A Non-Swimmer Considers Her Mikvah—Chapter 4 ©Mary E. Carter

Whoever is Here, Whoever is Not

Not with you alone do I seal this covenant, but with whoever is here, standing with us today…and with whoever is not here with us today. —Deuteronomy 29:13 This is the story of how I splashed to the surface of the waters of my mikvah, breathing my first breath as a Jew. It is the story of how I came to step into those waters in celebration and in continuity with Jewish life after I was fifty. It is a story about how I contributed to the Jewish diaspora by increasing it by one single individual—me! If it is imaginable to have been somewhat Jewish by default, I can honestly say that I have never missed a single yahrzeit for my mother’s death, September 30, 1968. But when I started my annual observances, I had never heard the word yahrzeit. Seventeen years would pass before I would learn that word. Seventeen mornings I woke up and thought, it was today, and, instead of lighting a candle, I had to go to work. During most of my career I was an advertising copywriter. Sitting around the long corporate conference room tables, reading aloud to clients and to account executives the TV commercials that I had written—for dog food and for banks and for tacos—I would remember, with a twist of grief in my heart, that today’s date was important, was horrendous. But on any particular September 30th, like all my other workdays, I had to go to work and to pretend to talk seriously about things that were not serious, were idiotic, even, compared to my personal yahrzeits. And I would think—as the executives around the table harrumphed through reams of marketing input—well, at least nobody died today. Lately I discover that my story has the added pizzazz of being about a person who did something new and exciting later in life. The news is focused on my generation and how we are starting new ventures and going in new directions in our lives. Some are starting new careers. Some are returning to university to get doctorates. Some are breaking up long marriages and starting new families. My story is not organized around mission statements or business plans or curriculum vitae. Nor is my story about seeking or finding God. I will leave discussion of God to the rabbis for now. Perhaps later in my Jewish life I will consider God, but for now my story is concerned with the events and people that influenced me in discovering my new Jewish life. And, although this is not a how-to book, it could be helpful for anybody contemplating a late life change. And, of course, it may also add insight to anyone thinking of becoming Jewish later in life. My story has happened, and it continues to reveal itself, through the unfolding events and actions and insights of a lifetime. I did a few things and a few more things until, seemingly suddenly, I did something which I could not have predicted earlier in my life. I am a bit too old to be counted as a boomer, but much of my experience has been influenced by being born at the end of WWII and raised in white bread America. Being raised in the fifties had its own atmosphere – a mixture of toxic San Fernando Valley smog and our parents’ smugness about their victory over the enemies of democracy. In that era democracy equaled stuff – washing machines, draperies, sofas, nice cars, green lawns. We lived in a culture that equated accumulation with wealth and wealth with success and all of that with contentment. Back then every parent in the neighborhood was a citizen-soldier now, transformed by their war experiences, blooming with confidence. Jobs and money were plentiful, even if housing was not. TV advertising focused our parents’ postwar vision on the stuff they would come to need to create a safe and privileged environment for us little kids. It is no small coincidence that I sought a career in advertising. I saw so much of it growing up. Decades passed. And then what happened? When I splashed up from my mikvah and took my first breath in my new life I knew very little about what was to come. My rabbi had taught me that, At the moment you came up from the waters of the mikvah, as far as the tradition is concerned, you, as I, stood at Sinai. Literally and for real. But if you want to take that as poetry, try this because it isn’t. At the moment you came up from the waters, all of Jewish history in one instant became your history, the same as if you were biologically born to it. Powerful stuff all of this. And so with all of Jewish history now my own history, I would need to dry off, get dressed and get going to discover my own place on that long Jewish continuum. As I considered my mikvah, I saw that I had never before summoned the courage to plunge into a whole new life. But this time, I was braver. This time I was ready to change my life entirely. And I did. How I made my Simchat Mikvah is contained in the kaleidoscope of my life’s events, occurring over a long period of time and all jumbled together— kaleidoscopically I might say—bits and pieces of my life’s events juxtaposing over, under, around and through one another. Turn the kaleidoscope, either clockwise or counterclockwise, and go forward or backward in time. Someone from my past bumps into someone I met last week. Something I learned in childhood bumps into some-thing I Googled yesterday. This is Torah! After my mikvah, I was again reviewing things and people who were with us today…and the things and people who were…not here with us today. After my mikvah, I began to see my world from a new perspective. The question to consider in my story is always this: And then what happened? A year after Gary’s uncle died our Aunt B. struck a kitchen match and kindled a little white candle and I ask her, —What’s that? —Today is the anniversary of Martin’s death and this is a yahrzeit candle. This is how we remember and observe the anniversary of a loved one’s death. And that was it. If it is imaginable to have been somewhat Jewish by default, then that was me. Jews do not proselytize. But the persistent student can find a way in. This is a funny kind of club, tight-knit and tight-lipped, proud and stiff-necked. Hey, do you want me or not? I write my story in deepest gratitude to those who show me how to be Jewish in the world. My Hebrew name is Tovah Miryam bat Avraham v. Sarah. So now already you know something about who I am. The rest is commentary.