From Jehova Witness

Essay for Conversion Candidacy

I was raised in a family that strongly affiliated with the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses, a separatist Christian denomination. While I was naturally quite happy with the religion in early childhood, especially tales of our “spiritual ancestors” the Israelites, as I grew older I grew increasingly disaffected. This disaffection began as I became close to classmates outside the religion, who turned out not to be the awful people that they were so often portrayed to be. As time continued, I grew less and less comfortable with the apocalyptic nature of the religion and the future deemed to be in store for outsiders. I took my first major steps outside the religion by gradually decreasing attendance at their meetings and, later, entering college.
After entering the university from which I would receive my bachelor’s degrees, I happened to be visiting the local public library during the summer. As I was passing a bookshelf, I was struck on the foot by a copy of Chaim Potok’s The Chosen. A little startled, I checked the book out as I’d never bothered to read it. I found the depiction of the living Jewish culture fascinating, and continued reading through the night and finished early the next morning. Several days later, I found that my schedule for the following semester was in error, and needed to pick up a different class. I registered for a Jewish history class to fill the slot based on my interest in The Chosen.
Although I’d known nothing about the class or professor going into it, the class quickly became my favorite. I had been raised to believe that Jewish history had effectively ground to a halt with the destruction of the Second Temple, and I had never investigated further on my own despite being hyperaware of events like the holocaust through repeated talks at the kingdom hall on the suffering of the Witnesses at the hands of the Germans and watching the occasional documentary on WWII. Intrigued and surprised that the Witnesses could not be the “new Israel” as the “old” one had never disappeared, I took the second half of the history survey and picked up a minor in Judaic Studies. At the same time, I began reading intensely outside of class, and was shocked to learn that conversion to Judaism was possible. The next year, I took courses concurrently on the nevi’im and Biblical Hebrew. Midway through the course on the nevi’im the professor undertook to explain Isaiah 53 from a Jewish perspective. That lecture resolved my last doubts about abandoning Christianity in favor of Judaism. My coursework in Biblical Hebrew further impressed upon me the importance of the continuity, sense of community and peoplehood of the Jewish people.
As my personal and formal studies continued, I began to adopt certain hitherto unknown values as my own. While my birth religion had insisted that only certain few, the “faithful” Witnesses, were on the side of God and would survive the imminent apocalypse, I found myself adopting the opposite view, that it was possible that others could find meaning and fulfillment in other religions even as I agreed with and began to adopt a new religion that I believed was correct. Any remaining impulse to proselytize to those of other beliefs or non-belief disappeared as I found myself agreeing with the Jewish sources that I was reading that the righteous of all nations have a place in the world to come, not just the followers of certain select religions. I found myself taking up other beliefs as well that had no place in my old religion. While the Witnesses believed that they should “be no part of the world” and that there was no point in trying to undertake projects to improve it, I grew more interested in the engaging more fully with the outside world. I particularly enjoyed the new sanction given to scholarship and study, and the ability to critically analyze texts and concepts. I also engaged with the sense of community and shared history among the Jewish people, and over time came to identify more and more strongly with the Jewish people as a whole.
My conception of and relationship to God changed as well. While I had been raised to believe that God was incorporeal and indivisible, I had come to conceive of God as somewhat capricious for the bait-and-switch that I’d been taught occurred in the 1st century. Instead, a different image of God emerged, one that showed a God that was steadfast in his love and care for the Jewish people, who ensured that the Jewish people as a whole survived through the ages against all odds.
As my studies progressed, my lifestyle began to change. I began to undertake to study the weekly parsha, on my own and with the assistance of various aids. I obtained a Siddur and began to daven more and more regularly. I paid close attention to the Jewish calendar and holiday cycle, learning as much as I could about the holidays and taking on key practices. I began inspecting the labels of the food products I was purchasing for a hechsher, and began to notice and respond instinctively to the laws of kashrut. I also began to look forward to Shabbat as a time of rest and study.
What surprised me most as I continued to progress was my increasing sense of identification with the State of Israel, world Jewry, and the local community. I had previously been indifferent to the State of Israel, but now found myself very concerned with events there and passionately defending the actions of the Israeli people where appropriate and necessary. I began to keep up on the news out of Israel as I was able, and even to donate to Jewish and Israeli causes in times of particular trouble. Similarly, I came to feel a strong sense of connection to Klan Yisrael, and found myself feeling and expressing heightened concern where Jews were targeted. Closer to home, I began to carefully investigate local synagogues and other Jewish institutions, in preparation for the day that I would settle into a community permanently.
Given the above, I plan to continue to grow if accepted as a suitable candidate for conversion. I plan to continue to daven regularly, as well as take on the mitzvot of tallit and tefillin. I greatly look forward to celebrating my first Shabbat as a Jew, which will be qualitatively different than adopting Jewish practices as a non-Jew. As it would be quite difficult to maintain separate milchig and fleischig utensils and preparation areas in my home, I plan to demonstrate my commitment to kashrut by only preparing milchig and pareve products at home. It is my intent to continue to keep, and grow in keeping, Shabbat and the laws of kashrut to the best of my ability, and to continue to grow in prayer.
I look forward to continuing my Jewish study. I will continue the parsha reading cycle, and plan to also pick up the Daf Yomi cycle in May. I will continue my exploration of Jewish literature, and look forward to being able to begin taking formal classes again at the synagogue with which I affiliate.