Ceasefire: We ceased, they fired....

I've been getting quite a few emails and Facebook messages from friends and family asking me how we're holding up.  If we're sleeping in our bomb shelter and if we're staying put, deep inside our houses with our shades pulled down, our heads kept low.  With the constant barrage of rockets pelting down on every major city, yishuv, moshav and kibbutz in Israel you'd think that would be the smart thing to do.  Keep a low profile.  Start eating your way through your pantry as opposed to venturing out to the supermarket.  Watch a movie at home instead of going to the local theatre.  

That might be the smarter thing to do, but then you don't know Israelis. 

I'm not sure if it's part of our stubbornness or our complete faith in our country and army to protect us or our determination not to let Hamas scare us or just plain stupidity on our part. It's probably a combination of all four.  As much as we are playing it safe - getting our bomb shelters ready, making sure our kids know what to do during a siren, knowing where the closest protected area is when we are out and about - we are doing whatever we can to make things "normal" for our kids and families.  

For us, it meant going to Tel Aviv on Sunday afternoon so my daughter could buy material for her Monday sewing class. It also meant we were caught in a barrage of four rockets aimed at Tel Aviv's bustling city while eating pizza on Shenkin Street. While we waited out the loud booms and trembling that shook the downtown area, we took selfies in the kitchen of the pizza shop along with the other twelve diners and a visibly shaken dog who were taking refuge there.  About six minutes later, we were back at our table, wolfing down our now-cold pizza (stupid Hamas!) as if nothing had happened.

As a parent you might think we were negligent. Going out with our kids in the middle of this craziness, we must be mad... I think it normalized things for them. They faced a serious fear with grace and a little humor and were none worse for wear.  We all acted with calm and orderliness and swiftly made our way to a safe area without freaking out and terrifying them. 

And that makes me sad...

That this has become somewhat "normal" for them.  But then again, as they say in Texas, this isn't our first rodeo.  My son was born in the midst of the second intifada, and we went through a period where we had to seal up one of our rooms with plastic, fill it with emergency supplies like food, water, emergency lights and our gas masks, of course.  This was the same stretch of time we had to walk around with our gas masks at all times. Imagine taking your four children supermarket shopping, each of them holding their own gas mask boxes. Once you have that image in your head, it's difficult to get it out.  But like it or not, this is our reality.  

Why not leave, you might ask?  Why bother when I have the choice to move back to the place I grew up?  Because if everyone here thought along those lines, we'd be more or less handing over this country that God gave us straight into the hands of our enemies.  And we are not willing to take that risk.  Our very presence in this country is protecting it - the more people who choose to make Israel their home, the better chance we have at keeping it ours.  Safety in numbers, you could say.  

When I look at a map of the region it scares the bejeezus out of me.  I look at the tiny - and I mean minute - space that Israel takes up on the Middle East map. I've heard all the comparisons - fits into Lake Ontario, smaller than the state of New Jersey etc... - but the fact that we are a small nation doesn't bother me. It's the sheer land masses of the Arab nations that surround us that freaks me out.  But then I think about these last few days and I feel a sense of deep pride. We may be small, almost insignificant in the scheme of things, but boy, are we powerful!  

We are strong and proud; especially in the way our first-class army operates, and in the sheer patriotic love we instill in our kids.  

We are moral and humane; especially in the way our army conducts itself and how we continue to permit trucks filled with supplies to cross into Gaza even while they continue to bomb us.  

We are kind and caring; it was more than evident in the way our entire country - religious and secular alike - prayed and pulled together in a show of unity and support for the three boys who were kidnapped and subsequently murdered in cold blood.

We are empathetic and loving; thousands of us attended the funerals of the boys and made condolence calls to the families whose sons were so brutally taken from them.

We are a people who love life; after all, we are determined to eat pizza with our kids on a sunny summer afternoon while rockets rain down on us. 

We are peace-loving and peace-seeking. We agreed to a ceasefire and stopped all defensive attacks on Gaza.  But while we ceased, they fired.  Six hours we sat patiently and did nothing as more than fifty - FIFTY! - rockets continued to be fired into Israel before we said enough is enough.

