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How did you find the right rabbi? 3rd response:

7/7/2012

My experience was less than "normal." I had attended a few services and met a few Rabbis, but didn't feel a strong sense of connection. On a whim I chose to go to shul that no one had recommended, but ended up being the most perfect situation I could ask for. The Rabbi was so welcoming and helped me navigate the service. Afterward he properly introduced himself to me and invited me to set-up a meeting with him. His approach was always, "This is about you, not me. If it is ever not the right path, we can stop. I lose nothing if you chose this isn't for you." We talked, read books, and made plans to attend holiday celebrations. It was a loose form of structure and it really worked for me. The congregation was small, and everyone was so loving and supportive. It was like coming home every time I was there.

5.5 months into the process my Rabbi informed me that he was moving. He felt like I was ready, but I didn't feel like I had the community I needed just yet, so we chose to find me a new Rabbi to complete the process. I met briefly with my new Rabbi to ensure it was a good fit, and was on my own for another month-and-a-half before we were able to meet again. At our second meeting, as we were talking, he asked me, "What are you waiting for?" It was clear to him as well that I was ready. So, 6-ish months and 2 Rabbis later, here I am!

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How did you find the right rabbi? 2nd Response:

7/6/2012

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I can speak from my own experience. It will be just a little different. I chose the congregation or the synagogue before I chose my rabbi, I must confess. I felt very comfortable and welcome at Beth Am. Then it was a matter of going to service there a few times plus reading the online bios of the different rabbis online. Knowing that Rabbi Adam is liberal and has a degree in history, as well as going to rabbinic schooling, made me feel very comfortable to talk to him. History is my favorite subject. This is why I felt we will have something in common right off the bat. For me, it worked beautifully, and I am grateful to both you, Dawn, and to Rabbi Adam for all the help and support I received from you along my conversion journey.

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NEW QUESTION: How did you find the right rabbi for your conversion?

7/5/2012

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From a female Reform convert:

As you probably know, I love this question! Because I think each of us has our own journey. It's not quite the same for any of us.

I knew I wanted to look into conversion with a rabbi. I took a couple of classes, and met some fabulous rabbis through the Taste and Intro classes. One rabbi, who is local to the Bay Area, was part of the Intro process, and I really liked her style. She was so intelligent and knowledgeable, and welcomed questions during classes. So I emailed her. But after one week of not hearing anything, I emailed her again, using the email address I found on the synagogue website. When she didn't respond to that, I phoned the office and left a message. I didn't hear back from that, either.

I thought to myself, maybe this is the "you have to ask the rabbi three times so they can make sure you're serious," but when asking around, I found that reform rabbis don't do that. So I gave up on that rabbi, and continued my search.

I consider myself lucky that I didn't take that first leap, because I found the perfect rabbi for me just a month later, also in Intro class. She had a warmth about her that was really genuine, and seemed concerned about me personally. Once I got into the study process, I liked the fact that she actually had lesson plans and vocabulary lists -- ask any of my friends, and they'll tell you I like structure -- and it wasn't just about reading a book and report back once a month, which I had heard how some rabbis work. So, this style of study was perfect for me. I really couldn't have made a better choice, and I feel lucky to have found Rabbi Mates-Muchin, and that she was willing to study with me.

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Lesbian Buddhist to Jew

1/26/2012

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(Crowd in front of the synagogue on High Holidays)

There are many ways that I could describe my identity, but two of the first things that come to mind are Conservative Jew and queer. The Jewish part takes some explaining, considering that I was raised Buddhist by ex-Christian parents. I was raised with Buddhist philosophy as the basis of my spiritual understanding of the world, but my parents never insisted that I seriously practice Buddhism.

There were aspects of Buddhism that rang true for me, but the practice was never fulfilling. I spent a few years in college dabbling in religious exploration, but never with much seriousness. When I did try to engage in serious Buddhist practice again, many years later, I realized that the thing I was always missing was a sense of community. My Buddhist practice had always felt intensely individual and isolated, without a connection to other people (even when I was practicing in a room with hundreds of people).

I found the sense of community I craved in Judaism, but I took a long path to get there. While I was in college I studied Judaism academically, I had a Jewish roommate and kept a kosher kitchen for a year, and I succeeded in getting Hillel (the campus Jewish organization) to partner regularly with Queers and Allies of Faith, an organization a friend and I started. But I never really learned the different ways that Jewish people practice their Judaism, and all the different things that it could mean to them.Fast forwards a few years - I moved to Reno, NV for grad school. I left behind my friends and everything I knew, and moved to a small, conservative city. I was desperate for community, and got involved with the Queer Student Union. Because there was such a small progressive movement on campus, the QSU shared quite a few members with Hillel. I ended up going to a lot of Hillel events, and making a lot of friends who had strong feelings about their Judaism and were willing to tell me why. Some of it was good, some of it was bad, and all of it was passionate. One of the things that impressed me most was the sense of connection to being Jewish that my friends expressed. Love it or hate it, they were all a part of the Jewish community.

After two years in Reno I moved to Berkeley, again for grad school, and again I was looking for community. This time I tried something new - I went to a synagogue. I had enjoyed hanging out with the Jews in Reno and participating in holidays and shabbat, so why not see what Judaism was like on a more regular basis. I quickly fell in love with my synagogue, and attended services regularly. I took classes on Judaism and made a bunch of friends there. I had finally found my religious home, but at that point I didn’t really think I could be Jewish; I always thought I would be an outsider. I knew conversion was a possibility, but decided I couldn’t convert unless I found a nice Jewish girl to marry. Time went on without me finding a nice Jewish girl, and I remained non-Jewish. At a certain point I realized that, no matter what, I was going to have kids, and I was going to raise my kids Jewish. Period. Then I decided that I should probably convert before having kids, because it’s just easier that way. So I called up my rabbi and started the conversion process.

