Gratitude Monday: Shabbat shalom

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.