But above all else, we are stubborn and determined.  And we're not going anywhere.  

L'Chaim - To Life!

If you're a Jew or have spent time with Jews, or have attended a wedding, bar mitzvah or any Jewish celebratory gathering, you've heard this popular cheer before. It's the equivalent of Cheers, Salut, Sliante, Prost, etc... Technically it means "to life".  

We Jews happen to love life. We celebrate it on a daily basis and we respect life and revere it.  So much so, that according to the Torah, the only time you are allowed to violate the Shabbat is to save a life.  Because a life, according to G-d, is more important than any law pertaining to Shabbat.  My children see this first hand every time my husband, a volunteer ambulance driver, grabs his keys and drives to the ambulance station when he (frequently) gets a call on Friday nights.

And according to the Talmud, whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.  So in short, we love life. 

I've been trying to make sense of what's been going on here in Israel these last few weeks.  And setting politics aside, the one theme that keeps repeating itself over and over again is "life".  And the differences between how the Palestinians view life and how we view life is drastically different. To say we are on polar opposites of this issue is putting it mildly.  To be blunt, I think we're orbiting different planets.

Here are just a few basic differences:

Them:  The mother of one of the Palestinian terrorists/kidnappers who murdered Gilad, Naftali and Ayal, preened with maternal pride on public radio, thrilled that her son was responsible for these cold-blooded murders.

Us:  The family of the Israelis who were responsible for the death of the Palestinian teenager are mortified and ashamed at their sons' horrific actions.  Rachaeli Fraenkel, Naftali's mother, got up from the 7 day mourning period and one of the first things she did was denounce the senseless death of Mohamed Abu Khdeir.  I think that pretty much says it all...

Them:  The city of Ramallah was seen celebrating - handing out candy and sweets - when the boys' bodies were found.

Us:  An Israeli group called 'Tag Meir' arranged for a large group of Jews to pay a condolence call to the family of the murdered Palestinian boy in an effort to show that that is not our way.  The entire country was horrified by the revenge murder and hundreds spoke out against it. We were certainly not celebrating...

Them:  They shower down hundreds (by now, thousands...) of rockets on our cities without any warnings, terrifying residents all over the country from Sderot to Jerusalem to Beer Sheva to Tel Aviv and everywhere in between.

Us:  The IDF actually calls their targets (yes, by telephone or SMS...) and warns them about incoming attacks in an effort to prevent innocent bystanders from getting hurt.  And just for the record, despite the constant barrage of rockets, Israel coordinated 100 trucks of humanitarian aid to Gaza today and 130 yesterday.  

Them:  They encourage their youth and their children to go up onto the roof of a targeted building, thereby using innocent children as human shields in order to protect their terrorist organizations.

Us:  We worry for our kids and in the event of an incoming rocket, we shove our kids down onto the floor and we position ourselves over them so if any shrapnel falls it will hit us first before it hits them.

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyah sums it up pretty perfectly.  He was quoted saying:

"Yes, we are a people that yearns for death, just as our enemies yearn for life."

I couldn't have said it any better...

We Israelis cannot possibly be the only ones who are able to put two and two together, but I wonder why the international community keeps calling for "calm and restraint".  They plead with us to end the battle.  Like it's up to us... Why can't they figure out that it's impossible to make peace with a people that consistently chooses death over life?

Trust me, we don't want to be huddling in safe rooms, or checking the news for red alerts every minute of every day.  We don't want our husbands, sons or loved ones putting on their army uniforms and readying themselves for a possible ground offence.  We'd all rather be at the beach, eating out with friends and planning fun excursions with our families. We didn't ask for this, but we weren't given a choice. We love life and we want the best kind of life for our families and our kids. And that unfortunately means removing the terrorists from our midst. 

It's not because we don't revere life. It's because we love it.

And until the Palestinians learn to love life more than they hate us, we have no choice but to defend ourselves.  

A Nation In Mourning...

Three boys were buried today.  Three boys who were traveling home for the weekend.  They never made it. Instead, these boys were murdered in cold blood for the simple reason that they were Jews.  

