As an almost Jew, one of the ways I find that I am lacking enormous amounts of information is when I run into the most traditional, Orthodox, well-versed, whatever you want to call it, Jews. These are the Jews who are superbly observant and do not think twice. They can summon together an eloquent dvar Torah in seconds. More often than not, I find myself feeling very far removed from these particular Jews, more than I would have thought considering that I plan to be fairly observant. A friend of Devora’s came over for lunch at Devora’s house on Shabbos and when Devora requested he used more “English words” instead of “Hebrew words” that I didn’t understand yet, he seemed affronted. In fact, when he did try to substitute an English word with a Hebrew word, he made a face and then he eventually gave it. I didn’t understand anything he was trying to say and I felt purposely left out. Yes, he knew I was converting but he’s not the first person to put me in this situation nor the last. As Jews and almost Jews aren’t we supposed to help others become better Jews or better people? How do we do that if we cut ourselves off from them? We don’t. We cut ourselves off and we put ourselves in danger. People will not understand us and we will not understand them and that is scary. Now, that we are not in ghettos, why would we put ourselves in ghettos of our own making?

My sisters who will never aspire to be Jews will be joining me at Chanukah parties this season and I think about how much my life has changed and how much theirs has changed. Perhaps they weren’t your regular anti-Semites but they certainly did not understand anything about Judaism before I decided to convert besides the idea that Jews don’t believe that Jesus in the Messiah. Now my sister pauses before she buys Christmas wrapping paper to wrap “everyone’s gift.” Now my secular friends are utterly fascinated by the blessings I must make on food and my students want me to write their names in Hebrew.