Get thee to a mikveh! (So I can be a Jew before Passover!)

While growing up, my mother had a print of a house with hearts and under the image there was the saying, “Love lives here.”  This print hung on the wall in our dining room for years.  It was one of those staple household decorations – no matter how old I got or much I changed, that little print stayed the same, untouched.  A few weeks after moving into Joe’s house, my mother brought the print over for me to hang on a wall in Liam’s room.  The colors matched and she told me that she thought it was fitting.  I couldn’t have agreed more.  Love truly does live here! 

                 Despite the cliché corniness of the phrase, this is in fact what my home with Joe and Liam says to me.  I am so surrounded by love that I am often giving myself a mental pinch to see if this is really my life.  Silly, I know.  

Knowing that I am beyond lucky and (no pun intended) chosen, the morning of my conversion I had no doubts.  I knew that becoming Jewish would be this wonderful addition to my life with Joe and the family that we are creating together.  I wanted so much to be a Jew already.  I was simply nervous.  What was the rabbinical court going to ask me?  Would I start to cry when they asked me to tell them about my path to Judaism?  Would I give honest responses and speak from my heart, or would I be too self-conscious and give the text book response? 

Joe, my mother, and my sponsoring rabbi sat by my side as I was questioned by the rabbinical court.  It sounds so official and rigid, but it was much more like a conversation than a put me on the spot and grill me with questions session about the Talmud and Torah.  It was uncanny how comfortable I felt.  It was not only that I was prepared, but I felt that I was becoming part of something that I was always supposed to be a part of. 

Following my meeting with the rabbinical court, Liam and I entered the mikveh and officially became part of the Jewish people and the Jewish faith.  I went in first on my own and then Joe and I brought Liam in together.  It is difficult to describe some of life’s most beautiful moments so I am not going to try to put it into words.  But I do remember after I immersed myself under the water and said the blessings, finalizing my conversion, Sue, the woman who assisted me into the mikveh, gave me several minutes to be alone in the mikveh.  She told me that Jews believe that the mikveh is a space in which you can directly talk to God and God is actively listening.   So I took this opportunity to say thank you.  Thank you for my beautiful family and life.  Thank you for my motherhood and for bringing the most wonderful man into my life.  It wasn’t much, but I thought if I had a chance to say one thing to God it would be “thank you. “    

(Side thought:  Jews who have not been in a mikveh seriously need to try it!  It was like being in a wonderfully large bath tub!  And the lighting was great – all candles and no over head lighting.)