Two weeks ago today, I became Jewish.
At approximately 10:25 am on the 22nd of Tammuz in the year 5769 on west 72nd street between Broadway and West End Avenue, I dipped three times in the Upper West side mikveh (my local Jewish ritual bath) and entered into the covenant. Naked, chin deep in warm, slightly chemically, totally religious water, my friend Dvora at the mikveh's tiled edge cheering me on as I wept through prayers in Hebrew, a mikveh lady named Gita proclaimed after a final successful immersion,
"KOSHER!"
Ritual dipping, by the way, is harder than it looks. One must submerge completely whilst not allowing feet or hands to touch the side of the small pool. Never mind that the impossible Hebrew language must be recited between dips and somewhere in the back of one's mind, one knows that a block away people are shopping at Fairway.
As I emerged from the sacred waters newly Elisheva, blubbering, "Baruch atta...." New Yorkers outside were boarding city buses, hailing cabs, chewing gum, pushing baby strollers. being normalish, having an ordinary day.
Pulling me back into semi reality, Gita took my newly Jewish baby cheeks in her hands, peered into my face as if I were a crystal ball and she was reading me:
"YOU ARE NOW A BEAUTIFUL JEWISH GIRL!"
And then of course, "BE GOOD!"
I've done some fairly radical things in my life, but this is definitely in the top three. Much more on this to follow.
