CyberTorah

41 years ago, I got called to the Torah for the first time. I have some vivid memories. I remember my Dad smiling at me with tremendous joy. I remember going way too fast on the Kaddish Shalem and the Rabbi stopping me and making me start over. I remember a beautiful and slightly awkward party at my home. Awkward, because I was a socially unskilled 13 year old without anything resembling the skills to be at a mixed gender party.

Yet there are also things that I wish I remembered. I remember giving my speech but not the content. I know I read Torah and Haftorah – I even have the book to prove it – but no memory of reading. The Rabbi taught me and blessed me, but I have no recollection of that at all. As a life cycle and family celebration I have wonderful memories. Yet the Jewish content is barely part of what I recall.

After my bar mitzvah, my parents registered me in the Jewish High School program and I dropped out as quickly as they would let me. My Dad went to Synagogue nearly every Shabbat and I mostly refused to go with him. I feel regret about this now. I wouldn’t have found the services meaningful, but I could have made my Dad whom I love happy. But fifteen-year-old me couldn’t see that.

It took me another 6 years to get more Jewishly involved. So I wonder sometimes why I did. Partly, when I went to college I landed in the wrong dorm socially and desperately wanted some friends. But something had gone right enough with my Synagogue experience that one of the places I gravitated towards was Hillel. In Hillel I found a home. I found people with whom I connected and people exploring their own spiritual and Jewish lives in deep dynamic ways.

I also met Carol, whom I would later marry. At the time, she was a serious Presbyterian though with her own questions of spiritual journey and identity. She brought me a language of faith that took God seriously. She and I together began practicing Shabbat and in that sacred time learned how to speak to each other with love and a genuine seeing of the other. Our Shabbat walks together in those years helped us grow together in a way that still nurtures me. Carol converted, but in reality we both chose Judaism together.

Part of me wishes my bar mitzvah had been more spiritually impactful, but it was enough to show me the blessings of Jewish community. 41 years ago I read about God offering us a blessing or a curse, a life of meaning framed around deep Torah values, or a self centered emptiness.  I feel grateful that my parent’s love, my Synagogue, my Hillel, and my wife were all enough to help me see through to find the blessing.

Shabbat Shalom-

Rabbi David Booth