How I became a Jew is a long story. It started long before I knew, but I was only to realize the journey once I became an orthodox Jew. My first realization was at my mother's funeral. My uncle on my dad's side mentioned that my Grandma was probably Jewish.
I was married to a devout
Christian/Catholic/Baptist who was uncomfortable with Judaism at the time, so
he would tell me, "You're not Jewish. You've never even stepped in a
synagogue in your life!" So we explored Catholicism and the Baptist
religion together. I taught Catholicism for 6 years in my children's Sunday school, since I was honoring
a promise to G_d---I couldn't get pregnant and once told G_d that I would raise
my kids to love Him, if He let me get pregnant! I got pregnant
immediately.
Then the ladies of the family
started getting early onset breast cancer, and we found that we had the BRCA 1
gene. Our particular gene came from our mother and is Ashkenazi Irish.
My mother died never knowing of her Jewish ancestry.
My marriage failed and I
moved home to Sacramento to be closer to my dad and clear my teaching
credential in math/physics/engineering and I met an orthodox Jewish guy while
kayaking on the lake after I prayed for my Adam. I wasn't going to
convert, because I felt that I couldn't deny Jesus, though I always went
directly to G_d for help.
When my boyfriend took me to
Israel to meet his parents, I asked G_d to tell me what religion that I was
supposed to worship, because I'd been attending at KITC for over a year by that
time. My boyfriend was in control of the itinerary and I'd long forgotten
what day it was when I was praying in the Cathedral of Gethsemane right after
posing in front of the marble carving of Jesus wanting to pass the cup---he
didn't want to be the Moshiach, the Messiah.
Then an understanding came
over me, "Look at the date. Look at the date!"
I reluctantly stopped praying
and pulled my cell phone out and saw that it was July 9th and wondered where I
was July 7th. July 7 or 7/7 is the day that our tabernacles were
rebuilt---my cousin and I had our double mastectomy surgeries on the exact same
day a year apart without planning to combat her breast cancer and my inevitable
breast cancer from the BRCA 1 gene. 7/7 on the Roman calendar is the day
that G_d changes my life in a drastic way.
I thought hard about what I
was doing on 7/7. It was the answer to what religion that I was to
worship. We were at Yad Vashem, and I was looking for my relatives that
didn't get out of Germany or Slovenia. I was also on the Western Tunnel
Tour and was the closest to the Holy of Holies that you can get exactly 7 years
after G_d gave me a sign of a fish that I was going to live after I asked for
one while kayaking fishing on La Jolla Cove. I needed the sign, because right before my kayak trip I was told to
collect my medical records for my family, because I was going to die. So
on July 7th, 7 years after I got a second chance, the only things that I did that day were Jewish, not Christian.
Just to make sure that I
caught that message, G_d made the first Parshat, Torah reading, when I returned to California
Devarim/Deuteronomy Parashat Re'eh 13:2-5, "If there should stand up in your midst a prophet or a dreamer of a dream, and he will produce to you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes about, of which he spoke to you, saying, 'Let us follow gods of others that you did not know and we shall worship them!'---do not harken to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer of a dream, for Hashem, your G_d, is testing you to know whether you love Hashem, your G_d, with all your heart and with all your soul." I knew from that direct Hebrew to English translation that I'd never seen before that G_d wanted me
to become a Jew and started my conversion immediately.
As a Jew I now know that my
grandma's wig that everyone complained about was a sheitel. She also
always made latkes which my dad called potato pancakes. The Levine
family of Joliet, Illinois also renamed my grandma from Angela to Ruth, so that
is not done unless she converted or was Jewish. She was very persecuted
for her Austrian/Slovenian accent in America during WWI, so I can imagine how scared she
must have been about being Jewish during WWII. She never mentioned it to
her dying day, and I was one of the closest grandchildren to her.
I also know that when I
almost drowned in the American River at 12 years old and saw the tunnel of
light that gave me hope that I was going to live that G_d kept me around for a
reason. It was my devout Christian brother who pulled me out of the river when I couldn't move
anymore. He put me on my back on a beach, and I looked up and saw that it
was a cloudy day with no sun. The light I saw was G_d. Now I know
that I had a personal Batmitzvah from G_d at 12 in the mikvah of the American
River.
It was exactly 40 years later
after reading the Christian bible about 5 times through and having a lot of unanswered questions that I became an orthodox Jew. Though my boyfriend
insisted that I became orthodox so we could get married, he left me 2 months
before I completed my 1.5 year conversion. I guess G_d wanted to make sure that
the conversion was understood to be His, G_d's, idea. In retrospect, it all makes
sense, though it was painful.
So I attend Kabbalah classes to make my spiritual tools more understood and stronger for my
next journey that He takes me on. I have found my spiritual peace as a
Jew in a not so peaceful world!
P.S. To my blog readers: If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at: https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960 Thank You!
P.S. To my blog readers: If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at: https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960 Thank You!
