Uncut & Jewish?
Photo by Laura Petrilla
~~~~~By Sarah Lolley
As my son Lazar’s first birthday grew nearer I was faced with not only the anxiety of the holidays, but also with the circus of religious identities that I throw at my children. Half my family is Jewish and the other is Catholic, and, yes my parents are most definitely divorced. My father is a hybrid hill-billy, a Fox News watching Jew from Louisiana that lampoons the liberal ideals of the Jewish community at large. Therefore, he is a Jewish outsider. My boys are Jewish outsiders because, well, they are uncut or “intact” as it is called in polite terms, and their mother is a Catholic Jew, or a “Cashew” (raised Catholic, practicing Jew).
After undergrad I began the conversion process to become Jewish when I was engaged to a British Israeli Orthodox Jew. The relationship went sour for more than the obvious reasons of not fitting in with his family. For instance, I was caught humming “Jingle Bells” setting the Seder table. After the soul crushing break up I decided to leave my religious identity alone until I had kids. Surely by the time I was ready to have kids, God would send me a sign. I even went to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and put a note in the bricks asking for an answer.
As many of you know I now have three kids. I have avoided seeking inclusion in a religious community because of many reasons. 1) My husband doesn’t put a lot of stock into organized religion because he is a man of science and reason. 2) I sort of like Christmas, minus telling my kids a fat, old, bearded, bald man invades our home. The third reason is that I did not accept that God’s commandment to circumcise my sons really applies to my 21st century babies.
My second son Lazar was born on Christmas day 2011. Oh, I cried with all my heart when the doctor told me that I was 6cm dilated and that I would have this baby on the kitchen floor if I didn’t let him break my water. I did not want to burden my son with sharing his special day with most famous man in history – Jesus. How horrible would his life be that EVERYONE received gifts on his birthday?
Maybe this was the sign that I had been waiting for? What I really feared is rejection in the Jewish Community because I had chosen not to cut my boys.
The first person I consulted was Rabbi Greenspoon, the one that first took on my conversion and advised me that the match with my Orthodox ex was not such a hot idea. In fact he told me to run, not because I would never be fully accepted in the Jewish Community because my mother wasn’t Jewish, but because my match was not maker.
What I loved about my Rabbi was that he didn’t roll his eyes at my ingrained Christian knowledge. He provided the best religious discourse I have ever known. He is a Parrot-head that loved musical philosophy that included jazz nights. And I was a music journalist that believed that modern philosophers were some of the first popular musicians. What struck me was that I could question God and all his various forms and teachings with a man of the cloth. In the Jewish faith this brings you closer to God, a mitzvah. In the Catholic faith you get closer to hell. I am a born contrarian with a powerful tendency to question rules so which way do you think I would lean.
I want my kids to have that – to be versed in theology and to be accepting of the myriad ways humans personify hope, divinity, creation, death, and the human experience. Religion provides a way to cope with misfortune and pain. How can something as simple as a foreskin lock my boys out of rites of passage in a culture so ingrained with intellectual discourse?
Almost a year rolled by and I had not given my son God-Parents as my other children had been given. In the beginning, starting with my eldest child Lyra, Patrick and I chose to baptize her Catholic because my family was worried about our Godlessness. I reasoned that it was just water and it made both sides of our family happy. We were an “accidental” union and I know that family is important no matter the color or creed.
However, I was riddled with fear as Father Lawrence Lindle, my 2nd cousin, asked Patrick if he renounced Satan. Patrick doesn’t believe in such mythological entities and told me he wanted to yell something like “Long Live Satan” and start playing air guitar. My best friend from high school Beth and her husband Rob were the God-Parents, which was befitting because I am the God-Mother to their daughter.
Next was my son Lucian. I had a nervous breakdown trying to make a decision on circumcision and finally Patrick stepped in and said – no. He gave me papers written on the psychological damage circumcision can inflict as well as medical reports disproving its effectiveness on preventing HIV, cancer, and yeast infections. We decided to baptize him in the religion that he was born into, Christian Orthodox, much like Greek or Russian Orthodox. Luca has two sets of Romanian-born God-Parents that fuss more about his language skills than his religious education.
When Lazar came into our world I first joked that he should be our “Jew”, but it wasn’t really a joke. I truly believed that such a blessing would complete us as a family. What held me back was the question of their foreskin. Would he be accepted? Would any of us?
After nearly a year’s worth of badgering Patrick about making a decision on the matter he finally came clean. He liked the idea of raising our children in the Jewish culture and it was the first decision he made without making some atheist joke. After five years of listening to my father’s sermons and holding crazy Passover dinners, where my dad acted as Pharaoh, he was warming to the idea.
Since Rabbi Greenspoon had moved away from Pittsburgh, he advised me to ask Rabbi Gibson and Rabbi Donsky for their blessing. I had heard about a “naming ceremony” that would act as rite whereas we could give him “God-Parents” even though there are none in the Jewish faith.
We had a lot of friends and families suggest who we could have as Lazar’s God-Parents, after all we gave the coolest name Lazar “Laser” Phoenix. He is a born rock-star – albeit maybe in a bad hair band, but a rock-star nonetheless. Lazar is an old Hebrew name that also found in Romanian.
We chose two people that embodied the intellectual spirit and creative soul that could handle tough questions. The God-Mother, Sarah, I have known since we were fifteen. We met in summer acting school; our history is storied and vast. When she became pregnant with her son, she changed her life’s course from an extraordinary hair stylist to a Gifted Education Teacher. She engages her students with challenging intellect and imaginative creativity. Her husband Rege is an electrician who began as an urban artist.
Carmon is married to Susie, whom I befriended at the neighborhood bookstore after becoming a mom. They are both creative, modern, urban chic, and easy going. Carmon is a talented and formally-schooled photographer. He speaks his mind, sometimes painfully, which is akin to my husband. He is interested in how things work, about quality, and safety. His girls are always correctly fastened in their car seats.
We wanted to join two families that were so loved and an integral part of our extended family. We had the imperfect, perfectionist match of God-Parents now all we needed was the God.
At this point I recall the episode of Sex in the City in which Charlotte knocks on the doors of the rabbi three times to gain entry.
So stay tuned for the Godly bits………………………………
