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After about 6 months of serious contemplation, I decided in October to undertake conversion. The highly redeeming experience of the Yom Kippur fast was the tipping point. I knew at that moment that I was a Jew. I immediately petitioned the nearest reform temple for conversion. I was asked to wait and e-mail the Rabbi again after Sukkot. I did and we set an appointment.

I made a whole day out of it (especially since the Temple is an hour and 30 minutes' drive on a good traffic day).

Once I was in front of the Rabbi, I feel like I choked when he asked me that ever-begging question: Why do you want to be a Jew? I gave him a sloppy spiel about my experience with Judaism and how I felt it was an intellectually rich tradition, and so forth. The real reason, which I knew but which just didn't come forth when needed, was that the Jewish tradition is the first and only one which makes me want to hope in the existence of G-d and which makes me want to be a better individual. Bam. That was the answer and I couldn't manage to spit it out.

Luckily, the Rabbi noticed my nervousness and didn't make a big deal about it. After inquiring about my life and learning that I am currently a law student who will be 3 to 4 years in a city with almost no Jewish community, he asked me how I planned on being Jewish in a place like that. I didn't have an answer because I thought rabbis were there to help you figure things like that out. I simply reminded him that I live an hour and a half away from one of Canada's largest cities, so it's not like I'm isolated in the middle of nowhere.

I'm single, so he asked me how I plan on meeting a Jewish girl in my current city with so few Jews. I told him I didn't plan on getting married before graduation anyway. I also mentioned (perhaps shouldn't have) that if I did happen to meet and fall in love with a gentile girl, I would simply ask her to convert. He kind of laughed and admitted it was possible, though he didn't seem to approve of it very much.

At this point, I was thinking to myself that I blew it and that I'd have to go to the Conservatives. I mean, it was a Reform rabbi I was talking to here and his main concern seemed to be whether or not I would eventually marry Jewish, which I found kind of odd considering that the appointment he had before me was clearly a case of pre-marital conversion. But anyway, not a big deal.

Finally, he got down to brass tacks and started laying out the process. He said I would have to start with the Intro class. There is one starting in January but the class is held at a time that conflicts with my school schedule (and the law faculty does not negotiate schedules, you get what you get). So he said that I would probably have to wait for next fall in hopes that my class schedule would permit me to make the weekly drive to and from the Big City.

After Intro, he said there's a Bible class that is given online which we would discuss on a weekly basis.

All in all, if I remember correctly, he said it would take around 9 months once I actually start classes (which is on top of the 9 months I have to wait before classes begin).

I'm glad to have at least begun the process. I was hoping to get started earlier, but Rome wasn't built in a day.

Any advice, thoughts or comments are welcome.

Thanks.

reappearhere:

You are right that I was inexcusably rude. I apologize. It was late and I guess I was in a grumpy mood.

I regret that I did so not just because it was a breach in civility, but because I may have set myself up to be written off and I think I can provide useful advice.

Perhaps one can only learn from hard experience, but truly you will save yourself from grief if you can try hard not to see other people only in terms of their relationship to yourself and to work hard to understand who they are. It is difficult. People in very long-term relationships may make it look effortless and natural, but it takes work that you simply don't see from the outside. I still remember a remark to that effect by a college friend early in his marriage, and whose understanding of that is probably one reason that he is still happily married 20 years later. "Conversion out of love" is simply a bad idea. There is evidence that was the reason for the conversion when a divorcing convert rejects Judaism after leaving the Jewish partner. (But luckily I know of more cases in which the divorced convert stayed just as committed to Judaism as before.) The issues of intermarriage are very real---I was not being flip when I recommended the InterfaithFamily.com website. That website also has really good introductory materials for all aspects of Judaism. They promote a positive response to intermarriage, but they do not advocate intermarriage.

I suggest the same approach for your explorations of Judaism. It is better to learn about the religion and the people as they are, rather than looking for particular aspects of the religion which fit what you think you want from the religion. Obviously some aspects of Judaism resonate with you now, but you seem to be closing yourself off prematurely to other aspects. Take more time to study and learn. Being more open even to things that at first seem foreign or even distasteful can enable you to find something meaningful that you weren't even looking for. There are many aspects of my own current observance that I would not have dreamed of embracing 20 years ago.

1984 is not the year I converted; it is the year I first started to attend services at a university Hillel while in grad school. I married my Jewish husband in 1987 (after 7 years of dating) as a non-Jew. Had I converted back then, it would have been with a very different understanding of Judaism. In part, it was my evolving understanding of Judaism, especially the "peoplehood" aspect that delayed my conversion for over two decades.

The reason I mention these years is to show that I've had a lot of time to collect a lot of data from which to develop my understanding. For example, I know a lot about intermarriage from my own experience, from the experiences of many friends and acquaintances, from lots of study of all kinds of sources from Talmud to anecdotal stories from rabbis and people in interfaith relationships. These are the real stories behind the statistics that you cite which can be very misleading if you don't know how the way the data was determined and analyzed. See for example: http://www.jewishjournal.com/demographic_duo/item/jewish_intermarriage_declining_20111115/ Another important thing left out of the bare numbers is many of the Jews who "married out" (and probably most of the "committed Jews" which excludes those "secular Jews" who are Jewish only by birth for whom Judaism has almost no relevance in their lives) still see intermarriage as a negative that was outweighed in their own case by other factors. I also think you should at least entertain the possibility that the attitudes of the rabbis whose views you seem to discount may be informed by information you don't know.

