The Enigma

"Why?"

"What exactly was it that made you change your mind?"

"How did this happen?"

Living in a small town community has its challenges for any Jew, I know. We're isolated from Jewish culture centers and inundated with messages that Christianity is the real religion (I was surprised to realize the other day that "Judeo-Christian" really means "Christian with some heritage" when in common usage around here). With this in mind, why would I be at all surprised to find that Christians are baffled at the thought of conversion to Judaism from Christianity? After all, I am well aware that the prevailing thought is along the lines of "Christianity is Judaism perfected." Why wouldn't Christians question my decision to "go backward?"

Even a couple years into this journey, I still find these surprises lying in wait for me, just as they still scratch their heads. I am the enigma to my friends, family, and acquaintances. I am the problem they discuss when religion is the topic of conversation. I am the human Rubik's cube that they continually fidget with and fuss over, hoping to find the one part that clicks and unlocks the puzzle.

It sounds so self-centered, but for my nearest and dearest, it's generally accurate. I think the dailiness of Jewish life, the weekly coming of Shabbat, the frequency of the multitude of Jewish holidays on the calendar, along with the Christian admonitions to bring back the wanderer and evangelize to the unsaved, keeps this paramount on their list of to-dos. My seeking and studying has been boiled down to the terse "are you still doing that Jewish thing?"

Well, yes, I am. Thankfully, "doing Jewish" is a great way to put it, so the question makes me smile rather than frown. Yes, I'm still trying to live my life Jewishly, do Jewish things, celebrate Jewish holidays, doing that Jewish thing.

Even holding conversation after conversation, the questions continue to emerge: why would you go backward? Why would you turn your back on your upbringing? What did it?

I think they want as much to know "what was the clincher" as anything. I don't know whether it's due to a concern that a similar situation might affect them the same way, or whether if they could just know what to attack and argue against, they might have a chance to change my mind. It's as if my convictions are in code, and if they could just break the code, they could reorder my thoughts. So what on earth was I thinking?

In all honesty, it's been long enough that the original catalyst has long gone fuzzy in my mind. I remember the feeling of wholeness I found in the synagogue that first Simchat Torah, but I don't remember the arguments that caused me to question the upbringing I received. I remember the feeling of opening up a door when I began Hebrew lessons and could follow along in the siddur during services, but not the words that might have made me open to the experience. Apparently, the first inklings will have to remain an engima to us all. What's important to me is my continuing identification with Jewish life and the Jewish community. How and why did it begin?

I honestly don't know. But I'm glad it did.

Mental Block

Call it exhaustion, call it performance anxiety, call it fear of rejection...call it whatever you like, but the fact is that I have completely frozen on my Beit Din essay.

I was saving this till after the end of the semester, sort of a 'saving the best for last' thought because I knew that I wouldn't be searching things in books or online, footnoting or fact-checking with this essay. It would come from the heart and I already knew the answers, so how hard could it be?

Turns out, pretty darn hard. I know how I came to this point, but to sit down and put in black and white that "oh, I just kinda all of a sudden decided that Christianity was wrong and Judaism was, like, AWESOME," isn't exactly what I think the Beit Din wants to hear. It's not really how things happened, either, but it's the Cliffs Notes version. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how I got to this point. Was it really the Introduction to World Religions class? After all, my professor reassured us at the beginning that he had never, in all his years of teaching religious studies, had anyone convert from their religion to another due to what they learned in class. That doesn't mean it wasn't the reason, obviously. There's always a first time (and may I just add a disclaimer, I'm actually looking forward to getting back in touch with him and letting him know that I'm his first. What can I say, it just makes me chortle with glee). Was it because my mother once upon a time was interested in Messianic Judaism/Christianity and we had intertwined Jewish and Christian motifs in our home? (By the way, I still want to find that dreidel!)

Is it because I like to be different? Is it a rebellion against everything in my life that's the norm? I'd like to hope not, since normalcy and comfort are something I'm really craving right now during this deployment.

I am so stuck. I want to be able to explain myself, but I'm not sure I fully understand in the first place.

