Ordained To Be Jewish

For three Orthodox authors,
the road to traditional Judaism
begins in odd places,
and is paved with growth and pain.

DANIEL SCHIFRIN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

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Judaism could offer. Their moves
toward Judaism were all marked
with pain, and the road was not
easy, but in the end they were
sure of their path.
In Ms. Diker's Journey to the
Heart (Philosophical Library),
she describes how her life
changed from a box of unfulfilled
wishes which "clutter the land-
scape of my empty life" to a par-
ticipant in God's constant
renewal of the world. "The
grandeur of holiness fills cre-
ation," she writes in a poem
called "At The River."` The rivers,
Lord, the rivers lift their voices."
Her book is divided into spir-
itual stages: Illusions, Chang-
ing Paths, Struggling, Finding
the Way, Prayers and Conver-
sations, Realizations and Ecsta-
sy. Although there are poems
about holidays, as well as Shab-
bat, Ms. Diker focuses on the
spirituality of Judaism, trying to
lift herself, in that language of
Martin Buber, from an I-It world
to an I-Thou one. For her, lessons
in how to live and deal with oth-
ers come from her new-found re-
lationship with God. In the poem
"Teach Me To Forgive," she
writes that "In the beauty of Thy

creation which moves me to awe
should be the lesson how to live
in harmony and love. Teach me
to forgive."
For Mr. Scalamonti, the for-
mer priest, and Mr. Kaufman,
the former liberal Jew, God ap-
pears most importantly as the
giver of laws which leads to
meaning.
Mr. Scalamonti's autobiogra-
phy begins with his childhood in
a middle-class Italian-American

his role in the Christian com-
munity, and the ecstasy, as a
young man full of promise in the
spring of 1967, of being- ordained
a Roman Catholic priest.
But the shock of baptizing his
first nephew, at which point he
understood how limited his ti-
tle "father" really was, caused
him to question the value of the
priesthood. As glowing as the
first part of the book is, the mid-
dle section details the growing
unpleasantness and concerns
which ultimately caused him to
turn both cheeks from Chris-
tianity: the racism of fellow
priests during the late 1960s,
their unwillingness to help peo-
ple in great need who didn't pay
the proper respects, and a grow-
ing sense of intellectual shallow-
ness and dogmatism.
By the end of the book, Mr.
Scalamonti realizes how Judaism
fills the holes in his life: a wife
and family; a home, rather than
a museum-based church, as the
center of religious life; the belief
in the goodness and sanctity
of this world, and relative
unconcern about what might
happen in the next. After study-
ing with the late Rabbi Samuel

lilt hen Jews read
about other
Jews and their
"conversions,"
they expect to
hear about Je-
sus or Buddha,
not about
Catholic priests who become Or-
thodox Jews. But that was the
experience of John David Scala-
monti, a former priest from
Scranton, Pennsylvania, who be-
came an observant Jew after
meeting his Jewish (and Balti-
family. He describes how he
more-born) future wife in a
longed to wear the priestly robes,
Washington D.C. restaurant. Un-
pretending when no one was
sure how to break the news to his
around to give wine and wafers
parents a few months after his
to suffering parishioners. As he
awakening, he sent them a brief
grew older and entered into the
letter.
monastery, he felt the joys of
"You should know that I have
study, the comfort and respect of
converted to Judaism," he
wrote simply at the end of
his note. "It is a beautiful
religion and, I believe, the
true one."
Mr. Scalamonti's story is
highly unusual. His book,
Ordained To Be A Jew
(Ktav), describes his faith —
how he gained, lost and re-
gained it. More typical per-
haps are the spiritual
travels described in two
other recent books, a work
of mystical poems by New
York philanthropist Valerie
Diker, and a worldly com-
ing-of-age novel by Joseph
Kaufman, a Jerusalem
Torah scholar who studied
writing with Bernard Mala-
mud and grew up in a Re-
form family in Lenox,
Massachusetts.
The books are all quite
different, in genre and em-
phasis. But each of them
describes the emptiness
and confusion which per-
meated the lives of the
The road to Orthodoxy is paved with ... books, including John David Scalamonti's Ordained to Be a Jew,
authors or characters be-
Heart, and Joseph Kaufman's A Good, Protected Life."
fore they understood what

"I have converted
to Judaism. It is a
beautiful religion
and, I believe, the
true one."

Valerie Diker's Journey to the