They were teenagers with siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  And friends.  And you'd be right in assuming that anyone personally connected to them or their families would be at their funerals to pay their final respects.

Not so.  

Today, an entire nation is attending the funerals of Eyal, Gil-Ad and Naftali.  We don't know them personally - at least, I don't - but we are there in some form or another.  I'm only representing my small community when I say that what I witnessed today was remarkable.  I was on my way to Modiin to pick up my daughter and saw carloads of young girls being driven to Talmon, the small community where the Shaer family resides.  They were volunteering to babysit the myriads of children in the community so that their parents could attend the funeral.  They didn't know the Shaer family personally, but they wanted to do something to help, and so they found something.  When I returned home, I pulled up in front of my house and noticed that the streets were quiet.  Too quiet.  I ran upstairs and the television was already on.  My husband and I watched the hespedim of these three boys, switching from channel to channel so that we would not miss a single word.  And when I heard Gil-Ad's mother thank God for giving her the gift of raising her son - her only son - for the sixteen years she was given, my heart broke.  There was no talk of anger at G-d, or revenge for the murderers, only tearful words of goodbye, words of strength and faith.  

In the middle of watching the funerals, I checked my Facebook and saw a post that my neighbor posted.  While our community had made arrangements for buses to take anyone who wanted to go to the funerals, she had received permission from the police for those who were unable to go to the actual funeral to stand at the entrance of our community with flags and a strong show of support for the grieving Shaer family that would pass by on their way to bury their son.  She posted it at 3:45, asking people to come, to bring flags.  The funeral procession was starting at 4:15.  That didn't leave much time for the word to get out.  While I was walking towards the front entrance, I saw three buses, packed to the gills with my friends and neighbors - most of whom did not know the families personally - pull out onto the highway on their way to stand with the three families.  To grieve with them.  By the time I made my way to the front entrance at 4:30, there were about 50 people standing there.  By 4:45, close to seventy-five.  By the time the family drove by with a police and army escort, we were more than a hundred strong.  They held out their hands as if to touch ours and while most of us don't know them or have a personal connection with them, we hope through our standing there, they knew that they are not alone.

This is what happened today in my community.  It's just one small community, but I can say with absolute certainty, we were not the only community to 'attend' these funerals.  There are hundreds of small communities like mine who have shown unbelievable support over these last heart-wrenching 18 days.  And during that entire time our entire nation prayed for their safe return - religious and secular prayers alike.  We worried together, rallied together and sang together.

And now, unfortunately, we mourn together.

יהי זכרם ברוך

In One Day's News...

It's the end of June and the beginning of summer.  And while the sun is out full force, and not a cloud in the sky, I'm feeling anything but sunny.  I'm sitting at my table, reading the newspaper and hoping for some positive news about the missing boys, some good news for a change.  Not only is there no good news about the boys, but it seems like wherever you are in the world, if you are a Jew, things are heading towards a downward spiral.  

If you are a Jew in Germany, you are now required by law to wait at least 48 hours between the death and the burial of your loved one.  Our simple and benevolent law mandates a quick burial - within a day - and the purpose of the law is to bring respect to the departed.  And that simple kindness, or chessed, is being denied to all Jews in Germany.

If you are a Jew in England, you are now reading about the worst desecration of a Jewish cemetery that England has seen in years.  All at the hands of two thirteen year old Neo-Nazis.  Besides Nazi slogans and swastikas spray-painted onto gravestones, these twisted young boys toppled more than 40 headstones causing damage estimated in more than 100,000 British pounds.  A non-Jewish witness, who called the local police, testified that he heard them laughing as they toppled down headstone after headstone.  Many of these headstones dated back to 1900 and had just gone through a major overhaul to better preserve them.

