My Near Conversion to Orthodox Judaism, part I

Near Conversion, Part 1

“I wonder if Rabbi A. would be surprised,” questions the young father as he drops down the steps exiting his shul. “I mean, I have taken on so many stringencies and I even look Jewish with the markers of Jewish ancestry—olive skin, black-brown hair and eyes.” Peter starts his four block trek home to see his wife. She was asleep when he left this morning. It is cold, and the snow is deep—typical for a Chicago winter in January. The tunes from Shabbat-morning minyan still echo through his head as they find release in a half-hummed, half-sung anthem to the morning’s experience. He is not alone as several men join him for most of this trip. Few, if any, know who Peter really is: a gentile in the process of conversion to Orthodox Judaism. Peter prefers this, but the question of his possible Jewish ancestry vies for consideration.

Adopted at three weeks old, Peter never met his biological mother. Just before he began to pursue Jewish conversion, his parents revealed to him the details of his adoption. Peter always knew that he was adopted, but he did not know that his biological mother was a rape victim. She was a schizophrenic patient at a state mental facility where she was raped apparently by one of her care givers. Paternal identity was never confirmed. Adopted into and raised in an Evangelical Christian and middle-class family, Peter experienced an upbringing that was both ideal and privileged.

“I know that if I can confirm Jewish ancestry that Rabbi A. will be overjoyed. Besides, Jewish ancestry will make all of this conversion stuff a thing of the past. I will finally be an operating member of the community, and I won’t have to keep trying to prove myself,” Peter reasons as he attempts to stabilize himself on the ice-pasted sidewalk.

Peter arrives home. He knows not to reach into his pocket as he does not carry a key out of the home on Shabbat. “Every other Jew brings a key to shul, but I don’t—an example of my hyper-observance,” Peter thinks self-righteously to himself. Peter knocks and waits for a few minutes as his wife approaches the door—barefoot and baby in arms. Tonya, Peter’s wife, is anything but a bridled beast. She deplores domesticity and never envisioned herself home with children. Peter chuckles visibly to make his point known to his barefoot and pregnant wife. Following the rabbis instruction, Peter and Tonya avoided birth control. Now with a three-month-old son, Tonya is pregnant and due in September, 2001.

Peter sits at the dinning room table. The challah and Shabbat dishes are draped out across the table. Peter makes kiddushah rabbah over the wine and the bread. He is glad to be home. Working regular ten-hour days and commuting over two hours a day leaves Peter tired on Shabbat. Instead of sleeping in as he used to before having a child, Peter was up and out the door to the synagogue at 7:30AM. Now it is a few minutes before noon. Sunset will be in a few hours, and he will leave again for shul to do Minchah and Ma’ariv between which there will be a guest teacher.

Tonya does not like the absence that Shabbat brings to her family. Peter is gone for most of the day on Shabbat. He gets home just before noon on Shabbat and then is gone another three or four hours before the day is over. But, she is committed to this lifestyle. As she and Peter progressed in their learning, it became obvious to her that the Jews were the torch bearers of truth.

Orthodox conversion was the culmination of several years of learning that so much of what she had grown up believing was wrong. This learning began with Shabbat and then quickly led to the practical validity of written Torah. Later Peter began to poke holes in the Trinity and the deity of Yeshua. This was not so hard for her as she spent several years meeting with folks from the Kingdom Hall. When Peter finally rejected the notion that Jesus was God, Tonya found herself quickly able to concede the same. Later Peter introduced her to materials supporting the authority of the rabbis and the oral Torah. This later led to material from the anti-missionary Tovia Singer. This sealed it. As Peter and Tonya drove to spend a weekend alone in Missouri, they listened to Singer's tape series Let's Get Biblical. “Who are we to tell the Jews what their Bible teaches,” Tonya recalls reasoning, “After all they are the ones that have preserved it and read it in Hebrew.”

Peter recites kiddushah rabbah. The two of them discuss the morning’s events. Peter is enthralled with the service at the synagogue. As he shares the details of what transpired, Tonya’s listening mind captures less and less of what he is sharing. She is thinking about how much she misses being home together on Shabbat. Tonya is jolted back into the conversation when Peter starts to develop a comparison between the synagogue and their church experience. The two of them often find themselves going on and on about the negativities of their experience in Christianity. Judaism is superior, they reason, it embraces all of the best in Christianity while also providing a living legal tradition. While Schmuel, their then only son, sleeps, the two of them discuss these comparisons for nearly an hour.