If you’re converting to Judaism or building a Jewish life from scratch, there comes a point when learning about Judaism isn’t the problem anymore. The harder part is figuring out how to take everything you’re learning and actually turn it into a Jewish life.
That’s why I created my membership Bayit Builders. In this video, I’m taking you behind the scenes to show you exactly what’s inside, from the Bayit Blueprint and resource library to live Q&As, holiday planning, accountability calls, and the community itself. I’ll also talk about who the Bayit is for, who it isn’t for, and how we approach building a Jewish life without turning it into another giant checklist you have to complete.
Ready to build your Jewish life with us?
Bayit Builders is open to new members now through September 3.
Transcript below.
Transcript:
My membership, Bayit Builders, is officially open to new members. This only happens three times a year ’cause I’m just one person. so the doors are gonna be open today, August 27th, 2026, through September 3rd.
Hi, I’m Kochava. I’m a Jewish convert, and I’ve been helping people convert to Judaism since 2010 through my blog, Building a Jewish Life dot com.
So today I want to show you what the Bayit is, what happens inside, and who I created it for. So you can figure out if this is something that would actually help you build a Jewish life
And I’ll give you a little tour. Because I can tell you about the resources, but it’s a lot more useful to see the thing.
Right now we’re at 82 members, and the bayit’s been around a little over a year. So we’re really starting to hit our stride.
So why did I create Bayit Builders?
First off, bayit means home, like the comfy, cozy home. All those good feelings that go with the word home. Because that’s what most of you are doing: you’re trying to find your home within Judaism.
And I know what that’s like. I spent seven years converting to Judaism. I converted first Conservative and then Orthodox.
And I have made pretty much every mistake in the book, which is why I have a blog and now a YouTube channel. I want to help you avoid all of the things I did wrong.
But also, I’ve picked up things here and there over the last 16 years.
But more broadly, there’s a ton of Jewish information on the internet now. But there is a lot of Jewish life that is unwritten. It’s all those unwritten social rules that make you feel awkward at synagogue.
It’s those cultural pieces of joining a new culture.
And it’s also the overwhelm, the analysis paralysis of having the entirety of Judaism before you, and then people saying, “Okay, now assemble it like it’s IKEA furniture.” Like, what order should you go in? How many things should you do at once? Are you ready for this step or not?
And Bayit Builders helps you with that.
There’s a framework, the Bayit Blueprint, that tells you what stage you’re in of your Jewish life, and then gives you things that you might wanna focus on and milestones you might wanna aim for. And that’s helpful.
But most of the value in Bayit Builders comes from being able to ask in person to someone who’s been there before.
There’s the forums, of course, where people have conversations on all sorts of topics, and it’s so nice to finally be with people who get it.
But we also do several live meetups. We meet up every Sunday morning. Once a month, there is the live Q&A. Once a month, there is the topic schmooze, where we work through a study guide about Jewish topics.
So for instance, the next one that’s coming up this week is the Jewish calendar part three, where we’re gonna look at the High Holidays that are coming up.
And then before each holiday, we also have a live Q&A called Navigating Holidays. You can bring whatever your questions are about the upcoming holiday, whatever the circumstances you’re dealing with, like maybe navigating a difficult family relationship.
This is probably our most popular live Zoom.
And then the other two weeks of most months, we have Accountability Calls, where we can set and follow goals together.
In the months that have five weeks, we have the BYOB book club. Bring your own book. It’s not a traditional book club where you all read a book together and then discuss it.
Everyone brings a book to the group that they feel like other people should read and pitches them on it. Why is this a good book to read? And you come away with a list of new books that maybe you would have never heard of.
And in my experience so far, it is way funner than a normal book club.
And then some of the other things that are inside is there is a monthly planning workshop where there is a short video and a workbook that details what’s coming up in the coming Jewish month and gives you a framework for working on goals within that.
Some people just use the information. Some people use the goal planning. You do what works for you. Take what works and leave the rest.
And then each month there is also another resource of some kind.
One was converts who changed Jewish history.
The last one was a typical day in the life of an observant Jewish person, laying out all the different mitzvot that you might do throughout a day. Which can help you decide what pieces you wanna incorporate into your day from a full picture of what it looks like rather than reading about this here and that there.
Another popular one was A Guide to Your First Synagogue Visit.
So who was the Bayit for?
It is mostly people going through the conversion process. But we do have people who converted as much as 20 years ago, and we have some born Jews who weren’t raised with these practices. All of us are coming together to build a Jewish life from scratch.
