Questions, Miracles and Blessings

I do remember thinking that since many of the same people who hated Black people hated Jews and Mexicans too, it didn’t make sense to me that Black people should hate Jews and Mexicans. Weren’t we all in the same uncomfortable and dangerous boat and weren’t we all working and fighting to get out of that same place? Wouldn’t it make more sense to be making common cause with people who had the same issues as we did?  

Looking back, I think I was right, even if I was just a kid. But I have to admit that I didn’t worry about it very much at the time. Some things just seemed unknowable back then, even had I been willing to chance a slap. 

I was a little Christian girl with a lot of questions. That was just another one, and it wasn’t, to be honest, even near the top of the list. 

Time moved on as it does, and there I was in Denver, Colorado, a place with some of the most beautiful scenery in the world: the Rocky Mountains. I was no longer a Christian. I had become a practitioner of the earth-based religion: Wicca. (And no we weren’t Satanists.) But witch me still had a lot of questions. 

That seemed to be the only consistent bit in my life: that I had a LOT of questions. 

Eventually I ended up in a small town in Pennsylvania where there weren’t enough Jews to make a minyan. 

So when I began to consider converting to Judaism, there was again a lot of moving, though this was physical, not temporal: driving north to the nearest synagogue and south both to a teacher I found online (which in hindsight was not one of my best decisions), and to another synagogue with a cantor with the most gorgeous voice, and a lot of interesting classes (which was). 

That one constant in my life did remain: I still had a lot of questions. I was very excited that, in learning about Judaism, I actually got some

answers. I was less excited though, when I figured out that the answers generally led to even more questions. Many, many, many more questions. 

One of the things I learned, and one of the things I loved most about Judaism was its emphasis on gratitude. Jews are supposed to say at least 100 blessings a day. And they’re not just blessings on big things, like not dying in a car crash. 

Not that you can’t, or shouldn’t be grateful for that. (A few years ago I tripped and cracked my head open against a cement sidewalk. Believe me, I was very grateful [and said a lot of blessings] when I realized how much worse it could have been.) 

And for me this is the best part of Judaism: it encourages you to be grateful for everything, not just the lack of a broken nose and bones. Grateful that you woke up this morning; that you have food to eat; that your body is functioning properly, are just the first things on the list, followed closely by my friends, and community. I am grateful for everything really. 

Long before I became Jewish, this was something I privately felt was how I should feel and behave. How excited was I to find a whole system that practiced the same thing; that had gratitude built into it. 

When I started my Jewish journey, I had been very surprised to learn how much other faith traditions had taken (well stolen, if we’re honest) from Judaism.

Again time passed, and as I learned more I became aware, it was not just other faiths that did this. I started to see reflections of Jewish thought and practice in the mainstream culture around me, as well. 

An example is found in the 1958 Broadway show/1961 movie Flower Drum Song. 

In it, there’s a song that, for me, makes the rest of the movie worth watching. (Not that it’s a bad movie. I just think it hasn’t aged very well.) In any