on your journey, i will bless you...

• "Well, Romney is very pro-Israel. Israel will have a friend in Romney." UGH! Don't even get me started on the whole idea of voting for an American president based on Israeli interests! Wtf?
• "Obama has always been very pro-Muslim. I mean, just look at his middle name." Well, of course, if you're pro-Muslim, then you must hate Israel! The two are completely exclusive!
• "But it says in Torah that all Jews are supposed to live in Israel." I was seriously tempted to get up in this woman's face and yell, "Well, I don't see you there!"

Well, today was the day that I'd been both dreading and looking forward to. After a delicious breakfast of hot chocolate-chip scones in the dining hall this morning (I will miss having all of my meals prepared for me!), I finished packing, checked Muse Watson's tires, and went on my way. The trip back home was smooth, and I only had to make one stop outside Baton Rouge to eat, use a restroom, and buy gas. Muse Watson made good time, and I'm so proud of that cranky old car; I don't think either of us really believed he would make it safely there and back!

I am definitely happy to be home -- I missed Sara, Tovah, my hair straightener, my room, etc. -- but I was also sad to leave such a beautiful summer camp, even though my time there had some rough spots. I posted in my entry on the first day about how hard it was being there by myself, but really, it was hard the whole week through. I've always sucked at meeting people, and my week there was no exception. Still, there was a wonderful, welcoming, relaxed, safe atmosphere at camp that I can't really explain. I will miss the cool weather, the slow-paced summer days under the pine trees. I will miss the sense of a shared Jewish identity, which is something else I can't explain (and unless you're a minority, I don't think you can really understand). I'd never been in such a huge group of people who all knew how to sing the HaMotzi or the Birkat Hamazon. It blew my mind the first time everyone in the dining hall started singing it, and I hope I never forget that.

But what blows my mind more than anything else is knowing that at this time in 2010, just two years ago, I'd never even set foot in a Jewish house of worship. Seriously, never. I was still researching and learning about Judaism on my own, biking past the temple frequently, and trying to get up the nerve to walk through those doors. If you had told me then that in a year, I would officially convert, and within two years, I'd spend a week working at a Jewish summer camp -- would I have believed you? Probably not. Already, Judaism has become a bigger part of my life and my identity than I ever could've imagined. I hope I can remember to never totally lose faith in what might seem unlikely or even impossible.

I'll find my way home on the western wind
To a place that was once my world
Back from where I've been
And in the morning light, I'll remember
As the sun will rise
We are all the glowing embers of a distant fire

Well, my date with the beit din is set! I'll be making another trip to Baton Rouge one week from today, August 10, and when I come back, this heathen-raised, Catholic-school-educated Cajun girl will be officially Jewish.

!!!!!

I'm really excited and nervous. So now that it's getting so close, I figure it's a good time to answer all those questions I never got asked.

What are you going to Baton Rouge for? What's a beit din?
     A beit din is usually a board of a few rabbis and/or people who are very knowledgeable about Judaism. They oversee things like Jewish divorces, circumcisions, and conversions. They're going to ask me some questions about why I want to convert. It's kinda like a job interview, except instead of "Why are you right for this position?" it's "Why do you want to be Jewish?" I'm nervous, but Jacob (Sassy Grandfather #3), who also converted, tells me that his biet din interview was a breeze. They basically said, "How are you today? You wanna be Jewish, huh? Okay, you're in!" I think he's playing it down a bit, but he's probably right that I'm worrying too much.
     Among the other the questions that I'll be asked:
          ~ Are you converting to Judaism of your own free will, and not just to please family members, friends, or any other third-party?
          ~ Have you severed ties with any previous religions? So long, Catholicism.
          ~ If you ever have children, do you swear to raise them Jewish? Not only that, but they'll be damn well-named too!
          ~ Do you swear to cast your lot with the Jewish people, come what may? In other words, if another Holocaust happens, I can't dig out my old Catholic baptism record (which probably still exists somewhere) and try to say I'm not really Jewish.
     After the beit din interview, I'm going to have a mikvah in the Amite River in Baton Rouge, and then I'll be officially Jewish. (The mikvah is the last step.) I'm nervous about this part too. :\

