Introduction

Originally posted on 12/11/08

I thought it would be appropriate to start my blog off with an introduction.

I'm Michal. I grew up in the suburbs of Buffalo as Nicole. Now I live in Queens. I started studying for conversion on the 26th of Elul in 5766. I completed it 2 Hebrew years later, on the nose: 26 Elul 5768.

I studied very hard. I learned to read, speak and write Hebrew. I read 32? 33 books? I read all kinds of stuff online, mostly when I wanted specific information. Early this year, I found a shul where they let me daven there in the morning before work. The rabbi there actually answers my questions. This was very good because before that I had a rabbi who agreed to be my conversion rabbi but, he didn't really speak to me so much.


Through someone from this shul where I have my question answering rabbi, I got my final conversion rabbi. Although, those last months still seemed like an eternity.




Michal

Another chunk of my conversion story....

So, I started with:
http://michalbasavraham.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-story-up-until-i-started-studying.html

And then I eventually continued and left off with:
http://michalbasavraham.blogspot.com/2009/05/my-process-story-year-one-and-four.html

So, now we're up to the last leg of my conversion that I never wrote about. When I left off, I had just started going to shul before work and I was looking for a new conversion rabbi so that I could change shuls from the shul were the women tried to force me to date men I wasn't interested in and they wouldn't take "no" for an answer.

So, I found a new program in Manhattan and started attending their classes. Then I changed shuls in my own neighborhood. I really liked the services at that second shul a lot. The rabbi from the shul by where I was working started having me for Shabbos sometimes.

Eventually, when I still wasn't converted, one of the women from that area who knew a rabbi who does conversions, arranged for me to work with him, instead of the program in Manhattan. I was getting the run around from them so, I changed again.

The timeframe in the above writings is from January of 2008 to just after Pesach. You with me? Great! I got laid off from my job RIGHT after Pesach. So, then I had a long summer of waiting and agonizing. There were people in my neighborhood telling me I shouldn't be converted. One woman said that only the best should be converted and who did I think I was, thinking I deserved to be converted. I was told I don't make enough money to be converted. The list of nasty comments goes on. Luckily, I had my supportive friends from that neighborhood where I used to work.

I converted just before Rosh HaShanah of 5769.

My Christian* friends are asking why I converted to Judaism

The joys and wonders of Facebook that you can find almost anyone with a full name, if it's not too common or with a full name and some information like where they live or went to high school or college.

So, I thought it would make a good blog topic. I also figured that it would save me the trouble of typing an answer over and over. Yes, my journey to Judaism is here on the blog but, it's not so straight to the point and it's not really written for that particular audience.

The Christian background is as follows. I was raised secular Catholic, but a religious Catholic grandmother lived with us. Around fifth or sixth grade, my older sister started going to a youth group at a Weslyan Methodist church in the area. It seems that some friends of hers were going, not that they were religious. I think one of them was forced to go by her parents.

Like many other younger sisters, I wanted to do whatever my older sister did. I wanted to hang out with her. I thought of her as cool by default. After all, she was the older sister. So, I started going to this youth group with my sister.

Incidentally, she did happen to start going when I was having some craving for religion and G-d in my life. So, she caved and I went to youth group with her and her friends. As time passed, she and her friends because to grow bored of the group and their dropped until it didn't exist. However, I continued to go every Friday night. I began making my own friends there and it became my thing, instead of hers. In addition to youth group, I would attend Pioneer girls (a sort Christian girls scouts group) and Sunday morning services. This was my journey to that religion.

Fast forward to a time when I was 20, almost 21 years old on summer break from the Weslyan Methodist college I attended. (Maybe at some point I'll blog the journey into and out fire and brimstone Baptist, but not today.) This is where the removal of that religion came into fruition.

I had been having some doubts but, mostly I put them out of my head. I found conflicts between the "Old" Testament and the "New" Testament. How am I supposed to believe an Eternal G-d could take such a limited form as a human being? I was aware that word used in Isaiah (which supposedly prophesizes the birth coming from a young woman/virgin) translates as young woman, not virgin. How about the big one. G-d can NOT change. If He does not/can not change his mind, what's with the changes made in this "New" Testament? Pastor says we still follow the Old Testament, but then he says I don't have to learn the kosher laws or keep Saturday as the Sabbath.

I found conflicts between the *New* Testament and the *New* Testament. How come there are two different genealogies given for J? How come Friday to Sunday is not really three days and three nights? How am I supposed to believe the Almighty kept this doctrine in tact if the math is wrong? If He didn't keep the doctrine in tact, perhaps this is not the truth.

There were probably even more thoughts that caused me to leave the other religion.

So, I went back to that college for one more semester and the following semester I started attending a state school.

I mentally evaluated what I believed in now that I was shedding my old beliefs. I decided that I didn't have any problems with the "Old" Testament. Somehow I found out that Judaism is from this religion. I knew one Jewish person, a college guy with ADHD that I knew from the ADHD online discussion boards (interesting side note that this was back when the internet was a baby and it was limited to providers like AOL, Prodigy and CompuServe.) So, I emailed him.

However, I didn't convert at that time. From that point until I started my conversion process, if I were asked my religion, I would either say that I didn't have or that my beliefs were Jewish, however, I never converted.

Now, I have converted to Orthodox Judaism. This is what's right for me.

*A note to those reading for this posting. It was difficult to come up with the particular balance for this particular post as to using Xtian vs. Christian and so on. I decided that since this post is written to my friends from college, rather than strangers, I would write this in the manner less offensive to them. Hope that my Jewish readers understand. We wil back to Xtian and Xtianity at the next post.

