Congregation Beth Israel Bulletin, Volume 139, Number 7, November 1992 Page: 4 of 8
[8] p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
David Lee converted to Judaism after a “life-
time spiritual journey in search of God ... and
how to worship.” Through the support of
friends in a havurah and those who share
worship services with him on Sabbath, he has
found fulfillment in his personal life, commit-
ment to his faith and the joy of a strong
marriage. He and his wife Marni await the
birth of their first child.
My name is David Porter Lee.
Thirty-four years into my life, I finally
acted on a decision that eventually led
me to the answers I had been searching
for since I was a child. I converted to
Judaism.
My conversion came about slowly
through my undertaking to find an answer
to a question I had posed to God and
myself: Why don’t You send help to end
the pain and suffering in the world and in
my life? This became the central theme
in my life because of events that occurred
both prior to and during my childhood.
Abandonment, pain, sadness, and
anger were the legacies left me by my
father. After surviving a loveless
childhood and the Pacific war, he married
his childhood sweetheart and fathered
three children before he gave in to despair
and took his own life just before my fifth
birthday.
I’ve also learned from experience
never again to take for granted what I
need to sustain me as I fly forward to
wrestle with our tradition in search of
viable solutions for the future.
The farther I go crossing boundaries
into known and unknown territories, the
more I value coming home to Beth Israel,
the particular community in which I locate
my Jewish heart. Here, among you all, I
renew my spirit. From here, I can cross all
boundaries and still come home.
H 0
M _ b
David Porter Lee
a spiraling across time and space and
geography, a drive to incorporate all
that I had learned and experienced in
the first spiral out into the world, but
searching now for the “I- in- world” who
owned my shape to the sculpting clay of
the particular group into which I had
been born. In that one year, I
spearheaded a maternal family reunion,
joined the adult B’nai Mitzvah class and
entered the havurah I still belong to.
Since then, I’ve been on an ac-
celerated soul search. I regularly attend
Saturday morning minyan and Torah
study when my travels permit; I attended
the “zeroth” Kallah here in Houston,
and a Kallah in Boston; I took a workshop
in Kabbalah, and discovered the Tikkun
magazine and discussion community,
attending Tikkun conferences in
Manhattan, Israel and Elat Chayyim.
That was this summer, where I
discovered that, thousands of years ago,
the Ivrim were called boundary crossers.
I don’t know when I will have “drunk
sufficiently deep from ancient wells of
truth” to feel competent enough to
reciprocally transform the waters. But
my daughter, despite my rejection of
religion in her formative years, defines
herself as a Jew. To leave a legacy for
her, I can’t wait till I’ve drunk fully: so
I’ve already tried my hand at adding my
cup to the waters. I’ve written a midrash
from a woman’s way of knowing, and I
am designing and conducting, with
several other women, a Jewishly-rooted
Rite of Passage ceremony for mid-life
and elder women, to recover for Jewish
women that extended moment when
we ascend to ‘the new world of age, ’ and
claim there our voice, our wisdom, and
our ability to affect events.
I feel the need and the obligation now
that I claim my birthright, to contribute
to renewing and transforming the
tradition so that Janine and I can see
ourselves “Standing Again at Sinai.” I
share Judith Plaskow’s conviction that
women standing there will transform
everything that flows from that founding
experience.
I have come back to wrestle and
dance and sing with the tradition: to
wrestle with God as Jacob did, to dance
with Miriam at the Red Sea and to sing
with Solomon the Song of Songs.
I will continue to cross boundaries.
But boundaries take on new meaning. I
know now that being in the world as a
whole is for me about being Jewish. I
have a sense that there is a holographic
relationship between the Universal I had
been seeking in the Zeitgeist (the air of
the times) of the 60s and 70s, and the
particular way of knowing that is Jewish.
of thinking while preserving your
integrity.
It’s about learning to coexist and
enrich without becoming engulfed. I’ve
always been intrigued professionally by
that fine line between holding on and
letting go. It now seems self-evident that
living the dilemma of being Jewish in an
as-similationist America honed a lot of
the skills needed to be effective in this
profession.
At work, I see my strength as healing,
repairing, mending a piece of the world.
They call it “conflict management” or
“diversity.” Preparing for this sym-
posium, I realized it had a lot in common
with Tikkun, and that much of how I do
it is embedded in Halachic tradition. It
dawned on me that argument, dis-
putation, and a legitimate place for
minority opinion — written in the
margins to ensure availability to future
generations of truth seekers — may well
be a Jewish model for dealing with
social change at the boundaries.
Boundaries as a career focus.
So here in Houston, twelve years
ago, I began a journey home, to
community, to philosophy, to renewal
of my soul. I began a search for a temple
and found Beth Israel. I felt at home and
that surprised me. It was solid and com-
fortable, qualities I had distrusted as a
young adult. Feeling comfortable, I
realized that being a consummate
boundary crosser had all along depended
on something I had taken for granted:
belonging,. I also realized how much I
needed to recapture that sense before I
would be able to move forward on my
return to deeper Jewish roots.
I came to register at the Temple
office, the first time I had ever affiliated.
I don’t today know who it was in the
office who registered me, but I owe you,
whoever you are, a deep debt of
gratitude. You handed me, matter-of-
factly, the list of income levels that
equates with a determined membership
rate. I found my income level, moved
my eyes over to the dues, and suddenly
broke down sobbing. I couldn’t do it. I
thought that was that. I would be shut
out. Instead, you put your arm around
me and told me we could work it out. I
had no idea until that moment how
much I needed to join and you took me
in. That was the beginning. I began with
belonging.
Then, in 1986, my mother was
diagnosed with terminal cancer, and my
daughter was getting ready to leave for
college.
I mark that year as the beginning of
the second and complementary spiral in
my life: a spiraling inward toward Source,
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Periodical.
Congregation Beth Israel (Houston, Tex.). Congregation Beth Israel Bulletin, Volume 139, Number 7, November 1992, periodical, November 15, 1992; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1417310/m1/4/: accessed July 11, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.