In AcDec sophomore year, Mark kicked my knee
and teased  ’til I would, like a burro, bray,
“Manar and I are friends; just friends are we.”

I said the same to Coach, amused to see
that I would go to visit every day.
And now I ask you, “Go to prom with me.”

It’s strange for me to count the years up: three.
I’m glad – though now we don’t talk every day -
that you and I’ve stayed friends; that friends are we.

I thought to bring a girl who’s more “carefree”…
But no. After a year or two’s delay,
I’ll still be glad you came to prom with me.

And though you deserve a better-written plea,
(I don’t write quite like you, not near half-way…)
since you and I are friends, since  friends are we,
Manar, would you please go to prom with me?

Assuming that my parents and I can figure out how to pay for it, I am going to go.

This is my opportunity to catch up on years of Jewish education I didn’t have, and to forge social connections with Jewish peers who care about Judaism. This is my opportunity to sneak in to the final chapter of the life of the engaged Conservative Jewish young person: I may not have done Camp Ramah or USY, but I’ll spend four years crammed like sardines into dorms with the kids who did. I’m extremely grateful to my rabbi, who wrote the ‘letter’ (e-mail) of recommendation that got me in.

The task was simple: marry the two spouses, let them each keep their own identities, and keep the family happy; both parties need to be able to understand the text. It really shouldn’t be that difficult, I thought. So I formed an Ecclesia and a Synagoga, a Christian and a Jewish self, within myself, and tried to marry them, to force them to marry in my own mind and, in so doing, force them to marry outside of it. My weekends became confusing: Friday night— synagogue, Sunday afternoon— church, and in between, on the Sabbath, both selves lived together in the company of other equally-confused, equally-complicated, equally-dedicated persons.

From those persons, I learned how to force the two to wed: steal their genetic material, and engineer babies out of wedlock. I looked at other people’s babies, to learn how to make my own. At first, they fascinated me; I could make out bits of each parent in the children: Ecclesia’s gestures, vocabulary, practices, concerns, leadership; Synagoga’s talismans, rituals, calendars, language, loyalties, sometimes even worship practices. I thought perhaps that these children held the future, that they could force the parents to wed. But as I got to know the children better— to play with them, sometimes teach them things, learn from them, start to look like one myself— I began to long for each of their parents. I realized that my love for both parents did not mean a love for the children they stubbornly refused to recognize.

So, instead of forcing them to wed, so I did not have to choose between them, I chose one. I moved in Synagoga, with the children of the characters of the stories of my youth, with the faith that sanctified and blessed throwing one’s self into books, with the faith that had the balls to legislate its prohibition on usury out of existence, and I gave up on my quest—the quest for the ketubah to marry them, the quest to avoid making a choice. Instead, I took my residence in Synagoga’s house, and chuckled silently to myself when she snuck out for late-night dalliances, whether with Ecclesia (or with ‘Ummah, or Dharma, or Scientia, or any of her other lovers). I gave up on trying to wed them, to draw up papers and regulate their interactions, and instead contented myself with watching them sneak off together, treasuring the lovers’ gifts, and praying not to catch their diseases.

I am giving up because the task is, frankly, impossible. I am giving up because the task is undesirable: as soon as Ecclesia and Synagoga are married, they will disappear. I will have to live only with their bastards, and I would rather not. I am giving up out of love both for Ecclesia and Synagoga. I am giving up in the name of God.

Left to Hear From:

• Eugene Lang College
• Joint Program (JTS + Columbia)
• New York University
• University of Chicago (on financial aid)

Heard From:

• American University
• University of Texas at Austin
• Brandeis University
• University of Chicago (on admission)

Still Might Apply To:

• American Jewish University

• A date was finally set for my conversion to Judaism: early August.
• I was reminded to contact Juan Mejia, who gives me some hope that it is possible to be a convert/returner to Judaism and a rabbi.
• I accepted my fate: my relationship to other Jews my own age will always be slightly comical. For example, let’s assume that I go to American University this fall. Come Rosh HaShanah or Yom Kippur, I will be sitting in my chair surrounded by my fellow students. I will know my way intellectually and theologically around what is happening in the service, but will be unable to sing along, as I will be more familiar with the Sephardic melodies that I learned from my Crypto–Jewish teachers than the standard-issue white-bread Ashkenazic tunes. I will never have the BBYO or USY or NFTY or Ramah experiences that will allow them to relate to each other through shared social networks and childhood memories; but I will be familiar with Heschel, Kaplan, Hartman, Soloveitchik, etc. etc. It’s best that I take this as comical, and take pride in my status as a convert, rather than feel ashamed or awkward about it forever.
• I can finally articulate why I’m converting Conservative over Orthodox. In Dallas, there is a weird intersection between Jewish Republicans (who exist here in greater numbers than anywhere else on earth), Christian Zionists, Messianics, and the Orthodox community. These (presumably sundry) groups all unite on a common basis that alternatively scares and revulses me: ardent financial and political support for Settler Judaism; militant hatred of gays, lesbians, Arabs, Persians, and Muslims; soupy hyper-emotional spirituality; and an extremely fundamentalist tack to the Bible, Midrash, and rabbinic literature. I read Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Friedman when I was nine; two of my closest friends are Muslims, another one has two mothers. I really cannot put up with either the glorification of the head-in-sandbox approach to such things as science and history, or with people who openly wish for the deaths of all Muslims. If I wind up at the right kind of Modern Orthodox community in the future, we can definitely talk about an Orthodox conversion then. Until that point, a fully kosher conversion under the auspices of Jewish law will be fine for me.