It is a common misconception that Judaism is a "religion" in the same sense of the word as applied to Christianity---it is completely different in many fundamental ways. When what some Jews say about Judaism seems so wrong to you, it may simply indicate that they are coming from a very different perspective from inside the tradition. Judaism is not simply a matter of faith, although that is one aspect. One of the most difficult aspects of Judaism for most prospective converts to understand is why Jews keep talking about conversion as "becoming a part of the Jewish people". It is not just semantics. It is separate from belief which is why it is possible to be a Jewish atheist.

One final note: if you are interested in pre-Rabbinic Judaism, you'll have to look to the Karaites. Truthfully, as a moderately observant Jew, I have sometimes wished that I could ignore the many stringencies imposed by the Rabbis. But all of modern Judaism is product of rabbinic Judaism, with the celebration of Chanukah being a prime example. If you "pick and choose" rituals and beliefs completely on your own, you will end up with your own personal religion (not withstanding an appallingly offensive comment by a Birthright interviewer who said that a member of this forum followed "Natalie-ism" because he didn't believe any non-Orthodox movement had the right to use the term "Judaism"). But conversion requires accepting Judaism, at least the version of the movement under whose auspices you convert.

Shabbat Shalom.

--Debbie

How Jewish for everyone to argue the details of a hypothetical situation!

Personally, if there ever comes a time in the future when I was no longer married (God forbid), I would only look for a Jewish spouse--a practicing Jewish spouse, specifically. And I hate to say it, but I'd give a lot more weight to a born Jew than another convert, simply because I want a Jewish family to celebrate things with.

Being an only Jew and having a Gentile husband, I am sad that I don't have anyone to celebrate holidays with (and who knows, better than me, what they're doing). I'd not marry a Gentile if I was single and looking again.

I think, reappearhere, that as you study and really begin identifying yourself as a Jew, you'll probably change your mind because you, like me, will be an only Jew. And that's a lonely place.

But regardless, it's not a question that needs an answer today or tomorrow or even when you convert. Some born Jews don't even know the answer to that question. It all depends on who you meet. If someone is your bashert, they're your bashert, regardless of skin color or religion or nationality, and God will make things work out.

Since Dena noted that I was converted out of my community by an online program, I thought I would pipe up.

As Mychal says - Jewish and alone is a very lonely place. Whether you set yourself apart by observances or not, without a community to experience that, it is not only easy to fall out of practice and observance for the sake of "fitting in," it's also missing out on a huge piece of Judaism - that of community.

I am lucky in that my community is so welcoming (and is actually comprised of a number of converts, it turns out) as only about 1.5 years from me showing up as a new convert, they are coming out in spades to welcome me and my fiance as we get married on the synagogue grounds. That theoretical convert wife of yours needs a community to help her get married. I cannot imagine having none of that around to marry, raise children, and simply "Jew out" on occasion.

And that means . . . . what? French is way over my head. :)

It means basically that it's far from impossible.(Literally "It's not like drinking the sea.")

Love it.

Okay, so an update that may be surprising for some who were a part of this this thrad a few months ago.

I am still pursuing conversion, but I switched movements. It's kind of a long story so I'll just cut to the chase by saying that the Reform rabbi under whose ausipices I had planned on converting, well, he neglected to mention that he was retiring and making aliyah. I liked him and had been hoping to continue the conversion under his guidance, but that is no longer possible. His replacement is not my cup of tea. I also was doubting about the capactiy of the leadership at this synagogue to initiate me into practices such as laying tefillin (which is a practice not readily associated with the Reform movement).

Suffice to say that I realized that I was looking for a more traditional approach, so I contacted a rabbi at one of the three local Conservative shuls who run conjointly a common conversion program. This rabbi is very nice, he was very helpful and scheduled a meeting with me right away. After we sat down and had a chat about my experience and my goals, he informed me of the Conservative program in our area and what the expectations would be.

He said he felt that my perspective would be a welcome addition to the current conversion class since I would be the only young man converting with no ulterior motive (i.e. converting for marriage). As such and in llight of the fact that I am a university student, he offered me a full tuition waiver (this 14 month program usually costs the candidate about $2000 with books and everything included).

I thought about it for 24 hours before giving my answer and then wrote the rabbi to inform him of my acceptance. I start classes this Tuesday! He's allowing me to jump into a class that has already been meeting for several weeks because this is the time when they learn to read and pronounce Hebrew which I already know thanks to my own private study of Modern Israeli Hebrew.

I am so very excited! I have to drive 1h40m each way to attend class every week, but that is a small price to pay for such an opportunity.

So it looks like I'll be observing kashrut after all. I honestly don't mind. I actually kind of want to. It will be a challenge in my area, but I can handle it.

It just goes to show you, never say never. In French we have a funny way of saying that. It goes: Il ne faut jamais dire « Fontaine, je ne boirai jamais de ton eau.», Which literally means: You should never say "Fountain, I shall never drink of your water."

Wow, that is great to hear, reappearhere!

Life has such funny twists and turns. I'm so glad you found something that works for you.

I would go crazy driving that far for class (I hate driving) but good for you!!!

I too started out in the Reform movement, but left when the rabbis--after making me wait for a year--told me that they didn't have time to convert me. I ended up at the Conservative synagogue and have actually begun the process.

Makes me curious about how many other people started out in one movement, but ended up in another before completing their conversion.