Jewish Life As A Log Cabin: The Story of My Transformation
I wasn’t always the Torah nerd I am today. So how did I get here?
I was thinking recently about the concept of conversion and what it means to undergo such a large spiritual change. It got me thinking about my own path and how I wasn’t always the Torah nerd I am today. So how did I get here? Am I also a convert of sorts? Aren’t we all? Enjoy my story.
Love, Meg.
If by convert we mean “transform” then yes, I am a Jewish convert. Well, not convert to Jewish life, but convert within it. Sure, I was born into a Jewish family and raised in the Reform movement loosely, but life today would be unfathomable to my younger self. Would seventeen year old me have guessed that I’d light shabbat candles every week, let alone teach others to do so in entire religious schools I was directing? Not a chance. This is my story.
Born in Oakland and raised in Piedmont, California to and by Wayne and Melissa, I was the last cousin on my dad’s side. We, the cousins, were the first generation in our family to partner with someone who was not Jewish. I plan to devote a different essay to my ancestors and how we came to be in the United States, but suffice it to say we were Jewish because we were, because we were, and because we were.
Chanukah, yes. Pesach, yes. Yom Kippur and Rosh HaShanah and the Purim carnival as little kids, yes. I started religious school in 2nd grade, going Tuesdays after school, and soon Tuesdays and Thursdays as bat mitzvah preparation mounted. And I liked it! I liked school, generally speaking – it was my thing.
After becoming bat mitzvah I attended one year of the teen program and then announced to my parents I was not going to continue. With 1.4 bajillion other things on my calendar, they didn’t argue. Side note: my parents were deeply involved in the philanthropic sides of the Jewish world – I just remember being told about “board meetings” a lot.
And…that was kinda it until college. I was Jewish but it honestly wasn’t something I remember thinking about much.
Then, I wandered into the Hillel at UCLA and quickly learned about a program called Bearing Witness. I joined, and soon found myself having lunch with Lily, a survivor of the Holocaust, every other week for about 10 weeks. Her story was haunting – the death march, her sister dying on her chest in a barn in Poland in the winter, waking up in Russia with typhoid fever 5 weeks after liberation. The trauma was still so real on her face and the power of her testimony shook me. I left my first session sobbing, called my parents, we all cried on the phone and I said, “nothing is guaranteed, is it?”
“No,” they said. “Nothing is for certain.”
“I need to live my life now, while I have it.” They agreed.
This would be one of my first actual prayers of gratitude I ever prayed – it saturated me until tears had nowhere to go but out. Something about her horrific story broke open my heart. We were family, somehow.
I have to pause now and reflect on the power of the memory of the Shoah – the wake of tragedy the Jewish people have been swimming in for the past 70+ years. And yes, we are still swimming in it. This is not a comment on the ability of Jews to rebuild lives in new places with great success. This is a comment about how very real the specter is. The ghosts live with us and they are not quiet about it. Back to the story.
Moved by my experience with Bearing Witness, I hung around Hillel more – long enough to meet someone else I consider family – Danielle (who recently wrote about Parashat Yitro for us!) She was working as an Engagement Something or Other but no title would have fit her anyway. Words like brilliant and hilarious and voice-of-an-angel come to mind. Danielle ended up taking me to Israel/Palestine on my birthright trip (which is another post, all together. Let’s just say I was skeptical).
But I loved Danielle so I stuck around even more and joined a text study with all orthodox young men. It was me, the new rabbi, Danielle, and them. I loved it. To say it felt like I was handed Torah from Sinai would be an overstatement. But to say I finally understand what it meant to inherit a tradition would be close to accurate. I took to it like a Gen Z-er to Tik Tok. I was hooked on an ancient high.
Around this time I also started working at Camp Tawonga. Now, Camp Tawonga filled a void I didn’t even know I had – a connection to the natural world, liturgy that made sense, and a marrying of progressive values with ancient tradition. I owe a LOT to my summers up there in the tall, tall, trees. Things were starting to come together.
I could list for you every step after – fellowships, education programs, diplomas, jobs – but I’d like this to move faster (I’m even impatient for my own story). So I’ll say this: I stopped being Jewish just because I was. I started being Jewish because I had to be – something gigantic had been missing. It was as if my body and mind had been Jewish this whole time, but my spirit was converting.
Here is how I can describe it. Imagine an old fashioned log cabin. It’s made of lots of logs that fit together with various joints. But a log cabin also needs chinking. It is this filler that turns the structure from a fort into a home – sealed off from wind and ready for inhabiting.
I had the logs before, but filling in the gaps, that was the Jewish that permeated my life and kept me warm.
Today, I am a Jewish teacher, artist, and even more basically, a practicing Jew. I consider my story to be a conversion of sorts – an internal conversion in two ways: a reconstruction of self and of purpose in the community.
In the Jewish educational world we call this sort of reflection one’s “Jewish journey.” But after years of leading such activities, that sounds too trite for this conclusion. I just call this the story of the Jewish people. How else would we have survived it not for people willing to transform?
this is beautiful Meg...an image I can relate to. I know far too many Christians who have never made that journey from the head to the heart! Blessings, my friend!