Your first beit din meeting can feel like one of the most intimidating parts of the Jewish conversion process. You’re meeting with the rabbis who will help determine whether you’re ready to join the Jewish people, and it’s easy to feel like every word matters.
The good news? They aren’t expecting perfection. They want to get to know you, understand your journey, and see that you’re moving forward with sincerity and commitment.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through what to expect during your first beit din meeting, the questions you’re likely to be asked, the mistakes to avoid, and the questions you should ask them so you leave with a clearer picture of what comes next.
Not sure how long the conversion process usually takes? Join my mailing list and I’ll send you my free Jewish Conversion Timeline Cheatsheet, which explains the typical stages of conversion and what to expect along the way.
Transcript below.
Transcript:
 No one tells you this, but what you don’t say in your first conversion beit din meeting is just as important as what you do say. If you’re here, I’m gonna assume you have a little bit of foundational knowledge, that you’re in the Jewish conversion process, and you know what a beit din is. It’s a rabbinical court that oversees conversions.
It’s usually made up of three upstanding Jews, usually rabbis, and these are the people who are going to decide whether to rubber stamp or not your application to become a Jew.
You’ll probably meet with them several times over the course of your conversion if you’re in an Orthodox conversion. If you’re in a Reform or Conservative conversion, you’ll probably only meet with them once at the end of your conversion.
But as always, your mileage may vary.
Hi, I’m Kochava. I’m a Jewish convert, and I’ve been helping people convert to Judaism since 2010 through my blog, buildingajewishlife.com.
And if you wanna learn more about how long a Jewish conversion takes, click down below to join my mailing list, and you can get a free copy of the Jewish Conversion Timeline Cheatsheet.
So this is a scary meeting. Like, let’s just go ahead and get that out of the way. You’re probably pretty scared. And if you’re not, maybe you should be. I mean, not to an unhealthy amount, but there is so much pressure to feel like this meeting determines the rest of your life, that if they say no, that this is gonna close the door on something that you obviously want a whole lot.
It is probably one of the highest pressure meetings you will ever have in your life. So no pressure, right?
A lot of what I’m gonna say here applies to a first rabbi meeting in general, meeting with the person that you hope will help guide you through the conversion process.
But I am going to be talking more specifically about the Beit Din aspect of it, which means that this video will probably be the most applicable to Orthodox conversion candidates.
By the way, if you want a more in-depth version of what we’re gonna talk about today, check out my blog post for What to Expect During Your First Beit Din Meeting, which I’ll link down below, or you can Google that, and Building a Jewish Life should be the first thing that comes up when you Google that phrase.
So a first Beit Din meeting is really about orientation. They’re orienting themselves to you, and they want to orientate you to them. There’s a certain amount of logistics that will happen. What do we expect? What’s the paperwork? Do we need to fill out any forms?
In some Orthodox conversion programs, when you meet with the Beit Din for the first time, you may actually only meet with one rabbi of the Beit Din, usually an administrator who works more full-time for the organization.
And during that first meeting, one thing you might see is a psychological exam. I will link down below to another blog post that I have about the rise of psychological testing in conversions.
But it’s usually the kind of psychological exam where you know what the right answers are. It is the kind of exam you might fill out like I did before becoming a cashier at a grocery store.
“Do you think it’s acceptable to take money from the cash register?” “No, sir, I don’t.” Most of the questions are gonna be about that obvious.
And the best tip that I can tell you is do not overthink it, because I overthought it, and it got me into a lot of trouble. So don’t do that. But that is a story for another day. It’s not really relevant right here.
Their expectations for you at this stage are going to be fairly minimal. You should be reasonably early in the process. Your rabbi shouldn’t be waiting until you are fully shomer Shabbat and fully shomer kashrut before sending you to the Beit Din. That’s too late.
That is weird in my experience, but some rabbis do it, and it sets people behind. Because we talk about the minimums for conversion, which is usually at least a year, sometimes a minimum of two years in Orthodox conversion, and sometimes the Orthodox conversions are measuring that from when you apply to the Beit Din, not when you work with a community rabbi.
So getting your application into the Beit Din as soon as possible is really important here, because you don’t wanna spend a year working up to being fully shomer Shabbat and shomer kashrut, and then your rabbi sends you to the Beit Din and they say, “Well, that’s very nice, but we have to monitor you for a year.”
That’s not gonna feel good, obviously.
Community rabbis are not always educated about how the process should work, so I don’t think that they’re doing it on purpose or anything to set you back. They’re probably just clueless and worried about getting in trouble for wasting the time of the rabbis of the Beit Din.
‘Cause remember, he’s got relationships to maintain as well. And to a degree, him recommending you for conversion is using some of his social cachet. Your actions will reflect on him a little bit at least. So understand that they may also be feeling pressures around this application to the Beit Din.
