a memory

[cellio]

tigerbright was talking about possibly going to a tikkun this year, and that made me think again about my first one.

A tikkun is (traditionally) all-night torah study on the night of Shavuot. The holiday of Shavuot commemorates the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, so the study tradition makes sense from that perspective. It also has symbolic meaning -- preparing yourself spiritually and mentally for revelation. The kabbalists of the 16th century came up with the idea.

In 1998, I had spent most of the omer (the period from Pesach to Shavuot, 50 days) becoming aware that there was something in Judaism that bore serious investigation and consideration. But I was kind of a coward, afraid at some subconscious level that if I went to a synagogue or approached a rabbi I'd be obviously out of place and chased away or some such. I wasn't ready to approach the community yet. But I did a lot of reading, and one of the things I encountered in my reading was a description of the tikkun.

The idea appealed to the geek in me immediately. I mean, here I was, trying to delve into the intellectual side of Judaism (along with the spiritual), and there was this tradition of spending all night -- not one-hour chunks in weekly ultra-basic classes, but all night -- really digging in. I had to do this. And Shavuot was even on a Saturday night, so it wouldn't cost me time from work. This was perfect.

Except, well, I had to find one, and then I had to brave the people at the synagogue who would think I was an outsider who didn't belong there.

It was a week and a half before Shavuot, which meant I had two chances to go to Shabbat services before the tikkun. I figured I should go to services at whatever synagogue I was going to visit for the tikkun. That first Shabbat was on Memorial-day weekend, most of which I was planning to spend with good friends in Poughkeepsie. (She was also a seeker and a convert, and I very much needed to talk, face-to-face and at length, with someone like that. I didn't know any others. And she promised me the opportunity to sit in front of her bookshelves for as long as it took, in addition.) So I picked a Conservative synagogue (figured that would be middle-of-the-road), went there Friday night, and then got up very very early Saturday to drive the 8 hours to Poughkeepsie.

The following week I found out that that synagogue wasn't having a tikkun, or maybe that it was ending by midnight (I forget which). I called several places and mostly got the same answer. But I didn't call any Orthodox places, because I was sure they wouldn't want a woman, especially a would-be convert who wasn't even Jewish. But I was getting desperate to find this mythical? all-night torah study, so eventually I posted on a local newsgroup. (This backfired in one way -- I had planned to delete the post after a day or so, to reduce the chances of coworkers seeing it, but that deletion failed. I still don't know if certain coworkers who I felt awkward with on the religion question saw that.)

A former coworker responded and invited me to his Orthodox shul for Shabbat services and the tikkun. He said there was no problem with the fact that I'm a woman, and where did I get such an idea? I joined him for Saturday-morning services, then joined his family for lunch, and then we talked for a while, and then I left to take a nap before gearing up for the night ahead.

That tikkun didn't start until midnight, and I had also found a Reform one that was scheduled for something like 7:30 to 9:30, so I decided to do both. They were very different, as you would expect. The Reform one was mainly small-group discussions (after a general presentation) around the theme of what revelation means and how we see God in our lives and stuff like that. I found during the discussion that I was saying "we" when talking about Sinai, which surprised me because saying "we" at Pesach seders had always made me feel funny (presumptuous, actually). That's when I knew unambiguously that I was going to convert.

I drove home from that and, a couple hours later, headed out to the Orthodox synagogue. There were about 25 or 30 people there, as I recall -- a far cry from the few hundred who had been there that morning. We met in the chapel, and as the men and women instinctively sat on opposite sides, someone joked that we didn't have to do separate seating. But I was comfortable from my vantage point of halfway back on the "women's side", so I stayed put.

The rabbi announced that this would be a lecture (please interrupt with questions) and that we'd do this in roughly one-hour chunks and take breaks between. The topic was the question of whether it is a mitzvah (commandment) to live in Israel. The source material was mostly in Hebrew (I still have it, though I still can't read it), but the rabbi did a good job of translating and explaining. I don't remember too many of the details of the discussion. (The answer, in case you're wondering, is that it depends on who you ask. :-) ) I found the discussion fascinating and exhilerating, mostly as I tried to understand the reasoning processes that various people brought to the table.

