Oh no! Maruchan Ramen Noodles aren't Kosher!

One of the first steps I took after deciding to convert to Judaism was to keep a Kosher-style diet. After about six months of doing this I have learned a lot about it and about people's reactions to it. I've gotten to the point where this diet has become second nature, but it did not come easily. There have been many difficulties and learning experiences along the way. 

The first difficulty that I encountered was giving up Maruchan Ramen noodles. As a college student Ramen Noodles were a staple. They are cheap, quick, and easy to make. They don’t taste too bad either. When I decided to try keeping kosher I went through my dorm room searching for all of the non-kosher foods so that I could get rid of them. When I came to my Ramen I was not able to find a hechsher (Kosher symbol) on the packaging. I looked at the ingredients to see if there were any non-kosher ingredients, then I saw that it may contain shellfish. My heart nearly stopped. I figured bacon and cheeseburgers would be the hardest foods to give up, but in an odd way this was. 

When confronted with difficult choices like this it's easy to cheat or give up, but for me, it was an opportunity to think about why I wanted to do it in the first place. I chose to keep a kosher-style diet because the laws of kosher are in the Torah. Those laws to me are G-d's requirements as a part of his covenant. They are what he expects of those who love and fear him. Whether or not I can understand or agree with the laws is not necessarily the point. The point is the covenant itself. 

I don't like to think of keeping kosher as things that I can and can't eat. I like to think of it as things that I will and will not eat. When I explain it to people I like use the marriage analogy. A marriage is a covenant of love and life between two people. One spouse may have certain requirements, such as you must not cheat on him or her. If presented with the opportunity to cheat, to say that you can't is technically false because most people very well can and would want to. But to say that you won't despite wanting to speaks more to the covenant of marriage and your willingness to honor it and be bound to it. Contrary to what many may think I find pleasure in doing my part in moving into a special covenant with G-d. It is very rewarding. 

It's also rewarding to be able to explain why I choose certain foods when dining with others. It's an opportunity to share a little bit of Torah with them. I am very happy with having chosen to keep a kosher-style diet, and intend on keeping it up for the rest of my life.

My Jewish Birthday (28 Adar)

Yesterday, March 30, 2014 was my Jewish birthday as calculated by chabad.org. I was born on the Adar 28, 5751 on the Hebrew calendar. Just for fun my friends and I got together to celebrate it the Saturday night before with cake and punch. In the picture below my friends wrote, "Happy Jew B-day" and drew a Star of David. The "1" was there because it was my first time celebrating my birthday according to the Jewish calendar.

Celebrating my Jewish birthday was a good time and made me feel special. The experience made turning 23 not as uneventful as it normally would be. Perhaps next year I'll learn more about how Jews celebrate birthdays differently from what I've done in the past.

After some of my friends sang happy birthday in Hebrew we did a Havdallah service (using the birthday candle) to mark the end of Shabbat. Shavua Tov!

Coming Out of The Jewish Closet

First off, I would like to apologize for not posting for quite a while. School, extracurricular activities and my social life have taken up quite a bit of my time lately. 

Anyway, I would like to update you all on me telling my family about my choice to convert to Judaism (some of my friends and I call it "coming out of the Jewish closet"). At first I was very nervous. As I mentioned in a previous post, I thought that the situation would include guilt trips, dissuasion attempts, anger, frustration, and ridicule. I am happy to report that I was completely wrong. The opposite occurred. 

One evening during my Thanksgiving break I sat down with my mom and I just told her that I was converting. She didn't really understand what I was telling her at first, then she had many questions. I anticipated many of the questions she had in order to prepare for the conversation. Luckily, I was able to answer every question she had. 

Back then and even until now she has some issues with my beliefs and practices, but for the most part she respects my decision. I believe that her respect for my decision comes largely because I have taken time to think it through and I was able to show her that this was something that I seriously wanted to do. 

