Coming Home To Judaism

At our August 8th, 2025 service, a BluePrint conversion graduate shared her story as someone who found her spiritual home in the Jewish tradition.

Builder Drive 2025:

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Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to contact Chai. Today's episode is from our service on August 8, when we welcomed our blueprint students who chose to join the Jewish people into our community, we were honored to hear a guest draw by one of those new Jews who has requested not to be named. Here, if you value services and podcasts like this one, we encourage you to become a Mishkan builder, creating down to earth inspired Judaism is a group effort, and we couldn't do it without the generous support of our builders. Plus, with the High Holidays fast approaching, this is a great time to join. Builders currently have early access to high holiday tickets at a steep discount, around 70% off, and also receive free tickets to the live streams of every high holiday service. There are links in the show notes. Now, take it away. Rabbi.

R'Steven:

So one of the reasons that this is my favorite time of the year is that we begin welcoming in New Jews into our community. Over the next two Fridays, we'll be taking our blueprint cohort to the mikveh, and I hope to see you all in two weeks. We'll be back here. We'll be celebrating all of them as a community. But one of the great privileges of getting to teach these phenomenal human beings is that as much as I try to offer them some wisdom and Torah, they they offer so much more in kind. There's a beautiful Midrash that the rabbi's tell that every person who finds their way into the Jewish community was also standing at Sinai when we received revelation, every Jewish soul was there, which means that everybody who finds their way into our community has a piece of revelation that only they can offer, some wisdom that only they can offer. So I'm very excited to invite up to the Bema to share some words of wisdom about her journey and about the Torah.

Guest Speaker:
Shalom, everyone. I'm a soon to be graduate of Blueprint Class of 5785 for those of you who don't know blueprint, it's Mishkan in house class dedicated to adult education, both for converts and for those who are interested in learning more about Judaism, Rabbi Stephen and Rabbi Lizzi asked if I would share a bit about my Jewish journey, and after a year of learning, I have to say that it's exciting to be standing here, two weeks away from the mikvah, in the spirit of what is really a shared journey, it's important to me to say to my classmates that you're up here with me. What a joy it is to be in community on the cusp of both a beginning and an ending. As I thought about what to share with you today, my first thoughts were actually about my parents. My mom was a quiet force of nature who loved math. My dad, who was very chatty, loved history and opera. But despite being very different people, they were united in the belief that children should grow up to be themselves. When I came to them at age 11 and told them that I didn't see myself reflected in anything that I could see or hear in our Catholic church, they totally understood, I didn't know how they felt about the absence of women in the priesthood, or that Jesus looked American instead of Middle Eastern, or that the music lacked the types of rhythms that you could feel in your bones. But what I felt was a sense of estrangement and disconnection. I doubt that my parents knew the term God wrestler, But to their credit, they allowed me to wrestle with God and to choose to leave Catholicism. I didn't know much about Judaism when I left Catholicism, but it was part of the backdrop of my life. I was lucky to go to a school where everyone learned about everyone's holidays, and it was normal to include classmates in celebrating them. In elementary school, breaks in the school day found us non Jews gathered around the dreidel to receive the mysteries of its rules and letters. In middle school, big squares of Matz were shared out during Passover, followed by the sounds of crunching and cracking. Judaism was so normal as to be unremarkable. But that changed when at 13, I attended my first be mitzvah. Two things made the bemitzvah stand out to me. The first was that I was intrigued by the idea of adulthood being marked by something other than a drinking age even at 13, this caught my attention because it entailed high expectations, and I felt that teenagers were deserving of that. Even more impactful than that was that I heard Hebrew for the first time, Baruch atah, Adonai, Eloheinu, Melech, haulam. Those words seemed both utterly new and completely familiar by the third or fourth bar mitzvah, I have them memorized. Words are so powerful. Take a moment right now to think about the words you've heard from a parent, teacher, friend, relative or stranger that helped you, healed you, motivated you, lifted you up or somehow changed the trajectory of your life. When I'm tempted to question the impact of those words and why they took up room in my chest, I remind myself that as Jews, we appreciate the power of words to create things and Bereshit Genesis in English, God creates the entire world and everything in it simply by calling it into being with words. This includes the tiniest ant innocently crawling on your arm at a picnic and all the life teeming beneath the sea. Even a single word can be powerful, like Baruch, its etymology evokes many meanings, including blessed bracha pool or fountain, briha and ni berkaim. It's fascinating to think about how the etymology of this word corresponds to the choreography of the barracu, where we bend at the knees and then bow at the waist, affirming the pool of blessings we're immersed in as a community. When I think about the power of words, it helps me to understand why, in the years after I left Catholicism, I spent a lot of time feeling spiritually adrift. Not only was I absent a religion, I also didn't have a religious lexicon. It makes cosmic sense that during a number of those years, I practiced Quakerism, a faith that is notorious for offering worshippers silence, and I may have needed the silence to figure things out, because ever since that be mitzvah, I revisited my Hebrew words over and over, like some type of touchstone. I must have intuited their eventual importance, but outside of them, I really didn't have anything like a Jew without Torah and tefillah. I was basically a worshiper without words. Also during those years, I felt the weight of wondering if I could really be accepted among the Jewish people. The only converts I knew converted due to marriage, and I had no such legitimate reason. Racially, I felt like a complete misfit, despite there being a convert on my mother's side of the family that was before my time in my own life, I didn't know any other black Jews. How could I articulate my interest to a rabbi when I was still understanding it myself? I didn't know at the time that I completely fit within the diaspora of Judaism. I think that's why I'm so deeply moved by the Midrash that Rabbi Steven mentioned that all Jews past, present and future stood at Mount Horeb to receive the revelation of Torah. It's the ultimate inclusion story. It means that even though I came late to the party, I didn't miss the good stuff, because I too was there tonight. Parshava ektanon is about the good stuff. God shares his commandments with Moses. And while words are not a source of literal creation, their creative authority brings Judaism into being, not just then, but for all time. Section nine, section four, verse nine of actin on reads, do not forget the things that you saw with your own eyes make known to your children and to your children's children, the day you stood before your God at Horeb, my first Shabbat dinner in 2022 is literally attributable to the generations of Jews, Ending with my host to adhere who adhered to those words, but actin on reveals words as a creative force with the power to shape individuals and communities that first Shabbat dinner was a major turning point in my journey towards Judaism. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel described Shabbat as a cathedral in time, and that is indeed how my first Shabbat felt, and the warmth of the candles, the food and the company, time seemed to slow down, the stressors of the week faded away, and each moment felt sacred and alive, in addition to the feel of Shabbat. I loved its particulars. It was synced with the rhythms of the natural world. Included a concept of the divine feminine, and it was completely tech free. It resonated entirely with who I was as a person, and this gave me the push that I needed to explore Judaism more proactively. I began to feel confident with the idea that if Judaism already had a place within me, then perhaps I had a place within Judaism. When the High Holidays rolled around that year, I hadn't yet found Mishkan, but I went online and attended services elsewhere. Virtually, I went all in on the ritual fasting of Yom Kippur, and it took me to a place that I had never been before, one that was spiritually abundant in its emptiness. At that time, I hadn't yet read Rabbi Alan Lu's amazing book about the Days of Awe, where he writes about this sense of nefesh, which is often translated as soul, but he interprets as this sense of space and emptiness inside of us. In the beginning, Lou writes, God created us out of nothing. It's all downhill from there, and that's the part that belongs to us, the long, slow return to nothing if we stop resisting it. It is precisely this return that can save us. It is precisely this return that can renew us. That first, Yom Kippur renewed me profoundly. Likewise, it gave me an appreciation for the gift of life and the importance of contributing positively to the world during that long, slow return to nothing, what I gleaned about Judaism from both Shabbat and from Yom Kippur, was that it was not a spectator faith, but a practice that would ask something of me. Yes, God makes certain. Asks at Mount Horeb, but they are really an offering of Words To Live By. Both the discipline of our rituals and practices and our mandate to love our neighbor are designed to help us live a meaningful life in the service of something greater than ourselves. My kids are not Jewish, but like the host of my first Shabbat who learned it from his parents, I teach it to my children. I have two kids. When I'm just with my 17 year old daughter, we lean back into the pillows at the corner of our breakfast nook and eat and talk for hours with our legs extended out and touching along the sides. She pops soft chunks of challah into her mouth and gives me the tea about her life and her inner world.