But you do not need to be doing more than a basic Shabbat practice. You should be going to synagogue, you should be learning Torah, you should be starting to learn about the prohibitions on Shabbat. But you may not actually be putting any of those prohibitions into practice yet. Same with kashrut. I see a lot of people are already at the point of giving up pork and shellfish, but there are people who aren’t that far along either.
What the rabbis are gonna be looking for is more pattern spotting rather than perfection. What is your trajectory, and how fast are you going on that trajectory? It’s okay to not be going very fast, but they wanna see that you’re moving in a certain direction.
I’m gonna tell it to you straight. You are going to want to word vomit all over these men, and that’s okay.
It’s perfectly natural. They are in charge of the rest of your life, it feels like, and you really, really want them to understand. And you think that, “If I can just say it better, say it more, say it in a different way, I can make them understand.” But most of the time, you’re gonna end up talking too much and putting your foot in your mouth.
So try to keep the word vomit under control. Believe me, I am the queen of word vomit. I got myself into so much trouble through word vomit. I know what it’s like. Don’t be me.
Part of the discussion here is going to be about your life and what led you to this point. They don’t need every detail, and they don’t need to hear your rationale or your thought process behind every decision.
Try to keep your answers on point and to the question that they asked. That’s kind of a good rule of thumb in general. Try to answer only the question that has been asked.
And you can predict some of the questions that they’re gonna ask. How did you find Judaism? What made you, uh, be interested in it?
What was the first book you read about it, and what did you think of it? What are you reading now? What are you learning, or who are you learning with?
What do your parents think about this, or your other family members? Do you have Jewish family members?
Let’s see, what else? What are you doing Jewishly? Are you taking any classes? Are you learning Hebrew? Do you have a tutor or a friend in the community who’s helping you with things?
If you have complicating factors, expect them to ask about that. Do you have roommates who aren’t Jewish and aren’t keeping kosher and aren’t keeping Shabbat?
Do you have pets? They may ask about those. That’s a much longer discussion, but I will tell you, you can convert with pets, but there are extra questions that arise around that.
They may ask what your Shabbat practice looks like now. If you’re taking on any kosher rules.
If you’re in a romantic relationship, they’re gonna ask about your romantic relationship. And in fact, your partner may be present either in the room or may be interviewed separately from you.
What is your religious background, and why are you leaving it? Do you have a job that requires you to work on Shabbats? They’ll probably ask you about what your plan is for that situation. If you’re still in school, they may ask you what your professional plans are to be able to work around Shabbat observance.
And of course, there are also specialized circumstances, like for instance, if you have minor children, they’re gonna ask you about them and what your plan is for them, which in most cases, they’re probably not converting with you unless your partner is also converting or your partner is Jewish. But if you’re, like, separated or divorced and your ex-partner is non-Jewish, most of the time the circumstances are not gonna line up that your kids are gonna be converting as well.
Most of the time. But I digress.
And you’re gonna get that big old question, “Why do you wanna convert to Judaism?” I made a whole video about how to answer that without freaking out, and I’ll link that up above and down below for you.
They’ll wanna know how far away you live from synagogue. And if it’s more than a mile from synagogue, they’ll wanna know what your plans are for moving closer into the community.
Now, a lot of these questions you probably won’t get the first meeting, but they’re fair game. Take them one at a time and write out a short answer of how you would answer that, and try to remember that. You can even bring notes to the meeting. It is okay to bring notes.
First and foremost, they will expect you to be nervous.
It’s okay to be nervous. And in some ways, they might be nervous too.
It’s okay to stutter. It’s okay to forget words. It is okay to completely lose your train of thought. It is okay to mix up words. It is okay to forget Jewish rules that you definitely know. These are all things that they have seen before and expect to happen.
Hey, maybe none of those will happen to you. That’s possible too.
I don’t really expect them to get into, like, mental health or neurodivergence unless, for instance, you’re, like, a social media influencer on neurodivergence, or talk about it very publicly online and the rabbis are aware of that. But as you know, those things can affect a conversion because those are very deeply embedded in your life.
If you keep it private, they may never know anything about it, and they don’t have to know anything about it.
See, this is the thing that I think most people forget in Beit Din meetings and dealings with rabbis in general, and I can fully predict that some people are gonna be unhappy about this in the comments section, but you don’t have to tell a rabbi everything.
You are allowed to keep things private that are private. Not everything is everyone’s business.
See, that was the root of my word vomit. I thought in order to make the best decision about converting, that these rabbis needed to know everything about me and to know me so well, that once they had a full picture of who I was, how could they not convert me?
They would see how sincere I am and how important it was. So I told them things that really weren’t their business and really weren’t relevant to the discussion. So if you take nothing else, remember that some things are best between you and Hashem.
When you’re talking about tricky topics or things that you’re feeling a little defensive about, like for instance, you feel like you should be doing more on Shabbat that you’re not, you can phrase it with things like, “Right now I’m working on X,” or, “I don’t know yet. I’m learning Y.” Or even “This is challenging for me, but I’m taking it step by step.” Or, “This is challenging for me, and here’s what I’m doing to address that. I’m learning with someone. I’m reading a book.”
