Just got to explain Judaism to the cable guy. Awesome!
Specifically:
Q: "What are those fringes that some people wear?"
A: Tzitzit
Q: "What about the curls?" Motions to the side of his face.
A: Payos
Q: "What does the bone on the seder plate on Passover represent?"
A: The shank bone represents the Pascal lamb
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Monday, July 9, 2012
My Conversion, Part 4: Conversion
This post is part of a series. Please start with Part 1.
My tentative interest in converting began sometime in late 2009 or early 2010. I bought a number of books on Judaism and converting to Judaism and thought really seriously about how converting would affect my life. I would go from the Protestant majority to an historically persecuted minority. I would have to tackle a new language, new culture, new foods. I would be giving up many of the childhood traditions I knew and loved. It would be a serious refurbishing of my identity on many levels. If I was going to put all that effort into a religion, I expected to get everything I wanted out of it - and I was quite demanding.
My new religion had to make sense to me theologically and if I had a question, I wanted a real, thought-out answer. Its values had to align with mine. Most importantly, I wanted a religion that could make me feel closer to God. For a long time, Judaism fulfilled everything for me except the God connection. I continued to go to services and learn more about Judaism because I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't seek to actively start the conversion process without that final piece.
I participated regularly in Jewish services, holidays, and study for over a year before it finally all clicked for me. Looking back on it, it makes sense that I would only feel a connection to God through Judaism after becoming comfortable with it in all the other aspects I was exploring, but at the time it seemed like I suddenly felt closer to God out of nowhere. So I went to my rabbi in Nashville to start the conversion process.
There are no set regulations for conversion (different movements have some loose guidelines), so each rabbi may do it differently. After talking to me about why I wanted to convert, my rabbi handed me a list of requirements for her conversion candidates. I had fulfilled most of them before I even talked to her about conversion, despite only moving to Nashville a couple months before. The requirements were:
A Conversion Class, which met monthly and included readings about theology, holidays and practice, Israel, and Jewish culture.
Living Jewishly through Shabbat observance and testing out other halachot (keeping kosher, holiday observance, picking up Hebrew, etc). I had been slowly incorporating these things into my daily life since my first encounter with Judaism the year before.
Tikkun Olam/Volunteering, at least part of which had to be within the Jewish community. I had already signed up to co-teach the synagogue's pre-k Sunday school class, which was a complete blast. The kids were great and I got to learn basic Hebrew phrases, like b'vakasha (please) and todah (thank you).
Keep a Personal Journal for reflection on my religious choices. I didn't have to share this with the rabbi or anyone else, but it helps to write that kind of thing out and I continue to use it.
Finally, Membership in the synagogue was required. We had already joined shortly after moving to the city, so this wasn't an issue.
How long the process takes depends almost entirely on the conversion candidate. It's up to you to tell your rabbi when you feel ready. If the rabbi disagrees, he or she will talk to you about it. Traditionally, the rabbi is supposed to turn away a conversion candidate three times, just to be sure they're really committed to converting. I set a date for my conversion ceremony about 6 months into my official conversion process, but most things I've read and heard say that it typically takes someone a year. Again, it varies depending on the person. I converted on a Friday afternoon. I took a half day at work and met my bet din (a court of three overseeing Jewish leaders, in my case the synagogue's two rabbis and the Sunday School director) at the Orthodox synagogue in town, because that is where the mikveh (ritual bath) is located. The bet din seems like it will be scary, but then it's not really. There's not really a good way to prepare for the bet din. There is a section about it in Choosing a Jewish Life by Anita Diamant that runs through the basics of how it works, but it's going to be different for everyone. Your rabbi really shouldn't let you get to that stage if he or she doesn't think you're ready. During my bet din, I basically reiterated why I was converting and explained how I chose my Hebrew name. They asked me some follow-up questions and reminded/warned me that Judaism can be hard. After that, I went to the mikveh.
The mikveh is hard to describe. In a literal sense, it is a ritual pool (for more on the mikveh, see Chabad's explanation). For a convert, immersion in the mikveh represents rebirth into the Jewish people. I walked into the water down seven steps, while my rabbi explained that they represented the seven days of creation. The water was warmer than I expected and it almost came up to my shoulders. I fully submerged three times, reciting a blessing each time. Something about this process is said to ignite the Jewish soul in a convert, so when I came out, I was Jewish. It almost felt anticlimactic to do regular things, like get dressed and brush my hair. Afterwards, in the hall, one of my rabbis declared "Congratulations, you look Jewish!" and I went home to prepare for Shabbat.