My favorite time in my conversion since letting my mother and brothers know about my conversion process was on one weekend I came home to visit. I came home on Friday and when my mom got home from work I showed her how to light the Shabbat candles. We also had challah and had dinner and I talked to her about some Shabbat practices. The next day I showed her how I do Havdallah (the ceremony to end Shabbat). She and my brothers were very interested in learning about it.

This type of reaction to my change in religion was unexpected. What I can take from this situation is that I've grown and my mom now sees me as a man capable of making my own decisions. She now respects me as a person and no longer sees me as a child. I am exceedingly happy about that. Now the next step is to tell my dad and pretty much everyone else in my family. 

Thanksgivukkah!

Thanksgiving is going to be very special for me this year. It is already my favorite holiday, but this year it falls on the second night of Hanukkah. I am excited to be having a double holiday. I have never celebrated Hanukkah before so it will be quite a learning experience. I've already done some research about the original story, and the miracle that G-d performed by allowing the oil sufficient for one day of lighting in the temple to stretch for eight days. For everything else I'm going to be asking my Jewish friends. I want to learn about foods, songs, traditions, mitzvot, and prayers that are typical for this holiday. Since I will be going back home I can involve my family and introduce these things as a cultural experience. I'm guessing that they will be open to trying new things especially foods if I can actually figure out how to make something.

To celebrate I will need to bring a menorah and candles home, which will be hard to explain to my mom and brothers since my family has never celebrated Hanukkah before. However, I do believe that my family is open-minded enough to appreciate the holiday and its meaning, especially since this holiday celebrates something great that G-d has done for His people. My only fear is that questions about why I am celebrating Hanukkah will lead to questions about whether I'm trying to convert to Judaism. If this happens before I'm ready to share it there might be some awkwardness to follow.

At this point I still haven't talked to my family about my decision to convert. I was thinking that maybe I could use the time of my Thanksgiving break to let them know and talk about it with them. Wondering how my family will take my decision is one of the most difficult parts about converting. I know I will be met with significant resistance, guilt trips, dissuasion attempts, anger, frustration, and perhaps ridicule, but I know that they love me, and I know that I have to tell them at some point. If all goes well I will have their blessing to pursue conversion. If it does not go well I am prepared to go on in the process without their blessing.

Another difficult part about this Thanksgivukkah will be the food. I'm starting to learn about, and attempting to keep a kosher diet, and that means I won't be eating certain foods. This is especially difficult because my family is African American. In my head I'm going through the typical foods my mom makes for Thanksgiving, and I'm finding it difficult to think of anything that is Kosher by itself. I do admit that I don't know all of the Kosher rules, but from what I do know I can foresee this being quite a challenge.

Even with the challenges and potential for a negative experience with telling my family that I'm converting, I'm still looking forward to this break and the holidays that I will be celebrating with it as well. I will be sure to blog about my family's reaction to learning about my decision to convert when Thanksgiving break is over.

P.S. Here's a Hanukkah song I came across. I think it's pretty cool and educational. I love a capella singing and the tune and the creative lyrics are really good. Enjoy!

What I had been looking for all along

I was raised in a very Christian household. My father was a pastor of a Church of Nazarene in Summit, IL when I was born. Although he is no longer a pastor, he has been a musician at several different churches from time to time. My mother has always been very active in the church participating in many different church functions ranging from being the children's choir director, to missionary, to adult choir member, and many other things. As a child, and even into my late teenage years, I was also very active in the church. Until college I rarely missed a service a Sunday. I could count the times I missed on one hand. I was well-versed in scripture, and I was very serious about my Christian faith. 

When I came to college some things changed. I did not go to church as often for several reasons. One major reason was that I don't have a car and there aren't many protestant churches near my campus. The other major reason was that I became lazy when it came to religion. During the time I was away from organized religion I had some time to really look at religion from my own eyes and try to look at it objectively. This raised several questions and doubts about religion in my mind. These questions and doubts had me leaning toward the point where I wanted nothing to do with Jesus, G-d, or anything with religion. I had decided that if I was going to be a part of any religion or believe in any divine being I was going to leave it in the hands of that divine being or otherwise live as a secular humanist.

