Rabbiless in Houston

Well, I actually was catching up in preparation for posting this when I saw Ryan asking how it's going. I got the news a week ago, have been doling it out since Monday, and resigned myself to posting it today. The short version: it ain't gonna happen.

Here's the long version:
I went to L.A. in the third week of March for the interview process. It consisted of a psychological exam, an interview, and a Hebrew exam. The psych exam seemed to go fine, but I felt the psychologist spent more time focusing on my family life as a toddler than I would have liked. I didn't think to tell him not to, though. As a result, the interview the next day included more questions about my family than I felt it should have. (Such as, "How would you compare your family relationships with that of Jacob from Genesis?") When I left the interview, I felt there was a distinct possibility that they wouldn't take me, but I expected that I'd be accepted. I thought I had answered all their questions decently. The Hebrew exam... the grade I would have given myself would have been between a 50% and a 60%. (That's a high credit on the MSCE!) Unfortunately, their minimum requirement is 70%. That wouldn't have been a major issue, I would have been allowed a retest in a month or two.

The letter I received (on April Fool's Day) didn't say anything more significant than "no." When I called the Director of Admissions, he told me three problems they had: They decided I made my decision too quickly, they wanted me to do more work in a community in general, preferably a Jewish one, and "there were some aspects of my understanding of Judaism with which they didn't agree." Frankly, everybody I've told says they don't understand how the college couldn't have taken me, and I agree with them. Unfortunately, I wasn't given a chance for rebuttal, and the director told me not to bother applying next year. Wait at least 3 years. The best I can figure is that I didn't represent myself nearly as well as I should have during the interview.

The place I applied is basically THE place to go to rabbi school for Reform Judaism. There's other options, but if I did get accepted at any of them, the first question a congregation would ask me is "Why not Hebrew Union College?" So, basically, there's no way I'll be in rabbinical school, at least for three years. I expect by then, that I'll have moved on with my life. All sorts of ideas of striking out in anger wandered through my mind (go on a drinking binge, quit being Jewish, etc.), but I realized that the college's opinion of me doesn't change who I am. The worst I did was stop playing guitar for a week, and I've even gotten back in to that.

I'm surprisingly not very bitter about this. I wish they had not given this response, and I don't like failing at something I've had my heart set on for most of two years. But other than that, my basic thought is just: "The answer is no. Life goes on." At this point, the worst part is just telling others the news. But, my life is rebounding fairly decently. I still have a decent place to live in Houston, have a vehicle, and my pre-PC job gave me an offer as soon as they found out I'll be sticking around. (Nothing in writing yet, but it should happen this coming week.) So I can continue doing what I was doing, do a programming (uggh!) job by day, and Save the World in my free time. I'm not currently sure how I'll be doing that, but I know there's lots of options available.

So, that's my news from Houston. It's not that bad -- I've got habitation and transportation, and expect to have an ccupation soon. Just missed out on my planned vocation, though. And to the geeky gamers out there - yeah, I've been spending WAY too much free time playing computer games.

I hope you all are doing well. It's still a pleasure reading this blog and keeping up with ya.

-- Scott