And as kind of a subspecialty at least based on survey responses, about 50% of the Bayit are neurodivergent. And I’m neurodivergent. I’m autistic and have ADHD.
So the bayit is built for all brain types
Here’s what the Bayit is not.
It is not a conversion program. It can help you with your conversion program, but it’s not your conversion program That would be arranged with your rabbi and your congregation
I am also not a rabbi, and I’m not here to replace your rabbi . I would say about half of the membership doesn’t have a rabbi yet and about half does. The ideal that we want to work towards is getting you a rabbi relationship.
The Bayit is not a class you have to keep up with. People pop in and out as their schedule allows. No pressure, no “where were you?”
We’re very chill and laid back because I am chill and laid back. I’m not here to be the police of anyone.
It is not a prescribed checklist of things to do.
And it is not a place where everyone practices identically. We have people all over the Jewish spectrum from all movements. And if that’s not something you’re comfortable being around, then this probably isn’t the group for you.
We’ve got Reform conversion candidates and we’ve got Orthodox conversion candidates. I would actually say the majority of the conversion candidates are Orthodox.
So let me show you inside. This is the Start Here page. This is where you’ll find the most up-to-date information and also where you’ll find onboarding instructions. There’s always a link to the most recent onboarding document. And I also have a survey up because I wanna know what you need, and that helps me plan what I make for you
Next is the forum. It’s very straightforward. It’s a forum.
Now, this page is the meat and potatoes of the website.
You’ll see the Getting Started: Your Journey Begins is the first place you wanna go. It’s got short videos introducing the Bayit Blueprint, which gives you some idea of where you are and what you might wanna work towards next.
Next is the longest playlist, the live session replays. That’s where the live Q&As, the topic schmoozes, and Navigating the Holidays go.
Then there’s the Monthly Planning Workshops. At the beginning of each Jewish month, you’ll get a new one.
Next, um, I’ll skip Tools and Resources for right now and go to the bottom, which is Workshops. There’s only one in there right now, a Future You workshop.
It guides you through thinking about what kind of Jew you wanna be and how to get there.
Now the tools and resources.
Um, so you see the most recent one was Building a Jewish Day.
And here are some more, like the First Synagogue Visit Checklist, um, Jewish history and converts. And then these attachments on the side are resources that don’t have a video to go with them. So for instance, um, everything that’s paid on my website is up here for free for you if you’re a member of the Bayit.
Like for instance, the Fasting or Not with Intention Guide. It’s a guide to Jewish fast days and how to do it in a healthy and spiritual way.
It also has the Torah Tripod, which is an approach to building your own Jewish education.
So there’s a lot here.
There is currently over 20 resources. And that doesn’t mean you need to immediately buckle down and start working your way through them. They’re there when you’re ready for them.
And you don’t need to complete them. They’re not homework. No one here is gonna give you homework.
So why is now a particularly good time to join the Bayit? It’s because we’re coming up on the High Holidays. It’s the Jewish Super Bowl, folks. Over the space of one month, we’ve got Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, and Simchas Torah. That’s a lot! It’s a lot of fun, but it’s also a lot of logistics and preparation. And that is what the Bayit is particularly good at
Half of learning Jewish life is learning the physical logistics. Those are the things that people don’t talk about so often because they just know. They’ve been doing it for forever, and it doesn’t occur to them that they need a reminder to do things like write down the upcoming holiday dates.
So that’s what we do. We work together on putting in requests to request off work for holidays, things like that.
Your girl is practical.
So as each new holiday or season comes up in the Jewish calendar, we look at what are you doing? Where are you going? Are you gonna be a guest anywhere? Are you gonna travel? What do you need? What do you wanna learn? What do you wanna try this year? And most importantly of all, what are you going to ignore this year?
Because most people that I work with aren’t to full observance yet. They’re working their way there.
So there’s gonna be things that maybe you’re not ready for yet, and that’s okay. Knowing you can stop worrying about it eases so much of the anxiety you have.
So of course, being practical, the logistics you need to know is that the price is $40 a month or $400 a year, and enrollment is closing on September 3rd.
So if you’ve been trying to piece your Jewish life together by yourself like a puzzle with no picture… maybe what you really need is some structure, practical help, and other people who get it.
I’d love to have you join the Bayit. Doors are open now through September 3rd.
You can find all the information at the link down in the description below.
And if you’re watching this and thinking, ” This sounds good, but I have a specific question about whether it’s right for me,” you can drop them down in the comments below, or you can come to the live Q&A that I’m hosting on Zoom this Sunday. If you wanna find out the details for that, join the email list at the link down in the description below.
I hope to get to know you soon.