There was ample caffeine, including Coke. This is good, as I can't stand coffee and I'd been afraid to bring my own Coke into the building for fear that it might not be kosher enough or something.

I noticed something odd during the breaks. Most of the women who were there approached me at some point to talk, but none of the men did (other than the rabbi, who I'd met that morning and who knew my background because my friend had told him about me). One of the women asked if I was shul-shopping, and a few asked if I was newly frum (observant). I gave mostly non-commital answers -- yes to the first (I was shopping, though not really for Orthodox), and to the latter I just said that I seemed to be becoming more observant and I wasn't sure where I would end up exactly.

During the first break the rabbi approached me and took me aside with a serious expression on his face. I was desperately trying to figure out what I had done wrong when he asked me if I would please turn on the lights in the restrooms, and plug the coffee pot in. (Apparently their setup person hadn't done everything he was supposed to.) This was my first hint that holidays were like Shabbat in terms of restrictions; this thought would return to haunt me later, after morning services, when it was time to drive home. I regretted parking right next to the building, but I was too tired to wait for everyone else to leave so I wouldn't offend them.

Months later, I wondered why it was ok for the rabbi to ask me to do these things. Yes, I was a gentile and not bound by the restrictions, but I knew that you couldn't ask someone to do something that you yourself were forbidden to do. Eventually I asked about it, and he essentially cited pikuach nefesh (saving a life, which generalizes to preserving health) for the lights (there were many older people there who would be seriously damaged by a fall). He didn't explain the coffee pot and I didn't press him on it. I actually told this story, even naming the congregation, to friends for a while before I realized (while studying lashon hara, hurtful speech) that I was possibly doing a Wrong Thing here. I apologized to the rabbi and he told me that neither of us had done anything wrong and I shouldn't worry about it. But I'm not going to name the congregation here, either.

Anyway, the tikkun lasted until around 5:30 or 6, and then we began morning services. Now I'd been to this place for Shabbat, so I should have known what I was in for, but I was still in the mindset of "Shabbat is different". So I was not expecting services to last for more than two and a half hours. This time we were in the chapel, and the mechitza (divider between men's and women's sections) was a curtain, so I couldn't even see the bima. I was waiting for the torah scroll to be processed around the room (I'd read that this would happen) so that I could at least see it if not touch the cover, but that didn't happen. The davening was very chaotic -- every man for himself, and if people came together for any of the key parts like Barchu or Shema then I certainly didn't notice. One of the other women noticed that I was lost and occasionally fed me page numbers, but I was pretty hopeless. I had yet to learn the survival skill of, when lost, turning ahead to the next instance of any kaddish and listening for "yitgadal". (There are about half a dozen of these during the service...) The service didn't so much end as peter out; people started leaving, and after a while I pretended that I was done and left as well. I walked out into the morning sunlight, sheepishly got into my car, drove home, and went to sleep. And the next morning I made an appointment with the first of the several rabbis I would visit/interview before choosing one.

I find it fitting and comforting that my beit din (formal hearing before the court of rabbis for conversion) occurred (the following year) during the omer (on the 36th day -- an auspicious number), a couple of weeks before Shavuot. This holiday may be the poor neglected step-child of holidays to most Jews, but for me it marks significant occurrences in my own life along with a significant event in the history of our people.

This Friday is the 36th day of the omer and, thus, my birthday

Comments

coffee pot

[cellio]

Ah, that could be it. And for all I know, I missed subtle hints like "gee, the coffee pot isn't plugged in" and he resorted to more desperate measures. :-)

I know (and I think knew, but am not sure) that he could benefit from things I did for myself. It was his asking me to do it that made me wonder. I guess that in a similar situation I would (now) say something like "Well, I forgot to turn the coffee pot on in time, but you're welcome to turn it on and help yourself". Of course, if I were on the receiving end of that and the subject were coffee, I would just shrug it off. :-)