My parents and my then-fiance-now-husband's parents came down for the weekend and came to Friday night services with us that night. In the middle of the service, I gave a short speech about why I converted, chanted Hatzi Kaddish, and was presented with my conversion certificate, which is now proudly framed in my apartment. My life since then has been an attempt to figure out my new identity, learn Hebrew, and come up with new blog posts.
My tentative interest in converting began sometime in late 2009 or early 2010. I bought a number of books on Judaism and converting to Judaism and thought really seriously about how converting would affect my life. I would go from the Protestant majority to an historically persecuted minority. I would have to tackle a new language, new culture, new foods. I would be giving up many of the childhood traditions I knew and loved. It would be a serious refurbishing of my identity on many levels. If I was going to put all that effort into a religion, I expected to get everything I wanted out of it - and I was quite demanding.
My new religion had to make sense to me theologically and if I had a question, I wanted a real, thought-out answer. Its values had to align with mine. Most importantly, I wanted a religion that could make me feel closer to God. For a long time, Judaism fulfilled everything for me except the God connection. I continued to go to services and learn more about Judaism because I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't seek to actively start the conversion process without that final piece.
I participated regularly in Jewish services, holidays, and study for over a year before it finally all clicked for me. Looking back on it, it makes sense that I would only feel a connection to God through Judaism after becoming comfortable with it in all the other aspects I was exploring, but at the time it seemed like I suddenly felt closer to God out of nowhere. So I went to my rabbi in Nashville to start the conversion process.
There are no set regulations for conversion (different movements have some loose guidelines), so each rabbi may do it differently. After talking to me about why I wanted to convert, my rabbi handed me a list of requirements for her conversion candidates. I had fulfilled most of them before I even talked to her about conversion, despite only moving to Nashville a couple months before. The requirements were:
A Conversion Class, which met monthly and included readings about theology, holidays and practice, Israel, and Jewish culture.
Living Jewishly through Shabbat observance and testing out other halachot (keeping kosher, holiday observance, picking up Hebrew, etc). I had been slowly incorporating these things into my daily life since my first encounter with Judaism the year before.
Tikkun Olam/Volunteering, at least part of which had to be within the Jewish community. I had already signed up to co-teach the synagogue's pre-k Sunday school class, which was a complete blast. The kids were great and I got to learn basic Hebrew phrases, like b'vakasha (please) and todah (thank you).
Keep a Personal Journal for reflection on my religious choices. I didn't have to share this with the rabbi or anyone else, but it helps to write that kind of thing out and I continue to use it.
Finally, Membership in the synagogue was required. We had already joined shortly after moving to the city, so this wasn't an issue.
How long the process takes depends almost entirely on the conversion candidate. It's up to you to tell your rabbi when you feel ready. If the rabbi disagrees, he or she will talk to you about it. Traditionally, the rabbi is supposed to turn away a conversion candidate three times, just to be sure they're really committed to converting. I set a date for my conversion ceremony about 6 months into my official conversion process, but most things I've read and heard say that it typically takes someone a year. Again, it varies depending on the person. I converted on a Friday afternoon. I took a half day at work and met my bet din (a court of three overseeing Jewish leaders, in my case the synagogue's two rabbis and the Sunday School director) at the Orthodox synagogue in town, because that is where the mikveh (ritual bath) is located. The bet din seems like it will be scary, but then it's not really. There's not really a good way to prepare for the bet din. There is a section about it in Choosing a Jewish Life by Anita Diamant that runs through the basics of how it works, but it's going to be different for everyone. Your rabbi really shouldn't let you get to that stage if he or she doesn't think you're ready. During my bet din, I basically reiterated why I was converting and explained how I chose my Hebrew name. They asked me some follow-up questions and reminded/warned me that Judaism can be hard. After that, I went to the mikveh.
The mikveh is hard to describe. In a literal sense, it is a ritual pool (for more on the mikveh, see Chabad's explanation). For a convert, immersion in the mikveh represents rebirth into the Jewish people. I walked into the water down seven steps, while my rabbi explained that they represented the seven days of creation. The water was warmer than I expected and it almost came up to my shoulders. I fully submerged three times, reciting a blessing each time. Something about this process is said to ignite the Jewish soul in a convert, so when I came out, I was Jewish. It almost felt anticlimactic to do regular things, like get dressed and brush my hair. Afterwards, in the hall, one of my rabbis declared "Congratulations, you look Jewish!" and I went home to prepare for Shabbat.
