Starshine: The very short story of a unorthoprax Baalat Teshuva

Starshine:

The very short story of a unorthoprax Baalat Teshuva

I’m eighteen. I have no idea how to start this literary piece. In fact, at eighteen years old there are a lot of things I don’t know (contrary to what my parents think I believe). For starters, I don’t even know my own name. And before you make any presumptions, yes, I am educated and literate. In fact, I’m a white Jewish girl from an upper-middle class family during a time of modernity and technology. But the simple fact I don’t even know my own name is why I am writing down my story. You see I am a firm believer that every individual’s life is a tale in of itself. You have the short stories and epic poems, the stories caught up in fiction and others’ on a quest for truth. My story falls into the later category: a search for truth. However, in reality, it is about a white Jewish girl from an upper-middle class family in the suburbs who wasn’t happy where she was. And, here, I admit, I follow the crowd of every other suburban teen. But my discomfort was not with the lack of excitement. I lived in Israel on my own when I was fifteen. I have been to South America, the Caribbean, and Canada. I have crazy friends who keep me on my toes. I am not someone who lacks excitement, enthrallment, and the every day-to-day adventures which keep most suburban teens at a constant beat. However, with even the most exciting and out-there schemes, something never seemed right. There were countless mornings where I woke up and said what the hell am I doing? Every day seemed even more pointless than the morning before.

But, here, let me not be rude and introduce myself. I know I told you my ethnicity, my nationality, my sex, my economic standings, and where I grew up. But that has nothing to do with the person typing this. I am an artist. A bit odd perhaps, but I am in love with colors and words and cameras. Any expression of the soul is a fascination of mine. I grew up going to “Jew-camp” where I spent my summers learning about tikkun olam, repairing the world, and how not to get caught doing stupid stuff like sneaking out to meet boyfriends and raiding the haunted basements. These were my first memories of freedom. I went to public school in a really wealthy town. I was a bit dorky, in a loveable sort of tom-boyishness way. All my friends have always been guys (accept for the occasional one-other-female-for-a-short-while friend) and my favorite past time was rough housing with them. Yet, the person who is typing this has grown up from these measly descriptions. You define yourself one way for so long, you forget that you’ve grown up. Now, I still have mostly guy-friends and am an odd character through and through, but I dress tznius now. A far cry from the baggy ripped jeans and flannels I would never part with. I don’t swim or play hockey and football with my bros anymore. I’m the kid who would rough house and pick fights, which now has mellowed out. Additionally, I’m no longer the NFTY-Jew-Camp kid, as I was raised.

For clarification, the “NFTY-Jew-Camp Kid” is your average American-secular/Reform Jew. And after rereading that sentence, and editing it, it has been my observation that the Reform movement stresses so much on being a good person, they forgot the whole being Jewish thing. This really frustrated me because I was taught to have such a deep love for my religion. Then, I found out Judaism isn’t even a religion in whole! I felt duped because my pride for Judaism was for naught. I knew nothing about my tribe, about my people, about my history; I was raised in the dark, blinded by illusions. I still feel upset and deprived of knowledge. I can openly admit I have never read the Torah but I have read thousands of books. I didn’t even know what the Shma (which is the Jewish declaration of a singular God) meant until this year. Sure I canted it, but what is ONE god if half my Rabbis don’t even believe in a real and living God? I tread on thin ice, so I will not proceed, but I, who was once the typical NFY-Jew-Camp Kid, who was your average American-secular/Reform Jew, is no more. Who am I now? I’m a unorthoprax Jewish baalat teshuva.

As those words exited my fingertips, I take a moment to ask myself what in the world is a unorthoprax Jewish baalat teshuva? Well, let’s describe me for starters. I have my long skirts and three-quarter shirts. We have my two sets of dishes for milk and meat, and a hechsher on all my foodstuffs. As I get ready in the morning, I grab a skirt and shirt and throw it on as I make my way into the bathroom half-mumbling the modeh ani while looking for my toothbrush and scarlet lipstick. As I brush down my two inches of spiky hair, that I’m contemplating about dying red again, I apply my lipstick careful not to get it on my lip ring or hit my septum piercing (the one that makes me look like a bull). As I straighten and gel my bed-head, I also take note not to graze any of the nine piercing on my ears. As I finish, I manage to get down stairs where I’ll make some Osem’s Turkish Coffee, that strong stuff that flavors the Israeli-morning air. As I mumble a bracha, if and when I can remember to do so, I run out the door and get into my car. I turn up 89.5 Seaton Hall’s Pirate Radio where metal and hard rock blast through my speakers. If I’m lucky, no one is screaming about Jesus in his or her hardcore band. I make it a twenty-minute drive where I am welcomed by my second family, who I have had the pleasure of living with on and off for the last few months. They support me in my quest for seeking truth, or emes, as my brother says. I wonder what my black hat baal teshuva brother would say if I revealed my second family is pagan: the anti-thesis of my people.

If you took a look at me walking through Monsey or in the Five Towns, I look like a kid going off the derech, but more or less orthoprax (following the ways, but not beliefs). However, if you’d find me in some obscure location, lets say my hometown, Warren, NJ, I’d look oddly conservative in my modest behavior and clothing. In fact I believe more than I follow, making me un-orthoprax, but coming from a completely secular background I suppose that makes me a Baalat Teshuvah… not necessarily orthodox yet. You see I am in this unforgiving limbo of truth, religion, and story telling. I don’t even know the main character’s name, let alone her beliefs and adherences.