If you are a Jew in Norway and have just given birth to a boy, you can now breathe easier knowing that your son will be allowed to be circumcised.  The law now stipulates that the procedure must be performed under the presence of a licensed physician.  This is after a campaign to ban ritual circumsicion altogether because activists in Scandinavia say it "violates children's rights to physical integrity and is comparable to female genital mutilation".  So breathe easy, Jews of Norway.  You no longer have to pack your bags and leave.  At least, not until the next law that comes under question.  And by the way, don't bother thinking of moving to Denmark.  Ritual slaughter is illegal there and while Denmark's Jews rely on imported meat instead of doing their own ritual slaughter, you should still think twice before making that move.  "Animal rights come before religion," quoted the Agriculture and Food minister.

If you are a Jew in the Ukraine, besides facing the very serious possibility of being caught in the middle of a war between Ukraine and Russia, grave robbers raided a mass grave of Jews that were executed en masse during the Holocaust.  These robbers are seeking gold teeth and valuables that the victims may have had with them when the German soldiers shot them into trenches that they themselves and the locals dug in 1941.

If you are a Jew in Israel, not only are you still anxiously awaiting the return of the kidnapped boys, but you are worried for the community of Sderot that is enduring an enslaught of rockets being fired from the Gaza Strip, destroying local businesses, factories, homes, and terrifying the residents that live there.  Not to mention the day to day struggle Israel endures as it defends its position as the only democratic country in the Middle East and fights terrorism 24/7 in order to keep its borders and its people safe while at the same time managing to excel in the high-tech field, medical research and the sciences.

It seems that as Jews, no matter where we are in the world, the odds are stacked against us.  But for those of you who do not live in Israel, there is a fundamental difference.  Despite the bombardment of rockets or the terrorism that surrounds us, we, in Israel, can do something about it.  We don't have to wait for a foreign government to give us "permission" to live our lives as Jews.  We don't need permission to circumcise our boys, or to bury our dead.  Our cemeteries are places that are respected, where people can visit their loved ones who've passed on in peace and tranquility.  We can slaughter our meat according to Jewish law.  We don't have to fear of being caught in the middle of a war between neighboring countries and wait for the inevitable blame that will rain upon the Jewish community.  And when those who are out there seek to destroy us - by bombs, rockets or threat of attack - we get our talented and well-trained army ready for the fight of their lives.  Living in our own country with our own government doesn't come without its ups and downs, but one thing is for sure.  We will always be able to live as Jews here.  Our government, while not necessarily doing things the way we want them to, will always protect us and provide us with a place we can call our own.  We will never be thrown out, persecuted, desecrated or disrespected for being Jews.

And that is the big difference between being a Jew in Galut and being a Jew in Israel.

Home....Part 2

So just a few weeks after my childhood home went on the real estate market, it sold.  I was rather taken aback as I had (wrongly) assumed it would take much longer.  I had visions of all sorts of people traipsing through my house.  Couples checking out our laundry room (this is where the wife whispers to the husband that it desperately needed updating.  It does.) or opening the cabinets in the kitchen (here, the wife's eyes light up because the kitchen is truly beautiful...) and then stepping out the back door and taking in the backyard with its simple landscaping, hammock hooks and awesome pool and sauna (now it's the husband's turn to grin as he imagines dozing off on the hammock on the long weekends).  But I thought that it would take months, not weeks.

Over the years I've discovered that a house - even a fantastic and beautifully designed one - loses all it's fantastic-ness if the neighborhood enveloping said house sucks.  There's a reason they always say, location, location, location.  And I guess that's why I've always loved my childhood home.  The neighborhood certainly did not suck - in fact, it was wonderful.  I loved the location (although not so much when I had to trudge through five feet of snow for more than twenty minutes just to get to the bus stop...), the park two minutes away and more than anything else, the neighbors.  We moved into the neighborhood when I was five years old and my sister and I were given a beautiful room to share that had a view of the entrance of Rockford Park.  It also had a view of the house across the road where my best friend lived.  Being completely and utterly obsessed with Anne of Green Gables at the time, we had developed a method of communication that involved yanking our window blinds up and down and leaving them open at varied heights.  (This is what we kids did back when there were no cell phones.  Don't knock it, it worked just fine...) 

