EFRAT, West Bank (JTA) -- One Christmas eve, as Jews across the country headed
for Chinese restaurants, I found myself in a church choir.
The church, on the outskirts of Boston and straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting, had hired me to sing for their service. As the clock struck 11, I entered the sanctuary with the choir, our robes and music illuminated only by the candles each of us held.
“Once in royal David’s city stood a lowly cattle shed,” we intoned in a near-whisper as the organ weaved its way under our voices. “Where a mother laid her baby in a manger for his bed.” The congregation gradually joined in as we made our way to the choir loft. “Mary, loving mother mild, Jesus Christ her little child.”
The hymn concluded, and in a moment never to be replicated in any synagogue, the entire congregation sat down in unison, uttering not a word.
And so began my search to live a deeply meaningful Jewish life.
I was born and raised as a Jew. I had my bar mitzvah at the local Reform temple. After college, I fell in love with the woman who was to become my wife. She wasn’t Jewish; she was the minister of music in a Texas megachurch. But at the time, I couldn’t imagine why that should be an issue, and I was upset when the local rabbi wouldn’t marry us alongside her minister.
That Christmas Eve was hardly the first time I had sung in a church. But this time was different. We had recently decided to adopt a child. My Christian wife, who was busy directing the choir for a church service across town, had concluded that, given our circumstances, it would be easiest to raise him as a Jew. We had even joined a temple that was very welcoming to interfaith families.
As I stood in that church choir loft, with talk of mangers and virgin births swirling around me, a little voice in my head began to protest. The voice reminded me that, in addition to Christmas Eve, it was Friday night. The voice asked what I was doing there. I didn’t have a good answer. The voice asked me why Shabbat wasn’t as important to me as Christmas Eve was to them. I struggled for a response.
By the end of the service, the voice had thoroughly interrogated me. “OK, OK,” I thought. “You’re right. I need to get serious about Judaism.”
The church, on the outskirts of Boston and straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting, had hired me to sing for their service. As the clock struck 11, I entered the sanctuary with the choir, our robes and music illuminated only by the candles each of us held.
“Once in royal David’s city stood a lowly cattle shed,” we intoned in a near-whisper as the organ weaved its way under our voices. “Where a mother laid her baby in a manger for his bed.” The congregation gradually joined in as we made our way to the choir loft. “Mary, loving mother mild, Jesus Christ her little child.”
The hymn concluded, and in a moment never to be replicated in any synagogue, the entire congregation sat down in unison, uttering not a word.
And so began my search to live a deeply meaningful Jewish life.
I was born and raised as a Jew. I had my bar mitzvah at the local Reform temple. After college, I fell in love with the woman who was to become my wife. She wasn’t Jewish; she was the minister of music in a Texas megachurch. But at the time, I couldn’t imagine why that should be an issue, and I was upset when the local rabbi wouldn’t marry us alongside her minister.
That Christmas Eve was hardly the first time I had sung in a church. But this time was different. We had recently decided to adopt a child. My Christian wife, who was busy directing the choir for a church service across town, had concluded that, given our circumstances, it would be easiest to raise him as a Jew. We had even joined a temple that was very welcoming to interfaith families.
As I stood in that church choir loft, with talk of mangers and virgin births swirling around me, a little voice in my head began to protest. The voice reminded me that, in addition to Christmas Eve, it was Friday night. The voice asked what I was doing there. I didn’t have a good answer. The voice asked me why Shabbat wasn’t as important to me as Christmas Eve was to them. I struggled for a response.
By the end of the service, the voice had thoroughly interrogated me. “OK, OK,” I thought. “You’re right. I need to get serious about Judaism.”
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