With one day left of school now, I feel I must reflect. What they say about this school is true, you know — people really do sleep in the library, and it is hard to make friends. Really, two of my only friends here include the rabbi and the Catholic priest. It’s kind of interesting. They actually give me advice in life. For example, they agree with me when I want to graduate a semester early or do a Jewish Studies major instead of a Religious Studies major. And you know? Sometimes it’s good to have people occasionally reinforce your crazy ideas when no one else will.
I do have other friends; they just tell me I should wait to graduate and stick with a more marketable major. Nonsense! I know what I want in life. There are lots of things I could do next spring if I graduated early—why do I need to be here? Behold: there’s Pardes, WUJS, the Conservative Yeshiva, I could intern at a Jewish non-profit, I could move to New York. I could do a lot of things.
But you know what I hate? I’m chained. Why? Wherever I pick, I ought to be thinking about staying there for a couple of years. That’s what converting does. You have to pick a place and stay there. If I want to intern in Washington, DC next summer, the first thing I think is: “What if I finally find a good community there? Should I just stay and convert and just take the old Amtrak to school a couple days a week? Is that hasty? But I wanted to live in New York! (whine)” I’d feel like a bad candidate if I went to a rabbi going “I like this place, but I want to go to Israel in a year and maybe go backpacking and never come back, sorry.” (You get the feeling you can’t be Jewish and on the go.) It almost makes me not want to live in a city I know I probably don’t want to live in forever…even just to intern. And that’s a little morbid.
I don’t think those conversion books mention the horrid period of gestation wherein you’re in between “making the decision” and telling your rabbi about it. (For me, there is no rabbi.) I think I’m there. And it’s disorienting. It’s disorienting when everyone around me is telling me that it’s not so bad. It is bad. The only people who agree are an Orthodox rabbi and a Catholic priest.
But alas, there’s an even darker side of conversion. I’m glad I got so many comments on my last post, but I started to see something that I sort of latently suspected anyway. When you convert, as you may know, you have to pick a denomination. If you’re not sure which, a good way to decide is to pit them against each other and make bad jokes and tongue-in-cheek observations about the ones you think you may not like. It doesn’t matter if they’re exaggerations or caricatures; that’s good! Conservatism is a country club! Orthodoxy hates women! If you’re wishy-washy, how can you ever pick one? And remember—you have to pick one.
Do you see what’s happening here? I can’t just pick an Orthodox conversion. I must implicitly say in turn that non-Orthodox conversions are invalid—otherwise, why would I go through the trouble? I must say there’s something wrong with the others; that those with liberal practices are metaphysically doing it wrong. No matter how I feel about that, there must be absolutes in conversion.
I think it’s hardest for Orthodoxy because Reform can use theology to get out of the argument, and Conservatism can use certain platforms such as egalitarianism, but once I pick Orthodoxy I must also be giving up anything good there might be in Conservatism. I must implicitly be saying that I don’t believe in women’s rights, right? Or that I agree with all the theology that guides Orthodox practice.* Someone once told me I didn’t seem “at peace” with my decision. I agree. I can’t be, because no denomination is a pure, unalloyed Judaism. There are good and bad features about each. I don’t like the idea of settling into a denomination. I’m picking the best option. I mean, geez, there’s only three (or four, for you sticklers…and two already accept me).
Picking Orthodox over Conservative was one of the hardest (yet clearest) decisions I’ve had to make, but in a sense it doesn’t matter that I’ve made the decision. My theology is the same! I don’t suddenly hate liberal Judaism. A friend asked me how I could still stand to go to JTS after I’d just said Conservatism is so wrong. You know what’s wrong though? The fact that I had to come up with a list of things that are wrong with liberal Judaism in order to justify my decision to convert to Orthodoxy. I stand by my list, but look at the divisions it causes! Conversion can do that. Conversion makes you pick one. It makes you pledge allegiance to that denomination—forever.
*I don’t mean Sinai. Hasidic thought, frighteningly, guides some normative practices regarding women.
Written & illustrated by the author.
Laura Cooper is a Religious Studies major at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, VA. Her interests include graphic novels, punk rock, and making Judaism interesting. She blogs at Crystal Decadenz. Her column, The Jew in the Boonies, appears here on alternating Sundays.
