Stalled Journeys

Another year, another Pesach. It has been well over a year that I have been trying to reconnect with my Judaism. As can be witnessed by the dates of the posts here, documenting the journey hasn't gone that well either.


I've been wearing my kippah every day since Hanukkah 5777 (December of 2016, in case you don't want to check hebcal.com). This year my self-challenge was to start wearing tallit katan every day. That has been more of a challenge, but oddly enough it has had more to do with laundry and body heat than presenting as Jewish. Granted I generally tuck-in and don't wear the tzitzit out yet, or at least not out when I'm out. That's still a point of trying to avoid מַרְאִית עַיִן (marit ayin) and me doing something un-Jewish with my tzitzit out. Unlike covering my head with a baseball cap and going incognito, having a bunch of white strings tangling at your waistline is a little more obvious that something is up.




As for reconnecting with my community, I tried to start going to morning minyan again. You may recall last Pesach Sheni I decided to try to make the jump back into regular attendance. I spoke with the rabbi about rejoining the congregation and things seemed to be going okay, up until the next festival. Shavuot is a major festival on the Hebrew calendar but, from what I've ever witnessed in the local Conservative synagogues, it's not one of the "popular" holidays. It should be up there with Pesach and Sukkot. It celebrates G-d revealing the Torah to the nation of Israel at Sinai. I made a point to attend services that day and I regretted it.




I felt so out of place the entire time. It started out well enough I got a good seat, I got to be the magbiah and lift the Torah. Then, like an idiot, I accidentally mansplained what page we are on to the lady sitting next to me. Which wouldn't be so bad except I recognized her from my conversion classes 18 years ago. She and her husband had been friendly with my ex-wife and I back then but I guess we all drifted apart after my family moved away for awhile. I wanted to eat my shoe. 




After the service, I stepped back into the minyan room to grab my jacket and accidentally overheard the rabbi speaking to the elderly couple who run the daily minyan about how to handle a situation with a schnorrer. Were they talking about me? Were they talking about one of the other families who had joined us from a nearby smaller congregation? I had attended about a month's worth of morning minyanim but I had not yet spoken to the synagogue office about renewing my membership. I had been sure to drop a ten dollar bill in the tzedakah box each morning I attended (when most folks were dropping a dollar or a five spot at most). I felt mortified. 


At the luncheon after services I was relegated to sit with the other oddball non-member families at the table farthest from the rabbi. I had an overwhelming sense of not belonging. All of this on top of recently being outed by the rabbi as being a convert. To him it appeared to be an off hand comment, a fond memory from my conversion. We had joked at the time this was Conversion 2.0 as I had previously converted through the Reform movement and this was the "upgrade". But that was almost twenty years ago and I still hated being reminded of my conversion. 




It is my understanding that you shouldn't bring up a convert's past in general conversation. I'm stuck with a very obvious Scots-Irish surname that already causes plenty of people to raise an eyebrow and say, "I didn't know that was a Jewish name." To which I generally reply, "It is now" or "it's always been my name" as a deflection. I hate how I am immediately treated differently by Jews and non-Jews when it gets out that I converted. "Oh, so you're not really Jewish" has been heard from both sides and I honestly can't say which one bothers me more. 


Instead of addressing all of this with the rabbi, I did what I usually do and retreated inward. I just stopped going to minyan. I never called the front office about membership. I retreated back to my home version of Judaism. I have spent the last year watching videos about Jewish observance and reading as much as possible. I have two bookcases overflowing with Jewish reference books that I used to dig into every week. I'm thinking more and more about starting Daf Yomi and kick myself for not having this rejuvenation of Judaism before the current cycle started (August 3, 2012). I know I want to study Talmud, but I'm not sure if doing Daf Yomi isn't just an excuse for me to buy the Talmud set. (Side note, the set sold by Artscroll would look beautiful on my bookshelf but for $1800 I will likely just keep using Sefaria.)


But all of that and I haven't been back. I feel like I am a huge disappointment to the rabbi but at the same time I'm scared about my status as a convert. When he retires or (G-d forbid) passes away, who will remember that I am a Jew? Who will count me at a minyan? Will I be counted as a Jew in any other congregation I visit? I'm already worried enough that I'm pretty sure I can't make Aliyah to Israel due to the requirement of being active in a synagogue or community for the past year. Not that I am thinking of making Aliyah anytime soon, but it has always been a little reassuring knowing we have a safety net. 


Long story short (too late) I want to be more engaged in my Judaism. I am progressing in my daily observance at home. I took offense at a statement that probably wasn't about me and let it wreck my year. 


Now what?