But Rebecca, you love cheeseburgers! You'll never be able to keep kosher!
     I'm converting to Reform Judaism, and most Reform Jews don't follow kosher dietary laws (which exclude pork, meat and milk in the same dish, among other things). So no, I'm not going to keep kosher. I like to think that I could do it if I really wanted, but I do love my cheeseburgers.

How do Jews worship Jesus?
     (I did once had a relative ask me this question, in so many words.) I was fairly surprised that I had to say this, but just so there's no confusion: Jews do not worship Jesus, nor believe he was divine, or the son of G-d, or the messiah/savior, etc.

But... then you can't celebrate Christmas and Easter anymore!
     Celebrate? No. Show up at Grandma's house on those days to spend time with the family stuff my face full of food? Hell yes! Don't even try to keep me away. Also, I will still expect gifts on Christmas I haven't yet decided whether I'll still expect gifts on Christmas. As I always say, I'll jump off that bridge when I come to it.

Are you going to have a bat mitzvah?
     No, at least not anytime soon. A bat mitzvah, the girl equivalent of a bar mitzvah, isn't required to convert to Reform. I could have one if I wanted to, but studying for a bar/bat mitzvah is a long, intense process (kinda like studying to convert) and I'm not planning to have one right now.

Well, are you going to do anything to celebrate?
     Hopefully. At some point, there will be a small ceremony for me and the three people converting with me during services at the temple, possibly followed by an oneg. I know that few people nobody in my family has ever attended the temple before, but I'd like for some of them to come. More details as that approaches. I have to discuss it with the temple secretary.

Once you're Jewish, will you suddenly become really rich? Are you going to start killing Christian children and drinking their blood?
     Shut up, Sara.

It's kinda funny that my last trip to Baton Rouge was to spend the day at Blue Bayou water park. This time, I'll be getting wet again, but the circumstances couldn't be more different!

2 days until the Musical Shabbat and ice cream social oneg -- yum!
6 days until the meeting with the beit din and my mikvah!
48 days until Season 9 of NCIS!

I’ve been working a lot lately — and eating a lot of Little Caesar’s cheese bread on my lunch breaks. That stuff is so addictive! This week, in addition to working almost forty hours (!), I have two jobs interviews, hope to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (the last Harry Potter movie - it doesn't seem possible!) with Adam and/or Eva. I’m trying not to complain because I need the money/hours, but I just feel so busy. I really forward to shabbat services as my weekly get-away-from-the-insanity time. I also desperately hope to get my ficathon story finished and in beta by the end of the month.

Yesterday was so up-and-down. I didn’t slow down between waking up early for Torah study, another meeting with the rabbi about converting, and working a full day until close.

( If you’re not tired of reading about it yet, there’s a really long description of how Rebecca’s doing in the conversion process behind this cut. )

After years of abuse, my cell phone has decided it's had enough. I dropped it at work yesterday and just about killed it. I'm not really surprised, because it's very old -- I think I got it in 2007, which is ancient in cell phone years and probably a record for me -- and I'm kinda rough with it. It's still working (barely) and hopefully I'll have a new one soon. Sara's cell phone died at the beginning of June, and for whatever reason, she still hasn't gotten a new one. Today her boss called me to get hold of her. I throw up my hands at this!

Tony and Barbara (Jewish Grandparents #2) took me out to dinner after temple services this evening. Our temple is reform, but they're very conservative. If not for the fact that they drive to services, I might even peg them for orthodox. They literally started spitting the appetizer out into their napkins in horror when they realized there were bacon bits in the spinach-and-artichoke dip. I had a hamburger and a Shirley Temple -- yum.

