Judaism and Conversion Part 1

I don’t believe I’ve ever specified my current position in the Jewish world. It’s been a while since my last blog entry and since I’m too lazy to re-read all of my old posts right now, I’ll just state it here. I was raised in a fairly strict Christian home, became an Atheist during / after college, then after having children, decided religion was something that was important and had value after all. After months and months of thinking, pondering, and research, I decided two things:

1. There is a God.
2. The Jewish religion fits me best

So, currently, I’m in the conversion process. This has proven to be a much more difficult thing that I would have ever expected. And I expected it to be pretty difficult. It seems that when you have children, problems are compounded much more than they normally would be for some reason. If you aren’t familiar, you cannot simply convert to becoming a Jew in a single day, for any movement other than reform (you could probably do it in a day in reform, or at least, within a week I would imagine). For Orthodox or Conservative Judaism, it takes approx. a year. Why, you ask? Isn’t that ridiculously long? Well, truthfully, no, It isn’t. The reason it takes that long, is the Rabbi’s want you to experience a full year as a Jew. To go through a complete Jewish cycle, and then decide if it’s for you or not. You see, the thing is, Judaism isn’t about numbers or saving you from hell. Most Jews don’t even believe there is a hell. Something else to understand, is that becoming a Jew is a big deal. Not because it makes you special snowflake, or part of God’s Chosen People (another topic perhaps, this is typically misunderstood by non-jews, the chosen people thing). But because once you become a Jew, you have lots of laws to follow, that you wouldn’t have to follow otherwise. Your life changes. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s not for everyone.

So where am I in this process? Well, I’m about at the halfway point right now. I’ve gone through all of the major Jewish holidays, except for Passover, which is quickly approaching. Let me test myself and just list a few of them:

1. Sukkot
2. Rosh Hashanah
3. Yom Kippur
4. Channakah
5. Purim
6. Passover

There are more, but those are the ones I remember celebrating (except for Purim and Passover which are just around the corner). Also, don’t enter a spelling-bee with the spellings I just provided, you might lose.

Also, we have had weekly meetings with our Rabbi, who has a conversion curriculum that we follow. There were a number of Jewish books that we were required to purchase and read (which we have all but one). Here they are, still..from memory:

1. To Life!
2. The Jewish Holidays
3. Jewish Literacy
4. It’s a Mitzvah!

What is the missing book? A Jewish History book. Considering how much I do like to learn about history, it is a bit of a surprise that I haven’t picked one up yet.

Lastly, we’re required to attend services a minimum of twice a month. I’ve honestly had difficulty with this one for various reasons. Sickness, family visits, etc. Excuses every last one of them (except sickness maybe), I know. My plan now is to make sure I get my two saturday morning services in at the beginning of the month, and then get sick at the end. Some of my  problem with making services, is that I don’t count. What? Don’t count? What do you mean? Well, Jewish services require ten male jews before you can start. And since I’m not yet converted, I don’t count toward the ten. Also, not being a Jew, I don’t really have a requirement to even attend, other than the two a month. So, I get lazy I suppose. I go once, then decide to skip a week, then I get sick or something happens on the third and fourth weeks. So, my record isn’t great. I need to do a better job.

I lack self-accountability. It’s a problem I’ve identified in other areas. I use to have a job that they really didn’t care if I showed up or not, so sometimes I’d just stay home for not real reason. I have difficulty going to any function where I’m not required or useful. And right now, in these Jewish services, I understand a little of what’s going on, but I do still spend a fair amount of time being pretty lost. And since I’m not converted and have no idea when I’ll ever be able to learn Hebrew, I cannot go up for Aliyah’s (helping with the reading of the Torah portion).

So, that’s a fairly good account of where I am in the conversion process. There’s quite a bit more that I’d like to note, but this post feels like it is already getting a bit longer than I had planned, so I’m going to save the rest for Part 2, and possibly even Part 3. Since I haven’t posted in quite a while, I seem to have a lot to say right now!

 

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