My two biggest concerns were how he would feel about a queer person converting (he didn’t care) and how he would react to me not believing in God (I think he was excited, it gave us lots to talk about). Since I was already actively engaged in my synagogue, and had been for over a year, my conversion was relatively quick.About a year after I converted I started dating my nice Jewish girl, and (as one would expect with queer women) we quickly got engaged and planned our wedding. We had a big, traditional Jewish wedding with our rabbi officiating. For me, one of the happiest parts of the whole wedding process was our aufruf. The day before the wedding my wife and I shared an aliyah during services, I read from the Torah for the first time, and my wife led Musaf and gave the drash. We had friends and family there supporting us. But the most amazing part of all of that was how happy everyone in our congregation was. They all know us and love us and support us, and were so happy to see us doing what all the other sickeningly cute couples in love do. I almost burst with happiness, being surrounded by friends and family and the community I had always hoped to find.

Unfortunately, my wife and I had to move away from the Bay Area. We moved to Sacramento about six months ago, and haven’t been able to find a Jewish community here in which we feel at home. The first time we walked into the Conservative shul, holding hands because we always hold hands, a the few people we passed glared at us and ignored us when we said hello. That made me much more wary of the Jewish community in my new town, unfortunately. We’re still trying to find our place here, and I’m trying to figure out how to be Jewish in a way that fulfills me without being embedded in the strong community I love.

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Gay and Converting: A Personal Story

12/6/2011

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by LJ, a female Reform convert

I can’t say with any honesty that Judaism sprang from a single thought in my head. Rather, it took time to see that it just may be the answer to many issues in my life.

I had just recovered from cancer, Stage 2 colon cancer. As anyone who has had cancer can tell you, you never get rid of it. Even if every speck has been removed from your body, you think about it. It’s with you always. You wonder how many years you might have left, years of productive life.

A year after my colon surgery, I retired from a career that had consumed 33 years of my life. I poured my heart and soul into that job, into working with those people, and now, due to my own choice, it had all been ripped from me. I had nowhere to go in the mornings. I had no social life. Sure, I had friends, but there were few that weren’t part of my work environment, and many of those friends were located in another city, where I had previously worked.

I had thought about retirement for many years, but not very seriously. I had thought about doing good things. I wanted to do good things. Volunteer? I actually tried several volunteer tasks along the way, and none matched my personality.

The final point of this journey was that I fell in love with a Jew. A lot of her friends were Jewish, and they became my friends. I was surrounded by Jews, and I really liked the way they lived their lives. They did good things. As a lesbian, I feel I was fortunate to have been accepted by these Jews, that my “gayness” wasn’t a second thought for them; that told me right there that I could fit into Jewish life as a gay person.

As it turned out, this wasn’t the final point of my journey at all. I found a rabbi to study with, to learn what Judaism was really all about, and I joined a new community. They’re my community now. The journey was just beginning.

Hear Linda talk about her conversion process in this video.

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Going to the Mikvah: My Experience, by DL

10/28/2010

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Before I went to the mikvah my rabbi emailed instructions to me. Here’s what I was told by my rabbi:

The mikvah is at Congregation Beth Jacob on Park Blvd (in Oakland). You ring the front door, and I will meet you in the lobby. The first step is meeting with the three rabbis for the beit din. You need to bring a $50 check made out to Congregation Beth Jacob to pay for use of the mikvah.

At the Beit Din, the three rabbis ask you questions. These are not fact-based questions but questions about what you like about Judaism, what you are doing currently in terms of Jewish observance, what Jewish holiday is meaningful to you, what Jewish books you are reading, connection to Israel. These are some examples, but they can ask you whatever they want. Often they ask you about things you wrote in your personal statement. This takes 10-15 minutes.

After your interview, and acceptance (I am 99.9% sure you will be accepted)*, you go into the mikvah. Wear no jewelry or makeup. You undress in the mikvah room, and the rabbis are in the next room. When you're ready to go in the water, you go in and call out "ready." For men a male rabbi will go in, and for women a female rabbi will go into the mikvah to supervise the immersion. The other rabbis from the beit din will wait outside within hearing range.

Here is the actual procedure inside the mikvah:

You go under the water three times. Go all the way, so the water covers your entire body, and recite the following blessing. If you don't have it memorized you can repeat after us.

Go under the first time and this is the blessing.

Baruch Ata Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha'olam asher kideshanu bemitzvotav vetzivanu al hatevila.

You then dunk a second time and recite the following blessing.

Baruch Ata Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha'olam shehecheyanu vekiamanu vehigianu lazman hazeh.

You then dunk a third time and recite the Shema.

Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad.

The final part of your conversion comes at synagogue, where we do a ceremony where you hold the Torah and we "name" you publicly.

*Of course, no one can guarantee you will be accepted but your rabbi will not take you before a beit din if he or she is not confident that you are ready.

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Forward>>

How did you find the right rabbi? 3rd response:

How did you find the right rabbi? 2nd Response:

NEW QUESTION: How did you find the right rabbi for your conversion?

Lesbian Buddhist to Jew

Gay and Converting: A Personal Story

Going to the Mikvah: My Experience, by DL

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