My Conversion Story Journal

October 15, 2023

This was the first Shabbat that I spent at home in months. I had work obligations which kept me home Friday night. I wasn't home in time to light the Shabbat candles so my daughter A2 lit them for me (without a blessing). It was nice to come home to let candles, but I really miss lighting them. However, Saturday, as I looked at them while doing kiddush, they had a special glow. It was peaceful and restful. It was exactly what I needed but it still left me wanting.

Being at home on Shabbat did leave me missing members of the community because they are so amazing. Their smiles and dedication give me strength to make through a week of davening alone among those who don't understand me or my journey. But there was more missing from the weekend than just my friends and community. There is something unexplainable about praying in the shul instead of at home that makes Shabbat a completely different experience. It something spiritual and within the heart and the soul, a special communication with G-d that happens when davening in the shul (praying in the synagogue). I am missing that feeling today. I can hear the chants of the cantors in head from the past few weeks of being there multiple days, but that sound is fading.

I know I needed this weekend of rest, but after one weekend away, I can't imagine not going to shul every chance I have to be there. I slept, but I don't feel rested. Perhaps it is the "Good Sabbaths" or the "Shabbat Shaloms", or the prayers being sung that I am missing, or the Torah scrolls being raised, or the Torah scroll making its way round the room and touching it, or the cantor chanting after the congregation, or hearing the prayers in Hebrew from all around, or hearing the Torah read in Hebrew and following along, or the power of praying with a congregation. Or maybe, it is all of it combined.

While wishing I could be at shul and missing it, I wonder how the community members are doing with the war in Israel, and how their families are doing, and wanting to offer love and encouragement. I was not cut off from the community by not being gone one weekend. Several of the community members reached out throughout the week which gave me great joy and encouraged me to not focus on what I missed this weekend, but look forward to next weekend when I will be there again. I reached out to others and their hearts are big and aching, and their love for me and their people will resonate with me all this coming week. There is no place I would rather be than with these amazing people who, one day, I will get to call my family.

Reading through prayers in the Siddur with L was helpful also. We spent a couple of late nights reading through the services, and even though my Hebrew is slow (and I'm sure painful to listen to), he was encouraging and helpful the entire time. And when midnight passed and the nikud disappeared into the page and the letters blurred together, he took over and started singing the prayer. I would feel bad normally for falling asleep on someone on the phone, but what better way to fall asleep than to the sound of prayers being sung to me.

When I started this journey, I didn't want who I am to change, and I don't believe that part of me ever will. I will always be same soul that started this journey to becoming a Jew, but I will also be changed. I know I am not the same person as I was when I started. I am more confident in myself because I understand G-d's love for me in a different way and my purpose on Earth in a different way. I talk more, which shocks my family, but it's hard not to talk when the new language I am learning fills my tongue with such joy. I read a lot more, because I have so much to learn. I see people in a different way and motivations of others differently. I feel more disconnected from those around me, because I am no longer like them. I can respond to Christian statements with understanding, but I can't share in the feeling of them. Different feelings arise instead. My feelings aren't the only thing that has shifted. My whole world has shifted.

Becoming a Jew is not a single act for me or even a couple years of learning. It is becoming a person who lives a life of dedication from the meant I reach a state of consciousness and thanking G-d often even before opening my eyes, until I fall asleep at night with the last words from my lips being a blessing and a prayer. It is thoughts of G-d at every meal with a blessing before I eat thanking G-d for the food and a blessing after I eat again thanking G-d for his provision. It is in my daily prayer to understand the Torah I read, and prayer for traveling to and from work each day, and the prayer for peace, and the Shema, and the Amidah, and the varies prayers I go over with my tutor, and the last prayer I pray before bed. It is in making sure my daughter's cat is fed before I am, it is in making sure I give tzedakah, and when I sing prayers and songs in Hebrew thanking G-d, and when I light candles and welcome in the Shabbat, and when I do kiddush, and when I welcome the angles, and when I close out Shabbat, and when I turn off my candles, and in every breath I breathe.

Becoming a Jew isn't an single act. It isn't just eating kosher, following the holiday schedule, speaking Hebrew and Yiddush, attending shul, saying the Shema at least twice a day, dressing a certain way, lighting candles, praying, not working on Shabbat, and reading a million books. Though all of these things are what sets the Jewish people apart from the rest of the world, there is also a spiritual connection with Hashem, the creator of the universe, magnifying an inner thankfulness, trust, and fear that permeates the soul of every Jew. It is not an act to be a Jew. It is a state of being.

I spent 45 years learning what it meant to be a Christian. Though I hope it doesn't take me that long to enter the mikvah, I want to give G-d the rest of my life learning what it means to be Jew.