12/15/02

In her remarkable memoir, To Play with Fire, Tova Mordechai describes her unique spiritual journey from her life as a young Pentecostal minister and prophetess to a life as an Orthodox practicing Jew who marries, has children, and settles in Safed, Israel. Although the specifics of Mordechai's religious beliefs are central to her story, the journey she describes has universal appeal. Her memoir outlines the experience of one woman who sought a spiritual haven and found it in Orthodox Judaism; yet, her experience is also representative of many who seek a belief system that speaks directly to them and provides them spiritual fulfillment.

Mordechai is the daughter of an Egyptian Jewish mother and a British Protestant evangelical father. Her maternal grandmother, Antoinette Mordo, was married to a religious man, Raphael Mordo, yet she taught at a Church of Scotland Mission school to help sustain the family. Through her exposure to Christianity at the school, Antoinette, as well as her daughter Sara, decided to convert to Christianity. Later, Sara met her husband, James Marlow, a British, fundamentalist Christian serving in Egypt during World War II, at the mission hall. After the war, they married and settled in Britain where James devoted himself and his entire family to serving the church.

During her early childhood, Mordechai and her family lived simply, devoting much of their time to church and community service: "My earliest memories are of Sunday school . . . The stories, the singing, the pictures to color -- I loved them all." Even then, she yearned for Jesus to "clean my heart from sin," and as she prayed, she pleaded, "'Please, Jesus, please come into my heart today,' waiting for the 'warm feeling' to enter me." Up until the end of junior school, Mordechai didn't mind that her family did not have a television, or that she wore her skirt several inches longer than her peers or didn't know the latest pop music stars. She believed she was richer than anyone, "because Jesus loves me!"

Beginning in her adolescence, Mordechai questioned some of the fundamentalist practices of her family and church, in part out of adolescent rebelliousness, but also out of a growing awareness. Torn between having school friendships and the more worldly life of a teenager and remaining loyal to her family and church's belief, which precluded short skirts, dating, and discos, Mordechai remains essentially alone. Ultimately, at age fifteen, she yearns to dedicate her whole life to God -- "please take over my life." Alone and lonely, she remembers, "I wanted so much for someone above to hear the cry of my heart." This plea re-echoes throughout the years that she is a practicing pentecostal Christianity without ever fully being answered.

In her memoir, Mordechai repeatedly states in a matter-of-fact style the ups and downs of her spiritual journey as first a member, then seminary student, and eventually minister and prophetess of her family's pentecostal church. Its dominant influence leads her to believe that she will find spiritual fulfillment by devoting her entire life to serving the church. As she says later when she is first learning about Judaism, "For me, there would be total commitment or nothing." What this total commitment to her church results in is total servitude without the spiritual yearning she feels so acutely ever being fully satisfied.

To many, Mordechai's life growing up sounds almost nightmarish at times with its severe restrictions, the expectation of absolute obedience, the closed society of an evangelical church, and then the punitive indoctrination she endures at the theological seminary. But through the even-toned reporting of these conditions and the offsetting descriptions of a loving, caring family, her achievements at school and as a seminarian, and the occasional supportive friendship, Mordechai does not paint a Dickensian picture at all. The focus remains firmly on her spiritual journey, from her doubt and despair as a pentecostal Christian to eventual fulfillment and peace after converting to Orthodox Judaism, without any blame overtly being placed.

If, in the reader's mind, there is any blame to be found, it is with Raymond Webster -- Daddy Raymond -- the international spiritual leader of the church. Through his direct revelations from God, he is directed to take young people and train them for the ministry, change church doctrine and practices, and to order church ministers and congregants to make drastic changes in their lives on behalf of the church. In this way, Mordechai's father was told that he must sell everything, donate the proceeds to the church, and relocate to Southford to run a small community home for widowed and homeless people. This uprooting leads Mordechai to decide to go to the seminary college at age sixteen. "Now I would finally be able to dedicate myself to [Jesus] completely." Yet, in retrospect, she realizes, "I was an innocent baby leaving home."

Daddy Raymond's control and influence is felt extensively by all members of the seminary college. The eighteen-hour daily routine begins with morning prayers at 5:45 a.m., Bible study, breakfast, daily work and college duties, then evening devotional programs or classes, evening prayers at 10 p.m., and then bed, seven days a week. Any lapses or mistakes are addressed with severe reprimands, ridicule, and even instances of physical abuse. When Mordechai overcooks breakfast the day that she is to serve Daddy Raymond's wife, Mother, she is harshly rebuked, and then forced to eat the cold, over-cooked remains the following day as Mother "watched me eat every morsel with . . . interest and glee."

Despite these punitive conditions, Mordechai succeeds at her various tasks and is recognized as a minister, and then a prophetess, the highest distinction for an ordained minister. Yet, throughout her training and accomplishments, she vacillates between feeling a part of the spiritual community and feeling satisfied and having the sense that she doesn't fully belong and she's alone, empty and bereft. Mordechai provides some of her journal entries to document her innermost feelings that eventually led to her conversion:

May 31, 1981, Dear God, You have stolen my life. . . . for You made sure I was brainwashed from birth. I fear You. And You want me to love You. How can you love FEAR? . . . June 8, I feel like I'm going mad. I mean it. I can feel it coming. I can't go on much more. I hate living.

Mordechai initially becomes familiar with elements of Judaism through the practices of her church, many of which are supposedly based upon Jewish rituals and holidays. As her doubts and despair increase, her interest in Judaism increases. Her intense interest is initially confusing: "Why should I have such a sense of sympathy for the Jews? Just because my mother was a Jew?" By chance, Mordechai learns of a synagogue nearby which she visits; she reads a book about the Holocaust; and then she gets a Lubavitch House pamphlet explaining the Passover laws. This pamphlet proves instrumental in Mordechai meeting with a sympathetic rabbi, and her eventual decision to leave the seminary to stay with an Orthodox Jewish family in London.

The decision to leave the church and seminary college, which has been her home and her life, does not come easily. Mordechai portrays her change of heart and mind as an awakening of sorts to the fact that no matter how devoted she is and how much she gives of herself to the church, it will never be enough. Fault will always be found. She will never be good enough to deserve God's blessing. As her conversations continue with the rabbi, questions regarding her Christian beliefs and practices arise, and Mordechai's commitment and energy in practicing her religion wane: "I mouthed all the words to the songs, but not a sound came out. I just couldn't do it anymore. My preaching days were over."

After taking that first step, Mordechai still has quite a journey on her path to learning about the Jewish faith and integrating its precepts into her life. Her journey takes her to London, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and eventually Israel. In the process, she comes home spiritually to a way of life and a set of beliefs that bring her a sense of wholeness. She comes to realize that for herself and her fellow Jews, "Torah was big enough to allow you to be a human being. Christianity was not for human beings, it was only for the saints and the 'righteous.'"