After
spending most of my youth-until age 18-in a Modem
Orthodox Yeshivah, I left Judaism. My rebellion led me
far afield. I went as far as to declare myself an atheist-believing
that religion was simply “the opiate of the
masses. ” Subsequently, however, I felt lonely for my religion-for
some system of meaning-and I returned. In my return
I at first went back to Modern Orthodoxy and then
moved to a traditional egalitarianism-which is where I
find myself now.
Wanting
to immerse my life in studying and teaching Judaism,
I became a Conservative rabbi. There I found a “room of
my own” in which I could struggle to integrate my
Judaism and being a woman. It was the movement in which,
essentially, I did not have to cut off one of those pieces of
myself for the other. There I found the most traditional
expression of Judaism which still gave women the
opportunity to be rabbis-an opportunity I could not have
imagined as a child for myself nor, for that matter, for
anybody else. Most of the Syrian Jewish community where I
grew up saw and still sees non-Orthodox Judaism as
invalid; the female rabbinate symbolizes the pinnacle of its
heresy.
Now, an
ordained rabbi, I often shake my head in disbelief.
I-a rabbi? I-count in a minyan? I-called upon to give
divrei torah and lectures? I-called rabbi by my students?
These are the blessings and gifts made possible for me by
the movement which I chose to become part of. They
are all the more so blessings because they were not gifts
bestowed upon me at birth. Rather, to become a
Conservative rabbi was a choice-a choice that cost me much
discomfort regarding my family and the community of my
youth.
With this
gift, however, came much loss. Not only was it
difficult because it was a choice not easily understood by my
family and community, but because to leave a
traditional community for liberal Judaism comes at a high
price. Never again will I live in a community where Judaism
is so naturally, so unself-consciously, an integral part of
people’s lives. While “meaning” was rarely a subject
for discussion, so much of life was naturally imbued
with religious meaning. Never again will I live in a
community where it can be assumed that most of its members
are observant-that a Jewish life rich in halakhic
observance will be transmitted to most of the next
generation.
I
remember a moment when it was clear to me I was on a
crossroads, shutting the door on a way of life that would be
permanently cut off to me. When I began my first
year of rabbinical school at JTS, I befriended a woman who
was in her preparatory year for entering rabbinical
school. In search of a more intensive text experience
she took the next year and attended Drisha. At the end
of that year we met for coffee and she told me of her decision
to become Orthodox and not to return to JTS. Of
course it was a decision that initially I was quite threatened
by. How could you abandon me?-I thought. How can
you abandon this fight of women to be counted?
The Road Not Taken
But I did
not utter these words aloud. Instead I continued to
listen. And so did she. While she was not betraying me, I
felt betrayed by her choice. At some point I came to a
different conclusion: we were both choosing our losses.
They were very different losses but losses nevertheless. I was
jealous that she could be part of a life that I could
never return to. I was in the midst of mourning the community I left behind. I missed the passion of its religious
life and its naturalness. She was giving up the possibility
of becoming a rabbi, of counting in a minyan, of a
freer hand in the play of theology.
When she
acknowledged what I said-that we were both
choosing our losses, I felt deeply gratified. While making
the decision to become Orthodox she did not feel the need
to invalidate the choice she was leaving behind; she did
not feel the need to denigrate my Jewish way-the room I
chose. I’ve made my bed in the Conservative room of the
house, thankful for its gifts and blessings. But still I dream
of the room I moved out of. I still hope that some of its
gifts will find its way to where I live now.
RABBI DIANNE ESSES, a Steinhardt Fellow at
CLAL, Is the first Syrian
Jewish woman to become a rabbi. She was
ordained at the Jewish
Theological Seminary of America In
1995.
(CLAL: the National Jewish Center for Learning and
Leadership,
May 10, 1996
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