new jew

so about two years ago i started thinking about converting to judaism. not necessarily because i think it's the "right" religion or because i've done an intense soul searching. it's simply because my family is jewish and i want to be a part of that.

jeff and i live a jewish life, meaning we don't celebrate christian holidays and we are raising kate and jack jewish. the kids will go to hebrew school and have bar and bat mitzvahs. it's the deal we made before we got engaged; jeff said it was important to him to raise his kids jewish and i said, 'eh. fine by me. religion is religion.'

when jeff and i got married, people asked me a lot if i was going to convert. i always said that i wasn't planning on it but that if the time came when i wanted to or felt the need to that i would.

and now that time has come. or came two years ago. kate was in her first year at a jewish preschool and she was coming home with all sorts of projects i knew nothing about (the lulav and the etrog? i had no idea what these were or why she made them in class). for the first time i began to see a division between me and my family. they were jewish and i was not.

and then hurricane katrina hit new orleans. i was so moved by the jewish community's response and heard for the first time about the jewish concept of tikkun olam: repair the world. it spoke deeply to the part of me that values volunteer work and the idea of helping others. i decided that i wanted to convert.

the journey the past two years has had starts and stops. i thought i wanted to join a temple and be mentored by the rabbi there but he never returned my calls and i found out later that he took a sabbatical from the congregation to teach a congregation down south somewhere. which left me back at the beginning. i always thought the converting would require a year or so of studying and learning and the thought of a year of school slowed my fervor to convert.

i took an intro to judaism class in the spring at the temple where the kids go to preschool. i'd never been a fan of the rabbi there but in a classroom setting and one-on-one, i saw him in a new light and realized he wasn't as aloof and removed as i had always thought.

so. i made an appointment for this morning to talk to him about converting. i thought i'd go in and we'd talk about setting up a study course and he would tell me how hard it was going to be and how long it was going to take. instead, he asked me how i came about the decision to convert and then told me what would happen. turns out i don't need to do any (more) studying. he said the fact that i've been living a jewish life is far more valuable than any studying i could do (of course, the fact that i took the intro class didn't hurt).

so i filled out my application to convert and just need to decide on my hebrew name. the rabbi is going to contact two baltimore rabbis to make up the beit din. then i go through the mikvah and voila - i'm a jew.

i can't believe it's happening so quickly. it could be just a few weeks; the rabbi said the hardest part was coordinating three rabbi's schedules.

so there you go. from catholic, to home churched, to born-again, to jewish. maybe this one will stick.