Introduction

For you who are here to figure out why I am now Jewish, I have developed an “elevator pitch”. You can read it and skip the whole blog if you want! Here it is:

Judaism, for me, is a way to live my values – justice, kindness, helping the poor, and seeking balance – within a community that shows up for one another. Its practices help me to shape who I want to be and can become: Shabbat turns my over-active working brain off for a day; tikkun olam (repairing the world) continues the work I’ve done all my life; giving tzedakah (helping those in need) has always been a moral imperative; the middot (character traits) leads me to try to find balance in areas that I am a bit much or improve where there is a bit too little;  Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur calls for every Jew to reflect, make amends to those we have wronged, and asks us to work to do better in the year ahead. I don’t believe in a Biblical God –but neither do most Reform Jews. What matters is not belief, but action – and a willingness to wrestle with big questions. I wanted to be part of a people who know how to hold on to what matters – and even in the face of many centuries of soul-crushing adversity – still laugh, still love, and still live fully. And eat! It's a community that I am proud to join.

For the rest of you, this blog begins with my moral and ethical development. Later, it turns to why that path led me to Judaism – and why it took me so long to get there. And then it’s about Judaism itself – the things I love, and the things I laugh about.

There will be a list of contents on the right side. Read it all, read what interests you – or, hey, just read the elevator pitch above.

I’ve always been a bit of an iconoclast and a bit of an outsider. That said, I had social skills, so I never had problems making friends. But I was always a little different from my peers – an atheist at five, a “baby dyke” from the get-go, and politically against the tide of my conservative environment growing up. Because I didn’t believe in God, that cut me off from a lot of the traditional paths to community. My parents found theirs in their United Methodist church. And it was a lovely group of people. My parents always helped those in need; they were great role models. Dad worked tirelessly in Habitat for Humanity after retirement, and I often joined him. But they were a Christian missionary group, and eventually I decided I couldn’t stomach that anymore.

From a young age, I cared about justice. In high school, I joined anti-war protests in my hometown of Fairfield, home to Travis Air Force Base, where soldiers shipped out to Vietnam. The group I worked with – the Revolutionary Union – wanted to end the war, but they also wanted a Marxist-Leninist revolution. While I did consider myself a communist at the time, I didn’t like their version at all. I wanted the non-existent democratic communism. They were also humorless, which I considered a fatal flaw.

In college, I jumped headlong into the New Left, feminist movements, and anti-war efforts. We were passionate, committed, and sure of ourselves. Over time, though, I noticed something I didn’t like: our conviction made it too easy to demonize “the other side.” When you start to believe you’re the good guys, it becomes dangerously easy to stop seeing the humanity of the so-called bad guys. I began to pull back, realizing that some of the harm in the world is caused not by malice, but by that very certainty. I’ve kept that lesson close ever since: passion without empathy can do damage.

I found this particularly true in the feminist movement. While I consider myself a passionate feminist, I historically had many critiques of the movement. This is not the place to hash those out – I’ve written about that elsewhere, like here – but the point is, I wasn’t finding a home there anymore.

Over the decades, I kept looking for a group that balanced idealism with self-awareness. I tried the Democratic Party, secular humanists, skeptics’ groups, and service organizations. Each time, something didn’t wholly fit. Sometimes the mission was right but the culture wasn’t. Sometimes the culture was great but the focus was missing.

The truth is, I’m a mix of traits that doesn’t land neatly anywhere. I’m socially progressive but fiscally conservative – willing to pay taxes to help others, but also convinced that money is often badly spent. I believe in regulation, but also that overregulation is real. I think most people, one-on-one, are basically kind, no matter their politics – but groups can turn ugly fast.

Looking back, I can see the thread that connects it all: I’ve always been searching for a moral and ethical community that works toward a better society without losing sight of our shared humanity. I want people who will argue, compromise, and try to understand each other – even across deep differences. And I’ve learned something else along the way: if you want to improve the world, you have to do it without turning other people into villains in your head. Progress has to come with context, compassion, and forgiveness – for ourselves, and for others. Otherwise, you’re just feeding the same divisions you claim to fight.  That’s been my compass for decades.

Next up: How I found the perfect practice for wrestling with the human condition and, slowly, becoming a better version of myself.

Opera Tripping – How LSD and Carmen Opened the Door

My friend Lisa had given Leslie and me her subscription tickets to two operas, Madame Butterfly and Carmen – she couldn’t go to the first and had seen the latter too many times for her taste. We went mostly out of curiosity. I thought opera might be too long and boring. Madame Butterfly, which we saw first, didn’t impress me much, though I liked a few of the arias. But then we saw Carmen, and that was the beginning of a new chapter in my life – one that reverberates to this day.

The particular date we saw the opera was October 20, 1991. I remember it because another tragedy was happening across the bay. At intermission, we stepped out on the balcony and saw the hills burning. It was the start of the Oakland firestorm – the worst urban fire in California history. I didn’t connect the opera and the fire in my mind, except that it forever anchored the day to tragedy.

I liked the whole opera – it had lots of familiar tunes, which helped – but it was that final confrontation between Don José and Carmen that landed the punch. He begs her to come back to him. She says no. He threatens her. She asserts that she will live or die a free woman. And then he kills her. It was completely gripping – see for yourself:

That wasn’t some abstract 19th-century melodrama. It was heartbreakingly familiar. A man who decides, “If I can’t have her, no one can.” Carmen is a woman who knows she’s risking her life, but values her freedom more than safety. She’s not suicidal. She just won’t lie to survive. I thought she was a bit nuts and a bit mean, but I admired her at the same time. While this version was fictional, the fact of femicide throughout the world was – and remains – quite real. Globally, about 38% of female homicides are committed by male intimate partners, according to the World Health Organization.

There’s a fascinating paradox within the whole opera. Carmen believes in fate, but that belief removes fear and sets her free. If death is coming anyway, the world is completely open to her. Fate becomes a permission slip.

Even though I am nothing like Carmen, I did identify with her. I’ve always been a risk taker. People have warned me all my life – as a woman – about how to be safe, how to live carefully. I have generally ignored them. I trusted my gut. I’m 70 now, so I know the risks worked out. But even if they hadn’t, I still think I’d rather be more Carmen-like than not. And since I don’t believe in fate, I think my bravery is more real than hers!

I bought the recording and planned to listen to the whole thing on LSD.

I was super excited. I knew it wouldn’t be too long or boring – no chance. From experience, I knew acid always led to intense feeling. And I had just discovered that opera could pull me deep into the emotional world of its characters. So I thought: what would it be like to combine the two – to let one amplify the other – especially in that final scene?

And, as I suspected, I was blown away.

That afternoon was the most intense experience of my life – at least up to that point.

The LSD didn’t just enhance the music – it made it feel like I was experiencing the drama myself. I wasn’t watching a character on a stage anymore. What the opera – and the acid – gave me was just enormous empathy. Not just for Carmen, but for every woman who had been there. Who had died there. The story was tragic, but the tragedy wasn’t abstract. I had become a super-empath.

It wasn’t a conversion moment. It wasn’t religious. But it was the beginning of something – the first time I understood that music, especially opera (with a little help from its friend), could help me untangle the human condition and my place in it. It could be instructive – not in a preachy way, but in a way that demanded moral and emotional engagement.

Basically, with this experience, I found the method for my moral journey. And yeah, later – much later – we’ll get to Judaism.

But more opera and LSD to come...