Hannah Deason: A Jewish Journey
originally written September 11, 2020
Not until this very moment as I sit down to write about my Jewish identity, my life before it, and the more complete person I am because of it do I feel the immense pressure to live up to the responsibility expected of me as a person joining the chorus of people who were chosen by God and accepted that choice.
There are easy explanations for why and how I could have arrived at this moment. I did not really know my father… My mother and I have been estranged at different points in life… My life was split between the Chicago Gold Coast and the Oklahoma Metro, so no matter where I was, home always felt 800 miles away… Astrology has me on the cusp of a fire and a water sign; in between my ears is constant contradictory chaos. Okay, the last one is a cheap witticism, but the rest are fair — and yet, also perfunctory.
No — I didn’t always feel secure in my surroundings, but I would be lying if I said that Jewish life solved that. If anything, I push myself so much further outside of security and comfort by taking this earnest step to live an openly and full Jewish life. Being Jewish means having an opinion on Israel and on Israel’s conflict with Palestine. It means perfectly well-meaning people will water down the Jewish experience by trying (and failing) to plug our holidays and traditions into the pegs and locks of Christianity. Being openly Jewish means that sometimes my social media posts get bombarded by the occasional Nazi slur. At times, philo-Semitism will make an appearance that is uncomfortable and unsettling in the other direction. Sometimes it will mean being verbally accosted for walking out of Temple or wearing a Jews For Black Lives shirt at a town hall. The mezuzah that adorns my exterior doorpost may be defaced. Worse still — in Trump’s America, it may mean having a government define who is Jewish, which then calls into question our safety, our equity, and possibly the degraded perception of our patriotism. Hate crimes and violence continue to rise; Jews are a sizable population of those victims and survivors.
No — I didn’t always have a supportive community or accept the support I was given; because of it, I grew to be rich in self-reliance, grit, and unwavering determination that can only be earned by learning to survive and thrive in a support system of one.
If those reasons aren’t the origin, what is? The first of many reasons I ever stepped onto this path is also the simplest. In Judaism, I can question everything with the support of the Talmud itself; it insists we question, which allows us to doubt. That alone is such an incredible departure from my days in Baptist School, Catholic School, holiday mass, and bible study with friends where I’d ask questions and receive no real reply:
Why would Eve come from Adam when women birth men and women alike?
Why would men come first at all when in just about every other species, females are the first defined gender and males are created through the evolutionary process as a way to create variety in genetics for the survival of that species?
Why do we keep treating the days and years as literal in the Bible when we know that factually the Earth is literally billions of years old?
Why aren’t dinosaurs referenced at all?
Where was God before Creation? What created God?
Why do I have to fear and love God? Why would I ever want to follow something that leads with fear as a pillar of faith? How much faith do you have in someone that leverages fear against you to bend you to their will?
Why does God reward Abraham for sacrificing his son without acknowledging that the way he went about it was pretty deceitful? Does the journey not matter as long as the end result is what God wants? Is that really how the character of a person should be defined?
Why do perfectly good people go to hell for being gay, but murderers and rapists and Timothy McVeigh get to go heaven if they apologize to God before they die? Does it really only matter what God thinks of you? You really don’t have to answer to anyone else?
Why do I have to submit to men, and why is it my job to remain the keeper of men’s morality?
Sometimes I’d be told, “Because the Bible says so”. Sometimes I’d be told to be quiet. Sometimes I’d be told that my level of inquisition is precisely why we were cast out of the Garden of Eden. Occasionally, someone would apologize to God for my incredulous misbehavior. I was shamed and silenced.
Judaism is different. It’s disciplined, but it's empowering. To challenge yourself and the ideas presented to you is a tenet of the Jewish tradition and vital to living a good and meaningful Jewish life. And ask questions, I have--lots of them.