My parents and my then-fiance-now-husband's parents came down for the weekend and came to Friday night services with us that night. In the middle of the service, I gave a short speech about why I converted, chanted Hatzi Kaddish, and was presented with my conversion certificate, which is now proudly framed in my apartment. My life since then has been an attempt to figure out my new identity, learn Hebrew, and come up with new blog posts.
Monday, May 14, 2012
My Conversion, Part 3: Deciding to Convert
So, I have realized that in my haste to post the previous segment of my Jewish journey and to keep it brief, I neglected to actually tell the story of my connecting to Judaism. And what fun is this if it's not a story, but just a series of my thoughts on Judaism at disjointed moments in time, taken out of context? So I am giving myself a do over.
As always, I encourage you to start at the beginning and follow the links back to this point in the story.
To recap briefly, I left my Lutheran roots and became agnostic. After a lot of serious thought about my beliefs in college, I decided to look into Judaism.
I have always been really uncomfortable with the unknown and Judaism had a lot of unknowns: different theology, rituals, traditions, melodies, prayers, and language. I think Hebrew is the hardest part about Judaism for a newcomer. Hebrew puts up a barrier to engagement that cannot be quickly overcome. Luckily, I started out in the Reform Movement, where the entire prayer book is transliterated (written as it sounds with English letters), so I didn't actually have to learn Hebrew right away to participate. Still, I was frustrated that I couldn't make the "ch" sound that is so prevalent in Hebrew and non-existent in English and that I couldn't understand what was actually being said. My choices were to follow along silently with the English translation or try to participate with the transliteration - I couldn't do both. I might have given up on Judaism just because of Hebrew if it hadn't been for Lecha Dodi. The song welcomes Shabbat on Friday night and the melody got stuck in my head every week. Humming a song always makes me want to sing it, which involves knowing the words, so I learned the chorus to Lecha Dodi. From there, I managed to learn the Sh'ma (the central prayer in Judaism) and random phrases from other prayers and songs. The more Hebrew I picked up, the more I appreciated the language and its continued use as an integral part of the religion.
Connecting with Judaism wasn't just about incorporating new customs and ideas into my life, but letting go of some childhood customs as well. Christmas was particularly hard to let go of. What kid wouldn't find Christmas fun? Gifts, lights, Santa, magic, and family. Even as I got older, Christmas was still the family holiday in my family. We basically celebrated it as a secular holiday (using a Santa hat as a tree topper instead of a star or angel and such) and when I started to become seriously interested in Judaism, I still hoped to hold onto Christmas in that secular way. Unfortunately, my goal was to find a theologically satisfying religion, which kind of conflicted with this desire to ignore the theological underpinnings of a holiday just because I liked it. I couldn't make a theological exception - although I tried anyway - and reconcile that with my overall goal. Christmas 2010 was my last Christmas before I converted (I was in the conversion process at that point). I went home to celebrate with my family and the family time was nice, but it didn't feel like my holiday anymore. This past winter was my first Jewish Christmas and I went through a weird wave of emotions. Between moving 750 miles from home and starting a new job in the Fall, I chose not to travel home for Christmas. When I made the decision in late October, I really thought it wouldn't be a big deal. I would be home around Thanksgiving; I could see everyone I wanted to see then. I was fine until about two weeks before Christmas, when I suddenly felt this huge loss, like I was going to be missing out on something important. I didn't miss the tangible stuff, like the lights or gifts, but the intangible family moments. Christmas itself turned out to be a non-event, just like I originally thought it would be. My fiance and I rented a movie and ordered Chinese food for my first authentic Christmas as a Jew. Here's hoping that next year I remember that everything was fine and just skip the sad part in the middle.
Another problem I had connecting to Judaism was fitting myself into the idea of l'dor v'dor, "from generation to generation." Judaism is a religion and a people (more on this in a bit), which means that it has been passed down from generation to generation, at least theoretically, beginning with Abraham and Sarah. When I first started thinking about conversion, this was one of the major things that held me back - for two reasons. I didn't think I would ever feel fully Jewish without that family connection. Family history plays a big role in Jewish life. Your Hebrew name is "YOUR NAME daughter/son of DAD and MOM". Converts take a Hebrew name ending with "bat/bar Avraham v'Sarah" (daughter/son of Abraham and Sarah), which is designed to fit them into the family tree. The flip side of that is taking on your Hebrew name without feeling a little like you're dropping your own family. The whole generational thing does not seem to be explained very well to potential converts and after having finally gotten it, I can see why - it's a confusing concept. Abraham and Sarah are not meant to replace your parents; they are your spiritual progenitors. Your relationship to Abraham and Sarah and your relationship to your parents only makes sense if you don't think about it too much. The second you try to really focus on what those relationships mean to your potential Jewish identity (if you're thinking of converting), it gets confusing again. Being comfortable with dual-natured relationships like this is important, because Judaism is full of them.