I suppose the only thing to do is to take the bull by the horns and begin to write. I have no excuses to put it off any longer, and what's the worst that could happen? I could break a nail or have a breakthrough! I guess this means full speed ahead.

To Rebbetzyn

I was going to address my thoughts in a comment, but I think this will be long enough it deserves a post of its own.

Duram8r:

Thank you for taking the time to comment on my blog and to try to clear up my possible misunderstanding of your position.

Perhaps I'm missing your point, but the only link I find between your views and the Christian views which I referenced is that both show an intolerance for the beliefs of others. Although there are antisemitic Christians, Christianity itself is not antisemitic. Nor do I find Reform or Conservative Judaism to be antisemitic. Choosing not to affiliate with Orthodox Judaism is not inherently antisemitic, it is simply a difference of opinion. I'm sorry that you seem to view it otherwise.

I'm not sure what you mean by Christians "claiming to be Jews and being threatened by and hating authentic Judaism"...I assume you are referring to the Christian claim that they have replaced the Jews as the "Chosen people," which I have to admit seems to me to be a usurpation, along with the Christian claim on the "Old Testament." However, I can assure you that most Christians do not even give thought to authentic Judaism, much less take the time to feel threatened by it or even less, to hate it. I'm sorry that your experience has led you to feel otherwise or to feel the need to lash out at such believers.

I agree with you that my soul-searching will ultimately lead to my acceptance of Judaism or my choosing to live under the Noachide commandments. As much of a struggle as my search has caused me thus far, believe me I don't choose the "easy" path. I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by "the lek lekah that must be done on some level." My only knowledge of Lekh Lekhah is as the Torah portion, and I'm not sure how you apply that to this discussion. I'd be happy to hear more if you're willing to explain it.

As far as your reference to loss of soul, I went back to your original post and read this along with the portion I quoted, which make more sense together:

I feel deeply saddened that the midah kneged midah of every
self -hating / self- ignorant Jew
that gets sucked into xanity produces an equal and opposite effect is inflicted on Non-Jews
they have secular/Self hating Jews con them into false conversions.

By this I assume you believe that G-d is taking souls, measure for measure? For every Jew who becomes a Christian, a Christian/gentile becomes conned into a false Jewish conversion which does not bequeath them a Jewish soul? It's an interesting way of looking at things, but if G-d were working measure for measure, wouldn't He want to give a Jewish soul to those former gentiles in order to fill the place vacated by a Jew converting? Or do you mean that the "self-hating Jews" who are not Orthodox purposely make false conversions in order to strike back against those who converted their fellow "self-hating, self-ignorant" Jews to Christianity?

I will be the first to admit that I have a great deal to learn, and I certainly don't understand everything I come across. Thank you again for making the effort to help me see your perspective on this.

Christianity and Judaism, Scriptural Interpretation

Look at the NT based on the OT. There are parallels that are apparent once sought and studied. Prophecies and statements in the Old Testament were made realized in the New Testament.

Of course if a newly evolving “religion” wanted to sway believers that they are the inheritors of an existing belief with over 12 centuries of collective prophetic experience, they just might do everything possible to “spin” the facts described in their newly evolving literature to appear to match the expectations hinted at in the prophetic scripture of the targeted religion.

I’ve said it many times. Christianity (and in many ways Islam as well) are offshoots of Judaism. All the content they profess to teach their believers are teachings regurgitated from Judaism. They are locked in a love/hate relationship. Love in that their message is a message borrowed from another. Hate in that they can never truly superseded the other without negating the very source of their own legitimacy.

By: Yoel Ben-Avraham on May 25, 2007
at 8:27 am
Found in a comment on this blog.

I know that with all the reading I've done, I'm sure to have picked up many ideas and thoughts along the way which I can't attribute to any one person, but which did not come about through my own reasoning. This is one of the downfalls of reading such a large amount of information all the time: it's very difficult to hang onto or sort out everything that has been digested. However, even though I can't claim to have come up with the idea stated above, I feel that it is very true.

