Meeting with the Rabbi

I met with my rabbi yesterday, and I think I can officially say I am converting to Judaism. I never thought of converting to a religion as an ongoing process until I learned the ins and outs of converting to Judaism. To say one is converting to Christianity, it's more like saying one is going to convert at such and such point. But to say one is converting to Judaism, it's like saying one is in the process of converting. So, I think the process has officially begun.

My rabbi is really cool, kinda spacey, but still really cool. The reason I really wanted to work with him is because I have heard he is a wonderfully amazing teacher, and isn't that what every convert needs? I think I really lucked out here.

Let me say now, before any questions from readers come up: I am converting with a Conservative rabbi. I have expressed a couple of concerns with Orthodoxy and Orthodox conversion in the past so you probably knew I would go liberal. I love the Reform movement and so much of what it stands for. But I do not like Reform services. At the Hillel I go to I like them. They only use a guitar. But throw in a piano, organ, or flute, and I completely shut down. It reminds me too much of church and I can't concentrate or pray. I start staring at the ceiling or looking at the building structure. I just can't do it. I love the Conservative services I attend so I feel very comfortable converting in the Conservative movement.

That being said, let's talk about acceptance from other Jews. Apparently, where I live, it's not much of an issue. My rabbi told me the Orthodox rabbis generally accept his converts. Now, I know the Chabad rabbi and rebbitzen at my university don't but I literally couldn't care any less about what they think. If the Modern Orthodox and regular Orthodox are cool with it, then that's a huge bonus for me. I had already dealt with the issue and expected not to be accepted by any Orthodox. In Israel, you'd think there would be a problem, right? Apparently not. Three of his converts have made aliyah and have had no issues. Yes, one of them was recently married in Israel without having to reconvert.

Another Conservative rabbi in different part of the country told my rabbi that he has pretty strict standards for conversion and that maybe their shul should reevaluate their process and model after him. Perhaps the Orthodox in our town and in Israel recognize the conversions are truly halachically kosher? I am not sure but it's pretty awesome that Jews to the right of him accept his conversions. I guess real life is very different than the hypothetical cases I read online...


We talked about my background (obviously) and he took the paper I wrote to read later. I also made up a list of all the learning I have done in the last 19+ months, a Jewish resume, if you will. He seemed impressed with all the reading I've done and recognized that I would have no problem with the final essay exam we have to do.

We've got a good mix of people in the class. It's not just a conversion class, but it can lead to conversion. That's why they call it Introduction to Judaism. There is a couple taking it who moved to the Jewish part of the city and realized they wanted to know more about the religion of their neighbors. There are some born Jews who just want to learn more about their religion. And of course, there are people converting. So far there are about 10 people signed up and more will come in the next couple of weeks, he said, even though the class starts Sunday.

All in all, I am pretty excited that this process is getting started after so long studying alone. By next fall I could be a Jew.

Cupcakes, Movies, and Progress

If you are converting or have converted to Judaism, you probably know of Rabbi Andrea Myers (or you may have seen her book listen on my "What I've Read" page). If you have not, and you want to convert to Judaism, please google her immediately. Then get on Amazon and buy her book. Seriously, go. She will be 100x more helpful to you than this blog ever will be.

Anyway, there are two rabbis at Hillel who see me all the time who haven't talked to me as much as Rabbi Andrea. And she's never even met me. We live hundreds of miles from each other and most likely will never meet. If that's not fantastic then I don't know what is. But her knowledge is beyond helpful because she knows things that born Jews just do not (and converts who had a super easy time converting). She can explain why it is that my mother says "Judaism" and "Jewish" so strangely. She can explain what my parents are thinking about when they say things, or don't say things, and what I have to look forward to. She took the time to found out what my parents' Jewish interactions would be by asking other rabbis about the city they live in.

Turns out, my mother is worried about the stereotypes that other people will project onto me once I become a Jew. Honestly, I thought for a while my mom might be a secret antisemite. I like Rabbi Andrea's explanation much better. I guess that is a legitimate concern for a parent to have. I know that Jewish parents have similar concerns so it's not so out there. But the thing is, according to my dad, there isn't much antisemitism going on in my home town. My dad said he has encountered racism and homophobia but never antisemitism. Where is my mother getting her ideas about antisemitism from? I do not know. I just know it's weird for her to deal with the prospect of a Jewish daughter.