They say that it takes a village to raise a child, and it was certainly true on Fisherville Road.  Having long, thick, red hair that reached just above my tush until the age of twelve, I remember my mother sending me across the road some Friday afternoons with my soaking wet hair wrapped up turban-style in a towel.  I'd sit on the floor in their family room while my best friend's mom would French braid it for me, and it would stay braided like that until the next time I washed it.  Until my dad put the pool into our backyard when I was sixteen, we had no fence between us and the neighbors.  Our parents were good friends and there were nine kids between our two families, all around the same age, so they had decided to benefit from a double-size backyard instead of dividing the two.  Their backyard was slightly higher than ours, so the gentle slope was great for snow sledding and running through sprinklers.  When my mom came outside and brought snacks, she brought nine, just like when their mom came out with Popsicles, there were nine as well.  And if anyone stepped out of line, you got reprimanded - whether it was your mom doing the reprimanding or your friend's mom.  Somewhere around fifth grade, my best friend from across the street moved to a different neighborhood in the city.  I was devastated - who would move into that house that had been like a second home to me?  Luckily, another nice family from our shul moved in and we had new, instant friends once again.  

Saturday afternoons, especially during the summer, we'd head to the park across the road.  Huge with several jungle gym configurations, a couple of tennis courts and tons and tons of grass, we'd haul the enormous and heavy metal garbage tins towards the swings, lay them on their sides, climb up on them while fitting the bottom of the swing snug on our bottoms and hurl ourselves into the air.  We'd do this for hours while our little brothers would climb the "space shuttle" and then argue, cry and fight about who got to be the astronaut piloting it.  And when Monday morning rolled around and we were unceremoniously woken up at the ungodly hour of 6:15 so we could get to school on time, we'd leave the house at around 7:10 and pick everyone up along the way (think Pied Piper...) so that by the time we reached the bus stop (twenty minutes later...) we were a good solid group of eight or nine kids.  We'd sit in our plaid Eitz Chaim uniforms at the back of the 7C bus heading south towards school and we'd giggle and laugh until we reached our stop.

Ironically, almost all of my old neighbors are living here in Israel, and even more ironically, my old next door neighbor lives in my neighborhood, about three minutes away.  So while we're not sharing a backyard anymore, our kids are growing up as neighbors.  It's odd and weirdly wonderful to have that shared past with someone that you can - in turn - pass onto your kids.  That doesn't happen often.

So when I wrote my first post about my home, I didn't really touch on the neighborhood.  It didn't strike me until today that part of what made my childhood home a great one was the neighborhood.  Today, living in my own home in Israel, I'm lucky in that respect as well.  My neighborhood is an awesome one.  My friends are like family and I feel I can turn to them for just about anything, be it a cup of sugar or a couple of eggs, some hot water on Shabbat morning when I forgot to plug in my urn, a ride to Modiin when I don't have a car, or their shoulder to lean on precisely at the moment when I needed it most.  And when I walk into my house and see my kids playing on the floor with my neighbor's seriously-adorable one year old, I'm reminded of that great song that was the opening of the Mr. Rogers show:

It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood,

A beautiful day for a neighbor,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?

It's a neighborly day in this beautywood,
A neighborly day for a beauty,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?

I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you,
I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.

So let's make the most of this beautiful day,
Since we're together, we might as well say,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?

Won't you please,
Won't you please,
Please won't you be my neighbor?

Jewish Geography....

Jewish geography.

Wherever you might find yourself in this vast and fast-paced world, you'll stumble into a synagogue or a kosher restaurant and you'll turn to the couple sitting at the table adjacent to yours, or the person sitting next to you in synagogue and you'll find yourself playing this game.  My parents, who are seasoned travelers, have hundreds of stories of the people they've met along the way, people with which they have found common connections, all by playing Jewish geography.  My husband will simply hear a British accent and he'll instantly strike up a conversation with the Brits and start throwing my family name into the mix.  Coming from a large British family on my dad's side, I try to remind him that just because they have an accent doesn't mean they know my family.  But more often than not, it turns out that they do.  It just so happens that we - our nation - happen to be quite spectacular at this game.  You'll toss a few names and locations out and - lo and behold - you'll find out that you're either related, went to school with their cousin or was at their brother's wedding.  And despite being a nation of 13+ million people worldwide, we are separated by far less than the 'standard' six degrees of separation.  Now eat that, Kevin Bacon...