Now you got a flavor for who I was and who I am I’ll tell you how I got here. I went on a North Federation Temple Youth (NFTY) program called EIE. It was a semester abroad in Israel during high school. In four months we covered four thousand years of Jewish History, using the land as our textbooks. It inspired me to learn more as I came back to America, all the meanwhile wondering which Hebrew School teacher forgot to teach me all of that important stuff. I came home and decided to keep kashrus, because I felt alienated from Israel, I wanted my Jewish brotherhood back. As time progressed I started going to shul more and more. Why don’t I know these prayers?! I’d sit and read the English instead. “Come welcome the Sabbath bride.” Sabbath bride? I don’t keep Shabbos. “With the rebuilding of the Beis Hamikdash.” Beis Hamikdash? You mean the temple that stood where the Kotel rests it’s tired and emaciated body? I thought as a Reform Jew we don’t want that big building back… something about sacrifices. Something did not sit well with me. I could not fathom a belief system that denies me of the opportunity to learn core minhagim but is all for bagels and lox. Honestly, I felt betrayed. My parents provided so much Jewish education, and my teachers taught me love with out knowledge. So I sat there like Swiss cheese: mild on flavor, left to age, and holes everywhere. To fill in these “holes” I walked into the Chabad.

I loved it there: warm, embracing, understanding. Now, I was the youngest member of all the classes (the other “students” made fun of the Rabbi for being “so young” even though he had twenty years on me!). I felt like I learned a lot there, but not as much as when the Rabbi pulled me aside. He asked me to become a Hebrew School teacher because I was knowledgeable and enthusiastic. It was rather shocking as I came there to learn, not to teach, but I was so flattered and excited to be working with kids I took the job! Now, a year later, and fifteen twelve-year-olds lighter, I realized I learned more in that class than I ever would sitting in their seats. I tried to infuse them with love of Judaism… but also knowledge. I’d throw out tidbits of historical information and get them to do engaging activities so they’d see what customs we do. But, week after week, as I got the pre-made lesson plans, which I then had to cater to my class, I’d spend hours on the Internet googling the “sheva brachos” for weddings and the variations of minhagim for Pesach. Slowly, my “t’s” became “s’s,” and I knew what the Rebbetzin meant by the kinderlach.

As I dove into the mechanical, I wanted to witness what a real Shabbos was like. Serendipitously, I found Shabbat.com. Immediately following my signing-up, this Rabbi, Rabbi Klatzko, coaxed me into coming to his beautiful Monsey home. I was absolutely, one hundred percent, dumfounded to see his beautiful wife and family. Even more so to see him open his home to so many people like me, who took double takes on the tissue toilet paper (pre-ripped) and fumbling over all the brachos. B”H, I was working at the Chabad, which prevented me from one to many faux pas, but all-in-all I met the most amazing people. Though, the thing that surprised me most was this one man on my second Shabbos there. I wish I could tell you his name, for that I even forget, but what he said was really poignant. We swapped a few stories, his much more difficult than mine. He had every single excuse in the book to turn his back and go off the derech, but he stayed. He said Judaism is not a religion; it is a relationship with yourself, people, and Hashem. This is what made me fumble. Growing up, Judaism was an extra-curricular activity and identification. Going to Israel, I had learned Judaism was a nation where no one is more or less Jewish because it is a matrilineal bloodline, a brotherhood with eretz. Now, he tells me the core of it is a relationship. I nearly lost it. I wanted that so desperately! I wanted to wake up every morning feeling like I’m here for a reason. I want to go to sleep every night not staring at the ceiling any longer wishing I wouldn’t wake up, uncomfortable in my own skin. I want to improve my fraying relationship with my family and make friends who are richer than water and as vital as blood. I also wanted to believe Hashem is alive and well, and caring about the world as it stands.

            Rabbi Klatzko, gave a ‘drash that night about what stands at the center of Judaism. In the heart of the holiest land, eretz yisroel, lays the holiest city, Jerusalem. In the heart of Jerusalem there is the Kotel, or the remnants of the Beis Hamikdash (the Holy Temple). In the heart of the Temple was the Holy of Holies, where the original Ten Commandments used to lay. Above it, were two angels, one male and one female. In the center of the Holy of Holies, in Jerusalem, in Israel, in our wonderful world, the two malachim’s eyes met. That is love, said Rabbi Klatzko, and that is what is at the center of Judaism. Speechless, I looked at my life and what I wanted from it. I no longer want to ascribe to a rebellious path, led by the angry and the perpetually unsatisfied. I want to quench my thirst and be happy where I stand. I want to find comfort in life, through countless relationships with people and God… and to love even myself.

            I don’t find my story so magnificent… not even too entertaining. However, I lay here, on my bedroom floor writing this out because it traces my footsteps. I am going to Neve this year, in a smaller school, Michlelet Esther, to fill in the gaps that have been missing. I hope to become a better person, a more complete person, and I hope to finally forge a healthy relationship with myself, others, and Hashem. I never imagined I’d be here. I always thought I’d be in college this year, or for a long while, in the Israeli Army. At least now, as I enter this new, unfolding story, I have a goal for shedding my skin and stepping into the world with new eyes and an open heart. I’ll finally become the person I want to be. But, the most exciting thing about all of this is once I go back home, to eretz yisroel, I’ll be able to look people straight in the eye and say, “Hi, my name is Rebekah, but you can call me Aviva... or what my friends back home called me, Starshine.”