Life Savers, Tic Tacs and Strawberry Rhubarb Shmoo

Greg is off to become a Jew this morning. This process has taken him almost 2 years, but I'm sure it has felt much longer for him. He already has had his symbolic circumcision or his "hatafat dam brit", this morning he went before a panel of three rabbis, also known as "Bet Din", and then at 1:00 today he will be dunked, also called the "mikveh." I'm truly impressed with his dedication to the process, not just what has been required of him, but also his own desire to learn and explore something that I think I have probably taken for granted.

I was born Jewish, and while I attended Sunday school and Hebrew school and everything else, being Jewish has been different for me. Sunday school was never pleasant for me, I didn't have a ton of friends in my classes and never really felt like I fit in. In fact, I remember having one friend in Sunday school who was one year ahead of me. She wore a Raiders parka and had really high bangs.

In regular school I remember being one of three other Jewish students in the class and we would have to go up in front of the class twice a year and talk about Chanukah and Passover and explain to the non-Jewish kids what the holidays were about. I felt different, but I'm not sure I felt special.

After my Bat Mitzvah I remember feeling proud and accomplished, like I had made it. It felt good to be Jewish, but still different. Temple was never a place I wanted to go and I remember resenting Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur because they often fell around the same time as my birthday. It wasn't necessarily Judaism that I didn't like, but temple wasn't a comfortable place for me.

When my dad passed away in 1995 and had the falling out with the Rabbi, that was when I questioned Judiasm. I questioned the Rabbi and felt like he let me down. I don't regret saying what I said at my dad's kaddish and I would probably say it again ...I knew something was right, and I said it. I'm sure many people think that my timing was off, that I shouldn't have said what I said when I said it, but I wouldn't change a thing.

After that, being Jewish was not about going to temple, it was about something I did with my family, something that connected me with different people around me ... family traditions and lots of food. I really owe my mom for making sure Judaism never left my life. Getting me to temple was probably never easy, but she made sure we were there and she surrounded us with loving people and created a new family for us, she made sure we knew that being Jewish was important.

I remember going to temple and sitting in the way back. Sleeping through half of the service and waking up for some of the songs. (In fact, I still sing a lot of the songs on a weekly basis, mostly in the shower. I'm sure Greg has enjoyed them. I think it was my singing that made him want to convert, I have such a lovely singing voice and they are quite catchy tunes.) My mom would give us lifesavers and tic -tacs and we would bug her about when we would get to leave. We were allowed to leave the service and play in the hallway, but only during the sermon. For the longest time I didn't even know what a sermon was, I basically thought it was "break time."

When I went away to college Judaism came with me. I didn't attend temple until the firebombings in 1999, but I always felt connected. Maybe I didn't appreciate what it meant to be Jewish until then, or maybe I just was waiting for the Rabbi to retire before going back, or maybe I was just being lazy...it was probably a combination.

Being Jewish has never been about a belief in God for me ... I question God a lot and his/her existence, and I think that's a part of it. I think questioning is a big part of being Jewish for me. More importantly, Judaism is about culture and tradition and family.

Greg's curiosity and interest in Judaism has helped bring me back and given me a new perception about what it means to be Jewish. Our wedding was one of the happiest days of my life and having a Jewish ceremony was something that helped make it so memorable.

I always knew that I would raise my child Jewish. I never cared if my partner was Jewish or not, but he had to be willing to raise our kids the same way I was raised. Not everything we do or have done in my family has been the most "traditional" ... but Judaism is something that is with me.

I love incorporating our family traditions with knew ones. I can't wait to share latkes with BHR for Chanukah and Matza pancakes with him on Christmas. I love Passover ... eating Gaby's strawberry rhubarb shmooey stuff and reading my mom and Greg's new haggadah. I love that it's a living document. My mom wrote it and Greg and Lucas have both contributed over the years. It's nice to feel that being Jewish is special, that it's an honor ... I thank my mom and Greg for reminding me.

Now that Greg is a Super Jew he can make sure that BHR knows all of the history, I can sing him the songs, my mom can give him lifesavers and tic tacs and we can all eat latkes and matza brie and be thankful that we're Jewish and get to eat such tasty food.