Chelsea Clinton, the Question of Religion

[rjman_afan]

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Sharing Saturday

Will she or won't she? That’s the question burning up the Jewish blogosphere right now. Will Chelsea Clinton convert to Judaism to marry Mark Mezvinsky? Or perhaps convert before they have children? Will she, like Ivanka Trump, become a person of the book for love?

A loaded question on every level. Of course, the reality is that it's no one's business except the couple's and perhaps their families.

Except that it's not. Given the fact that the bride is the daughter of two of the most famous people in the universe, and the groom is a political scion himself, there is more scrutiny focused on this relationship than perhaps even on Hillary and Bill's.

So who else has a vested interest in this union and its religious direction?

First of all, the Jewish community, writ large. I admit it, we get excited when there is the possibility of a political princess entering our ranks.We also don't like to lose our young people – perish the intermarriage shanda (shame.) If Chelsea hasn't officially joined the Tribe by the time she and Mark have their first child, then we have lost another member to the great "half and half" abyss, a place that often leaves children with more questions than answers.

Believe me, I was raised there, I know.

Next, the parents of the bride. The once and perhaps future White House denizens may have a large Jewish fundraising base, but will the Southern Baptist Church and the Methodists truly understand and continue to accept a child of this mixed marriage who further dilutes her Christian bona fides by entering another mixed marriage and perhaps even transfers her loyalties to the other team?

Is the country ready for a Jewish First Grandchild?

Other practical questions. What synagogue would Chelsea and Mark join in New York? Where would they attend services when visiting the grandparents? If the invitations to the wedding were limited to 400 lucky guests, who scores an invite to the even more exclusive bris?

Tongue-in-cheekiness aside, all of these questions remind me of my own journey to Judaism.

My parents were atheists; with my mother practically a Red Diaper Baby and my father himself from a mixed marriage (Catholic and Methodist) I was taught that religion was anathema. However, my gentile father and Jewish mother were keenly interested in the Other. My father thought he was marrying into a warm and loving Jewish tradition. My mother was in desperate search of Rockwellian-America and a Christmas tree.

They were both running away, although neither understood what they were running from. They raised their children with trappings but no substance.

I believe this was a mistake.

The story of my own Jewish journey as a young adult is complicated, but simply put, I was searching for a place to belong. Kind of like the runaway bunny, It turned out that it made sense to look back to find it where I had belonged all along – in the Jewish community. My husband, descended from a proud rabbinic lineage and with deep ties to Israel, was my catalyst. We decided that together, we would build a family steeped in Judaism and connected to Israel, a place where my children could find a home in a way that I never had.

The first challenge was to find a synagogue in which we both felt comfortable. I was completely at sea in the shul – no Hebrew, no melodies, no understanding of how a service is conducted. We were fortunate enough to find Adat Shalom, a Reconstructionist synagogue that welcomed us, and it has provided a communal and spiritual home for our family for the past 17 years.

Then we needed to build our traditions in our own home, which we’ve done in concert with the growth of our family. The first thing I knew when we bought our house, even before we had children, was that I desperately wanted a sukkah (a temporary dwelling during the festival of the harvest.)

Growing up in Brooklyn, I longed for a fire escape sukkah like the girls of “All of A Kind Family.” I loved the idea that you could peek out of the roof and see the stars, especially the stars that are at a premium in the city. So we built our first sukkah from scratch, we peered at our suburban stars, we gathered our friends, and we planted our first tradition.

Seder (Passover meal) came next. I loved the idea of a giant groaning board of a table with delicious foods and our own personal haggadot on each plate. We invited friends to share the meal and posed a question each year – who would you bring to this table? What can you do to save the world? What is your personal Egypt? Each year, our table grew, friends and babies adding to the bounty. Our second tradition was born.

Once we had kids, it was obvious that Chanukah would be the next tradition to enter our home. While I had had a token menorah growing up, it was time to bring out the big guns. There are now chanukiot of every shape and color for the kids, and around this menagerie of menorahs we learned to say the prayers and light the candles and exchange presents and gather our friends. Our third tradition became as firmly rooted as the first two.

Finally, once our oldest child had started to eat meals with us, it was clear that we needed to be together, as a family, for dinner. On one rainy Friday night, I simply took out some candlesticks. That night we lit the Sabbath candles and I slowly learned to say the blessings. Soon I was buying a challah every week, and we poured the wine and added the prayers for the wine and the bread to our ritual. Eventually I perfected a challah recipe of my own, and now we always bake the bread, we always eat together, we always make Shabbat.

As our children are growing older and have activities that scatter them during school days and nights, Shabbat has become our family ingathering at the end of each week. The anticipated weekly rhythm forces us to stop, take a deep breath, and appreciate the sanctity, grace and love that the night brings. We bless our children, we bless each other, and once again, we gather our friends around our table to share these blessings with us.

With determination. commitment and a lot of effort, I have found my spiritual sweet spot. I hope our home offers my children sufficiently interesting and loving traditions that they are moved to take them on the road to replant wherever they land someday.

And my wedding wish for Chelsea is that she too, finds her spiritual home, wherever the journey may lead her.