Just a quick thought before Shabbat this week.
Reading this week’s parsha, Yitro, I was hit with the desire to read Ruth. The story of Ruth has never struck the same chord in me as it seems to with other converts and conversion candidates, but today something did strike me.
Boaz, in his first conversation to Ruth, blesses her:
“I have been fully informed of all that you have done for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband – how you left your father and mother and the land of your birth and went to a people you had not known yesterday or earlier. May Hashem reward your deed, and may your payment be in full from Hashem, the Gd of Israel, under Whose wings you have come to seek refuge.”
All conversion candidates have trials and tribulations when they seek refuge under the Shechinah, no matter how “smooth” the process may seem to an outsider. May you be similarly rewarded and may your friends and family recognize the emotional difficulties you face(d).
Shabbat shalom!
it does not seem to me to be easy. It looks insanely hard.
Needed this encouragement today.Thank you for this post. 🙂
If only it was as easy now as for Yitro (in terms of geirus, not necessarily anything else!); and all we had to say was "Baruch Hashem asher hitzil etchem mi'yad Mitzrayim" and "ata yadati ki gadol Hashem mi'kol ha elokim"..! Sigh… 😛 really puts sponsoring rabbis, batei din and the non-FFB inferiority complex into perspective!
– Chana, giyoret-in-training