And that somebody would be me! I never could have seen this a year ago, when I was still waiting to convert and had been waiting for several years. But I was finally in New York and had a great beit din! And things went smoothly, and I converted in January. I met my chosson […]

The Olympics is supposed to be a time of international unity and brotherhood. Unfortunately, the reality falls very short of this ideal. Here are some of the “fundamental principles” of the Olympics, from their Charter [emphasis mine]: The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with […]

I apologize if you received multiple copies of yesterday’s post. Since I’ve been gone, Blogger has completely re-done their site, and I couldn’t make it work right. Sorry 🙁 Shabbat shalom! (And no, I currently have no idea if I’m back regularly. Maybe.)

Quite frankly, I’m tired of people bad mouthing conversion candidates who are married to a Jew or dating a Jew. When I was converting, it would often come up that I was single for most of the years of my conversion process and wasn’t dating once I formally entered the orthodox conversion process. Once the […]

So much of conversion is about acquiring knowledge and then learning how to translate that to real life situations. Input followed by output. But what kinds of knowledge should you import into your poor, overworked brain in order to produce the right output? It’s not as simple as “learn halacha.” I would argue there are […]

This phrase may be the most-said sentence on Shabbos behind “Shabbat shalom!”  I’m sorry to tell you, but it’s not true. Calories do count on Shabbat.  The problem is that you have no way to count them. If you belong to Weight Watchers or another strict weight-loss system, then you had better be eating your […]

Just a subtle suggestion if you happen to find yourself worshipping the porcelain god:   So if you thought you saw this before, you probably were not crazy. I actually did take this picture, at a Dunkin Donuts in Brooklyn.

When you cast your lot with the Jewish people, you develop a new excitement about seeing Jewish people in places you consider “non-Jewish.” When you’re visiting a rural area with essentially no Jewish population, you are shocked to see a kippah, and you might just try to tackle the guy in your excitement. Personally, people […]

You don’t have to be a fake linguist like me to learn how to speak “frum” quickly and almost painlessly. But you do need patience, some time, humility, and the realization that you will make mistakes (and that you will feel like an idiot when you do). Everyone’s path is different, but this is how […]

Pre-conversion, it is very frustrating to feel that your actions (your mitzvot) don’t matter. After all, you’re not Jewish. You’re not required to do anything. You have no mitvot other than the sheva mitzvot B’nei Noach. And in some areas, it can actually be problematic for you to be doing these things, like fully observing […]