• American University
• University of Chicago
• University of Texas at Austin

I would love to go to the University of Chicago from an academic standpoint, but I have no family in Chicago or the Midwest as a whole and I don’t think I’m going to get enough financial aid to allow me to pay for it (again, I turned the aid application in late). So… we can strike that off the list.

The University of Texas at Austin… I’d honestly rather just get out of Texas. I’ve always wanted to, and I think it’s time.

So… American still looks the most likely. If Brandeis offers me a more competitive aid package, then I’ll seriously think about it. If JTS offers me enough financial aid to make it worth my while, then I’ll seriously think about it. But, pending feedback from those institutions, American University it is.

If Chapter 1 introduced the “features of the Judaic tradition that encourage observant Jews to manifest a sense of adequacy, dignity, and initiative in their covenantal relationship with God”, then Chapter 2 introduces the corollary— the aspects of the tradition that deal with the overwhelming, initiative-crushing presence of an incomprehensible God.

One bit that jumped out at me was Hartman’s discussion of the conclusion to the famous story about Moses visiting the academy of Rabbi Akiva. Somehow, none of my teachers ever managed to make it to the ending:

[Moses] returned to the Holy One, blessed be He, and said: “Lord of the Universe, Thou hast such a man [as Akiva] and Thou givest the Torah by me?” He replied: “Be silent, for such is My decree.” Then said Moses: “Lord of the Universe, Thou hast shown me his Torah, show me his reward.” “Turn round,” said He; and Moses turned round and saw them weighing out his flesh in the market stalls. “Lord of the Universe,” cried Moses, “such Torah and such a reward?” He replied, “Be silent for such is My decree.” (Menahot 29b)

Hartman goes on to continue pointing out the tension between initiative and dread in the covenantal relationship with God, but I drew something else from the story: I should not necessarily expect that my love for Torah or my intellectual prowess will bring me success and happiness and joy, or rather, I should not study Torah because I think that the other side will be rainbows and sunshine. I pursue Judaism because (as cheesy as this sounds, even to me) I think religion matters, my spirituality sustains me, I love religious texts, and I find my connection to God centered in the Jewish tradition. Aspiring to be like Akiva when I grow up means acknowledging the risk of winding up like Akiva (a risk obviously lessened by living in a pluralistic democratic society with a Jewish state in existence, despite its ambivalent relationship to me as a convert). Aspiring to be like Maimonides means acknowledging the risk of having my books burned.

In “Fundamentals of a Covenantal Anthropology”, Hartman begins by describing a tendency toward human initiative in a covenantal relationship between God and the people Israel in the Bible and rabbinic literature. Unlike Noah, when faced with an impending catastrophe, Abraham negotiates with God out of a concern for human beings. The rabbinic sages continue to expound, develop, and interpret Jewish law after the cessation of prophecy, and view these insights as part of the revealed Torah itself.

I’m nodding my head through all of this so far, and while I know that not the entire span of Jewish tradition leads to this sort of optimism towards and confidence in human initiative within the framework of the covenant relationship, these components strengthen and validate my love for Judaism. In short, this is the Judaism I signed up for.

Two quotes jumped out at me, as a prospective convert, in particular:

“Despite the singling out of Abraham and his descendants, Abraham’s covenant has universal implications. As understood by the halakhah, Abraham’s covenant signifies rejection of the idea that covenantal faith commitments are defined by racial and biological conditions. The predominance of norms over biology and race is evident in the halakhic ruling that a convert who enters the covenant, of whatever sociocultural or racial background, may, in prayer, address God as “our God and God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac.” In singling out Abraham, God made covenantal religion accessible to all. Abraham is the father of any person who seeks to emulate his way of life and practice its values, norms, and beliefs.”

The affirmation of the possibility and significance of giyyur, clearly rooted in Hartman’s reading of Maimonides, is particularly helpful to me at this point in my journey. I have always deeply identified with the midrashic Abraham— a precocious child and iconoclast, breaking with stability and one’s familial home (in my case, Saturn Road church of Christ) for the sake of fidelity to God. I have always identified with the archetypal Maimonidean convert who, caught by the profound rationality and validity of Judaism, chooses it over other faiths, like Abraham. While my journey to the halakhic status of ger has brought with it an initiation into broader Jewish culture, my Jewish identity is primarily rooted in a “yes” response to the values and norms of Judaism. Hartman’s covenantal understanding of the Jewish people validates my decision to convert.

