Turning Points. Part One.

Spiritual crisis.

My pebble with Scrabble tile next to it.

I wrote a poem about a pebble and published it on Substack just this past April.

I found it 25 years ago...

The heart-shaped pebble with the crack all the way through it. It helped me make a big decision.

I was walking to work at the synagogue library. I served as a part-time librarian, which meant I was doing a job partly out of love, partly out of need (they paid me and I needed the money), and because I was good with liturgical and biblical Hebrew.

And the rabbi who oversaw the library thought I might be a good fit for the job.

A little digression here:

How did I get to this point? Like, how did I start going to a synagogue in the first place? I was in my early 40s, nu, that’s kind of late to be learning Hebrew, preparing for a Bat Mitzvah, working in the Temple’s library…

I was not religious, but spiritually open.

Once, in a guided meditation, I saw Judaism as a golden container, in a marble temple, guarded by a mean man, in his hand was a stop sign in front of his long beard.

…I was a woman and not allowed in…

In 1993, we moved to Kansas City. We lived a block and a half away from the Plaza branch of the Kansas City Public Library. I read a book called “The Jew in the Lotus,” by Roger Kamenetz, a poet.

In 1990, he’d traveled to Dharamsala, a hill town in India.
He traveled to meet with other Jews and some Jews who had become Buddhists to meet with the Dalai Lama. Why were Jews drawn to Buddhism was one question.

The Dalai Lama wanted to talk with Jewish leaders about the diaspora. With the Chinese takeover of Tibet, Tibetan Buddhism was endangered. People scattered all over…we Jews know that’s like. What could the Dalai Lama learn from how the Jews had persevered as a people and a religion? And what could Jews learn from Buddhism?

The book was published in 1994, and I read my library copy during the High Holy Days that year…

…Women allowed in? Meditation and spirituality… in Judaism?

I thought it was closed off to me, all laws! Hands off this! Hands off that!

Mind blown. I learned:

There were Hasidic Jews who used meditation since… long ago.
There was the Kabbalah, a way to understand the Universe… as far as your mind could go.
And now in modern times, a movement to bring these practices back, and bring them to ALL who wanted to learn, regardless of gender, gender identity, or if you were not religious, or even Jewish to begin with.

And when I learned that one of the participants in the trip to visit with the Dalai Lama was coming to the local Jewish Community Center, I planned to attend.

Now, it had been years since I’d done anything remotely Jewish.
I was attending 12-Step groups, and I had daily inner dialogues with my Higher Power. I trusted my intuition when I felt this spark: “Go to this Community Center. Listen to this speaker. Maybe others have read The Jew In The Lotus…”

I just wanted to sit in the back and take it all in, hoping it would be something like this Taxim, performed by The Klezmer Conservatory Band:

It wasn’t. It was an annual meeting. Celebratory and the participant from the visit with the Dalai Lama was also a humorist…

Oy very! So many people wearing suits and jewelry.
Me, with a denim skirt and one of my “nice” t-shirts!

When it was over, I left the room and ran to the bathroom.

I felt so out of place, so alone. I sat down on a toilet seat and wept.

A kind woman talked to me. She told me that yes, there were ways to be Jewish, to learn more. She introduced me to a rabbi who told me that they were starting a B’nai Mitzvah class for adults soon in his congregation.

I called about a week later, and a different rabbi answered and told me, “The class? It’s starting tonight!”

Photo by Ian Taylor on Unsplash

Coincidence or Magic? It was beshert!

It just so happened that I had a 12-step meeting I usually attended on Tuesday nights.
It just so happened that I had turned over one of my responsibilities to someone else for that night’s meeting!

The Yiddish word beshert means “destined.”
That little spark of intuition led me to this time, to this place…

Thank you for reading! Part two comes later this week… that whole doors closing and opening thing…
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