Several folks at our temple converted to Judaism, including them. In fact, they used to have a grotto of the Virgin Mary in their yard, and Barbara was a Catholic Sunday school teacher for years -- you can't make up stuff like that. Over dinner, she told me a long story about how she and Tony converted. (She talked so much that she barely got to eat her catfish, and I felt kinda bad for her.) Then she asked me how I found my way to Judaism. Unfortunately, my story was not as interesting or as eloquently-told. But they seemed impressed by it. Barbara also wanted to discuss where I could have my mikvah, which I wasn't really comfortable with, but at least she didn't try to set me up with her grandson.


Barbara & Tony. This is an old (bad) picture of them that I took at Passover.

I'm going to be working on the 4th, but I do have some fun things planned for this weekend. Tomorrow, Grandma is having a little move-in party at her new house, and I'm looking forward to it, as much as I hate the fact that she's moving. (My cousin Matthew sent me a message on Facebook: "Are you helping Grandma move this weekend?" Me: "No, I'm going to barricade all her doors so she can't move out of that house!") Mom invited me and Sara to dinner at her house on Sunday, so we'll see if that actually happens. And did I mention that Athena's in town for the weekend? Hooray!

I hope you all have a Happy 4th of July Weekend! And remember: Just own the night, like the 4th of July...

Warning: This is a long post. Today has left me with a lot of things to blog about. Yes, some are completely shallow (holy cow, the Xavier/Magneto slashiness in First Class!) but some are more serious (I'm closer to becoming Jewish than ever!).

I woke up early this morning for Torah study at the temple. I almost overslept and missed it, and the weekly parsha was a bit boring, but I'm so glad I went. Afterwards, Diane (a lady at the temple who's also working towards becoming Jewish) and I had a real official meeting with the rabbi about converting. We even got to use the rabbi's office, rather than a randomly-selected corner in the social hall, which is where all our previous meetings have been. I said as I was entering, "Ooh, I've never been in the rabbi's office before." Rabbi W: "Me neither!"

I take back everything I said about Rabbi W here. Today we talked for a long time, and I got a lot of the concrete answers about converting that I'd been looking for. I even got my own copy of our prayerbook! Diane works for the temple, and she gave me an old "dog-eared" one that isn't used in services anymore. But the rabbi did recommend me a book called Basic Judaism, and suggest I start picking out a Hebrew name. 1) Um, Rabbi, aren't I beyond the basics yet? 2) I already have a Hebrew name!

Afterwards, I went to Grandma's house to do my laundry, eat lunch, play in her sprinkler water her garden, and clear out some of her spare rooms in preparation for her move. Adam and I packed up several boxes of dead books (mostly romance novels that had been Aunt Carolyn's, and mind-numbingly boring stuff that had been Dad's). It was kinda depressing, because so many of the books were typical Dad, and most of them had inscriptions like To Jake, from Steve, Christmas 1979. Apparently he never got anything but books as gifts. And I still hate the fact that Grandma is moving.

After that, Adam, Eva, Ben (that's right, Ben) and I all piled into Muse Watson and went to the mall to see X-Men: First Class. On the drive there, I remembered some study I read about how the more passengers you have in your car, the greater your chance of having an accident. I felt it, and the fact that I'm still getting over that damned car crash didn't help. I'd never driven with that many people before, traffic was heavy, and we were on a busy street. And I love Eva to death, but she's at that age where many things elicit a loud "Oh my gosh!" or a long laugh from her. (Hmm, maybe now I know how Sara feels.) I was very relieved when I finally got us all to the theater in one piece.

Anyway, about the actual movie. Spoiler Alert! In one word — awesome. No, amazing. No, epic. Even Eva, who's in no way familiar with the X-Men franchise, was blown away. I've had such high hopes for this movie ever since I watched the trailer, and I was not disappointed. Xavier and Magneto were both perfectly written and acted, and I was surprised by now much the movie made me care about the rest of the team too. (We barely knew Darwin, but his death? Just devastating.) As a rule, I never cry at movies, but this one actually made me come close. I've always loved Xavier and Magneto's relationship, and it was sad seeing them bond immediately, and knowing where they would end up later. Especially when Magneto flashed back to his mother lighting the Hanukkah candles, and he and Xavier both started crying.

