My Conversion Story Journal

August 19, 2023

With Shabbat over, I'm left to ponder the past two days. I spent the night at my daughter's last night and went to dinner to meet her friends. The dinner lasted past the time that Shabbat began. My daughter A1 ealized that we did not light candles and was genuinely upset that they were not lit. I had had a good day and was a bit sad that I had missed the candle lighting, but I knew my weekend would be off with my traveling. My daughter's reaction to missing the opening of Shabbat (she is not converting with me at this time) made my day. The candles of Shabbat burning bring me such peace that I thought was my own. It is exciting to know that the one thing that I shared with her means so much to her. I promised to send her the candle lighting times if she wanted to light the candles for herself. When I arrived at her apartment, I noticed that the candles were still sitting on the living room table where I had left them the last time I was there on Shabbat.

I am trying to describe shul, but I'm not sure I can. I heard and said a lot of "Shabbat Shalom"s and "Good Shavos"es. I was correct to dress in layers. I was freezing due to my nerves and the overhead fans.

The service structure can be read from multiple sources online and in books. It followed the same structure that I read about and was able to follow along. I did not understand the Hebrew though I could read it along with the speaker at times. Other times, I was distracted and lost my place. I knew what was supposed to happen next, so I flipped ahead to that part and waited. Reading about the service is so different than experiencing it. I can say that I have gone to church my entire life, but I have never experiened something like this. It was personal, and reflective, and community, and holy, and so much more. The mix of emotions felt during that service were humbleness, being lost, thankfulness, happiness, excitement, intrigue, reflection, awe, sadness, wonder, and so many more.

There were parts that I did not understand how they knew what to do as far as standing, bowing, and responses. I will have a few questions to ask my Rabbi tomorrow. There was a woman who helped me know where we were in a second book (that I didn't even know where to get) and told me how to follow along. It turned out that she was the American Rabbi's mother-in-law. When we talked after, we found out that we met during online classes. I will have a face and voice and memory to put with a picture in the future.

I met the rabbi who glows and he was so nice and smiled the entire time. He seemed to be one of those people that you always loved to be around because his joy was contagious.

After the service was the kiddush lunch with kosher food. I walked down the stairs and was overwhelmed by the amount of people. I almost turned around and left, but there were too many people walking down the stairs for me to leave. I interrupted a couple ladies talking to ask where the bathroom was located. One of the ladies walked me to the bathroom (I didn't catch her name). I thanked her and used the time to talk myself into staying. I had to. I knew I had to, but I was quite overwhelmed.

My Rabbi found me and introduced me to a couple of people and one asked if I wanted to sit at their table. I said, "YES!" I had seen her during service and she knew all the songs and followed along as though it was second nature to her. During the kiddush lunch, she asked a lot of questions, which I kind of expected. My responses ended up making her cry and I felt bad, even though it was more her self-reflection that made her cry and not any specific thing that I said. I enjoyed talking with her and look forward to talking with her again in the future.

There were a couple people that made a point to introduce themselves and have a general, "How are you?" conversation. There was only one person that made me feel very self-conscious. He was very smiley when he talked to me and kept staring even after we finished our, "How are you?" general conversation. I was happy for the group of ladies I was sitting with distracting me, because I might have bolted from the awkwardness. I'm glad that I didn't run away. They are all very nice people.

Was shul everything I thought it would be? More.
Will I go again? Most definitely.
Is this the community that I will be moving to next year? Very possibly, but anything can happen in the next year.