I Was a Teenage Proselyte

AS A BAD Jew, I consider the upcoming Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah holidays my get-out-of-jail-free card. I can ignore my religion for 355 days, but act angelic during our 10-day Super Bowl and World Series-the grace period when God cracks the judgment book-and I'm golden. Such is modern Judaism in America. Sure, hyper-religious Hassidim lord over South Williamsburg and Crown Heights with a heavy torah, but the average Jew's spiritual involvement means pilgrimages to Zabar's and munching a fat Yonah Schimmel knish.

Religion-as-dinner described my childhood. As an Ohio-reared Jew, I aligned God with corned beef on rye, Hebrew National hot dogs and saying soda instead of pop. My piecemeal theology was propped up by weekly Hebrew school, where I learned the hard "h" requires more mucus than I could create. Nevertheless, I considered myself full-on-I had the nose and spun a mean dreidel. So imagine my surprise when three weeks before my bar mitzvah, my parents dropped the bomb that I was a religious bastard.

I was sweating Nintendo when my parents summoned me with "Joshua?Michael." The first and middle name? I hurried in. With my mom seated beside him on the bed, my dad, a doctor accustomed to informing patients he must amputate their limbs, started explaining.

"You know your mother was raised Catholic and I was raised Jewish, right?"

I nodded.

"Well, when you were born, Mom hadn't converted, and in Judaism, as the rabbi told us, religion passes through the mother. You're circumcised, but the rabbi's making a big stink. He won't do your bar mitzvah unless you undergo a symbolic ceremony."

I nodded again.

"To satisfy the rabbi, you need to?" He took a deep breath. "You need to visit the mikveh."

A mikveh, my dad explained, is a pool of water conforming to religious specifications, like a holy wading pool. Mikvehs have three common usages:

1. Semites take a tevilah (immersion in waters) for a spiritual jolt, akin to Don Ameche and Wilford Brimley in Cocoon.

2. Jewish women abstain from sex during menstruation, then step into a mikveh when their periods end. Afterward, Hebrew households fill with coitus.

3. Incoming Jews, otherwise known as proselytes, enter the mikveh as part of the conversion ceremony.

If raised as a Reformed Jew, then this proselyte business would be for the birds. Reform's sole Judaic requirement is that a child be reared engaging in acts identifying with Judaism. You know, like watching Yentl and adoring Woody Allen. Orthodox and Conservatives-my sect-required more.

For women, the requirement is a tevilah supervised by a bet din, or three-man court of super-religious Jews. After that, hello Hanukkah. For men, a mikveh is standard, as is a brit milah, circumcision performed by a mohel. If a boy is already sliced, then a symbolic ceremony, the hatafat dam brit, is his ticket. My foreskin resided in a biohazard bag in upstate New York, so I would follow the latter path. It seemed simple, but I missed one detail:

"Dad, what's the ceremony?"

My father wiped his brow, glanced at my mother-a wonderful woman, but averse to movies harsher than PG-13-and lowered the heavy artillery.

"Josh, during the hatafat dam brit?" he trailed off. "During the ceremony, they need to draw blood. From your penis. And then the mikveh, the pool I told you about? Well, you have to take off your clothes and get in the water. You'll say prayers while supervised by Rabbi Fox and the bet din."

Hey, Judaism!

"The ceremony will take place tomorrow morning. Jon, Becky and your mother are also converting."

My mom eluded eye contact, examining her hands as if the cuticles contained life's secrets. But did she know mine? I'd just turned 13, and that meant zits pussed, body odor emanated and hair sprouted from my crotch. My crotch, where they'd release precious blood from my not-so precocious penis. This was truly a Kosher pickle.

I was damned if my mom, dad, seven-year-old brother and 10-year-old sister were going to say prayers for my budding penis. These were the folks that cackled when I shat myself-a slick, fetid diarrhea soaking jeans and underwear alike-in the family minivan, then washed my ass with a garden hose in our backyard. How would they react to my little-man thicket?

The next morning, after a night of jittery sleep, my family piled into the minivan. As we drove off, I imagined the mikveh residing in a gilded gold structure replete with stained-glass images of a wrathful, bloodthirsty lord. Instead, after cruising through several suburban subdivisions, we arrived at a dilapidated former farmhouse one block from a Jiffy Lube.

Upon entering a foyer colonized by antique sofas and ottomans, my mother and sister met their female tevilah attendant. Skipping the sacrificial blood, they bee-lined to the mikveh. Rabbi Fox, clad in a two-piece suit, met us, the men, and led us into a bare room covered by mauve carpeting.

Two other men-the older, bearded Dr. Greenbaum and the younger yet similarly hirsute Chad Trabitz-shuffled into the room, completing the bet din. Dr. Greenbaum disinfected the needle and explained where he'd stick me. But I heard nothing; I was too busy with visions of steel pushing through my shaft like a skewer through shish kebab. I was too young to understand the Prince Albert but old enough to be worried when Dr. Greenbaum said, "Joshua, please lower your pants."

I began bawling as I inched my tightie-whities down my thighs, revealing my teenage gherkin. My dad and brother averted eyes, leaving my crotch for real Jews. They started murmuring. Dr. Greenbaum stepped forward.

He doused a washcloth with water, then handed it to me, asking, "Would you mind cleaning yourself?" Circumcision, washcloths-just how hygienic did the Lord expect his Jewish cock to be? Tears dripping down my cheeks, I grabbed the washcloth and gave my pubis a cursory swab.

Satisfactorily sanitized, the doctor grasped my offending member and scrunched up some foreskin like an accordion. He grabbed the needle and, like a fencer lunging, pricked my bunched skin and squeezed until a blood dollop oozed from the minute hole, dotting my pink flesh red.

"When that happened," my dad would later tell me, "I learned how well you cursed."

I tucked in and pulled up my pants. While my brother took his turn, I walked to a window. His sniffles soon turned to screams, and all that remained was a plunge in God's water.

The tiled room could've been a low-budget spa or a gay bathhouse. On the rabbi's command, I stripped and stepped into the mikveh. Cold water rose to my nipples, creating erasers. My teeth chattered and tears again welled as the bet din broke into prayer like a 60s Hassidic doo-wop group.

After submerging, then joining in the prayers as best I could, I climbed out of the pool. Rabbi Fox clasped my nude frame, crumpling his suit in all the wrong places.

"Congratulations, my son, you are one of us."

Instead of pride, I felt shame-my rabbi had seen me naked before my eighth-grade girlfriend.

I returned to the foyer. My parents and sister waited while my brother took his mikveh dunk. Unable to face them, I headed outside and dumped onto the curb. Head in lap, I tenderly patted where Dr. Greenbaum had made his point. Some time later-it could've been two minutes or 20-my family walked outside. We climbed into the minivan and drove home.

The minivan blurred past convenience stores and car dealerships and grocery stores as our Jewish family returned to a not-so Jewish neighborhood. When we passed a doctor's office my weeping returned, but my dad quelled my outburst. Ever optimistic, he said, "You should feel lucky. At least they didn't cut it off."

And, you know, he definitely had a point. o