My process story.... Year one and four months...

I promised some readers of Frum Satire... many moons ago my story of my process. The story up until I started the process is on here. However, the actual process story is not.

When I started actually studying Judaism was on the 26 of Elul of 5765 (2006). I had been thinking about converting and I had prayed about it. This was the date when I started working for this Jewish guy. As I was using his kitchen, I learned how to function in a kosher kitchen. I learned some other things like meat and dairy are not eaten together and ham/pig is never eaten. I couldn't get enough. I asked this boss to tell me more but, all he said was that I could google it. So, I did.

I found JEWFAQ.org and NJOP.org. I started reading about Judaism on the internet. About a month later, I contacted NJOP and told them I wanted to start learning Hebrew. The rabbi that responded gave me three books to read. He said that when I finished reading them, if I still wanted to convert, to contact him again and he would give me contact information for a sponsor and let me in enroll in Hebrew classes.

I read these three books ("To Be A Jew," "Becoming A Jew," and "This Is My G-d") and started to look into moving to a Jewish neighborhood. This rabbi was available to answer some questions during this "preconversion" phase. For example, he referred me to the beginner's service at Lincoln Square Synagogue. I attended there until I moved to a Jewish neighborhood.

So, I was very excited when I found my apartment in a Jewish neighborhood. I called around to find my first rabbi before I even moved in. Finally, I had a rabbi so I was actually in the process. He gave me some assignments and I finished them dutifully. I wrote a paper on this and a paper on that. He assigned more. I wrote more. Eventually, I started writing papers he didn't ask for and Emailing them to him. He was doing that thing where he never scheduled meetings with me or he made me wait for an hour and then he left, "oops, sorry, I have to go."

As the year with this rabbi progressed, he actually blew me off more and more. I thought, shouldn't he be seeing that I follow through and shouldn't it mean something?" Eventually, I had rabbis coming to me asking, "what is going on with your process?" I had to tell them, "I really don't know." They wanted to know, "what do you still have to study?" "Ummm.. I'm not sure." "What feedback does your rabbi give you?" "Umm... he really just kinda says hello, how are you and I have to go."

So, various rabbis were telling me to change rabbis. I wasn't sure about this because I thought it would hurt me in the end.

When I had major issues with almost every woman in the shul trying to set me up with horrible men and while I was still in the process, no less, I decided it was time to change rabbis AND SHULS. There was a shul I had been eyeing, anyway. It was closer to where I live. I would see it on the way to and from shul.

While I was looking to change rabbis between this first and second rabbi, I found a shul by my work that was accepting of women coming in the morning. I started going to Shacharis before work.

We'll pause here... and continue another day.

My story up until I started studying for conversion...

People always want to know my story. Why did I convert to Judaism? Where did I come from (religiously)? What are my parents?

My mother was Catholic. My father was raised at a United Church of Christ church, protestant. Neither one went to church while I was growing up. My parents were divorced on my second birthday. So, my mother (and grandmother) raised me. So, when it was time for a life cycle, Catholic was the way we went. However, my mom never went to church, let alone take us. My grandmother went. If I wanted to go, I could go with her but, I wasn't taken to church.

I always felt warmly towards Jews. I got, and of course still do, warm fuzzies seeing a star of David. I remember reading Anne Frank and seeing the movie, looking for the extra Jewish parts like Chanukah. However, our area would have been waspy if it weren't for the high percentage of Catholics. So, I didn't haven any encounters with Jewish friends growing up.

When I was in about fifth or sixth grade, I started going to a youth group at a church. I became a very religious xtian. In high school, I went to another church which was right wing fundamentalist. The women were really into skirt-wearing as proper attire. You weren't supposed to go to the movies. You weren't supposed to buy anything on Sundays. There should always be six inches between persons of opposite gender.

Eventually, I was attending x-tian college and I could no longer ignore the problems I saw with the religion. If He is Eternal, He couldn't have become a human? Why are there two different geneologies for this person that's supposed to be Him? The argument used is that one is Joseph's geneology and the other is Mary's. However, the doctrine states that Joseph was not the PERSON's father. So, what gives? Friday to Sunday morning is not three days and three nights. If they knew enough to record this birth, why was nothing but, one teenage incident recorded until the PERSON was 30 something?

So, I left x-tianity.

After making the decision, I was asked by people, "so what do you believe now?" That was a good question. I had to ask myself. I concluded that all the problems I had with the Bible were with this "new" testament, if you will. I didn't inconsistencies within the "old" testament. I decided that the G-d of the "old" testament was indeed, G-d, the Creator of the Universe and the Eternal One. I discovered this religion existed and that it's called Judaism. So, I had one Jewish Email pal and I asked him where to start. He did such a great job of dissuading me. However, I stopped celebrating Xmas, Easter and New Year's.

Fast forward several years. In June of 2004, I moved to New York City. I originally came to pursue a career in acting. However, being surround by Jews tugged at that thing inside me that caused me to look into converting previously. One day in the summer of 2006, I was walking in downtown Brooklyn, when a Chabadnic asked me if I was Jewish. I replied, "no, but, I-" The "I always wanted to convert," was cut off and he gave me a bnei noach card.

Well, I took that card home and I prayed on it. I prayed to Hashem if perhaps I was supposed to convert, that he should send me a sign. Perhaps I could make a Jewish friend or work for a Jewish person.

On the 26th of Elul (less than a month later), I started working for this Jewish guy.

I will continue the story another day...