On a somewhat similar note, on the way there, we were all talking about who our favorite X-Men character was, and I, of course, said mine was Magneto. Ben muttered (because he never talks, he only mutters) something like, "Yeah, because he's a Jew."

Hmph.

No, because he's a charming, witty, sophisticated, and all-around bad-ass villain, and he's been my favorite character ever since I saw the original X-Men movie in theaters (and I saw it in theaters three times) over ten years ago! (And holy crap, does saying that make me feel old.) And besides, I think any X-Men fan would agree that Magneto is "Jewish" only in the most secular sense of the word. It irked me, which made not seem to make sense, since Sara has made much worse comments — and offered to throw me in an oven — but the simple fact is that I'm okay with it from her but not from him (or anyone else). With Sara, I know she's joking. Ben can be, and often is, a jerk.

But I can't complain about anything today. There's a beautiful song called "You Shall Be a Blessing" by the recently-deceased Debbie Friedman (who composed a lot of beautiful Jewish songs) that was performed at services last night. These lyrics have been running through my head all day: L'chi lach [rise up and go] to a place that I will show you / L'chi lach to a land you do not know of. You can hear it, not the best version but the only one I could find, here.

Yesterday one of my coworkers told me that I come across as a Mormon. And even though 1) I have nothing against Mormons, and 2) I put no stock in said coworker's opinions, this is not something you want to hear when you're trying to convert to Judaism. Yesterday I saw the episode of "Sex and the City" where Charlotte converts and puts a mezuzah on her door at the end. I don't know yet if want a mezuzah when I convert or not. (Update: Here's my mezuzah!)

Anyway, I think maybe I came off as Mormon to him because I'm so clean-cut and boring, which is funny because my Mormon friends have more drama than anyone I know. I should've told him that he comes across as a bag of flour.

Back in 2003, shortly after I got my truck, I came across a red-white-and-blue toy donkey while browsing in a second-hand shop. I bought him and named him Alan Roosevelt Moore -- Alan after Al Franken (whom Sara and I got to see in person when he gave a speech at LSU at 2004), Roosevelt after FDR, and Moore after Michael Moore. We called him Moore and sat him the back window of the truck, where he stayed for the next three years. In 2006, Mom accidentally threw Moore away, and I feel a little stupid for saying this, since he was just a stuffed animal, but I was pretty upset over it. (I posted about it here.)

This week, Sara bought me a new, similar red-white-and-blue toy donkey. I don't like this new guy quite as much as Moore -- he is smaller and a bit more cheaply-made -- but I am happy to have an all-American jackass again. I plan to put him in the back window of Muse Watson (my car). After much thought, I named my new donkey Jethro Michael Errant: Jethro after NCIS's Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Michael after my Jewish grandfather, and Errant after "ears like errant wings," a line from GK Chesterton's poem The Donkey. (Yes, it has a Christian theme, but do you know of any other poems celebrating donkies?)

As with Moore, I'm going to call this donkey by his last name, Errant. According to the dictionary, it means 1) deviating from the regular or proper course, erring, straying; 2) journeying or traveling, as a medieval knight in quest of adventures, roving adventurously; 3) moving in an aimless or lightly changing manner: an errant breeze.



Here's a picture of Errant. I scoured through all my old photos, but I don't have one of Moore. :(

Only two new episodes to go in Season 8 of NCIS! From the spoilers and promo photos, it looks like Mike Franks is going to die on Tuesday (Swan Song). I'm kinda dreading it. Mike's not a main character, but I named my car after the actor who plays him, Muse Watson, and will be sad to see him go.