Learning more and living Jewish

Life after that first conversion was not much different quantitatively, but there had been a shift in direction. I had been forced to choose to be Jewish, and I would never again take my Jewishness for granted. I wouldn't say that it was constantly on my mind, but it was certainly always at the back of my mind.

A lot happened in our personal lives over those next few years. We had to find a level of observance that was comfortable and livable. Comfortable regarding how are personal level of commitment jived with our actions. Livable regarding balancing both our level of commitment as individuals and our commitment as a couple. There was also the commitment to each other. I think last component is not always given the attention is needs. We tried to make everything we did a mutual decision. For exmple, for a long time we kept kosher in the house but ate out in restaurants.

At this point I want to stress that I am not making any recommendations; I am simply recording what we did. In retrospect, we really should have asked for some advice about how and what or if to add. The truth is, though, we did not look at this as a process at all. Looking back, of course, it was; we were moving all the time. But at the time we didn't think of it that way. We were just living our lives.

So... what did we do? In the house we were very strict about using kosher meat and reading labels on food; all things being equal we would use a product with a hechsher (kosher symbol), but we weren't fanatic about it. We did not use kosher cheese nor wine. We had two sets of dishes for year around and another two for Passover. We ate out, but only fish and vegetarian. Shabbos and holidays basically meant no driving (except to and from synagogue) and no shopping.

We made a sukkah nearly every year. Bought lulav and esrog sometimes. Pesach was a major event. We were definitely the most kosher then. We had a large seder every year. Lots of friends, sometimes family. I went to synagogue Shabbos morning and on holidays. I often went to the Sunday, Monday, and Thursday minyanim. I also went though periods when I would lay t'fillin and at least say "sh'ma" on other days. We did not make blessing before our after eating during the week; though we sometimes did on Shabbos.

I would like to say that we did all that they we did because that was the recommendation of the conservative movement. (There is book that describes how to observe the conservative jewish religion; I'll be happy to discuss that with you privately.) Honestly, though... we had found a comfortable(ish) level of observance and the book was more a justification of our actions rather than a source for them.

That pretty much sums up our Jewish living during those years (nearly a decade worth). I think we would have lived out our lives that way; then Providence stepped in... again. I was then thrown (again) into the position of having to directly confront who I was and what I wanted to be.

Our Second Wedding -- a short postscript.

Our second wedding was really a very small affair. On the other hand, it had the fanciest k'suva (you are welcome to see it if you like). Besides being fancy, it has two cute deficiencies. First, one of the witnesses is a woman; which renders it pusul. Even better though... it has the wrong date on it! In the Rabbi's office I mentioned that Debbie and I would probably always be arguing about which anniversary to celebrate, the first wedding or this one. "No problem", said one of the authorities present, "we'll just date it Aug 7; it doesn't really matter anyway." How right he was; I should have realized something was wrong at that point. Oh well...

My First Conversion

I never really did convince the Rabbi that I needed a real conversion, but I did have the support of the (Conservative Jewish) cantor, a few other friends, and my wife. So now all I needed was to "do the deed", so to speak. A real conversion requires three things for a man (two, as will be obvious, of a woman).

• Acceptance of the mitzvos in front of a Bais Din (Jewish Tribunal)


• Mikveh (Ritual Immersion)


• Bris Mila (circumcision for the sake of being Jewish) or (if one is already circumcised) Hatafas Dam (literally, "a drop of blood"

We all decided that the acceptance of mitvos part was taken care of my by Bar Mitzvah. We only needed mikveh and hatafas dam. In case it wasn't obvious, by the way, not any drop of blood would do; it had to be blood from the same place it would come in case of a full circumcision. Of course, being as this was Salt Lake City we had neither mohel nor mikveh. But we did have a Jewish urologist who did all the circumcisions for bris mila, and he had a built into the ground hot tub. How much more convenient could it be?

So, on the agreed upon date, the cantor and I drove up to the urologist house. One little snag... we needed three jewish men for the bais din, and we only had the cantor and the urologist. No problem... someone remembered that there was a 16 year old teenage boy home from school and camp who could come over. So I got a towel and went into another room to get undressed. Now try to picture this next scene. I come up of the bathroom dressed only in a towel, figuring we are going straight to the hot tub to get this taken care of. Nope. The urologists family is there. His wife is making drinks for everyone. We are waiting for the teenage boy from down the street. They offered me a gin and tonic; I declined. I am trying to act as natural as possible standing there in only a towel while everyone has there drinks. I would love to say that they mercifully left me out of the conversation... but they didn't. Ok, finally the young man arrives and we can go finish up.

First, hatafas dam. He is a doctor, right? So he first has to give me a local anesthetic -- administered by needle (I would later reflect on the fact that he could have gotten a drop of blood with a needle that size in the first place... ow well...) Then he got out his scalpel. Problem was, after that shot, all the blood had run away to hide. So he had to cut a little deeper than he expected... just under the anesthetic, of course. Perfect, didn't hurt too badly (either time), and a nice clean incision. In fact, such a clean incision that it took a while to stop bleeding. Finally stopped bleeding, I shed the towel the rest of the way, and went into the hot tub to immerse. When I came up they told me to say "Sh'ma". I felt very holy. I have no idea what that poor teenage boy was thinking.

In any case, I had had my conversion and I was now really Jewish (Conservative, anyway). One more detail to take care of... getting married. Having gone from non-Jew to Jew, I now needed a Jewish marriage to my wife. Or, rather, a marriage as a Jew to my Jewish wife. The Rabbi did agree to participate in this ceremony. I wore my brown corduroy leisure suit, my wife wore a nice skirt and top and covered her hair... with a yarmulka. We got married in the little chapel in the Synagogue, our friends come over and had lunch. Life was good.