I was baptized as Catholic and had my first communion. Still, I turned my back on Catholicism after years of seeking answers to questions I just couldn’t seem to understand — I was too rigid and unwilling to forgo logic and reason for ideals that rang hollow for me. That didn’t mean I had given up exploring my own spirituality. I considered Atheism, but it fell flat. After all, I do believe there are things I don’t understand about the world, I am open to the idea there are things much more significant than myself and the world as we know it, and I prefer to remain open to the concept of mysticism. Instead, I accepted that I knew only the things I learned in churches from priests and preachers wielding words and delivering their own agenda with their pulpit’s power. I knew there must be a more objective way to get perspective, and I decided to throw myself into religion through an academic and psychological lens.
I took Intro to Religion during my freshman year in college, where I learned from the esteemed Dr. Charles Kimball, who writes exceptional books like “When Religion Becomes Evil”. This course was a transformative experience for me to approach religion for the first time from the angle of the people who practiced it, the people who wrote it. I saw the beauty in religion and the poison that it can breed when leveraged with the wrong intentions. The following year, I took a Comparative Religion course where we explored Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism more closely. Just like we are comparing the different recollections of the Binding of Isaac with Rabbi Zinn this Elul, this course challenged us to compare religious text and experience across cultures, faiths, and tradition. I was 19 then, and I knew I was Jewish. Did I do something about it? No — I was 19. I decided in my head that being Jewish was for me and then did absolutely nothing about it for the next several years. Teenagers, am I right?
When I turned 20, I took a break from school. I decided to stop pursuing a degree in medicine, and rather than dealing with it head-on, I avoided telling anyone. Ultimately everything was aired out, tensions between my mother and I didn't settle down, and we were estranged — because of me. I ended up engaged by December of that year. I would like to say that it was a happy time, and that's all I'll say about that. A couple years went by, and we began to build a house in Oklahoma. I didn't want to live in Oklahoma; would the first time I plant roots in my life really be in a place I despise? It was one of the first times I reached out to the universe for a sign or the strength to speak up. My opportunity came from the May 20th tornado, which caused so much flooding that it damaged the foundation of our under-construction home. If nature physically uprooting your home isn't a sign that planting roots there isn't for you, I'm not sure what is.
I listened to that sign and was shaken to consciousness. I started an internal conversation about Judaism, God, and my ultimate purpose. I refused to sign the addendum for additional work on the home, recovered some of our investment, packed up my Prius, and drove to my Godparents in Chicago, where I restarted my life.
2015 was a big year. I was accepted to DePaul to finish my degree after a few years off. I started a new career in technology that commenced the journey that would lead me from Executive Assistant to Managing Director. I endured a messy divorce. I met the fantastically wonderful Josh Deason-Schroeder, who proposed on the last day of 2015 in a rented out 3rd Coast Cafe. It was also the year that I revisited a casual exploration of Judaism. I read all sorts of books from Anita Diamant. I devoured a Newish Jewish encyclopedia. I started replacing red meat with poultry to introduce myself to some level of kosher living.
Shifting to poultry made keeping meat and dairy separate a lot easier because giving up dairy in any capacity was not something I was willing to consider because if I were a food, I would be a wheel of cheese. Sidebar: I know that poultry is often looped in with red meat, but I disagree with that notion. Since the concept for keeping meat and dairy separate is the very reasonable idea that you shouldn't boil a baby in its mother's milk. Chickens and turkeys have no milk, and therefore I have no remorse for eating turkey tacos.
In any case, that's where my Jewish immersion trod water, and that was okay. I wasn't in a rush. I felt Jewish, and there was plenty of time to immerse myself into something more. What I was doing was enough for me — until Rosh Hashanah 5779.
Rosh Hashanah 5779 marked the 3rd Rosh Hashanah to come and go since I had taken the last considerable leap into living a Jewish life, and I was starting to feel unsettled about the lack of progress. Feeling Jewish wasn’t enough for me anymore. I felt stagnant and unseen. Though I was stable professionally and academically, I felt out of control in my personal life. I felt a more profound need to have more control and to be seen by a community that could validate my experience. For the first time since I was 19, I was ready to make my life a fully Jewish one. And so I did.
