Saturday morning a
friend of mine was called to the Torah. She was one of four members of the
adult B’nai Mitzvah class who’ve been studying for more than a year to come
before the congregation, read verses from the Torah and be officially
recognized as full participants in Jewish life.
I say “officially”
because from the brief statement each of the four gave about their journey to
this ritual, it’s clear that they all have already been active contributors to Temple
Beth El, and to leading whatever may be defined as a Jewish life. (Bar/bat
mitzvah normally marks the shift from childhood to adulthood, and the taking on
of responsibility for one’s ethical choices that comes with being an adult; it’s
typically celebrated at age 13.) Three are from Jewish families, one is a
convert.
It’s been my
observation that Janet has long been living the sort of upright life that would
earn the highest accolade I could give: although it might seem slightly
gender-bending, she’s a mensch. Generosity, kindness, humor, wit, honesty, intelligence,
pragmatism—all of them.
I’ve written
before how she (and her husband) literally opened their home to me without
ever so much as having a phone call, all on the basis of emails.
(The first phone conversation,
as a matter of fact, was me in the pitch-dark of a rental car at Dulles
Airport, as I was trying to figure out what the hell was up with the damned thing because there was no bloody ignition key. She laughed and
told me that she’d come across the very same problem the previous week, but her
husband had the solution: you dropped the fob in the well between the seats and
pressed something. Voilà.)
Before that, on the
basis of reading some of my posts during my period of unemployment, she’d
reached out and made introductions to several people who might know of
openings. You cannot know how rare that is, or how much it meant to me. It was,
in fact, a mitzvah.
(Does she ask blunt and
sometimes very disconcerting questions? Yes. Do I ever want to get on her bad
side? Oh. Hell. No.)
Since my arrival in the
environs of the District They Call Columbia, Janet has included me in several
celebrations, including two Pesach
Seders. I’ve been grateful for each of them and look forward to more.
On Saturday, in
describing her decision to become bat mitzvah as an adult, Janet recounted how
she was raised Jewish, and always pretty much felt Jewish—except for the period
starting with college, when she proclaimed herself an atheist. (“It was the
70s,” she noted.) When her father became ill and she found herself praying for
his recovery, she questioned whom (using proper case, of course) she could be
praying to if not to God, and began that journey that led to Saturday.
Her assigned Torah
verses in Numbers 8 were the ones about the Levites shedding their clothes and
being shaved head to toe for a thorough bath. In her explication of the verses—once
she got past the 13-year-old giggling about what the Levites must have looked
like in their altogether—and hairless to boot—she beautifully tied it to the
stripping away of the old and undergoing a ritual cleansing so as to emerge literally
ready for a fresh start.
Look—it don’t come any
fresher than stripped down to your birthday suit, hairless and squeaky clean.
As Janet pointed out. It seemed to me a splendid set of verses to read for B’nai
Mitzvah.
Janet is a master of
languages—as you might have inferred from using correct case when holding inner
dialogues. Her specialty is Russian, in which she is fluent enough to unequivocally disabuse a
Moscow taxi driver of any delusions of fare gouging. (My lodgings back in
December 2015 were what I referred to as the St. Petersburg suite, just off the
Star Trek gallery.) Hebrew, however, is a different story, and she was
struggling with it right up until the day. Something, I’m guessing, to do with
the fact that not only do you have to reverse direction in reading, but figure
out the missing vowels. Then there’s the chanting issue, and Janet is not
musically gifted.
There were a couple of
clams in her reading—which the non-Jews probably wouldn’t have noticed except
for her hesitation and retries at the words. However, I am persuaded that the
Almighty has heard considerably worse, and moreover knows the entire Torah literally
backwards and forwards and therefore could be expected to fill in any
deficiencies.
On the other hand, I’m
betting that her quoting Morey Amsterdam isn’t something the Supreme Being has
heard very often from the bimah.
All-in-all, it was a
beautiful and moving ceremony. It was an honor to be asked to share this with
Janet’s friends, and a unique opportunity for a Catholic to kvell.
Mazel tov, Janet.
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