I am, as is probably obvious from the theme of this blog, a Conservative Jew. However, I am probably not the typical one. I did not grow up in the movement: no Camp Ramah, no USY, and, other than for friends’ simchas, I never davened regularly in a Conservative synagogue until I joined my current shul, and committed to Conservative Judaism, in my early 30s.
I grew up in a complete secular Jewish family, who joined the local Reform temple because it asked the least of us. However, a funny thing happened on my way to becoming a secular Jew like the rest of my family: I fell in love with being a Jew, and I found true meaning in learning about my Jewish heritage and history and eventually, I found meaning and value in worshiping Hashem and observing, to some extent, the commandments.
By the time I got to college, I was keeping “kosher” to the extent I knew how with my limited Jewish education: eating hamburgers and McDonald’s instead of cheeseburgers. I then decided eat at my college’s kosher cafeteria, and I got a rude awakening. Despite being the dork that loved Hebrew school, and doing what I thought was pretty extensive reading on my own about Judaism, I knew nothing! The other kids at the kosher dining hall, mostly Orthodox and a few Conservative day school alums would have discussions that I could barely follow. What the heck was a Rambam, I remember wondering! I went back to the rabbi at the Reform temple where I grew up to ask why, after all those years of Hebrew school, I remained a Jewish ignoramus. With refreshing candor, I was told that my parents didn’t send me to that synagogue to get that kind of education, but to know just enough to have a bar mitzvah, and that’s what I was given. I thanked the rabbi for his honesty and told him that I would never step foot in his temple again. And I didn't.
I then embarked on a program of self-study that taught me about Judaism, how to daven, and eventually, to be shomer Shabbat. I did not become a full Orthodox ba’al teshuva (I never started wearing a kippah full time, and I always ate dairy in non-kosher restaurants), but starting my sophomore year of college, I pretty much davened Orthodox on Shabbat.
But I knew that my association with Orthodoxy had an expiration date because I was (openly) gay. Most of my Orthodox friends were very tolerant, but I know as they graduated, got married, and started having kids, I would no longer be welcome as one of the happy Orthodox gang. As college graduation loomed, I pulled away. I still kept kosher (eating only dairy out) but I stopped keeping Shabbat, and stopped davening regularly. At the time I did not look at to Conservative Judaism as a viable option, because, well, I was still under the sway that Orthodoxy was “authentic” (this blog will have a lot to say about that false notion), and they didn’t even fully accept gays and lesbians. Also, I just didn’t know that much about Conservative Judaism. I had jumped right from Reform to Orthodoxy. But either way, I thought, if Conservative Judaism had already made serious compromises with the Jewish tradition, such as ordaining women, and allowing driving on Shabbat, but still couldn’t fully accept gays, it must be tainted by homophobia. At least Orthodoxy could blame its homophobia on an unchangeable Jewish law. But Conservative Judaism was already in the business of tinkering with legal interpretation to accomodate modern understandings of justice, except for gays, at the time.
And what truly attracted to me to Orthodoxy was its close-knit community of dedicated observers (rather than its theology), and this was largely absent in the Conservative community (this, I think is a real problem for Conservative Judaism, one this blog hopes to discuss). So, what was the point of looking to Conservative Judaism? It lacked truly observant communities, and still didn’t accept me as equal.
So for many years, I was a “homeless” Jew, who felt comfortable davening in an Orthodox shul, but had to remain a closet case. So I ended up going nowhere, drifting Jewishly. While I remained kosher, I stopped going to shul. I tried to adopt the mindset of the secular Israeli (the shul I refuse to go to must be Orthodox), but I found that largely an empty path when not in the Jewish state. I met my partner/husband who hails from a large Orthodox family (our interactions with his family truly opened my eyes to a dark side of Orthodoxy that I had either not been exposed to, or had been blind to, and about which this blog will have much to say).
We eventually moved to a large, heavily Jewish suburb, at just about the time that the Conservative movement finally voted to ordain gay and lesbian rabbis. So I took another look. And what I discovered amazed me. Conservative Judaism’s theology made sense to me in a way Orthodoxy never did: taking Jewish law seriously, but still being intellectually rigorous and modern. I spent hours reading the teshuvot on the Rabbinical Assembly’s web site, and did loads of reading on Conservative Judaism, its history, its current problems (about which this blog will also have much to say), and decided that, after years of drifting, I had found my Jewish home. We joined our shul, and while I do miss the close-knit atmosphere of an observant Orthodox community, I was pleasantly surprised to find more of a semi-observant community at my new Conservative synagogue than I expected.
So, that, in short, is my journey to Conservative Judaism!
