Noah converted on this blog. Not literally ON this blog but our conversion was a blog topic for the first couple of years that I was blogging. We converted when he was four and I was 31. It wasn’t much of a ceremony and we didn’t do the mikveh. This was because my rabbi, god love him, who almost didn’t convert me ‘cuz Noah wasn’t (isn’t) circumcised and because I couldn’t promise to circumcise future kids (moot point, as it turns out) said that anyone who didn’t believe in the mitzvah of circumcision would get nothing out of the ritual of the mikveh. I think he’s wrong there but I was so grateful to get converted that I let it slide.

Anyway, I may not have had a bris for my son and we may not have gone to the mikveh post-conversion but this bar mitzvah is a big deal for both of us. Noah has worked really really really hard — every single day with the chanting! — and both his tutor and our rabbi are very impressed with him. Terrific accent, terrific delivery and a beautiful voice.

I sit there during the rehearsals and I’m just so proud and so moved to see my son up there chanting his Torah portion with the rabbi’s hand on his shoulder.

So the bar mitzvah is Saturday and I’m kinda losing my mind between work and prep. We left a lot to last minute partially because I have never ever ever organized anything like this (Brett and I eloped for one — we don’t really do weddings in my family) and had no idea how much I should have done beforehand and partially because that was just the reality with the holidays and a new job and working two jobs at once for a little while. It’s just nuts. But good nuts. Because the party may be odd and mismatched and mostly full of goyim (starting with my husband) but they will be people we love and who love our son and there will be food and music (Noah’s play list seems to have a lot of disco on it — go figure).

Now I just have to get through the week to GET there!!

W.I. Thomas: “If people believe something to be true, it is true in its consequences.”

In other words, we act on our beliefs as if they were facts, right?

I think about this all the time because it helps me understand why other people hold as firmly to their beliefs as I hold to mine. It also reminds me how fallible my own “facts” might be.

I wish other people would appreciate this maxim as well — it’d save me a whole lot of useless arguments.

Now I’m an idealist (or so my frustrated but loving mother tells me), which means I’m more prone to this than other people. Like republicans — theoretically I understand how they could think the way they do but when it comes right down to it, I don’t get it. I feel the same way about lots of other stuff like, for example, showtunes. I say that I understand how you could not like musical theater but secretly I’m thinking that you just haven’t heard the right score. And what’s worse, if you tell me you don’t like musical theater because it’s so stagy and silly, I will nod like I’m totally understanding your point of view but secretly I will be plotting to send you a mix CD to convince you that you’re wrong. (I’d be planning to put Finishing the Hat and pretty much all of South Pacific — the original Mary Martin version — on it. Oh and some Jason Robert Brown. And Gershwin, of course. And have you ever heard William Finn’s Sailing? Because if you haven’t, I’d be thinking, you’re just talking out of ignorance.)

And see, that’s a problem. Because for all I know (and I should ask before I assault you with mp3 CDs) you grew up listening to showtunes because your parents are huge fans and as a matter of fact you haven’t talked to them for years because your anti-showtune stance is such a betrayal that whenever you get together all you do is fight and your mom says, “Anyone who doesn’t love Bernadette Peters’s rendition of Being Alive is no child of mine!” Maybe my hammering to enlighten you is more hammer, less light, you know?

I’m not going to let go of my idea that showtunes are way awesome and I don’t have to but I do need to operate with the understanding that people can listen to the exact same songs I do and come out of it with a different opinion. Because their true beliefs are just as true as mine are — even if they aren’t. And maybe I ought to be a little more respectful when someone says, “Yeah, I don’t like musicals. That’s just me.”

Now when it comes to stuff that’s just plain wrong — like I can believe 2 + 2 = 5 and I can act like it’s true all I want but I’m still gonna be wrong about it — there’s some point to having an argument with me but our discussion will be more effective if you come to it understanding how staunchly I’m standing in my convictions.