I went about this decision in a very counterintuitive fashion. Instead of staying away from religion I immersed myself into religion, and religious learning and discussion with the goal of seeing it as an outsider: objectively, logically, and critically.  One summer I tried reading the whole New Testament of the Bible. I joined two Christian bible study clubs at Bradley, and I still attended my home church services whenever I went home. All the while I was looking for something, anything that would cause me to no longer have any doubts or questions about Christianity. I found none. In fact, I was starting to see more and more reasons to stay away from Christianity. The more I learned about it the more of a bad taste it left in my mouth. Despite being raised as a Christian, my morality, my way of thinking, my personal philosophy, my beliefs about who G-d is, and my world view never really aligned with what Christianity teaches. So, I decided that I would no longer be a Christian. As a result of my decision, I lived a few months of my life without a religion.

Finally a friend of mine from Bradley Hillel asked if I wanted to help her with a new program she was starting called Challah for Hunger (C4H). I like doing fun activities such as these especially if it's for a good cause. At this point I looked up information on Judaism before and attended one or two Shabbat services some years ago, but I never really took it any further than that. Through C4H I was able to get be exposed to some Jewish customs, traditions, philosophies, and ideologies. This caused me to become more interested in Judaism. I wanted to know more, so I started researching things online and asking my Jewish friends about their religion. Then I began attending Shabbat services again. Something about the services gave me the feeling that this is what I had been looking for all along. I felt blessed by the prayers, the togetherness of everyone present, and the encouraging words of Rabbi Bogard. After I got that feeling I knew that I wanted to be a part of it. 

That is my story up until now. That is how I came from a Christian background and decided to convert to Judaism.

Talking with the Rabbi

Earlier this week I contacted Rabbi Daniel Bogard, the Rabbi for Bradley University Hillel, and one of the Rabbis from Anshai Emeth. I asked him if he could meet with me and have a talk, so eventually we agreed to meet earlier this afternoon. Rabbi Bogard had no idea what I wanted to talk about, but he was very accommodating and willing to talk and get coffee.

When he finally asked what I wanted to discuss I told him that I wanted to talk about Judaism and the process of converting to Judaism. He and I were both surprised immediately following this, but for different reasons. Rabbi Bogard was surprised because he thought I was already Jewish, and I was surprised that he thought that I was Jewish. I do admit that it is understandable that he assumed that I was Jewish though. I have been very active with Bradley Hillel, he has seen me there several times throughout this semester, and he has seen me at Shabbat Services saying several of the prayers almost every Friday night.

Upon realizing that I was not Jewish and that I wanted to talk about converting he then asked me about my background and why I wanted to become Jewish. So I told him my story, a story which I will discuss in a later post. We then discussed my reasons for wanting to convert, how he views conversions, what the process is like, and some things that come along with the process. He then opened it up to any questions that I might have. We got into some good conversation topics that gave me a good basis as to where I should go from here.

I have been thinking long and hard about converting to Judaism for quite some time. It isn't something that I take lightly. I know that there will be obstacles, challenges, and hard times directly attributed to my decision, but I am ready for whatever comes, and I know that G-d will be with me every step along the way. I'm glad that I'm finally starting on this exciting new path to learning more about, not only Judaism, but about myself, about my world, and especially about G-d.

With this blog, I would like to chronicle my process of converting. I am just now starting, but I want to keep you updated as to where I am, and what I am learning. I would also like to hear from others who are Jewish, those who have gone through converting to Judaism, and those who are currently converting to Judaism. Why did you decide to convert? What is it that you like most about Judaism? What are/were some of your major challenges? What advice do you have for me?