Home Presentation for College Homecoming Sabbath, December 29, 2000
Like many of us, I have questioned my Jewish identity. I think it began during my Confirmation class in high school, and it continues to challenge and perplex me to this day. When I started at Indiana, my Jewish identity was especially challenged. My freshman year of college, I, along with my family, faced a tremendous misfortune. A couple of weeks before I was to go home for spring break that year, my stepfather passed away. I immediately became frustrated with God, because I felt like I had been betrayed and cheated.
I remember being at Hospice only a couple weeks prior to Julio's death. I couldn't understand why such an incredibly generous, loving man was being defeated by such a terrible disease. My faith in God ceased. About the time that I was harnessing a lot of ill feelings and emotions towards God, Rabbi Block came into the room and asked to speak to me privately. We went into a room and, with tears flowing from our eyes, he asked if I wanted to recite the Shema. I nodded my head, and the words flowed out of my mouth like I was in the middle of Shabbat services. I was conditioned to say the Shema, and I did it, even though I was internalizing a lot of negative feelings towards God and towards my Judaism at the time. After Julio's death, I found myself questioning much more than God and my Judaism, and I went back to school that spring feeling very unsure of my self, my surroundings, and the people around me.
Frustrated with what had happened at home, I turned to extra curricular activities and close friends for my support. At the beginning of the second semester I had tried out and joined the African American Choral Ensemble. As some of you may have noticed, I am neither African American nor Baptist, and I had never sung a gospel tune in my life. I tried out for the choir, because I had been impressed by a performance of theirs earlier in the year. Ironically, I turned to the ensemble for much of the healing support that I needed after my stepfather's death.
I could not put into words the feelings and the thanks that I should give to the choir and to the director Dr. James Mumford. Dr. Mumford has never tried to convert me or divert my beliefs and influences in my life that stem from Judaism. He took me under his wing and turned me into a girl that can sing praise hymns with the best of them. But the voice instruction is not the part that I owe so much thanks for.
I remember the first time that I sang with the group. We were in a large Baptist church in Indianapolis, Indiana. We performed intermittently between sermons and praise. If any of you have ever attended an African American Baptist Church service, you know how intense the experience is. It lasts at least three times as long as a typical Shabbat evening service, and the participants are full of energy and excitement the entire time. I left my first performance excited and exhausted. I had never experienced such an emotionally charged choir performance in my life. To be quite honest, I wasn't sure at that moment whether I ever wanted to experience it again. But after reviewing the morning's events, I decided that in order to remain in the choir, I had to find the same fervor in my own religion that my fellow ensemble members had found in theirs. Somehow, I had to transfer the excitement that I felt from being in the choir to Judaism. I was convinced that I could do it--and also that I would have a solo by the following semester. After much talk and voice coaching with Dr. Mumford, I got my solo. And being in the choir has made me a more religious and fulfilled Jew. Attending church services with the choir forced me to examine my own perceptions of Judaism, and I appreciated my own religion more because I was asked to question it against another religion.
After spending three years in the African American choir and continually searching for the same ardency in Judaism, I was beginning to miss being actively involved in Jewish organizations. Last spring I applied to lead a NFTY summer Israel trip, but it did not come through. I thought about applying to be a counselor at a UAHC camp, but I was apprehensive, since I had not been a camper in a long time and had never been a counselor. Out of the blue one afternoon, I received a call from Jonathan Cohen, the new Director at Henry S. Jacobs Camp in Utica, MS. He had been the assistant director at Greene for a number of years, and I vaguely knew him. He called to ask me to be the Waterfront Director at Jacobs--a job that would entail managing a group of lifeguards, teaching swimming lessons to 250+ campers 3 times per week, and maintaining the pool. Interested in the opportunity but worried about not taking the traditional internship route between my junior and senior years, I talked to all of my friends and family about the offer. They convinced me of what I always knew deep down--that I wanted to take the job and experience camp again. I packed my bags in June to move to Utica for the summer. I hated my first week there, because everyone already knew each other, and I was concerned that I had made the wrong decision. Then after I had been at camp about 3 weeks, JC asked me to be a counselor for second session in Talmidim, the entering 9th and 10th graders and the oldest unit at camp. Again, I was nervous about the decision, because I would be taking on the double responsibility of the waterfront and a cabin, and I was not sure that I would be a good counselor for ninth grade girls. I decided to take the chance though, because everyone who was a counselor raved about the experience. I couldn't have asked for a better opportunity. I learned more from working and interacting with ninth grade girls for six weeks than I could have in any internship. I made wonderful friends and explored myself Jewishly. Watching the sunset over Lake Gary at Shabbat services, song session with my campers, and the intensive mitzvah trip to restore a century old Jewish cemetery in Alabama are experiences that I will never forget. In fact, I plan to head back to camp this summer before I start full-time work.
All of these experiences and opportunities have allowed me to grow and learn while maintaining and cultivating my Jewish identity. When I move to Chicago next year to work at Andersen Consulting, I go with a strong foundation. The foundation given to me by my parents and grandparents has been strengthened with each new experience that I have had. As I look back on my college experience, I see the many ways in which I have grown Jewishly without realizing it. I have been actively involved in organizations such as Students Organized Against Poverty, I taught a class on diversity in the residence hall, and I served as the secretary of the Judicial Board for four years. Each of these activities and student groups has played a major role in my college experience. I have continued to build up my Jewish foundation, and I know that it will continue to be a large part of my life as I make the transition from graduation to full-time employment.
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