Over the last few years, I've been immersed and welcomed into Jewish communities thanks to a combination of my ancestral, genetic and cultural history, the publication of both of my Jewish-themed books, and my repeated connection to the musical 'Fiddler on the Roof.' It's been an illuminating and profound experience to meet Jewish communities around the country and the world, to make real connections with Jewish people of all ranks and files, and to experience the feeling of contributing meaningfully to these communities.
However, as an individual with a heavily spiritual but religiously secular upbringing, I sometimes felt like a bit of an interloper, and as I have grown up I recognized that I wanted to dive deeper, to understand more thoroughly, and ultimately give myself the gift of an official Jewish identity by affirming faith and a community that has always felt like home.
I don't need a big fancy wedding (let's face it I got "married" on the Tony Awards), this is my personal "wedding day" ceremony if you will.
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Thoughts on Pharaoh’s Dreams (my Torah portion)
We live in a moment when our future is not certain, nor is it easy to ascertain. When we meet Pharaoh at the top of our story he is in a state of confusion. He’s asked all of the best sages in Egypt to interpret his dream.
Dreams can be frightening— dreaming can represent nightmares and confusion, the experience of a vanishing sun made individual, personal. It represents both confusion and confusion’s opposite, intuition.
Perhaps one of the lessons is that
IF we sit with mystery, new ways of navigating emerge,
ways that are more instinctual, intuitive and rooted in higher states of consciousness—
a light shines into a new corner of the psyche, an ice dam thaws, change happens.
Maybe times of confusion are merely perfectly designed psychic situations (aka: DREAMS) that let us call on parts of ourselves that we wouldn’t otherwise use if we continued with the Old model that told us exactly what we were “supposed to” do.
Maybe confusion is an initiation?
If there is a fear that dreams represent, it is the fear of the unknown, in all its permutations.
Dreams require us to be patient and to trust.
Dreams dare us to make friends with what scare us,
shake paws with the monster under the bed,
gaze hard at ourselves at our most vulnerable,
to make one with the Universe (for the Universe contains all), and love ourselves.
Finally,— the final words of my Torah portion are
“cHAH-LOME EHcHAD HOO”
— “IT IS ALL ONE DREAM.”
Whoever we are, no matter how humble or mighty, I believe at our core we have the same dreams: for love and belonging, gratitude and. Peace. It is all one dream.
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Thoughts on Faith and Mystery
To me, the concept of Faith has always been mixed up with the institution of Organized Religion (as I think it has for many of us). We often unfairly miscategorized these to be
- 1. SYNONYMOUS and
- 2. Primarily about fear and punishment, with some prayer, benediction, (and the odd Christmas carol and latke thrown in…)
This misinterpretation is a judgment. And judgment closes our minds and hearts. It leaves no room for the embracing of life’s inevitable mysteries, for the embracing of a myriad of spiritual practices, for a deeper knowledge of both the great strengths and the beautiful humilities of Humanity; and no room for a dialogue with the Unknown.
My perception of Judaism as a faith-based largely on the principle of discourse (after all, Tevye talks directly to and directly with, G-d!) And I have come to learn that in Judaism there is a constant learning, discourse, questioning, and rumbling with meaning, that reminds us this life is never a monologue and always a dialogue.
Any spiritual practice involves an essential recognition that life is not what it appears to be, but an interplay between the visible and invisible.
Whatever form they take—be it a yoga practice, a walk in the woods or any Spirit-facing ritual.
For me, that practice has long been present in theatrical superstition, prayers in a crisis to an Unknown Force, or in the calming wave of Love present with me at the “worst” moments of my life.
I now feel confident enough to name that force (among many other things from Universe, Spirit, Nature, and Fate), the word G-d.
This ceremony and experience have not been a conversion, but rather an affirmation. That Judaism is not merely in a handful of early-life memories, my father’s bloodline, my ancestral DNA, my cultural history, and yes yes, all over my resume.
I have always suspected I was Jewish.
Because I was.
I am.
And it is possible to be Jewish in my own way,
and be “Jewish enough.”
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