 

A few years ago, my husband and I wandered into the kosher restaurant in Florence and ended up - by chance - meeting a couple who were good friends of neighbors of ours.  In Prague, we sat in a restaurant at a table next to a young married couple.  And within minutes, we discovered that the young man was a nephew of a friend of ours.  Three summers ago, we ate Friday night dinner on a canal in Venice with Chabad.  And I was delighted to discover that the spirited young man who was our server that evening was the grandson of my first grade teacher, a teacher I had absolutely loved.  We shared some beautiful memories of her and he was thrilled to hear stories about her that he had never heard before.  On that same Shabbat, I ended up sitting next to another fellow traveler at the synagogue that just so happened to be the first cousin of one of my closest friends.

When they say that the Jewish world is a small one, they are seriously not kidding.

When these boys - OUR boys - were kidnapped, you might have said to yourself, I don't really know these boys.  As small as the Jewish world is, it's not possible that we have a connection to every Jewish person we see.  I mean, despite all our success at Jewish geography, it's not only improbable, but downright impossible.  Right?

Wrong.

Over this last heart-wrenching week, I've discovered that one of the kidnapped boys is roommates with the son of a good friend of mine.  He and his other roommates are sick with worry and eagerly awaiting his return.  One of the other kidnapped boys lives next door to my son's friend.

And that's when it hit me. 

This was not my son.  And it wasn't yours.  But it could have been.

Playing Jewish geography isn't just fun, or a way to kill time while sitting in a strange place far from home.  It's much more than that.  It signifies this thin - and sometimes invisible - yet steely-strong thread that connects us all to one another by more than just blood.  This past week has been a painful one for all of us.  We watch the minutes and the hours go by without any news or proof of life and we are sick with worry.  But this week has also been a remarkable one.  We, as a nation, have pulled together in a united and global show of support in order to bring these boys home.  Together, women all over the world have baked challah this week, saying a special prayer specially for these boys.  And I can't help but think about the fact that we will be eating this challah tonight while these three families will have to spend yet another painful Shabbat without their boys.  We are protesting together.  Whether you're standing in Times Square, in the JCC Toronto or in the local school in Chicago, we may be physically separated by thousands of miles, but that's just a stupid thing called distance.  In spirit - which is what really counts - we are doing this together.  And this Friday night, we are collectively lighting an extra three candles.  Take a moment and try to imagine the powerful message that sends.  That every single Jewish home will be lit up a little bit brighter with our fervent wish that those flames of hope and prayer will reach heavenward.  And whether you're traipsing through Thailand, on a business trip in Hong Kong, on vacation in Wasaga Beach or sitting at home wherever that may be, we are all praying together for the safe return of our boys.

Because we know these boys.

They are your sons' roommates, your friends' neighbors, your nephews' classmates.

And we need to bring them home.

The Legacy of Ruth

Shavuot, the holiday of the first fruits of the harvest is also celebrated as the day the Jews accepted the Torah.  I've always been a fan of our biblical Ruth, and I love the story that's outlined in the Megilla that we read over the holiday.  A grieving and homeless widow, she shows incredible strength, conviction and determination when she decides to follow her mother-in-law, Naomi, into the unknown.  After the death of her husband, she had the option of turning back towards her people, and starting her life anew, but she chooses to stay with Naomi and face immeasurable hardships instead.  She makes an impassioned plea to her mother-in-law: 'Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.'  These words, in essence, convert her to Judaism and she takes her vow quite seriously.  

I have always been in awe of those who choose to convert to Judaism.  I know that we are not a proselytizing people.  We have no interest in trying to convince mass amounts of people to convert to our beliefs.  And we discourage those who do show interest.  It might seem like a double standard, since we are commanded to love those who convert, but in reality it isn't.  We discourage and push away, but once someone is committed with their whole being to become a Jew, we help, encourage and take them under our wings.  