At some point I saved the link to Yoel Ben-Avraham's blog Second Thoughts. Today I had a little extra computer time and chose to check out this blog I had favorited. Looking over some old posts, I found a link to Jeremiah Andrew's blog where Yoel Ben-Avraham had posted several responses, one of which is the one quoted above.

It only makes sense that a new religion would borrow from other established religions. As I told a friend once, I believe there is something to be learned from all religions. Religions most similar to my own upbringing are most interesting to me, probably on the basis of familiarity. Of course it is easy to study Islam without feeling particularly drawn to convert to it. There are many things about Islam which I respect but do not believe in, not the least that Muhammed was a prophet sent by G-d who apparently had all the right answers. (I know I'm simplifying a lot, forgive me.) However, Judaism, with the backbone Tanakh on which the New Testament of the Christians is based, is much more compelling. Of course both religions have evolved over the centuries since the founding of Christianity, and Judaism itself was involved in an evolution of theology and thought even before that. How can a Christian not see that in essence they have stolen another's sacred text and are twisting it to their own ends?

Of course anyone will change anything to suit their needs or their viewpoint; this is what interpretation of scriptures is all about, and is inescapable. I, for instance, read the verses against boiling a kid in its mother's milk. From this I draw the conclusion that one should not doubly insult a mother by first killing her young, and then adding insult to injury, taking her milk and using it to create a dish of her baby. Thus to me it might be understandable that a cheeseburger (since one does not know from which cow the milk for the cheese nor the meat from the hamburger came) is treif, non-kosher. On the other hand, I can't quite see why chicken parmesan would be treif. A chicken does not give milk, thus adding cheese to it is not rubbing salt in the wound. However, the rabbis deem it so, and so it is. Perhaps the rabbis felt barnyard animals hung together, I don't know.

All this to say, I felt Yoel Ben-Avraham made a compelling argument for the genesis of the give and take between a parent religion and its offspring.

Long Time Gone

If you're a Dixie Chicks fan, you'll know the title reference. All others may feel free to look it up at their leisure.

Do you ever feel that something just doesn't fit? Maybe you've started to wonder if you will ever fit anywhere. Well, as a blonde, Southern, country, formerly diehard Christian who wants to convert to Judaism, I can empathize. Sometimes Judaism seems so right for me...but that's only when I'm considering myself. Most of the time, it is feeling not-quite-right to very-wrong: not quite right in that I don't quite fit with the local synagogue crowd. Very wrong in that my husband and children are not only Gentiles, but Christians. Born-again, baptized Christians who love Jesus, love "Jesus Loves Me" to be sung to them, love to read about Jesus.

And then there's me. Confused, alone, torn in what feels like a million directions. Who is G-d? Who was/is Jesus of Nazareth, Yeshua? Who was/is/will be Moshiach? Where do I fit in all of this?

For Mother's Day we watched Gentleman's Agreement. The movie stars Gregory Peck as a writer who takes on an assignment to write about antisemitism in post-WWII America. At first he is hesitant because he feels unable to give a better treatment to the situation than had been done dozens of times over before. Then he has a light-bulb moment: he'll be Jewish for as long as it takes to get the material to write his piece. At one point he tells his Jewish boyhood friend not only is passing himself off as a Jew working, it's working a little too well. His mother's doctor reacts disapprovingly when he asks to be referred to a Jewish doctor at Mount Sinai or Beth Israel hospitals, his new fiance reacts poorly to the idea and argues over whether they should continue the charade in front of her sister and her friends, and most hurtful of all, his son is called "dirty Jew" and "kike" by the neighborhood kids and runs home crying.

Of course, the movie ends in a positive way, and I've always loved it for some reason. But seeing it now, after beginning the long journey toward Jewishness, it's as if I'm seeing it for the first time. It feels so much more hurtful when one might be the victim, versus the WASP who says, "Oh, how horrible...for you." The situation feels quite a bit different when the shoe is on the other foot, when you can't thank your lucky stars that you were born a Gentile, that your children will never go through that pain because they aren't a minority (or in the case of a convert, related to the minority). It certainly gave me pause.

I suppose I'm just feeling that even though I'm scared for what my choice may do to my family, to my children...I'm feeling that "the rest is a long time gone, and it ain't comin' back again..."

