Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Why does the Orthodox conversion process have to take nine months? That is so long! I want to get married to my Jewish boyfriend soon.

How long does it take to learn a language well enough to read it and understand it? How long does it take to acclimate to a new culture or get a college degree? For most people, a year is hardly enough.

You want to convert to Judaism. That is a big commitment. In fact, it is so big that rabbis are supposed to turn prospective converts away at least twice before agreeing to teach them anything. You really have to want it.

I know of a rabbi who does quicky conversions in nine months. His converts do not know how to read a Hebrew text or study a page of Talmud or critique a page of Torah from the Hebrew. They are certified to be Jews, but they know so little compared to what a Jew growing up in Torah knows.

A person who grows up with Torah knows about kashrus, knows her prayers and the liturgy and has a Jewish value system based on the Torah. She knows so much by the age of six, by the age of twelve and by the age of twenty when she is expected to start thinking of marriage and building a family. She will have spent countless hours every day of her school years from the first grade studying the Torah and the midrashim, the laws of shabbos and the yom-tovim. Before her marriage, she will learn how to be a wife and prepare for motherhood.

How do you fit all that into nine months? No matter how smart you are and how much you study, you cannot learn it all in nine months or eighteen. So do all you can, as much as you can in the time ahead, and when you have learned it all and understand the obligations and responsibilities of Judaism, then you will be in a position to convert, should you still decide to do that. And if your boyfriend is really your soulmate, he will wait for you to get married.

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