Member Profile
Pete Robinson
A bar mitzvah is something that Pete Robinson has been planning to have for a long, long time. For those of you who don't know, Pete converted to Judaism long before he met his wife, Roz, so religion has never been an issue in their home or marriage. Over the years, Roz has watched Pete studying both Hebrew and Sign Language in preparation for having a bar mitzvah of his own. He invites you to join him for his bar mitzvah at Valley Beth Shalom (VBS), in Encino, California, on March 30th. Here, in his own words, is a part of Pete's story:
Peter
Robinson
I have chosen to have an adult bar mitzvah at VBS and do it in both Hebrew and Sign Language because of a number of factors that have had a profound affect on my life. They are my amazing wife and twin daughters; my conversion to Judaism 33 years ago; my involvement with the Jewish deaf community through Temple Beth Solomon of the Deaf; and finally, the welcoming and accepting community I have found at VBS. The journey that has led me here has been a long, and sometimes difficult one. It reminds me of the wandering of our people in the wilderness a hundred generations ago. They, like I, were looking for a home they longed to return to. They, like I, started on a journey into the unknown. It was a long round-about journey involving mistakes and learning experiences along the way. It was, and is, a journey that, I think, all serious Jews by Choice must make, though each journey is different. A journey I could never have envisioned.
In the years following our marriage almost thirty years ago, my wife, Rosalyn, progressively lost more and more of her hearing and became deaf. She had grown up in a traditional Jewish home, and had a very strong Jewish and Hebrew language background. After losing her hearing she felt totally lost at religious services not knowing what was being said. I, who had no Jewish or Hebrew background at all, having converted when I lived in Idaho and then lived in Alaska, where there was no Jewish community, was equally lost at services for an entirely different reason, and was no help to her in understanding a service I could not follow myself. Both of us struggled to find a way to express our Jewish identity, and I think both of us felt somewhat like fish out of water for many, many years.
What happened to change things for us was our children and Temple Beth Solomon of the Deaf. As our daughters, April and Dawn, grew and started going to religious school at another Conservative synagogue, I started to learn from them and with them. Gradually, as they grew and started to really excel in their religious skills, I started to sit in with them, and with their amazing teacher, Cantor Avram Schwartz, while they were in their classes. My skills grew with theirs. As they prepared for their own Binot Mitzvot ten years ago, I was starting the process that brought me to this point in my life. My daughters have given me a feeling of pride that is beyond words, and taught me to take pride in who I am as a Jew by Choice.
While our daughters were still in elementary school, my wife and I heard of a Jewish Deaf congregation located in the Valley, Temple Beth Solomon. They came to transform our lives as well. Knowing almost no sign language at that time, I could truly understand what my wife had suffered trying to understand a service in Hebrew that she could not hear, and therefore understand. Yet, TBS made every effort to include the hearing in their service, and gradually I came to not only follow the services, but became totally entranced with its beauty and uniqueness. I remember thinking at the time we found the Temple of the Deaf that G-d had given my family a special gift. In the entire world there is only one synagogue run by and for the deaf, and we were blessed to be in the right time and place to find it. Seeing Roz as she found herself there was like seeing a caged bird that had been released into the heavens. She soared to amazing heights. She became principal of the religious school, president of the synagogue, rewrote the high holiday prayer book to make it both Hebrew and Sign Language friendly, and is currently the synagogue's lay rabbi. As was the case with our children, as she grew and learned, I joined her and learned with her. I would not be doing what I am doing if it were not for my wife and the Temple of the Deaf.
G-d commands us in the Vahavta to bind His words for a sign upon our hands, and to make them frontlets before our eyes. There is no other group of Jews who, in my judgment, has found a more meaningful way to fulfill those commandments. Just as hearing congregations praise G-d through song, the deaf do so through dance; the dance of their hands. They have found a way to add a kinesthetic modality to prayer, which again in the words of the Vahavta, allows them, and anyone who makes the effort to learn their language, a meaningful way to show their love of G-d with their whole self; heart, soul and body. It is a gift they have given me which I treasure, and which I want to try to share with fellow hearing Jews, which is, hopefully, what I am doing for my bar mitzvah.More Profiles...