Should I Pray Today?
(IsraelNN.com) Every morning I rise before dawn and try to steal a few moments for myself. Usually it is so close to dawn that the birds have already started to converse in a raucous din, I plunge into the cool of the morning to retrieve my newspaper, and return to grind the coffee. I say Modeh Ani and reach for the washing cup. It's automatic.
Morning blessings, Shema . . . automatic.
Wash for bread. Eat. Pray.
Except, today it's not automatic. I pause before I reach for the cup.
Should I pray today? Why should I? What would be the point? After all, maybe I'm praying in vain.
Mikvah in Vain
Thousands of converts to Judaism who thought they were doing the right thing by converting through the Israeli Conversion Authority are now considered to have been praying in vain. Every mitzvah they did, in vain. Every act of chessed, in vain. Every mikvah, especially the mikvah for conversion, in vain.
Their marriages, their children, their lives, their deaths, their burials—all in vain.
I hear that Rabbi Sherman's High Rabbinical Court has now added to his list of "invalid" conversions, throwing out the conversions of people who are deaf and/or mute. The logic goes something like this: Deaf people aren't required to keep all the mitzvot, and since converts must intend to take on all the mitzvot, deaf people and mute people can't convert.
Another day, another outrageous ruling.
What about women?
What's next? A ruling that says that since women aren't required to keep all the mitzvot, that women can't convert? Then, perhaps, because converts can't be Kohanim, and part of the Mitzvot are for Kohanim, that no one can convert?
Should I steel myself for the next ruling, or slide away into nihilism? Does anything mean anything any more? Am I who I think I am? Does it matter?
One might say to me, "But you aren't a Convert! Why should you care?"
Because I feel that it is only a matter of time before every Jew's Jewishness is questioned. It is only a matter of time before every single one of us is determined to be unfit to perform a mitzvah or keep Shabbat or live in the land of Israel.
Nobody's Perfect
Can you say you are a perfect Jew, after all? Do you know EVERYTHING about your family's past? Do you know who your great, great, great grandmother was? Can you prove she wasn't a convert? Can you prove her mother wasn't? If one of them was a convert, can you prove she didn't convert for marriage? Can you prove she was completely mitzvah observant?
Have you or anyone in your family now or in the past ever been a member of a religious Zionist organization? Have you always observed the halachot (Jewish laws) regarding modesty (tzniut)?
And what about your family? Are there any pictures of you as a baby, for example, drooling and naked on a bearskin rug? Were you ever, for a moment, caught smiling out of context? Are there any witnesses who might attest that you may have been present in a movie theater?
Have you, G-d forbid, every gone off the derech? Did you, as a seventh-grader, dare question your rabbi in Chumash class? Have you ever wondered what bacon tastes like? Did you think about kissing a girl you weren't married to? Did you imagine what her elbows must look like? Did you ever tie your left shoe before your right?
Witch Hunt
The truth is that if one Jew is no longer a Jew, how long will it be before every one of us is a victim of this witch hunt? Why isn't anyone saying anything? Why is no one doing anything? Why are we just taking this craziness and going on with our lives?
Is it because it is not your problem? Let's put it in perspective. Are your thoughts something like this:
First they came for the converts, and I said nothing because I was not a convert.
Then they came for the deaf and the mute, and I said nothing because I wasn't deaf and I wasn't mute . . .
Sounds familiar. Too familiar for me.
So what do we do? What will happen to us, to our Ger Tzeddek, to B'nai Israel?
Today, I chose to pick up the washing cup and finish my prayers, but I fear that there are thousands of people, in addition to those converts who have been pushed out, who wont.
Michelle Nevada is a religious Jew from rural Nevada.
Print
B"H
ReplyDeleteHey Thanks for posting it!
I am so flattered that you like it.
It seems like the whole Jewish world is going nuts, and I am happy to know that there is at least one person out there who feels this way too.