The ramblings of a neshama

It’s my (English calendar) birthday and I’m taking a look at how I got here. 

I never, in a million years, would have predicted becoming frum. 

My whole life I strongly identified as Jewish. Which was problematic. I have one Jewish parent and it’s the “wrong” one. 

I was living my life, if not happily, semi-successfully. I worked as a rowing coach and coxswain, with intermittent teaching jobs- I’ll maybe write more about my sports background at some point- and dated various guys. At 26 (I think… maybe 25) there was a shooting at the Tree Of Life Synagogue in my home town of Pittsburgh. I had been very mildly Jewish until then . But suddenly, it felt like no one in my life understood me. I walked into a Conservative shul, seeking a community who instinctively understood what was probably an epigenetic fight or flight reflex. (It’s fight. This is me. It’s always fight).

Let me be clear about one thing. I’ve always even drawn to the beauty in Judaism. While my family was so secular as to let my mother baptize the children (I don’t want to talk about it) I adored the Chanukah menorah and literally hoarded  the random Judaica left from my grandparents in the house. I forced my father to celebrate the chaggim with me. I was a weird kid. I would watch frum families playing together at the park with something close to adoration. I too wanted to wear skirts and sleeves like their girls. Again. Weird child. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to why I felt this burning desire to light candles or bake challah.  It’s HaShem and HaShem works in strange ways. Anyway I ended up in a conservative conversion class, dead set against Conversion. Why would I convert? In my mind, I was already as Jewish as they come. I was taking it for “learning purposes” convinced I was not going to convert. I started feeling put my gentile then-boyfriend. I didn’t want to force him to convert. But I was twenty six. I was thinking about marriage. I definitely wanted children . (By 30, was always my timeline). And deep down, I wanted an orthodox, kosher, conversion. I wasn’t so much in denial, as trying to have my cake and eat it, too. : 

My boyfriend wasn’t interested in children. Or commitment. And certainty not conversion. After several failed “define the relationship” talks, he broke up with me. 

Which turned out to be a huge bracha. You see, I had come around to conversion. But I had decided that Conservative Judaism wasn’t for me. I wanted something more. An orthodox rabbi told me in no way would a beis din work with me if I was in a relationship with a non Jew. My secular values at the time told me that love between two people should outweigh religious differences. Thank G-d he broke up with me. It was this that allowed me to pursue an orthodox conversion. HaShem gave me this last push in the right direction. Maybe it helped that I had stopped driving on shabbos and was dressing as an orthodox woman. I don’t know. I think, in this case, HaShem has more compassion on me than I deserved because I needed that to happen. 

I completed my conversion in two years. During the conversion process,  I met my husband. He had to be “vetted” by the beis din at the end of the process. Honestly, that might have been the part I enjoyed the most. He passed with flying colors.

If you’re doing the math along at home, I was 28. We married a few months later. And a few months after than, I was pregnant with my first child. She was born just before I turned thirty. Ironically, I made my own self imposed deadline, by the skin of my teeth. 

It has been a whirlwind since then. There is so much I didn’t learn in converting that I’ve had to learn on my own in the meantime. Books are helpful. To a large extent, I copy other women. My husband is BT and sometimes it’s the blind leading the blind. 

I had my second child, a boy, seven months ago. 

I really don’t feel that the ground has settled underneath my feet. 

In another ironic twist, I teach judaics in a preschool. I have a pretty strong understanding of basic Chumash, so I get by pretty well, although my Hebrew is deplorable. 

I really crave the feeling of not standing on unsteady ground. 

But I have to thank HaShem. 

From being a weird little girl who was coloring Magen Davids- I now feel at least I am the most authentic version of myself, to use millennial lingo. 

I’m confused. 

And I’m exhausted. 

I’m overworked (hi- two under two) 

But at least I’m Jewish.

The rabbis in my beis din asked me how I would feel converting with the danger of antisemitism. I believe I gave them a dumb answer- something about “I look like this and my last name is Rosenberg. You guys might not consider me Jewish but that’s good enough for the antisemites.” - there’s also the following. My neshama cannot live, in fact, never could live, as anything but a Jew. Some days I feel like I’m in recovery from being a gentile. They say that neshamas can accidentally get misplaced in non-Jewish bodies. I don’t know why HaShem did such a thing, and in my case, why He left such a big paper trail. But here I am. Still kicking. 

They call converts Jews by choice. One of the many reasons I hate to be called a convert, despite it being halachically correct. There was never any choice for me. The other option was untenable for my neshama. 

I feel exhausted from the past six years.. exhausted but grateful. Thank you, HaShem. (But also , can I please take a break now?)