DO YOU KNOW WHO YOUR GRANDPARENTS WERE?

Do you know who your grandparents were? I had a grandfather named Hyman and his father's name was Ezra. I also have a grandfather whose name was Joseph. His father's name was John. Like a Christian fairyland my grandfather Joseph married a Marie, my grandmother. I also have a Jewish fairyland of family names and have a granduncle whose name was Abraham who married a Sarah who was my grandaunt.

When I asked my Dad many years ago, which "tribe" we were from, he replied "David." I was young and uneducated and did not know the meaning of this because I did not go to Hebrew School until as an adult, and then went 10 years instead of the required 5.

When I read The Psalms, I read of "the anointed ones." These who were of the Davidic Line. And then I found out my Dad was also a Hebrew Levi. That made me a Bat Levi, so I thought. Until I found out that if a Ben Levi marries outside of Judaism, his children lose their priesthood and are called a Calalah.

It was a severe blow to me to lose this priesthood, but I had to accept the lemons because I had no choice in the matter. My Reform Jewish Rabbi told me there were no such things as priests anymore in the Jewish religion, and he I found out meant the "Reform" denomination, only, that priests exist in the other Jewish denominations, the Orthodox and Conservative and they are honored at Shul services in what numerical order they come in as they are chosen to sing an Aliyah blessing during the Torah readings..

A Conservative Jewish Rabbi told me he wanted me to take the 2nd Aliyah on the Bimah  which was the Aliyah for the Levis, even though I was not technically a Bat Levi Priest. I saw this as a nice gesture, but I knew the rules as were told to me by an Orthodox Rabbi--no priesthood for me. I was also told I could not be buried next to my grandparents who were Orthodox Jews unless I had an Orthodox conversion.

I opted to take a Conservative conversion to Judaism, and to be buried next to my Mom and Dad, who were both married by a Catholic priest and who have an approved burial resting place in a Catholic cemetery even though my Dad was Jewish. But here our whole family can be buried together no matter what our religion is, was, or is not.

I am glad my parents were allowed to be married and it makes no difference to my religion who married them. I grew up and chose Judaism as my faith, because when I tried to pray to the Christian's messiah god, I found his powers to protect me were diminished, compared when I prayed to a one and only almighty Hebrew Jewish G-d, who is not your friend, but who became a warrior G-d that saved me and fought all my enemies, which I had in abundance, so I would live to see another day.

The power of  the spiritual increased, when I devoted myself to one G-d instead of dividing my love to gods who were separated and in multiples. The god messiah of the Christian religion was based on a rebellion against the commandments of the Jewish religion, which I really believed in and think are all necessary. It is a harder job to follow more commandments, but I knew I had to in order to feel the true greatness of a power of a true G-d, one G-d, not divided into 2 or 3, etc. Dividing the G-d into multiples watered Him down, made Him less powerful, less able to care for me and to protect me. I felt my spiritual life decreased in magnitude when I divided the G-d by 2.

I knew I had to follow in my father's footsteps, to feel this increased power of the spirit, and had this choice granted to me, and so I took it. I had to let it develop inside of me and to compare and contrast it to other choices. But since now I know the whole story, it makes sense to return to a more powerful G-d by contrast, because the benefits increase as His power increased. When there were multiple gods, they had no power, they were mish-mashed and this confusion between 2 gods or 3, etc. caused each god to have less to offer, and then the greatness of a spiritual strength had lessened.

I am glad to have someone, and glad it is G-d, who I have, and do not want to be dissatisfied with this and disobey scripture to worship someone new, someone else, just any ol' god.

Glad to be satisfied and to stay with what was written and to not deviate from the original. I am satisfied with the original Torah, it commands us not to make changes to it, so let it be! My grandfathers and great grandfathers, etc. had reasons for this, so to not make folly where it has been tried and tested.

In other words, The Torah is good enough for me.