Sarah bat Sheva Baila v'Chaim
On how writing, and what we choose to focus on, changes us in very real and significant ways.
Yesterday, I had my beit din and immersed in the mikvah in order to affirm my Jewishness. As I say every time I mention this, it’s something I chose to do—nobody here or in Huntington suggested I had to do it to be part of the Jewish community—for largely personal reasons. And, again, my choice to do this doesn’t call into question the Jewishness of patrilineal Jews who don’t. There are still Jews who won’t think this makes me Jewish, and a lot more Jews who think this didn’t make me any more Jewish than I already was (and I tend to side with them). But the thing is I didn’t really do this for the outcome; I did it for the process. I loved the time I spend studying with our beloved Rabbi Bob. The beit din was fun in exactly the way my thesis and dissertation defenses were fun (and if yours aren’t, shame on your advisors); I got to spend a little more than an hour talking to deeply knowledgeable people about something that fascinates me (and that most people do not want to listen to me talk about for very long). As for the mikvah itself… well, I am exactly the sort of person who wants to experience everything related to my obsessions once, and now I have. Since I’m 58, I don’t imagine I’ll have to do it again, but I’m grateful to have had the experience.
I also got my Hebrew name, and the rabbis allowed me to take Sarah bat Sheva Baila v’Chaim instead of Sarah bat Avram v'Sarah (as it would be if I were converting without a Jewish heritage). I chose this construction of my name because my great-great grandparents were the most recent in our lineage whose Hebrew names I could identity. I know some people will find this corny. Personally, I think it’s really cool.
All of this has got me thinking about how paying careful attention to my family history for several years has fundamentally changed who I am, both in my understanding of myself and in the world’s (or at least the B’nai Zion congregation’s) understanding of me. I’m mostly grateful for these changes, though I don’t like how it rankles some of my beloveds a little.
This has made me really cautious about starting to think about my next book, as I enter the final months of writing this one. What am I willing to open myself up to enough to let it changes me? What might interest me enough to research and write about that could also make me less of the person I want to be? How do you confront these questions when you’re planning your projects, dear writer friends? Have you ever decided not to write about something because of who you might become if you gave it that much of your attention? I’d love to hear your stories and advice!
My dearest friend and mother of my child did this about 15 years ago. She still talks about how the intense feelings and how they took her by surprise. It's her story to tell but I think she also did it as an affirmation also, since she did have Jewish roots. But it's very vivid when she describes what it was like emerging from the waters as a Jew. The only thing I can relate it what I experience when I'm looking at the Judean hills. I'm not a very superstitious Jew (in the Kaplanian sense of the word), but I do feel that there is a spirituality that is passed through the generations and these moments are proof of that. From your experience, Sarah, did you have a similar sensation?
I love this post. I actually abandoned my first nonfiction book, a memoir, because it was a) retraumatizing me and b) forcing me into channels of thought and study that felt dark. I am not against writing the hard things–the current book is about natural disaster and family, after all–but I did not want the darkness of that first, abandoned book to consume me. My current book is also making me a new version of myself, but in a way that mostly fascinates and occasionally delights me.