People ask me about my conversion story more than almost anything else. They want to know what it felt like. They want to know what led me there. They want to understand what kind of person becomes an Orthodox Jew as an adult, without family pressure, without a spouse, without any of the usual pathways people imagine.
The honest answer is that I am still finding language for it. Some experiences resist clean summary. But I want to try, because I think the story of gerut, of choosing Judaism through the Orthodox process, deserves to be told carefully. Not as a dramatic narrative of transformation, but as what it actually was: a long, deliberate, deeply personal commitment made one step at a time.
What Draws a Person Toward Judaism
There is a Talmudic teaching that the souls of all future converts were present at Sinai. The image is striking and, for me, it is resonant. The suggestion is that conversion is not exactly a beginning. It is a return. Something already present is finally recognized and claimed.
I cannot fully explain what drew me toward Judaism. Honest spiritual accounts rarely reduce to a single cause. What I can say is that it was intellectual before it was anything else. I encountered Jewish texts, I found that they asked the same questions I was asking, and I found that the tradition had developed rigorous, honest, and beautiful frameworks for living with those questions. That encounter did not immediately produce a decision. It produced a long, sustained engagement.
The tradition itself is cautious about potential converts for a reason. The halachic conversion process is designed to ensure that someone who chooses to become Jewish understands what they are taking on and is genuinely prepared to live accordingly. A rabbi presented with someone who wants to convert is traditionally supposed to turn that person away three times. Not to be cruel, but to make certain the desire is serious and self-generated rather than impulsive or externally motivated.
That caution makes sense to me now in a way it did not when I first encountered it. The tradition is protecting both the candidate and itself. Judaism does not seek converts. It receives those who have genuinely arrived at the threshold on their own.
The Process of Orthodox Gerut
Orthodox conversion involves sustained study, ongoing evaluation by a sponsoring rabbi, and ultimately a formal process before a beit din, a rabbinical court of three ordained rabbis. The conversion is completed with immersion in a mikveh, a ritual bath, accompanied by acceptance of the commandments, known as kabbalas hamitzvot.
The study period is not a formality. It typically spans one to several years and covers a wide range of Jewish law and practice. The candidate learns how to observe Shabbat, kashrut, the holidays, and the rhythms of Jewish life. They attend synagogue regularly. They begin, in a real sense, to live as a Jew before the conversion is formally complete.
That structure has real wisdom in it. By the time someone stands before a beit din, they are not a stranger to Jewish life. They know what they are accepting. The acceptance is therefore genuine rather than theoretical.
I can tell you that standing before the beit din was not a moment of relief or of arrival. It was a moment of recognition. The questions the rabbis asked were questions I had already asked myself many times over. The answers I gave were answers I had arrived at through years of learning, not hours of preparation. That is what the process is designed to produce.
What Halacha Says About Converts
Jewish law is explicit and serious about the status of a ger. The Torah commands, in multiple places, that the convert be treated with full dignity and that their origins not be used to demean or diminish them. The Talmud counts this among the obligations that carry particular weight.
At the same time, halacha is clear that a convert is fully Jewish. There is no second-class category. The ger who has undergone the proper process is as Jewish as someone born to a Jewish mother. Their obligations are identical. Their standing in the community is the same.
Understanding that framing was important to me. I was not joining something as an outsider who would forever be identified by their origin. I was becoming part of a people, with full membership and full responsibility. That is a serious claim, and taking it seriously shaped how I approached everything that followed.
The Thirteen Years Between
From the time of my conversion to the time I received ordination was thirteen years. People sometimes read that gap and wonder what happened in between. The answer is: everything that needed to happen.
I learned. I observed. I made mistakes and corrected them. I deepened my understanding of texts I had studied lightly and returned to questions I thought I had resolved. I lived as a Jew through years of ordinary life, Shabbat after Shabbat, fast day after fast day, holiday after holiday. That accumulation of lived practice is not a side note to rabbinic formation. It is the center of it.
Many rabbis come to ordination through a more direct path: yeshiva from a young age, advanced study, and then semicha. My path was longer and, in important ways, less structured. I am grateful for it. The life I built as a Jew before I became a rabbi taught me things no classroom could. It taught me what the tradition feels like from the inside of an ordinary week, not from the vantage point of a scholar preparing for an exam.
What This Means for How I Lead
When I arrived at the Clearview Jewish Center in Queens in 2021, I brought this history with me. My congregants include people who were born into Jewish families and have varying levels of connection to observance, and people who have come to the community through their own searching. I understand both groups from experience.
I know what it is like to approach a tradition from the outside and feel uncertain about whether there is a place for you. I know what it is like to not understand a word of Hebrew and still feel pulled toward something in a synagogue. I know what it is like to begin at the beginning.
That knowledge shapes the way I welcome people. It shapes the way I teach. It shapes the way I answer the person who says they feel like a fraud because they do not know enough, because their observance is incomplete, because they are not sure they belong.
My answer to that person is simple and honest. I was that person. The tradition received me. It receives everyone who arrives with sincerity and a genuine desire to be part of something larger than themselves.
For Anyone Considering Conversion
If you are exploring Judaism and considering conversion, I want to be direct with you. The Orthodox process is serious and it takes time. It is meant to. That seriousness is not a barrier. It is a form of respect, for the tradition and for you.
Find a rabbi who is willing to engage with your questions honestly. Read. Attend services. Ask about the beit din process and what it involves. There are detailed and reliable resources that explain the process clearly. And understand that the goal is not speed. The goal is integrity, arriving at this commitment because it is genuinely and deeply yours.
Thirteen years after my conversion, I am a rabbi leading a congregation. I did not know that was where this would lead. What I knew, at each stage, was that the next step was right. That clarity was enough.
More about my background, credentials, and published writing is available on my biography page. I also write about Torah, ethics, and Jewish identity in my Times of Israel column, and have shared reflections on community and service on Vocal Media.