“The role of the rabbinic scholar in determining law supersedes the craving for the authoritative stamp of revelation. Through his ingenious methods of interpretation, the scholar becomes, as it were, the master of the text. The Talmud derides those who pay greater respect to the Torah scroll than its rabbinic interpreters, citing a typical example of rabbinic exegesis that indicates the interpreter over the text. Although the Torah specifies up to forty lashes as punishment for certain transgressions, the rabbis, through interpretation, reduced the number of lashes to thirty-nine…One remains on the spiritual level of Noah and simply “walks with God” if one feels inexorably bound to the literal word and permanently in need of revelation. In creative interpretation and commentary, rabbinic scholars “walk before God” in the spirit of Abraham.”

This passage epitomizes well why I prefer the spirit of observant Judaism to evangelical-charismatic Christianity, with its constant use of theological vocabulary to describe psychological processes, thoughts, and feelings, and with its constant pursuit of divine revelation in tandem with an anti-critical approach to sacred text to illumine every aspect of life. I have always been attracted to Judaism for its investment of the process of the study and deep exegesis of sacred text with religious spiritual significance, for the idea of Torah study as mitzvah.

I also find it interesting how well “those who pay greater respect to the Torah scroll than its rabbinic interpreters” describes most Messianics.

More soon.

American University, American Jewish University, Brandeis University, and the Joint Program / List College are now the primary options.

I’m biting my nails waiting for acceptance letters. I should’ve applied Early Action to Brandeis for free in November. Oh well. Too late now.

Despite all this, I knew very early on that I wanted to convert to Judaism. I can only describe my decision to convert in the way that transgender individuals describe a sex-change operation: when I was younger, I just knew there was something a little ‘off’ about me, and one day, nose buried in a library book, I realized what it was. So I spent five years trying to convince everyone who would listen that my halachic status was some kind of cosmic mistake. Now, finally, I can get my operation and have my halachic status match my truest self.

That said, there was a five year gap between deciding I wanted to convert to Judaism and reaching the age where I actually could— and I put that gap to good use. The way that someone who has a girlfriend can jokingly flirt with girls who know that nothing could ever come of it (at least, in theory), I was able to flirt with many life-structuring ideologies: Ultra-Orthodox Judaism, Neo-Hasidism, classical Conservative Judaism (epitomized by Louis Jacobs), evangelical Christianity, Anabaptist-tinged post-evangelical Christianity, the progressive Churches of Christ, liturgical Christianity, libertarian socialism, Sufi Islam, the atheist/scientific narrative. One “other woman” proved particularly tempting: the Jewish-Christian synthesis of Mark Kinzer gave me some kind of theological backing for all the flirtation, and I processed all my travels through that framework for a few years.

So now, after all of that, it’s time to actually marry the girlfriend, take the plunge (literally), and convert to Judaism. I need a theology that will account for the genuine spiritual vitality and intellectual rigor I encountered in my travels. It must be a theology that rigorously engages Jewish thought, and acknowledges and responds meaningfully to the existence of other religious traditions and ethical worldviews. On the other hand, it must be distinctively and centrally Jewish, and not a theological version of the dilettante religious lifestyle I lived for so many years. It must be a theology that emerges organically from the community of the Jewish people; it must be a demonstrably Jewish theology; and it must be willing to give other worldviews a respectful “no thank you” on behalf of the Jewish people.

It must not ask me to sacrifice my mind or my ethical conscience on the altar of fidelity to God or tradition, as my steadfast refusal to do this pushed me out of my church and began my religious inquiry to begin with. I left the Churches of Christ because I could not believe in a God who would send the woman I knew only as “abuela” to eternal conscious torment because she was baptized by immersion as a Baptist and not as a Church of Christ member; and because I believed such a god would be, frankly, evil.

So, with all that in the background, I approach A Living Covenant by David Hartman. While I’m not expecting Hartman to answer all the questions, I would just appreciate some help in fleshing out the framework where I can continue to explore and in learning how to relate to God as a member of the Jewish people, bound to it by covenant.

The concluding paragraphs of Hartman’s introduction lead me to believe that I will find what I’m looking for (at least partially) in the book’s pages:

“Pluralism requires an epistemological framework that limits the claim of revelation. It requires a political philosophy in which the unity of God does not imply one universal way for all humankind. However, before epistemological and political theory can chart new directions for Judaism, we need a conceptual framework in which covenantal consciousness is permeated by a religious sensibility that celebrates finitude and creatureliness as permanent features of covenantal life. A human sensibility that is open to and appreciative of the possibilities of pluralism is the foundation from which one can build a new epistemological understanding of revelation and halakhah.”