Going to the Mikveh

Still on the subject of conversion, I had a Reform conversion which involved a period of study and "living Jewish", and a ceremony at Friday night services where I was officially converted. I didn't go to the mikveh and there was no beit din. I was a little disappointed about the mikveh because I thought it would be an experience of re-birth, coming out of the water like coming out of a womb. I felt like something would be washed away and only my Jewishness in all its glory would be left. Or something like that. I really couldn't have cared less about the beit din part. I had a dream in the nights immediately surrounding my conversion in which I went to the mikveh as part of a conversion ceremony, and it was so very real that I always felt like perhaps that was God's way of giving me that experience without me physically having gone to the mikveh.

I was disappointed that some people didn't accept Reform conversions as valid, but I came up with reasons why it didn't really matter what other people accepted. Some of those reasons are in fact valid, but they aren't relevant to what I want to discuss here. While commenting on someone else's blog, making a case for my situation in a way, I learned a lesson about conversion and why it matters to do it in such a way that it is acceptable to the largest number of Jews possible.

Here is a link to those comments: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8444758&postID=5794447031133776886

The "what are we, chopped liver?" comment was meant to be funny but it also had a lot of wisdom behind it. It inspired me to look at this situation from a different point of view. If someone loves Judaism and wants to be a Jew, converts in some manner and lives as a Jew, wouldn't every other Jew want to be able to accept that person's conversion and welcome them? I believe people are basically good at heart, so of course they would! In choosing to convert the way I did, I made it impossible for many Jews to accept my conversion as valid. It's possible they could see that as a slight: "what are we, chopped liver?" or in other words, "don't you care that halachically I can't consider you a Jew?"

That was pretty profound to me. I had always concentrated on how I felt excluded, but never thought about how I was also excluding the Orthodox community. Now, I will never be an Orthodox Jew. There are things that I just cannot believe and things that I do believe which make it impossible for me to be Orthodox. (I also no longer consider myself Reform, but hover in the vicinity of Conservative Judaism after years of study and personal growth.)

A dear friend of mine is a Conservative rabbi and offered to me a year or 2 ago that if I ever wanted to go to the mikveh and have the beit din, she would be glad to make that happen for me. I didn't give it any serious thought at the time, and even felt like to do those things would be saying I hadn't been a Jew in the years since my Reform conversion. But after gaining this new perspective on things, I told her I wanted to go to the mikveh and go before the beit din.

So that's the plan. I realize this won't make me acceptable to the Orthodox community, and that the Conservative community already accepts Reform conversions, so nothing is technically changing. But as I have studied and prayed, I have come to have greater respect for halacha, and this will be an expression of that respect. It will also be a "message in a bottle" to the Jewish universe that I want to be included fully (even in that isn't possible), and that I want those in the Jewish universe to know that even if I don't agree with them, they are valuable to me.

Chosen by Choice

I had a hard time thinking of a name for my blog but then it just hit me. I make no secret of the fact that I'm a Jew by Choice. In the congregation I was converted in, there was no shame in it, and there were a lot of converts. Converts were some of the most active members of the congregation, which I hear is pretty typical. But I have heard of others who don't even want a person who is in the process of converting to ask them in private about their conversion process, even in the way of moral support or asking what to expect. I guess I was lucky enough not to be exposed to an environment that would generate that feeling in me.

Even though I've been a Jew for years, I still want very much to learn about other people's family traditions and customs. That's really something you can't get from a book or a rabbi. I figure that if I'm open about wanting this thing I never had, people will be more apt to offer it to me.

That's just a little about me and the name of my blog to get things started here.