But sometimes it makes me wonder why anyone in their right mind would want to convert to Judaism.... Besides the hundreds of restrictions, we also do the strangest things.  We build temporary huts in the chilly fall season, live and eat in them for a week straight (which if you live in arctic Canada is not always so fun...) while shaking a long palm frond and a weird looking lemon.  We eat tasteless cardboard matzah for a week in the spring and remove all flour and bread from our homes.  We have our own version of Halloween and on Chanukah we light a new candle every night for eight nights instead of decorating a Christmas tree.  And I haven't even gotten started on the restrictions... No pulled pork, no lobster rolls, no sautéed scallops or oysters on the half shell.  No cheeseburgers, no chicken Parmesan or meat tacos with sour cream.  No sleeping with your spouse for two weeks out of every month, no electricity from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday and no wearing wool and linen together.  And then there are a bunch of commandments that seem nutty as well. The men have to put this box on their forehead and wrap black leather around their arm while they pray, and wear a circle of fabric on their head and an undershirt with long intricately knotted strings attached to it.

Without knowing the reasons behind all of these things, it seems overwhelming.  Even knowing the reasons behind some of them, it's still at times overwhelming.  But most of us were born into it - it's all we know.  We grew up thinking it was completely normal to eat soup while the rain dripped through the wooden slats of the sukkah as our toes froze off.  Or to drive forty miles out of your way while on vacation just to get some food, while every other tourist walked into any of the hundreds of restaurants in the immediate vicinity.  But those not born into it who want to convert make a conscious choice to CHOOSE it - all of it.  The restrictions, the commandments, and the funny rituals.  And then they have to have that awkward conversation with their families explaining why they want to take all of that on for themselves.  That can't be easy, either.  

I know quite a few people who are converts - a couple of them friends - and every once in a while I ask them questions about it.  What made them make this life-changing choice and how difficult was it for their families.  The answers are always different and always interesting.  But none of it ever really affected me personally until my brother got engaged last winter.  He met a lovely girl who was in the process of converting and he fell in love with her.  She happened to be learning here in Israel for a three month period while they were still dating and as a result, we got to know her pretty well.  How she came to make this choice was rather simple.  She had grown up in a very Jewish neighborhood and went to public school with a lot of Jewish kids.  Simple exposure led to some soul-searching as she grew older.  And that led her to start the conversion process which she was in the middle of when she met my brother.  

She's lucky, in that, her parents were - and still are! - very supportive.  Her mother, being a vegetarian, makes the kosher aspect of it a little easier, but that's the simple stuff.  They are completely respectful of her choice and that's not a small thing.  Honestly, she was basically raised with exactly the same family values that I was, just with a different religion.  She chose to build onto an existing solid foundation that her parents had given her and added Judaism to the mix.  Both sides enthusiastically planned for the summer wedding and it went off without a hitch and we all had a wonderful time dancing the night away.  

While it's not easy to step into a large Jewish orthodox family that boasts about its 'yichus' (impressive family lineage) dating back centuries to famous rabbis in Poland, my sister-in-law did so with grace and courage.  I must remind those of us who outwardly show acceptance while inwardly breathing a sigh of relief, thinking it all fine and dandy as long as he's/she's not marrying into THEIR family, that the most impressive 'yichus' in all of our history came from Ruth.  Ruth was an extraordinary woman - pious, modest, loyal and committed to a life of Torah.  While that's impressive enough on its own, she also happens to be the great-grandmother of King David, a larger-than-life figure of our history who was a great king, dedicated to God and a true leader of our people.  God would not have chosen her to be the great-grandmother of King David if she was not a worthy woman.  You certainly can't have better 'yichus' than that.  

We read Megillat Ruth on Shavuot for many reasons.  King David died on Shavuot, so reading about his great-grandmother's life and the choices she made - which ultimately led to the coronation of our king - seems appropriate.  But we also read it because on that same day, we accepted the Torah.  It was our own conversion - not unlike Ruth's - our own declaration that we would follow God's word and His commandments.  Of which one of them is: "love the convert, for you too were strangers in the land of Egypt (Deuteronomy 10:19)."

Chag Sameach!