It gets so much stickier when people start arguing about showtunes with the same absolutes they’d bring to an argument about math, you know? When we don’t understand that some things — like politics and religion — feel grounded in fact when actually they’re grounded in faith. So we can start quoting studies and scripture but if the other person doesn’t buy into the premise of that study or the veracity of that scripture, it ends up being — you guessed it — more hammer less light.

Anyway. I was thinking on that today. No reason. Well, no reason I’m gonna blog!

The PJ Library

These good folks send Madison a free book about Judaism every month. Your kid must be less than seven to get in on the fun and you need to check that they operate in your neck of the woods. Some of them are good, some of them are not. I was happy to get What Makes Someone a Jew? even though it’s painful to read. (We stick to the pictures.) It’s aggressively multicultural but the rhymes are plain old bad so it ends up being unintentionally hilarious.

My favorite so far is Five Little Gefiltes because it’s intentionally hilarious.

They list all the books they send and you can see there are some great ones on there so hey! If you’re Jewish (or if your kids are Jewish) go ahead and sign up!

1. Last night at writers group, my friend Sarah told me that she was thinking on this post (the one where I out myself as a former slut) and she was wondering why the thinking felt familiar to her then she realized, I’m a Calvinist! Except for the being Jewish part. Now I don’t know much about Calvinism or any other brand of Christianity (my friend Sarah is a savvy Christian and is patient about explaining denominational differences to me) but the way she explained it is that Calvinists preach that no one is better than anyone else and so there’s no “holier than thou” teaching there. Now don’t start arguing with me about Calvinism because I don’t know a darn thing anyway but we all thought it was funny, me being a Calvinistic Jew.
2. Then after writers group we strolled out of the restaurant and stood on the sidewalk chatting last minute when several police cars whizzed down the road. We were in downtown Worthington (we met at Le Chatelaine). If you don’t live here I’ll explain that downtown Worthington is like Main Street, America. Kitschy little shops, a few adorable-type restaurants and a village green that has Sunday night concerts. But the main drag cuts through all of Columbus, which is what keeps Worthington from being quite a sleepy little suburb. Anyway, the police cars go by with lights and sirens and then the street was totally silent. Suddenly another car comes shooting down and slams into a streetlight, shedding it’s bumper and several other important-looking parts; bounces off the streetlight; fishtails down the block (knocking into at least one other car, maybe two); skids into the Graeter’s parking lot; whips around and roars down New England Avenue. We stood there stunned and then a million point one police cars suddenly careen into view from both directions, arriving at the intersection where the car left and then scatter leaving two of them to literally pick up the pieces. I have no idea where the guy was coming from, why he was running and whether or not they caught him. It was crazy and I was shaking hard for quite awhile after the street was clear again.
3. Madison is going to the doctor today because yesterday she still seemed to be carrying herself differently from her non-fall on the couch. Today she seems fine (it’s always that way — like the day you’re supposed to get your hair cut it looks good for the first time in days). We’re going anyway. Noah is going rollerskating so he can wrench his neck.
4. I can’t believe the primaries are dragging on. My heart can’t take it and it’s not even anywhere near November yet. You know, I always felt like Hillary was paving the way for a woman president by her stint in the White House as first lady; I never thought that first president would be her. I’m wondering if she took Ohio because Republicans could also vote in the Democratic primary. (You can vote in whichever you want — you just tell the folks at the table which primary you want to have a say in.) I think Obama is a better match for McCain and maybe they do, too. But I tell you — I love Michelle Obama.
5. Speaking of Obama, the other day Madison pointed to some talking head on television and asked if that was Obama. I said, no, Obama had brown skin and then showed her a picture. She said, “Oh like ME!” And yeah, that made me want to vote for him a little bit more. I don’t want to get into a pissing contest about race versus gender but if I was only voting on the “who should go first?” ticket (and I’m not), it’d be race. I’m having a hard time articulating why this is but it’s not where I would have been pre-Madison. That’s something I need to meditate on for awhile.