Passover and Freedom from the Emergency Room

Sometimes, despite your best intentions and planning, holidays go sideways.  This is how we ended up at the emergency room yesterday on the second day of Passover. My husband is a type 2 diabetic on an insulin pump, along with high blood pressure, heart disease, and a triple bypass last Fall.  Even before we lit …

My First Winter…as a Jew!

It's been several months since our conversion and then Mr. Safek's triple bypass.  Since then, it's been a whirlwind of Jewish Day school for the kids and classes and work for us.  It really has flown by and now I think I finally understand why most conversion blogs seem to peter out after the conversion.  …

L’Chaim! To Life!!!

One of the defining characteristics of Judaism is that it is a religion of life.  It doesn't focus on the afterlife or some eternal reward, but is grounded in what we do here and now.  There is little emphasis on martyrdom.  We are meant to live for Hashem and Judaism, not die for it unless …

Burying Our Torahs

A great catastrophe has happened in my local community.  A Jewish man, his mind split into pieces, believed our Synagogue was on fire in the night when it was not.  In addition to a lot of damage he did trying to put out the flames that were only in his own mind, he also took …

Elul Workbook! And…my first Elul as a Jew.

When my daughter first got out of the mikvah after her conversion, she celebrated every tiny thing she did "as a Jew" for the first time.  (I'm combing my hair...AS A JEW!!!)  Actually, she still does!  It was such a touching and sweet expression of joy. I tend to be focused more on fewer, bigger …

Beyond the Veil

Yesterday, my husband and I wed again according to Jewish law and Lubavitch customs.  It was a beautiful ceremony, full of meaning and a very emotional time for us and our family.  My daughter cried openly and there were tears shed by my husband's family and even our community as they helped us celebrate this …

What Changes After Conversion?

It's been about 2 weeks since our family emerged from the mikvah and I've had a little time to rest and recover from the trip and all the kashering and toiveling of our kitchen.  I'm still in the midst of planning our wedding, but I took a weekend off to attend a Jewish women's retreat …

Emerging from the Mikvah

It's only a few steps down into the mikvah, but it's taking me days to really emerge. Around midday Monday, my children and I were each converted.  My husband completed his second gerus l'chumrah right after and we began our first day as a whole, Jewish family...by searching for our car.  My husband walked, puzzled, …

Our Story Takes a Dramatic Twist

We always knew that my husband's great grandfather was a prominent Rabbi in Washington DC.  We knew little more besides that he had fled Russia in one of the many pogroms there and that my husband's father had, sadly, had contact with that part of his family cut off when he was four years old …

Converts, Widows, and Orphans

There are three groups of people mentioned repeatedly in the Torah that the Jewish people are reminded to be careful to be kind to:  converts, widows, and orphans.  To me, the one commonality these groups all share is that they lack much or all of the support of a Jewish family. In some ways, I'm …

The Space Between

We have our mikvah date and just about a week left before it arrives.  It's a unique place to be in, where we have just one more week as non-Jews and my husband has one more week as a safek. So...what goes on in this time period between when a conversion candidate has been approved …

Questions and Answers – How OUR Beis Din Went

I expected to be asked mind-twisting questions on kosher law...or Shabbos observance.  In our first meeting with a Beis Din, 6 years ago before we moved to Alaska, I'd been asked some doozies.  This time, though, it was different.  Yes, they wanted to make sure we knew how to be observant, but the main focus …