aliyah application stumps bec!

it's a very bad sign when you're filling out an application and the very first question is a mega stumper.

Name:____________________________________

uh....hmmm....well....okay, so that brings us to the issue. in the past i mentioned that i was considering changing my hebrew name but i've since decided against that. there's just too many things at risk in that case. what if i somehow altered my fate by changing my name? i just read a whole thing about this, and i really don't want to mess with what already is working for me. i've also since realized that my hebrew name (masha--a feminization of moshe) is extremely fitting for several reasons, one being that i feel like i can completely relate to the many teachings in shemos, especially when, as i relay it, hashem speaks to moshe and is like "okay, moshe, go to pharoah and tell him that i told you to tell him to let the israelites go worship me in the desert...." and moshe is like, "uh, well, uh, d-d-do i have to? i mean, i am just so so so soooo not worthy and i really don't think i can do it, and i really, really, really, don't think i want to....can you please pick someone else?????" and yes, i'm aware that this is not the actual conversation between moshe and g*d, but it works for now, and unfortunately, i feel that this exemplifies a large portion of my life, when i knew that there were things i should have been doing, and just didn't because i just didn't feel like i could. but i'll get back to that in a few sentences.

so now, really the question is, and i don't have to answer this one until i'm on israeli soil, from what i've been told, is whether or not i want to add masha to my regular name, which could become masha rebecca/rivka miriam...or we could nix miriam altogether and i could be rivka/rebecca masha, or, or, or...thinking about this is actually giving me headache. knowing me, this will probably be something i'll decide en route to ben gurion, while nursing an infant, and doling out play-doh to my other kids.

last night, my chavrusa asked me what originally pushed us away from orthodoxy and what is pulling us back. she was surprised when i told her that i went back to wearing skirts exclusively this past spring, which was around the same time that i started covering my hair again.

to explain leaving odoxy, you have to understand that throughout college, i was in a constant struggle to take on orthodoxy and yet maintain the person who i had fought so hard to become--this totally independent, writer/traveling person who was willing to do anything and go anywhere. no matter how hard i tried, i couldn't seem to balance both worlds. i was sort of spoiled by the secular world and while keeping kosher, i would crave the dim sum that my folks were going out for, and drool over the non-kosher pizza that they'd bring in (while i dutifully ate tuna salad for the umpteenth time that week). i would go to random relatives' houses and feel guilty that i couldn't eat their food. i was so stressed out that i would go to the bathroom to mourn not being able to eat what everyone else was eating. it was hinted to me that it would be rude if i brought my own food, and since i was living with my folks back then, i still felt somewhat compelled to listen to their advice. i ate a lot of salad in those days.

when i traveled to germany for several weeks on a trip sponsored by a jewish organization who told me that "the jewish community was on vacation" during the time that we'd be there and then proceeded to make shabbos in a (non-kosher) restaurant, i found myself profoundly disappointed with the people whom i thought were committed jews. i ate salad for three weeks and came home with the skinniest wrists i'd ever seen.

when adam and i came home from israel in 1998, once again committed to orthodox judaism, we thought we could do it alone. we never got a rav (we thought we had it all under control, a very arrogant assumption) and we never fully meshed into our community. in retrospect, we really didn't have it under control at all. we hardly ever made it to shul, partially because we never felt comfortable anywhere.... we would get dressed on shabbos morning intending to go to shul and then just keep walking! pretty sad, eh?

one place that we davened had a sliding mechitzah, and one of the women had removed her hat. when the rabbi started to speak, he slid the mechitzah so he could also address the women's side and there was this mad scramble so she could put her hat back on.

for me, the clothing was an issue--people were dressing to the nines to go to shul and i looked like the hired help.

for adam, the davening was an issue--he'd never had any formal training in hebrew aside from college, so this was definitely a hardship.

for me, i felt very self-conscious about not being able to afford certain things, like, MEAT. so we didn't eat meat. i didn't fit in and i didn't really know who to go to about it, or who could help us to get it together.

i remember coming home from the supermarket right before pesach and crying over how much money we spent just to make a kosher pesach, and realizing that we'd hardly gotten anything, yet had still spent sooo much money.

i had this really bad experience at the mikvah at one point, where the mikvah lady yelled at me because i couldn't see the blessing because i didn't have my glasses on, and, being relatively new at the whole thing, still didn't know the blessing by heart. and when she yelled at me, it was horrible! i mean, i was IN THE MIKVAH!!!! she was like "you need a refresher class, blah blah blah!" and more about how i needed to cut my hair because it was too long and wouldn't all immerse....and in retrospect, i'm sure that she was just having a bad day, and maybe i took it all too personally, but i felt that i'd been so humiliated that well, anyway....i went home and cried, feeling like i tried so hard and still just couldn't get where i wanted to be.

so there were several moments that just sort of pushed us away.

of course, there was also the lure of the secular world...going to phish shows, and moe. shows, missing going to the non-kosher places we used to eat at, eating food that our relatives were serving....what had, in israel, been so easy to keep, was, in brooklyn, yes--IN BROOKLYN!!!! so impossible to hang on to, that we gradually moved back into the secular realm.

at one point we were like "maybe orthodoxy just isn't for us."

for a while, we were bitter.

the feeling like we failed was constantly in the back of my mind.

as time went by, our bitterness faded and was replaced with a slight longing. we wondered why we were never able to commit to an orthodox lifestyle. of course, we always admitted that orthodoxy was the way to go, and whenever we had questions, we would only accept answers according to orthodoxy.

so that brings us back to the application.

another question asks our jewish affiliation....

our application to the jewish agency states "conservative" since we were still realizing many things, yet paying them our dues, when we filed. it was also a conservative rabbi who wrote a letter stating that yes, rest assured, we are both jewish and can trace our jewishness back several generations.

this application will state our affiliation as "orthodox."

i wonder if these applications will cross at some point. that should be interesting.

jewish agency: hi, i'm just reviewing bec's family's application. it states that they are conservative. what does their nbn application say?

nbn: clearly states that they are orthodox.

jewish agency: hmmm....kind of sketchy, eh?

nbn: the real question is whether or not they know who they are?

after all of these years, i think we've finally figured it out.