I started with a conversation with my husband. I fumbled my way through Sukkot. That snowballed into a public statement on Facebook in January 2019. From there, I started reading more literature about Jewish tradition. I became more disciplined about being Kosher (though I still fail at this miserably when I eat out). I started lighting Shabbat candles. By the end of 2019, I knew that being Jewish meant self-sacrifice, but it also meant self-fulfillment. By this time, I felt very much at home in my own skin when it came to Judaism. I felt seen, I felt like I was part of something — I felt connected to a lineage of people.
I don't have a large family, and my 23andMe results are entirely underwhelming. My mother is an only child; her father abandoned the family when she was young. My grandmother was adopted, so we know very little about her history. I don't really know my father, but I know I am one of the only remaining Deason family members. By living life Jewishly, I was adopted into history and lineage that spans thousands of years. I became connected to the songs, the stories, and the symbolic rituals of their experience. As I learned more about Judaism and embraced the traditions and practices, my language about Jewish people became personal; there was a natural transition from talking about Jewish people to speaking as a Jewish person.
In 2019, I made a lot of progress toward living a respectable Jewish life. I also knew I ventured as far as I could without being part of a real Jewish community.
In early 2020, I reached out to Rabbi Limmer about exploring conversion. He was kind enough to invite me to meet. Together we talked about conversion, the strangeness and beauty of conversion to Judaism, and what that process would be. Shortly after, coronavirus would make integrating into the community more difficult. Still, Sinai was there to create the best virtual Pesach and weekly Shabbat we could have from the safety of our own homes. I've been an increasingly active part of the Sinai community — from classes to choir to the smaller groups. The month of Elul and all the thoughtful education and discussion Sinai organized has been harrowing and deeply cathartic.
As I write this, I think about all the forgiveness I've denied others. I think about the missed marks and transgressions against people I know and care about. I think about my continually changing relationship with the idea and function of God in my life. I sit with the question, Ayekah? I think about the 28 years already passed and what I've made of them, what I missed, and where I'm headed. I think about Judaism's role in my present and in my future. I wonder if I will ever know enough about Judaism to feel as Jewish as the Jews in Israel, and then I wonder if they ever have self-doubting questions like that.
As I seek to find a natural conclusion to this statement because it's almost midnight and I will proofread it no fewer than 12 times, I sit here profoundly grateful for what Judaism has added to my life and for what it has validated in my life. Judaism prioritizes the pursuit of justice and equity for all people. Even the happiest of celebrations take time to consider the poor, the disenfranchised, and the fallen. Judaism, in many ways, puts people at the center of its faith; people aren't just servants of God — we are co-creators with God in the repairing of the world and making the world more complete. Judaism teaches us peace is loud — it's laughter and singing and living the rituals of the generations of Jews that survived. Judaism doesn't brand us all as sinners, but rather as small sparks of divinity that are good and decent unless we choose otherwise. Judaism is hopeful, and it's realistic. Its texts continue to hold hours of exploration, conversation, and education — and I look forward to continuing to study it, debate it, and learn from it for the rest of my life.
I cannot thank Rabbi Limmer and all of Sinai enough for providing a community I didn't know I needed and perspective to questions I’ve had as long as I can remember. I am deeply grateful to be part of the High Holy Days with all of you, and the whole experience is made sweeter by getting to ring in the New Year as a recognized Jewish person. I am grateful for the last several years of this gradual evolution because I've been able to appreciate the journey and all its given me. I am a more patient and forgiving person because this journey led me to read "More Beautiful Than Before" by Rabbi Steve Leder. From him, I embraced the idea that things that are beautiful when whole are also beautiful when broken. I learned that rather than asking what this life can give me or what it's taken from me, I should seek to live a life that is worthy of the suffering I've experienced. I don't know how many more years I might have wasted holding onto things I cannot change if I hadn't stumbled upon the right words at the right time in this process. I am a more complete person because of the discomfort Judaism unearthed and called me to work through.
And finally, I’m thankful to myself for getting me here. The hubris, I know. But really, I am proud of myself for this journey — for being willing to be wrong, for being intimidated by the process, and moving forward anyway. It would have been easy to do nothing. I’m glad I made a different choice.
Thoughtfully,
Hannah