Fall and the Samain Moon
Friday gratefuls: BA canceled my flight. So, I can get a refund. Parking refunded. Tour group money held over for a trip next year. All resolved for now. With some money coming. Conversion. At Temple Emmanuel mikveh. Last week of November. Mussar. Evergreen Market. Sugar Jones. Rabbi Jamie. Zionism. Very good workout. 2 sets of resistance. Luke. Anne. Darkness my old friend. Sounds of Silence. The 60’s. Jackie. Her and Ronda’s sweetness. Her sauna. Growing my beard out.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ritual purity
One brief shining: Ruth called yesterday wanting to know if she and her friends could have a Friendsgiving at my house, of course I said, and checked in with her about an evening out at Dazzle, the jazz club, next Saturday works for her so so good to talk with her, hear Mia on the phone saying hi Grandpa, and her other friends saying hi. Made this old man happy.
I’ve taken Mia in as a granddaughter from another family. She was so helpful and kind when I had to euthanize Kep, helping the vet carry him up the stairs, staying with Ruth while Kep died. Mia grew up on Oahu, moving here when her father’s biochemical company needed better access to the U.S. as a whole. She even said she missed me. Aw.
Yesterday was busy. Diane in the morning. Then an intense and good workout. Going up on weights on some exercises. Back exercises added in. After that a shower and over to Jackie’s Aspen Roots hair salon. Was gonna be a sprucing up before my trip. Both Jackie and Ronda were glad I’m not going to Israel. I’ve never had so many people happy about a trip I’m not taking. As I left Jackie turned to Ronda and said, we’re going to have to start looking for someone for Charlie. Uh-oh.
From Jackie’s straight to CBE for Thursday mussar and my second conversion education session with Rabbi Jamie. In both the mussar setting and my session with him after the focus was Israel/Hamas. The topic for our session had been Zionism which can be seen as the proximate cause of the struggle Israel and its Arab neighbors have faced since its founding. That is, it was the Zionist movement of the late 19th century which set off the chain of events creating a Jewish state in 1948. Immediately after Israeli nationhood Egypt, Syria, and Jordan attacked it with the stated goal of pushing the Jews into the ocean. The Arabs lost the war. But the conflicts signaled in that first military action may have changed actors from time to time, but not the goal of eliminating a Jewish presence in the Middle East.
When we moved onto my conversion, I said I wanted to get it done as soon as practicable. A little cold for going to a flowing stream or lake for a naked plunge. Though I would have been up for that. We settled on a newer mikveh, a ritual bath that has to be connected to flowing water, built by Temple Emmanuel, a large Reform congregation in south Denver.
Discovered that Joann Greenberg had asked to be a community representative in my beit din, house of judgement, or rabbinic court. That surprised and pleased me. I have about a half hour interview with her, Rabbi Jamie, and a third Rabbi yet to be named who will also be the one who draws a spot of blood from my penis. Then, naked immersion in the mikveh. And I’m part of the Jewish community for ever and a day.
Rabbi Jamie also asked me which parsha I wanted for my conversion week. A parsha is the long weekly section of Torah that allows the entire five books of Moses to be read through in a year. At first I thought, wha? Then I got it. I want the parsha with Jacob at the Jabbok Ford wrestling an angel. That story I consider paradigmatic of my own spiritual journey. If you know the story, Jacob’s name changes that night to Israel, one who struggles with God. That story shows up this year in late November which is why the conversion will be then.
