JewsByChoice.Org

Well it’s official! As of February 9, 2008 (click the image to read the letter), I have stepped out of the Reform movement and into the world of Conservative Judaism. Sure, it’s true that for quite some time now I’ve actually been closer in terms of both theology and praxis to the Conservative Movement than I have been to those of the Reform Movement; but in all honesty, that’s not the same thing as being accepted by the Conservative Movement. As I’ve said in the past, I don’t believe that any Jew by choice can really be a Jew on his or her own. As I see it, for better or for worse, a convert is only Jewish when he or she is seen/accepted as being Jewish by the community he or she wishes to belong to. And unfortunately, sometimes, depending on the community that the convert has chosen to convert into, they may not be accepted as being a legitimate Jew outside of that community by the larger Jewish world.

Anyhow, I don’t really want to get into the whole “who is a Jew” à la conversion debate in this post because I am planning to follow this one up with another post which will cover that topic in more detail. So, let me try to get back on track here.

Suffice it to say that since (approximately) December 2006, I’ve been increasingly trying to live as an observant Jew. In the spirit of full disclosure, let me say that there certainly was some flip-flopping (as in going back and forth between, wanting to self identify as Reform versus Conservative and even at some points Orthodox,) but it was sort of a take three steps forward then one step back situation and overall, I think it’s been a fairly consistent move towards greater observance and a deeper commitment to tradition and Halacha on my part. More importantly, at some point during that process, I realized that I (unlike the Reform movement,) accepted the Yoke of the Mitzvot and Halacha as normative and binding upon me (although there was a little flip-flopping for a month or two, until it finally took). Then in March of ‘07, after Tamara and I were engaged, and it was decided that I would be moving to Los Angeles, we ruled out an Orthodox conversion as an option for us and we decided to set Conservative Halacha as our standard for observance, at which point I began to seriously study up on the subject and began trying to figure out how we were going to follow through on this in daily life.

Since arriving in Los Angeles last June, we’ve been living a fairly observant lifestyle and it’s been great. Although our Sabbath observance isn’t perfect, I would definitely say that we are more observant than the average conservative Jew. We keep a high level of Kashrut observance both in and out of the home. In fact, I’ve noticed that we are even stricter when it comes to Kashrut than some of our Orthodox friends. I pretty much wear a Tallit Katan and Kippah everyday and have been getting much better at davening (praying) the required prayers three times daily. We have built a home library which I’m guessing now has well over 200 books on Judaism. And as part of my commitment to conservative Judaism, since June I’ve read well over a dozen books on conservative theology, history and observance and have worked hard to apply what I have learned to my daily life. We are regulars at our Conservative shul and are seen as “committed Jews” by our Rabbi. We both regularly attend study circles at our synagogue, not only as a way to deepen our understanding and connection to Conservative Judaism, but also as a means of networking and connecting with others in the community.

All of that to say, that I believe we are currently, and have been living the lives of two seriously committed “Conservative” Jews for quite some time now. However, regardless of my level of observance and commitment, I’ve had a constant nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach. And despite my ability to put up a confident front, I had been living with this fear that somehow I just wasn’t going to be real enough for the Conservative Movement. Not due to a lack of knowledge, nor because of any lack in my commitment to daily observance., but rather due to the technicalities and “Reform” origins of my conversion because of denominational territorialism and politics. And to be honest, my fears were somewhat justified because I ran into a snag this past January; but I’ll leave that for my next post.

What’s important is that the situation was resolved and I’ve been accepted into a Conservative community, one that I’m proud to belong to. More importantly, I can now call myself a Conservative Jew with a sense of legitimacy and without those feelings of insecurity and self-doubt. Today, during a conversation, I told somebody that I would have refused to reconvert via the Conservative Movement if that was going to be the only way to become a part of a Conservative community.  However, I don’t know if that’s true. I stand behind the fact that my conversion meets the minimum halachic standards as I understand them to be set out by the Conservative movement,but if push came to shove who knows?

What I can say with a degree of certainty is that I am happy that I didn’t have to reconvert! Not because I’m lazy or cheap, but because even the thought of having to do it filled me with feelings of selling out and being dishonest towards myself, not to mention disrespectful to the rabbi and movement which brought me into the Tribe. I may disagree with Reform ideology and I may not want to call the movement home, but I view it as a valid and important component of the larger Jewish world and because of that, I feel that any reconverting would be, in an important way, denying the legitimacy of my origins and the Jewish life I’ve been living (and building) for the last couple of years. I did not and do not want to have to pretend to reject the legitimacy of my “Reform Conversion” or anyone else’s for that matter. Now, of course having said that, I am happy to have successfully moved into a situation where I no longer view myself as being “Just a Reform Jew” because when it boils down to it, the Reform Movement just didn’t fit me well at all!