| It's about learning and pride I'd like to share with you something that has happened to me. I decided to work towards an Orthodox conversion about a year ago. Since then, it's been a long, hard and sometimes lonely route and yes, sometimes I sit on my couch and wonder what the point of it all is, as I get the feeling I'm never going to make it to the mikveh. Sometimes I only look at the long, long way ahead of me that I have to walk, and I forget to look back and see how far I've come already. Last week, I decided to go ahead with something I had thought about doing for a while. I contacted the (young) director of educationnal programmes at our local L'Chaim Society, who had offered on the L'Chaim mailing list to give one-on-one classes on any topic if anyone was interested, and asked him if he would be able to meet with me and guide me through daily prayers and brachot. So there I went last night and of course, the first thing I did was to give him a bit of background about myself. And then, it hit me. When I stopped talking, this young man just looked at me for a couple of seconds, before he said: "I admire you. I admire you so much." Do I need to tell you I really wasn't expecting that? So we studied for the next 45 minutes. - Ok, first thing you do (blah blah blah.....) Now, turn to page 16, and that's the next prayer you should say. - Errrrr... Hold on, I *don't* have that prayer on page 16! [double-checking... No, no such prayer on page 16...] - Mmh? lemme see that. Mmmh. You're right. No such prayer on page 16... Until we closed our two siddurim for a second and realised his was following the Ashkenazi rite, and mine, Nusach Sephard. Ha ha ha. Well, now, I've got both morning services covered, at least! Our "class" was very interesting, I learnt a lot, and I'm glad I finally emailed him. My only regret is not to have thanked him properly for these few words, which he repeated a couple of times. Because yes, I tend to forget that what I have chosen to do deserves some merit in my eyes (if not in the eyes of others). As he put it, he grew up with these things, that was fairly easy to deal with; he didn't even have to think about it at first, that's just the way he was brought up. Whereas we are starting from scratch, with little landmarks, and working our way through what takes a Jewish-born child years to master. Yes, I think we deserve to be proud of ourselves for whatever we have achieved. I'm proud of how far I've come. I hope you are, too. -- Kitty. (13/2/2001) |
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| Kitty can be contacted at [email protected] |