Almost two decades ago, my wife Jacquie and I attended the ceremony in which our son, Jim, converted to Judaism. In fact, we stood on each side of him as he spoke the words that moved him from the Christianity in which he was raised, to the Judaism to which his heart and his God had led him.
Considering the fact that I am a United Methodist minister, some people wonder how his mother and I could do that.
Jacquie puts it better than I can, “I don’t believe God would want me to stop loving my son because he converted to Judaism. Besides, She would not do that, anyway.”
That is not to say that his conversion did not affect us. There is a moment in the ceremony in which the convert takes on the sufferings of the Jewish people. Jacquie and I gulped at that. I gulped even more when news of a shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh began to come in. By evening, we would know that 11 people were murdered. The largest single attack on Jewish people in US history.
Before the shootings happened, I had invited Jim’s family for dinner. As we sat together around the table, I felt that Jim’s decision to take on the sufferings of the Jewish people weighed on my heart even more, because now I care not just about him, but our beloved daughter-in-law and two grandchildren, as well as their extended family, including their other grandparents.
Our conversation at the table revolved, in part, around a service that our daughter-in-law, Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg, had hastily planned through the afternoon. She had sent out word through email and social media, but by dinner had only received one response from someone who said she planned to attend. Rachel said, that at least with the five of us, there would be a half dozen people there.
In fact, 29 people came. Since Rachel’s congregation has no building, we met in a Sunday School classroom of Community United Methodist Church in Jackson Heights, NY. Rachel held back tears as she read an email from a colleague in Pittsburgh. She then gave us some time to sit and meditate in silence. Then, she and Jim led those who knew the words in singing the evening prayer for the end of the Sabbath.
I sat in the back, watching and praying, too. I prayed for a world where people were not hated because they were different. I prayed in my own way and my own words to a God who, I believe, also had a son who took on the sufferings of the Jewish people.
Thank you Roger for sharing this beautiful writing.
Many of us the faith community struggle with how to reach out and respond to the struggles that other communities are going through. About of dozen of us UM clergy attended a Shabbat service the next Saturday at a temple in Beechwood, because we were invited to do so.
In this era we have been reawakened to the reality of racial and ethnic hatred and violence, and it is very alarming.
Let us continue to be vigilant and prayerful for each other.
Thank you for this. It doesn’t matter how we pray or whether we pray, any more than it matters what toppings we put on our pizza — or if we don’t eat pizza at all. We are all part of the living being of the universe and all worthy of love and the choice to find our spiritual home wherever feels right for us.