One day, Rabbi Andrea says, they will get over these things and start accepting it. They'll start asking super strange questions and cutting out Israel articles and talking to me about them. My mom is still really awkward at the mention of anything Jewish, but two weeks ago she called me to tell me about a special on TV she watched. It was about Tel Aviv. When I went home last weekend, my dad wanted to watch a "Jewish movie" with me (score!). When he proposed this, I offered him a "Jewish cupcake" (brought home leftovers from Hillel shabbat dinner) and he said, "those aren't Jewish cupcakes!" and I said, "Yes, they are. They're kosher." Then he ate one. (bonding over food, score #2.) We attempted to watch Exodus (the one from Europe, not Egypt). But since my dad still lives in the 80s and has this movie on Laserdisc, it didn't really happen. The player died 25 minutes into the movie. He is going to order on DVD and we'll attempt it again this summer. This might not seem like a big deal, but my dad loves movies. Watching a movie with him is like the ultimate bonding experience. The fact that he wants to watch Jewish movies with me is a tremendous jump from Easter.

The thing with my dad is, he can get super mad about things. Then when he calms down and starts thinking about things he can be very cool. It makes his growth in acceptance seem really big. Well, it is really big. But compared to my mom who didn't say much three months ago his change is really noticeable. I have no idea what kind of growth in acceptance is happening with my mother because she doesn't express herself. She kind of sucks at communicating on anything serious. She can have a ten minute conversation on the weather but five minutes on something real is a rare occasion. I don't know what's going on in her head right now. I know she told me about Tel Aviv but that's all that's happened with her in the last three months. But with my dad, things are pretty good in my eyes.

However, when things are weird or bad I have this advice from Rabbi Andrea as the silver lining: insanity + time = book :) Read hers and you'll understand...

Keeping Kosher

So the reason that I didn't blog for almost a month is that 1) I'm in college and we had end of quarter projects and finals going on and 2) right after finals, I went on an alternative break trip. Alternative break is basically a community service trip. I went with my school's Hillel group to do tornado relief work.

We stayed in an orthodox synagogue and had to keep kosher for the week. I'm pretty familiar with kashrut and all, but it was freaking hard. It wasn't hard in the sense that I didn't understand the rules and kept breaking them or anything. It was hard in the sense that from the moment we had to start keeping kosher, I wanted everything that was not kosher. The first night we had spaghetti... and meat sauce. I am the queen of putting parmesan cheese on my spaghetti but I couldn't have any! One day one of my friends and I went with the group leader to do the grocery shopping. We really wanted to have cake or something for dessert to have after another meat meal. It took quite a while to find parve chocolate cake mix and parve frosting. Then we had to find kosher eggs and some more kosher snacks for lunch the next two days. And we couldn't just find any kosher symbol; the rabbi doesn't accept triangle K so we had to weed those foods out as well. Basically, kosher grocery shopping takes three times as long as normal grocery shopping.

Now, obviously Friday night meals at Hillel are kosher. But I'm not the one preparing the meal and I don't actually keep kosher so I don't really have to think that much about it. I have a lot of respect for the people who keep strict kosher, and honestly I haven't met very many people who do. I have friends who keep "kosher-like" in that they don't eat pork or shellfish, but on everything else they eat just like I do. According to the rabbi on our break, keeping kosher isn't hard for him and his family because "they have to do it." Being orthodox and all, he views the Torah as completely binding so he doesn't see a choice in the matter. But I still think it would be a challenge. You have to think far in advance about what you're going to cook and eat and have to make sure that all your meat stuff stays away from the dairy stuff. If you mess up, you could potentially have to re-kasher everything in your kitchen. Those are some high stakes.

I can definitely see the religiosity of keeping kosher, too. You have to constantly keep the rules of kashrut at the forefront of your mind and when you get frustrated by it and think "WHY am I doing this?" you'll kind of remember it's because G-d said so. You eat at least three times a day, so at least three times a day you'll by thinking about how your actions are commanded by G-d. That's gonna cause you to be way more in touch with G-d than going to church for an hour each week.

I'm really glad that I got to go on this trip and have the super Jewish experience of keeping kosher. I imagine there are a lot of people who consider and actually do convert to Judaism who don't get to have an intensive experience like that. I know I'm lucky to have that experience and I learned a lot. But as soon as I got home, I had some breakfast with a side of bacon.