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By Marissa Kowalski

When talking to other Jewish converts, I feel like a pretty common narrative I hear is that they had been on a path towards Judaism from a young age, citing all sorts of formative episodes. I don’t feel like this kind of thing happened to me. For most of my life, I was pretty comfortable being “religious but unaffiliated.” My family is Catholic, but I didn’t receive much of a formal religious education past age five. My parents were never really concerned with it, and my mother has told me several times now that she had always kind of hoped I’d figure out what was right for me instead of being coerced into believing whatever my family believed. 

When I went away to college, I became a little more concerned about trying to find somewhere that I felt welcome and could be part of a community. It was always mostly the community aspect that affected how I felt about any of the religious affiliations I looked into. I had always deeply enjoyed going to Mass—once I was old enough to appreciate it and sit still, at least. It felt nice to have some kind of sense of belonging: to look around and know everyone in the room was happy I was there.

The older I got, though, two things happened. I found out more about myself, and I figured out more about what I believed in. First of all, I realized I was a lesbian. This made it very difficult to attend a Catholic church, as I very quickly became aware just how much people would not, in fact, be happy I was there if I were open with them about it. I also became more involved in other social justice causes around this time, and as a result, my personal worldview became heavily divergent from that of mainstream Catholicism. 

I started looking around at other Christian denominations when I was going to school in Ohio. None of them felt quite right, but I wasn’t very sure why at the time. I didn’t attend more than one or two meetings at any of the churches I tried going to.

One thing I did attend every time it happened, though, was a lot more informal. There were a couple of Jewish students on campus. Because we had a very small student body, we were all very well-acquainted. Two of the students with who I was good friends would occasionally light candles in the dining hall on Friday evenings. They invited anyone to “attend,” even though it wasn’t really much more than them saying a few blessings over candles from Dollar Tree. I sat with them pretty much every time they did this, even though it wasn’t very often. It left a very big impression on me.

In late 2016 or early 2017, I started having a lot of crises in my personal life, and my mental health was not conducive to living on my own in Ohio. I transferred to a college in town and moved back home to St. Louis. 

In the spring of 2017, an acquaintance of mine converted to Islam. In the course of telling me about it, she mentioned that when she was having her own religious journey, she had taken quite some time to branch out from the passive social conditioning from her childhood to explore faiths other than Christianity. It was her saying this that really made me begin to question whether I, myself, had branched out enough during my time with exploring my other options.

It was around this time that I started doing more serious research into Judaism online, and through books that I borrowed from my school’s library. From the start, I enjoyed how much of the traditions of Judaism were about how an individual person fits into a larger community and history. I also deeply appreciated the concept of being encouraged to ask questions and the idea that there wasn’t really one solid answer for anything. Being able to bring nuance into religious discussions was something that I found really appealing about Judaism, as it allowed me to feel secure in being able to have space to figure out what I wanted to take from e.g. any particular passage of the Torah. Being an American in the 21st century, the notion of a single, “correct” interpretation of religious texts is fairly widespread, so I thought it was beautiful there was a religion that didn’t teach such strict conformity.

I finally worked up the courage to visit a Shabbat service in the fall of 2017. I did not realize at the time that it was also the Kol Nidre service, but in hindsight that was the single most fortunate thing that could have happened. I had no idea what to expect, frankly. I’d watched a portion of the recorded Rosh Hashanah services, but since I’d never actually been to a synagogue I wasn’t really able to follow what was going on. 

Regardless of being fairly lost during the Kol Nidre service, I still found it incredibly moving and beautiful. I found myself tearing up no less than three separate times simply because I felt completely overwhelmed by how grateful I was that I was in that room on that evening. Everyone who I talked to was kind to me, which also greatly helped matters—I didn’t feel as nervous as when I had pulled into the parking lot.

I spent the weekend after that evening doing a lot of research about converting to Judaism. I think, frankly, it was that Kol Nidre service where I knew that this was what was right for me. I knew from what I’d read that there would be a long road ahead of me, though, and I found that promising rather than discouraging.

I began attending Friday night services more or less weekly after that, for several years. It went from being something that I did because I wanted to learn more, to something that I did because it was a treasured part of my week. I really adore the way that no matter how many people are present on any given Friday evening, it really feels like my ideal sense of community that I described previously. Everyone in the room is very happy that everyone else is there. It’s obvious that everyone takes something different from the services each week, which is also very nice. 

Another thing that I think has been very helpful to me on my journey, that I also have enjoyed a lot, are the classes & programs I have attended in the past several years. The Introduction to Judaism course that I took several years ago is particularly special to me. I feel like that is when I really began to be able to articulate to others what it was that makes Judaism stand out as a religion both in comparison to other religions and on a personal level, to me. For example, I am always so deeply blown away by how much we both refer to tradition and history, and at the same time are willing to reframe or even reinterpret things as society evolves.

The first time I went to a Reform synagogue outside of St. Louis, I was visiting my girlfriend near Boston. I was a little nervous to go because it was really the first test of whether I would be comfortable being Jewish anywhere, or just at Temple Israel. Despite a few very small differences to the music and flow of the services, I was almost surprised about how easily I was able to feel right at home and like I belonged just as much as I did at any services in St. Louis. This experience was, I think, what made it very clear to me that I was no longer simply considering the idea of converting to Judaism, but that it was something I felt like I had to do. It was the natural next step in my life. 

One of the only things that I recall expressing I felt was missing was that I had a lack of confidence when it came to being Jewish in private when I wasn’t attending services. In many ways, I’m actually quite thankful for the pandemic for this reason. It was no longer a matter of being able to cross that bridge when I came to it, and instead, I very quickly had to figure out what it was I could do at home by myself to celebrate and observe holidays in a way that was meaningful to me. I had to figure out very quickly how to retain my sense of being moved by Judaism without necessarily having the physical backing of the community. 

Friday evenings were a lot easier to adapt to in quarantine than I had thought they would be. Some holidays were a little harder; the High Holidays, in particular, felt incredibly strange and lackluster this year, and I mostly forwent Passover entirely. However, I thought the fact that I was still motivated to try despite over a year now of not being able to physically interact with the community was very important. I also think the fact that I feel more deeply embedded in Judaism now, after a year mostly by myself, is all the more reason that I know this is what is right for me.

I find it interesting that the piece that I always associate with being the turning point for me deciding that Judaism was the correct choice for me was that Kol Nidre service in 2017. However, I think that in the past year in particular, it was the quiet, informal Shabbat blessings my friends said in a college dining hall that allowed me to come to the point that I am at now. Without exaggeration, every single day something happens, even if it’s something small, that reaffirms my desire to become Jewish. I think that after this many years and so many life changes, the fact that it has been a constant positive presence in my life and a source for personal change and improvement is really what makes it so special to me.