Another one of those dual-natured relationships is that Judaism is a religion and a people and culture. No one was ever able to satisfactorily explain how Judaism can be both a religion and a people. It's something that just is. But I grew up thinking of religion and culture as two completely separate things. My Lutheran religion had (seemingly) nothing to do with my Midwestern American culture; there is nothing specifically Lutheran about apple pie and baseball. The idea that Judaism could be both was something that just suddenly made sense to me. Overnight, I went from not getting it to being one of those people who gets it and can't explain it to anyone else.
Figuring out all of these things was really important to my decision to convert. Read about that decision and the official conversion process in Part 4, the final part of my conversion story!
Connecting with Judaism wasn't just about incorporating new customs and ideas into my life, but letting go of some childhood customs as well. Christmas was particularly hard to let go of. What kid wouldn't find Christmas fun? Gifts, lights, Santa, magic, and family. Even as I got older, Christmas was still the family holiday in my family. We basically celebrated it as a secular holiday (using a Santa hat as a tree topper instead of a star or angel and such) and when I started to become seriously interested in Judaism, I still hoped to hold onto Christmas in that secular way. Unfortunately, my goal was to find a theologically satisfying religion, which kind of conflicted with this desire to ignore the theological underpinnings of a holiday just because I liked it. I couldn't make a theological exception - although I tried anyway - and reconcile that with my overall goal. Christmas 2010 was my last Christmas before I converted (I was in the conversion process at that point). I went home to celebrate with my family and the family time was nice, but it didn't feel like my holiday anymore. This past winter was my first Jewish Christmas and I went through a weird wave of emotions. Between moving 750 miles from home and starting a new job in the Fall, I chose not to travel home for Christmas. When I made the decision in late October, I really thought it wouldn't be a big deal. I would be home around Thanksgiving; I could see everyone I wanted to see then. I was fine until about two weeks before Christmas, when I suddenly felt this huge loss, like I was going to be missing out on something important. I didn't miss the tangible stuff, like the lights or gifts, but the intangible family moments. Christmas itself turned out to be a non-event, just like I originally thought it would be. My fiance and I rented a movie and ordered Chinese food for my first authentic Christmas as a Jew. Here's hoping that next year I remember that everything was fine and just skip the sad part in the middle.
Another problem I had connecting to Judaism was fitting myself into the idea of l'dor v'dor, "from generation to generation." Judaism is a religion and a people (more on this in a bit), which means that it has been passed down from generation to generation, at least theoretically, beginning with Abraham and Sarah. When I first started thinking about conversion, this was one of the major things that held me back - for two reasons. I didn't think I would ever feel fully Jewish without that family connection. Family history plays a big role in Jewish life. Your Hebrew name is "YOUR NAME daughter/son of DAD and MOM". Converts take a Hebrew name ending with "bat/bar Avraham v'Sarah" (daughter/son of Abraham and Sarah), which is designed to fit them into the family tree. The flip side of that is taking on your Hebrew name without feeling a little like you're dropping your own family. The whole generational thing does not seem to be explained very well to potential converts and after having finally gotten it, I can see why - it's a confusing concept. Abraham and Sarah are not meant to replace your parents; they are your spiritual progenitors. Your relationship to Abraham and Sarah and your relationship to your parents only makes sense if you don't think about it too much. The second you try to really focus on what those relationships mean to your potential Jewish identity (if you're thinking of converting), it gets confusing again. Being comfortable with dual-natured relationships like this is important, because Judaism is full of them.
Another one of those dual-natured relationships is that Judaism is a religion and a people and culture. No one was ever able to satisfactorily explain how Judaism can be both a religion and a people. It's something that just is. But I grew up thinking of religion and culture as two completely separate things. My Lutheran religion had (seemingly) nothing to do with my Midwestern American culture; there is nothing specifically Lutheran about apple pie and baseball. The idea that Judaism could be both was something that just suddenly made sense to me. Overnight, I went from not getting it to being one of those people who gets it and can't explain it to anyone else.
Figuring out all of these things was really important to my decision to convert. Read about that decision and the official conversion process in Part 4, the final part of my conversion story!
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