Becoming Jewish
One Girl's Journey

Effervescence is a state of mind. It's about choosing to bring sunshine to the day.
Every person I meet matters.

If it's written down, I know it (If it's not written down, I don't know it)
If it's color-coded, I understand it (If it's not color-coded, I don't understand it)

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Looking at This Path I'm On

Observing What People Think - This is the first season I've been wearing a magen david (jewish star) necklace daily. Just a year ago, two different friends each gave me one for Chanukah. A year ago, my thoughts were, "I'm probably not going to wear this until/if/when I decide I'm converting." Then in September, I really wanted to buy myself something from my favorite Judaica store. (Yes, I know, the fact that I *have* a favorite Judaica store should have been a hint. *grin*) The storekeeper had this string of 6 butterflies that when turned around, two magnets hook them together into a star. The story is that in history, when it was dangerous to indicate you were Jewish in public, you would wear it as a string of butterflies, and then in your home, flip it around and hook it together as a star. I wear it constantly, and after about a month, I stopped wearing it as butterflies and just wore it publically as a star.

Now I'm in a completely different work environment, one in which I've been wearing my necklace as a star from day one. There are people here who *only* know me "as Jewish" because of my necklace. So this is the first season where people stop to greet me and say, "Oh yeah, I wanted to wish you a Happy Chanukah."

I stop and I think about it. In some circles, there are people who only think I'm Jewish. It's fairly humbling.

Thoughts About Assumptions - The strangest thing about having friends compliment me and support me with off-hand comments like "Oh, we already thought you were Jewish," or "Didn't you already convert?" or the funniest, from my Hebrew instructor from this summer, "Oh, you can be on the fast track, you hardly need anything for conversion" is that although these are well-meaning comments, they seem to miss something. Some friends have missed out on my perspective: I'm not yet converted. I *have* lived an entirely different identity for years. I was *raised* in something different. I *chose* to embrace my Christianity with great conviction.

It's not a small deal for me to convert, it's a big deal. And there's so much I never experienced and have never lived through yet. So I do enjoy the compliments, and these friends mean well and consider my embrace of Judaism as something worthy of respect. But I hope that I can be understanding enough that when I'm feeling a little lost and little under-educated, I can still accept the compliments in the manner in which they were intended, and not feel slighted for being misunderstood.

How This Affects my Jewish Friends - I'm still grasping to understand what my own conversion process means to my friends who were born Jewish. I'm reminded of a joke [forgive me if I'm remembering this wrong]. A man tells his son don't marry a shiksa. The son meets a wonderful lady, she happens to convert to Judaism, and they marry. Later, the son has to apologize to his father that he can't come over to watch the game on Shabbat. His father replies, "I told you not to marry a shiksa."

The moral isn't Jew versus Gentile, but the different levels of ritual that people choose to embrace. The convert in the story is motivated to embrace Shabbat differently than her father-in-law. I can't remember who said it to me recently, but someone told me, "You're already more Jewish than most Jews I know." I'm not always sure how to deal with that comment, so I try not to say anything yet. I'm already perfectly comfortable with the idea that we're each going to decide which things matter most to us. I make choices about kosher, but I'm not the slightest bit worried that other friends make different choices. It's a personal thing, as I see it.

What does thrill me are the friends who are weighing their own choices and learning things on their own, too. These are the friends who seem to be walking paths similar to me, with their own lessons to pursue. It's nice to know this road isn't a lonely one.

* * * * *
Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Those of you who are joining me just by reading this journal -- having you here means a lot to me. Thank you.


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