

I never felt quite the same about Judaism after that. All it ever did was make me more different than I already was. And seven years later, when I told my boyfriend on the phone that I didn't even believe in God, I could hear a tiny voice in the back of my mind, screeching through layers of sound-muffling leather pads.