Hmmm...

I was riding down the road today and passed a business sign...one of those with the removeable letters that you can change to read different messages. This one read something along the lines of "I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you. John 14:18." (Of course I just googled this to make sure I was right. ;))

An interesting thing is happening inside me...I read that, and the first thing that popped into my mind was, "Well, he hasn't come yet!" I'm finding that more and more I feel divorced from my conservative Christian roots, and more and more I feel at loose ends. I'm caught betwixt and between...no longer comfortable in the faith of Christianity, not yet comfortable in the heritage of Judaism. Speaking with a friend, I said I felt as though I'm "faking it," because I'm not "really Jewish." I don't know if that's a genuine feeling, or if it's born of my husband repeating it to me so frequently in the past few months. I'm sure it's a bit of both. I want so much to tell my rabbi I'm ready for the next step, ready to begin a true track toward conversion. At the same time, I'm scared stiff. My husband said loudly in a clothing store the other day, "You can't wear that--it's not Jewish enough." In a small town, news travels fast. Not only was I shocked that he was saying something about clothing (what exactly is "Jewish" clothing anymore, anyway? It's not as if I'm considering converting Orthodox that he could say I'm not fitting a dress code!), I was also shocked that he was pointedly doing this in a public place where he was apparently hoping to be overheard. I've told him before that I'm not sure enough in my convictions (or perhaps lack thereof?) to "come out" to everyone that I'm wanting to convert to Judaism. We do live in a small town, and it is predominantly Christian. Unlike what they claim in their dogma, Christians have long memories and are not terribly forgiving, especially when it means their values and beliefs, their veracity, has been questioned. Even in "returning to the fold," if I were to do that, I would forever be a pariah in this area.

Sadly, that's the main reason I'm not "coming out" yet. Interestingly enough, every time I take part in something that reinforces my Judaism (attending the Chanukah dinner, when my daughter and I ended up as part of the broadcast on the evening news, or being seen and possibly heard discussing Judaism and Telushkin with a friend while out in town the other day, for examples), it seems to be something that draws attention to me. I'm not sure if this is meant to "shame" me into turning away, or if it's meant to encourage me to be bolder and take that next step...regardless of what others think.

Honestly, I think I'm reading too much into it. ;) I'm hoping to read through the JPS Tanakh (which I am thrilled to say I own now!), and see if that helps me see things more clearly. I would like to take the Intro to Judaism class that's coming up, but of course want to talk with my rabbi before then.

Would I be more likely to have already begun that by now, or less, if I weren't having to fight tooth and nail for every concession my dear husband has made to me thus far? I wonder...

On Conversion and Children

I'm sure every parent has looked down into their child's face as a sleeping infant and wanted for them the best, the least difficult, the most perfect life. I've read more than one article which was based on the premise that babies bring a spiritual reawakening into the home along with their first breath. I can't say that my spiritual reawakening was instantaneous, but there's nothing like the miracle of new life to make someone want to bless the heavens. If this new life ushers in a more devout mindset, a desire to pass this faith to the next generation, all the better. Children are remarkably open to whatever their parents tell them in their early years. Whether that sticks or not is up for questioning, but in the beginning even the Tooth Fairy is real, and G-d is in His heaven looking down on the world, tugging on His long, grey beard as He surveys His creation.

This raises a problem for a convert who is already a parent at that critical time. What do you tell your children? Do you open up their world to such bleak doubt? Once broken, is their trust and faith forever shattered, or will they simply follow the lead they are given?

While reading a children's book titled Many Ways, a book on the commonalities among the world's great religions, my school-aged daughter kept looking for symbols and rituals that were "English," ie, Christian. While I was drawn automatically to the Judaica, the Mogen David, the Shabbat candlelighting, the Torah scrolls, the kipa, she was drawn to the crosses, the baptisms, the choirs, the hot cross buns. When she said, "this is us, Mommy," I didn't have the heart to tell her, "No, that is you, dear. This over here is Mommy." How do you tear your family apart, setting yourself opposite that which you have taught your child, and putting your very self in opposition to hers?