In the following, I have elaborated in some detail on how I came to my own decisions about similar questions, starting from a different point but crossing similar territory. In places, I have some critical things to say about Christian belief and practice; I make these points not to denigrate the faith of others, but to explain my own thinking about the issues involved, and why I made the choices I did, hoping that my explanation may serve to delineate some of these questions and serve as heuristics for Brian and anyone else who may happen across them. I sincerely hope that my candor will not offend those who hold contrary beliefs, as no offense is intended.
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I converted to Judaism about four years ago. I was raised Methodist, but dropped any pretense of religious belief or practice around the time I started college. I had developed a number of differences with Christian theology, and had studied a number of oriental religions more on an academic than spiritual level, and though I was quite taken with Zen Buddhism for a while, the fascination never matured into practice. For a number of years, I held no strong feelings of any sort about religion – I considered it irrelevant to my life. As I approached the end of my twenties, I began to understand the value of religious commitment for informing the conduct of one’s life, but having rejected the default option for someone of my upbringing and culture, I did not actively seek an alternative.
In the meantime, I had met the Jewish woman who is now my wife. Since moving to Atlanta, I’d had many more opportunities to meet Jews than I’d had in Arkansas, and I’d found myself drawn to many of them, though none on so intimate a level as her. After a fairly long period in which we both dismissed the possibility of our relationship becoming permanent (for a long list of reasons, religion among them), we began to seriously consider the prospect of marrying. It being important to her to raise her children as Jews, I undertook a study of Judaism, including a twelve-week introduction to Judaism course. At that point, I was not seriously considering conversion; I already had too much respect for what it means to be Jewish to undertake an idle conversion merely for the sake of convincing a rabbi to officiate at our wedding, and I did not believe that I was ready to make a whole-hearted commitment to any religion. The more I studied and learned, however, the more congenial I found Jewish belief and practice, and eventually I decided to convert. The aspects of Judaism that appealed to me were:
[list][li]The emphasis on present life, rather than the afterlife. I believe very strongly in power of religious commitment and faith to make one’s life fuller, more meaningful, and more worthy. In practice, Chrsitianity puts far too much value for my taste on avoiding the fires of everlasting perdition and not enough on “doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God” (to paraphrase Micah). Without believing at all in an afterlife, one can derive enormous benefits from having a set of core values and living every day in accord with them – indeed, this is the chief appeal of religion to me. Notions of an afterlife in Judaism are vague and ultimately not very important in either Jewish belief or practice. Rather, Judaism highly values tikkun olam, repairing or perfecting the world – this one. Jewishly, it is the responsibility of every Jew to live in accordance with the commandments and thus to make the world a better place by improving himself and by promoting justice for all people. This advances the world toward perfection and hence toward the coming of the moshiach, or messiah. This leads me to . . .[/li][li]The emphasis on practice. One of my main beefs with Christianity is the pre-eminence of belief. While there are entire libraries filled with advice on living a Christian life, in most Christian denominations, you can ignore all of it so long as you profess belief and ask God’s forgiveness. Meanwhile, most Christian denominations are all too eager to dictate what you must believe in order to achieve salvation, in extraordinary detail – and vast quantities of blood and ink have been spilled over their disagreements over belief, with no appreciable differences in practice resulting from them. On the other hand, being a bar or bat mitzvah, Jewishly, means accepting the obligation to live one’s life in a certain way, to follow the commandments, to live righteously and seek justice. As for belief, there are precious few of the mitzvot that dictate belief – they almost exclusive deal with how one conducts one’s life.[/li][li]The acceptance, even encouragement, of skepticism and questioning, even of the most important Jewish practices and beliefs. While Jews are expected to fulfill all of the commandments (though being exempted for the time being from those that pertain specifically to the Temple in Jersualem), they are not expected to do so unquestioningly. On the contrary, Jewish thinkers through the ages have produced a stunning amount of debate and disputation about the meaning of Torah, and continue to do so to this very minute. To argue and question are practically as much of the essence of Judaism as observance of the mitzvot. I don’t think I need to elaborate much on the distinction between Judaism and Christianity on this head. Though some Christian thinkers have maintained that faith in the face of doubt is the higher faith, many more have insisted on unquestioning belief.[/li][li]Enormous latitude in one’s conception of G-d. One thing Jews are required to believe is that G-d exists. Beyond that, however, there’s little in Jewish belief or practice that establishes what that means, and ample opportunity for one’s notion of G-d to develop, change, and mature. While it might seem that such an ill-defined idea of G-d would make for dissent and discord, in fact the opposite seems to be the case: because the Jewish idea of G-d allows for such a wide range of belief, Judaism is able to encompass them all without being self-contradictory.[/li][li]Its non-exclusivity. While believing that Jews have entered into a special covenant with G-d to adhere to a higher standard of behavior than the rest of humanity, Judaism believes in the salvation of all righteous people, righteous being defined as adhering to the seven commandments of the Noahide covenant, which are to avoid idol worship, to avoid blasphemy, not to murder, steal, or commit adultery, not to eat flesh cut from a living animal, and to establish rule of law and courts of justice. Not a whole lot to expect, and not much that adherents of other religions wouldn’t already be doing (with the possible exceptions of the proscription of idol worship and blasphemy).[/li][li]Its avoidance of proselytizing. This arises naturally from the previous point. While there are a lot of cultural and historical reasons for Jews to avoid seeking to convert those of other faiths, the most profound is solidly rooted in Jewish belief: if those not already subject to Jewish law need only fulfill seven commandments to achieve righteousness, it is potentially a great disservice to saddle them with the obligations of another six hundred and some. Hence, unless a potential convert is deeply committed, it is incumbent on a rabbi to dissuade proseltyes for their own sakes.[/li][li]The absence of any intermediate agency between man and G-d. Judaism emphasizes the responsibility of each person for himself. No one else, not even the Messiah, is expected or required to assume the sins of others. You live righteously, or you don’t, but it’s not on anyone else’s head either way. Neither is a rabbi required for you to live a righteous Jewish life, though it does make many things easier. Another aspect of this is that forgiveness, Jewishly, must be asked not only of G-d but of whomever one may have wronged, and restitution made. This is to me much more powerful and just than the Christian concept.[/li]The communal nature of Jewish practice. While
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