“It’ll all be worth it.”
If you’ve heard that phrase during your Jewish conversion journey—especially when you were struggling—you’re not alone. And you’re not overreacting if it didn’t sit right.
There’s a name for that kind of response: spiritual bypassing.
It’s when someone uses spiritual language to gloss over real pain, pressure you into feeling okay when you’re not, or avoid looking at the hard stuff—personal or systemic. For conversion candidates, it often sounds like “just trust Hashem,” “you’re being tested,” or “at least you’ll be Jewish in the end.”
The result? More isolation. More pressure to smile through the struggle. Less space to actually be human on a path that already asks so much.
In this post, I’m breaking down what spiritual bypassing is, why it shows up so often in Jewish spaces (especially around conversion), and how we can respond differently—with empathy, honesty, and the kind of support that holds space for the messy middle.
You don’t have to perform gratitude while your heart is breaking. You don’t have to earn belonging by pretending everything’s fine.
Let’s talk about what real support sounds like in this short video.
If you’ve ever felt dismissed, minimized, or invisible in your struggles during conversion, please know: you’re not alone, and you’re not too much.
You deserve support that makes space for your full humanity—not just your eventual membership.
💙 For more resources, tools, and honest conversations from someone who’s been there, join the mailing list in the sidebar on the right of this post. You’ll get access to a free Resource Library and weekly support that doesn’t skip over the hard parts.
You don’t have to be grateful all the time. You just have to be real.
Find the transcript below.
Transcript:
Find safe people you can be real with.
Sympathetic ears, online communities, trusted friends.
But beware the spiritual bypassers. If you’ve never heard of spiritual bypassing,
spiritual bypassing is
when someone uses spiritual language or ideas to avoid dealing with emotional pain,
systemic harm, or uncomfortable truths,
it’s when you share a struggle and someone responds with “everything will work out in the end.”
” Everything happens for a reason.” “Just trust Hashem more.”
” You’re being tested.”
” It’s all part of the process.”
” Well, at least you’ll be Jewish in the end!”
And the big one, “it’ll all be worth it!”
On the surface, it sounds comforting.
But in practice,
It ignores your pain. It pressures you to be okay when you’re not.
It keeps the system from being questioned because if your pain is justified, then why fix it?
Hi, if you don’t know me, I’m Kochava, the blogger behind Building a Jewish Life.com.
I am a Jewish convert who helps other conversion candidates navigate the conversion process.
Conversion candidates are already carrying so much fear, the weight of conditional belonging, the fear of being seen as “ungrateful” or “uncommitted.”
The exhaustion of performing joy and devotion 24/7.
When someone hits you with a spiritual platitude when you’re falling apart, it doesn’t help. It isolates you
instead of giving you permission to feel, grieve, or get support.
It silently says, “don’t make this messy.”
” Don’t make this inconvenient. Don’t break the illusion,”
and you end up thinking “maybe I should be stronger. Maybe this is my fault.”
Nope. Absolutely not.
What should people say instead?
” That sounds awful. I’m really sorry for what you’re going through.”
” You’re not broken. This process is really hard.”
” Let’s talk about what you need right now, not what you ‘should’ feel.”
These are the people who see you and will stay with you during the hard stuff,
not skip to the “happily ever after.”
