No deer in the headlights has ever looked as nervous as Rebecca!
I’ve been working a lot lately - and eating a lot of Little Caesar’s cheese bread on my lunch breaks. That stuff is so addictive! This week, in addition to working almost forty hours (!), I have two jobs interviews, hope to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (the last Harry Potter movie - it doesn't seem possible!) with Adam and/or Eva. I’m trying not to complain because I need the money/hours, but I just feel so busy. I really forward to shabbat services as my weekly get-away-from-the-insanity time. I also desperately hope to get my ficathon story finished and in beta by the end of the month.
Yesterday was so up-and-down. I didn’t slow down between waking up early for Torah study, another meeting with the rabbi about converting, and working a full day until close.
I actually woke up early enough yesterday to get to Wendy’s for breakfast. But as I drove downtown, I noticed none of the streetlights were working. Then I saw all the businesses were dark, including Wendy’s. Apparently power went out across the whole area. I was pissed to no end, let me tell you. I almost never wake up early enough to go anywhere for breakfast. I almost skipped Torah study, figuring the temple’s lights would be out too, since it’s in the middle of downtown, but when I drove by, I saw the lights were on.
The meeting with the rabbi… did not go as smoothly as I’d hoped. I had thought that we’d be setting a date for me to meet with the beit din in Baton Rouge, but actually, he asked me more questions about why I wanted to convert. I did not have answers prepared for any of them, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that I started babbling like an idiot. Ugh. Maggie gave me a hug for good luck before I went into the rabbi’s office. Can I blame her for this?
It was all so embarrassing, and worst of all, I had to leave early to get to work on time (even though I was still late). I literally came out of the meeting running - is that a bad sign? I felt so awful for cutting it short, but I just didn’t think it would take so long.
It all left me feeling so muddled. Two other temple members who are converting (Josh and Diane) were at the meeting, and they both seemed so much more certain and well-spoken than I did. At work that afternoon, for the first time, I wondered if maybe this whole converting to Judaism thing wasn’t for me. I considered praying for a sign that would tell me for sure if I was meant to be a Jew (which I’d never done before) but I was too scared to go through with it, because what if I prayed for a sign and one didn’t appear? Finally I told myself, “Well, maybe if I see something that could be construed as a sign, we’ll just take it from there.”
A few minutes later, who should walk into the store but Jacob (Sassy Jewish Grandfather #3, who also converted), fresh from our Torah study class. He had just come in to buy one blue-ink pen, but I felt so relieved to see him that I almost literally ran after him, tackled him, and started in with my oh-woe-is-me act. (As an aside, I don’t where the stereotype that southerners talk slowly comes from. You can’t slow us down when we get going.)
“Jacob! I had a meeting with rabbi this morning about converting, but I had to leave early to come here! What if he thinks it’s not really important to me?”
“Rebecca, the rabbi understands you have to w-”
“But he asked me why I wanted to become a Jew, and I told him I my joking answer instead of a serious one!”
“Well then, you’ll fit right in at our tem-”
“But what if he thinks this whole thing is just a joke to me? What if he thinks I’ll go off the derech?”
“Rebecca, you come to temple every Fri-”
“But I haven’t even been going to temple for that long! Josh said he’d been studying Judaism for five years, and Diane said she’d been the temple secretary for sixteen years!”
“Rebecca, you’re not in competition with-”
“Yeah, but if I was, I’d be in last place! Is it possible to fail the beit din?”
“Rebecca, I’ve never heard of anyone failing the beit-”
“Then I’ll be the first!”
“You know, Rebecca, I was rebuked three times before I could even think about converting, and now I teach the Hebrew classes.”
He really did make me feel so much better.
I’m glad that Jacob needed a blue-ink pen. And that someone in the temple left the lights on.
Almost forgot:
65 DAYS LEFT until the Season 9 premiere of NCIS!