Now let’s talk about the questions you can ask them, because remember, this is actually a two-way street.
To a degree, you are interviewing them just as much as they are interviewing you.
If you are in the Orthodox system, in most conversions, you really don’t get a lot of choice about who your Beit Din is. It is who is geographically available to you. So you make do with what you got, and feel reassured that hardly anyone feels like it’s a perfect match. There are things you will be disappointed by or frustrated with.
So the three big things that I want you to ask them questions about, and you can write them up in advance, even write them down and bring them with you. Ideally, a pro tip, write your questions down on a sheet of paper and leave space for you to take notes about what their answer is.
You can also ask them if you could record the meeting to help you remember what happened and any next steps that they give you. I would imagine that’s fairly common nowadays, but I also bet a lot of rabbis are really resistant to being recorded on anything because they don’t wanna go on the record about conversion for anything, because so many things that they will say publicly are not what they will say one-on-one.
So you might not be given permission to record the event. However, speaking as a lawyer, depending on your state, if you’re in the United States, different states have different laws about recording people. Whether they would like it if they found out you recorded them, that is a different question, but I leave that to your conscience.
I want you to ask them about expectations.
Number one, most important thing, when is the next expected meeting? What do they expect you to do between now and that meeting? Do they have people they expect you to connect with? Tutors they expect you to hire? Certain books to read? Do they expect you to make a move by then, to move to a new home? There are lots of expectations that they may have for you in the coming months.
In most cases, people will meet with a Beit Din every three to four months, maybe every six months, depending on the circumstances. This is an area of wide variety, and so you will have to ask your Beit Din what is their normal cadence for meetings.
Second, about the pace. You’re allowed to ask them how long they think it’ll take for you to convert.
They probably won’t give you a straight answer, but it’s good to ask the question, and the answer they give you could give you clues. They could tell you the things that they’re looking for before they decide whether you’re ready to convert or not.
They may tell you certain limitations that affect whether you can convert or not. For instance, whether they take summers off as an organization. Do they expect you to be in the program for a minimum period of time?
And three, about support structures. Absolutely ask them what they would recommend you read next. Ask them if there are classes they know of that you should take, people that you should meet and talk to.
Do they have a tutoring program? If they do, they will usually bring it up and t- tell you that you will be required to have a tutor for, uh, usually on a weekly basis. Price can be wildly varying. Uh, prices for tutors may be set for the tutors themselves, or they may be a set fee for everyone set by the Beit Din itself. Different groups do it different ways.
I would be sure to ask about costs that they expect you to incur. Do you have application fees? What do they expect the overall cost of the conversion to be? Every Beit Din should be upfront about costs and fees. Anyone who isn’t, that’s suspicious.
As a general rule, nowadays costs and fees are usually given in written form very early, right when you start the Beit Din process. If you don’t, that’s not good. For one, it’s not professional. For two, it’s sketchy.
I feel pretty comfortable saying that this is a professional standard in the field right now to provide written costs and fees upfront.
So after the meeting, I want you to have a self-care plan in place. I want you to have a plan for the first 30 minutes after your meeting.
I want you to plan to do something like go to a coffee shop and get your favorite drink. Call a friend. Call a family member. Call your best friend.
I want you to touch base with something that makes you feel good, especially if things didn’t go the way you hoped or not as well as you hoped.
You’re gonna need time to emotionally decompress, and you’re gonna be decompressing for days after this, trying to process everything that was said and what everything means for you moving forward.
If the Beit Din asked you to follow up on anything, make sure to put that on your calendar ASAP.
Now, what if the meeting doesn’t go the way you hoped? Not all’s lost. Lots of people have bad beit din meetings. And in some beit dins, I would call them the standard, ’cause there are a handful of beit dins in this world that I’m not fans of, and I don’t think they handle things very well.
You may feel like they were cold. You may feel like they were dismissive. You may f- even feel like they were disrespectful or power-tripping. Remember, the theme of our YouTube channel here is Jews are human, rabbis are very human, and rabbis are going to make mistakes, and rabbis are sometimes going to be jerks.
Unfortunately, like I said before, you’re usually limited by your beit din choices by geography. So even if they’re jerks, you may just have to put up with them and play the head games if they insist on it.
It is an unfortunate side effect of being a tribal religion where we have communal gatekeepers to who can enter the tribe.
Because conversion isn’t just between you and G-d. It’s between you and the Jewish people, and these are the folks who got picked to be the representative of the Jewish people.
It’s okay if you don’t like them. You don’t need to be their friend. They don’t need to be your friend. You just need to keep it professional and respectful.
G-d willing, they will do the same for you. But if they don’t, it’s probably not your fault, and it’s probably not personal.
Now, if you want help crafting your answer to “why are you interested in converting to Judaism,” watch this video next!