When my adult son is there, the vibe is different, but equally abundant. The sibling dynamic kicks in, and laughter and silliness abound. We all leave better than we came, and are much more poised to offer our best selves to the world. My daughter won't miss a Shabbat dinner, and a couple of weeks ago, something unexpected happened, out of nowhere, she said, Baruch atah, Adonai, Eloheinu, Melek haolam, her imperfect Hebrew made her a bit sheepish, but she was smiling, and also seemed proud. She didn't know why, but I was smiling too. Talk about the power of words. You already know the end of the story, I looked for a synagogue where I felt I could belong, and found Mishkan, a place I love for its glitter tattoos during Pride Shabbat and beatboxing during the Yom Kippur service. This us right there. But what really made this place feel like home is all of you, Rabbi Lizzi and Rabbi Stephen, the members of my tourist study group and my Blueprint Class, the wonderful people in the North suburban potluck group, everyone who's invited me to coffee, to a meal or to sit next to them during a service, the second to none davening team, which plays music from throughout the diaspora and all the folks who've simply smiled or said hello, it also feels like home, because it's not all sunshine and rainbows, like a family, where people might come at the same issues from different perspectives. We engage in courageous conversations about the hardest issues and are better for it. It's really nice to be home. Since I love words, I thought I'd close with a poem. It's not explicitly about Judaism or by a Jewish author, but it is about the miracle and wonder of a thing becoming itself. A stone's throw from entering the mikveh and becoming Jewish. This poem resonates with the joy I feel. It's called from blossoms by Lee Young. Lee from blossoms comes this round brown paper bag of peaches we bought from the boy at the bend in the road where we turned toward signs painted peaches from laden boughs, from hands, from sweet fellowship in the bends comes nectar at the roadside, succulent peaches we devour, dusty skin and all comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat, oh, to take what We love inside, to carry within us an orchard to eat, not only the skin, but the shade, not only the sugar, but the days to hold the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into the round jubilance of peach. There are days we live as if death were nowhere in the background, from joy to joy to joy, from wing to wing, from blossom to blossom to Impossible blossom to sweet, impossible blossom. Shabbat. Shalom. Thank you. You.

Message:
Shabbat replay is a production of Mishkan Chicago. Our theme music was composed and performed by Calvin Strauss. You can always see where and when our next service will be on our calendar. There's a link in the show notes, and if you appreciated the program, please rate and review us on Apple podcasts. I know you've heard it before, but it really does help on behalf of Team Mishkan, thank you for listening.