The 10 Requirements

After you talk to your fiance’s family about their expectations for conversion, and talk to the various members of your own family about your decision to convert, and quit your job, and move 3,000 miles across the country and live in your future sister-in-law’s suburban basement for three-and-a-half months, and go on countless interviews and finally land a great job, and move to New York City, and act as a bridesmaid in your friend’s wedding, and survive Superstorm Sandy, and venture to and from Boston for Thanksgiving, and deflect numerous questions about when you’re getting married (Phew!) it will be, at long last: Time to Find a Rabbi.

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It should stand without question that the internet is one of the greatest inventions of all time, and the internet is where I am narrowing my search for a synagogue and a Rabbi.  Rather than ask around about synagogues, a prospect which comes with its own complicated process rife with anxieties and uncertainties (if I don’t pick their synagogue can we remain family friends? Can I really get a sense of the place and what it will be like just from so-and-so’s recommendation?), I want to be in control of the process.  I’m a control freak. I want to let fate guide me, as it were, to the right place to convert and to the right person with whom to convert.  It is my belief that in this day and age, fate can happen with the assistance of the internet. JDate anyone?  But, I digress.

I literally typed “convert to Judaism New York City” into Google to start.  Subsequent searches included “Reform synagogue NYC”, “Conservative synagogue NYC” and “Reconstructionist synagogue NYC.”  It was that simple.  I then emailed and called a handful of places that I judged, pretty much solely from the glamour and efficiency of their websites, to be worthy of approaching.  When people are looking for a romantic partner, they often develop a set of criteria.  I want to find a partner who is tall, dark and handsome.  Or, I want to find a partner who is smart, funny, likes long walks on the beach and still has a head of hair.  Or, I want to find a partner who is well educated, tolerates my affinity for documentary film festivals, loves house cats, and knows every word to every song in the musical Les Miserables. (The last one is Steve).  People develop a framework for an ideal, albeit phantasmal, partner and they use these criteria to evaluate the real life people they meet. Is this person The One? I think finding a Rabbi and a synagogue with whom which, and at which, to convert to Judaism is like finding a person to date long-term.

I, who has never had any formal religious instruction.  I, who has spent a miniscule amount of time inside a church or synagogue or any other House of God.  And, I, who therefore considers the very idea of entering and learning inside such a sacred space to be so otherworldly as to be almost exotic, developed a list of what I’m looking for.  What, exactly, in this future religious relationship am I hoping to find?  I love a good list.  What follows is a rubric against which Steve and I will determine whether a place of worship and a rabbi will be right or wrong for me–for us.

The Ten Requirements:

1. Thou shalt not be creepy in any way. 

Re: No weirdos, no pressure, no extreme religiosity, no hate (i.e. we are progressive people so if they don’t like women, gays or house cats we are not joining).  This sounds like a bad dating profile already.

2. Thou shalt not make a newcomer feel like an outsider.  

Re: I should feel not only comfortable but welcomed.  I should also feel like I could make friends and get into the scene (the scene being the culture of the congregation, services, community activities, being and living Jewishly).

3. Thou shalt not move Steve toward death.

Re: We need a place where Steve doesn’t think he’ll feel like killing himself in some violent and public way every time we go there.  I am joking (kind of).

4. Thou shall remember: Location! Location! Location!

Re: Somewhere accessible by public transit, ideally, and convenient to get to from both work and home.

5. Honor thy ambiance and thy architectural aesthetic.

Re: Somewhere beautiful.  Blame the Art History courses I took in college, blame the many great European Cathedrals I have gazed inside, or blame Bob Ross, but I have always had this idea that a place of worship should be and feel comfortable, calming, and beautiful.  This is not to say that it should necessarily feel like one is In the Presence of God, but it should feel different (good different) from all other spaces in one’s life.  In fact, many museums feel this way to me.

6.Thou shalt not have a New-Agey, Touchy-Feely, Hippy-dippy, hold-hands-and-stand-in-a-circle-and-sway-and-feel-the-love sort of vibe.

Re: Enough said.  I’m not knocking it; I just can’t deal with that kind of spiritualism.  It’s so far outside my realm of normalcy.  I’m a hardcore New Yorker now.

7. Know Hebrew.

Re: I’d like to find a place that keeps it real.  That is to say, a place that is not so un-religious in the classic sense that all services and prayers are solely in English and no one among the congregants can read a Haggadah passage in Hebrew.  For me, I think I would be made to feel more Jewish among a group of people who have learned some Hebrew.  I want to learn Hebrew.  Maybe, for now, I think that the language of Hebrew is some kind of key to belonging, to feeling and becoming a real Jew.

8. Thou shalt not separate men from women.

Re: It’s important to me that men and women are thought of and treated as equals in the synagogue we join.  Given the feminist mothering I received, my progressive political leanings and my firm conviction that men and women are and should always be equals, this is a non-negotiable.

9.  Thou shall have a leader who is wise and thoughtful and not unlike a father figure.

Re: I want a smart, sweet, kick-ass Rabbi/leader/mentor/spiritual guru.  I want to find a Rabbi who is kind and intelligent and looks and behaves a little like the character Saul on the TV show Homeland.  I’ll admit it.  He is like an amalgamation of every Jewish friend’s father I have ever met.  The Rabbi in my mind is older, has gray hair and glasses, has a wife and grown children, has helped many converts and welcomes them, and is exceedingly knowledgeable about the Jewish faith and morality.  He is a sage.  He is a he (pause for obligatory, gasp! at this decidedly un-feminist statement.  I hate myself a little for writing this).  To be clear, I will be interviewing at least one female Rabbi and I sincerely hope I like her.

10. No Manischewitz. 

{Image credit: “Mind if I tweak it?” by Robert Mankoff, The New Yorker, Published March 22, 2010.}