Affirmation: Why Now? || Faith in Flux

As you have seen, my journey thus far has been long, studious, and fully committed to an eventual affirmation. By the time you’re reading this I would have already been affirmed and officially converted. A traditional conversion process takes about a year. So why, then, did mine take over four years to complete? Surely I’m not incompetent. I’ve proven my dedication time and again. I’ve had opportunities to fulfill the goals. So what has held me back? Why now?

If you’ve been with me through this whole series, you’ve seen that the road to affirmation hasn’t exactly been a straight or easy one. I’ve had my fair share of road blocks like moving, ideological differences, or just plain wrestling with my own desires and goals. It’s hard to explain why now, why this exact moment. As I’ve discussed before, finding Judaism Unbound feels like a missing puzzle piece. It provided me with the logistic avenue for conversion that fit within my schedule but also fit with my values and ideals of an ever-evolving Judaism. But there were other factors at play too.

At the beginning of my Jewish journey I was working multiple jobs in order to scrape by during the pandemic. The pandemic made it nearly impossible to find a home synagogue, when I eventually did it was an hour away (more when I moved). I had ideological differences I couldn’t reconcile with at my other local synagogues. These were all enough on their own but I was also struggling during these times to know if my values and beliefs truly had a place in Judaism at all. But then, one shift in jobs changed everything. 

When I left education I was able to leave behind the need for multiple jobs as well. I was able to put more focus on myself and the things that mattered to me. Things like health became more front and center (for better or for worse). More things in my life began to fall into place and become more stable. It was in this time of stability that I found Judaism Unbound and my path forward. 

This all isn’t to say that I don’t struggle still with juggling multiple things. Everyone has several things they’re trying to keep afloat at the same time. To me that’s part of the fun! But without all of these things steadying out and becoming more manageable, I would have never been able to join the Here to Ger class with Judaism Unbound. I never would have learned the life-changing magic of ritual making. I never would have grown confident in my abilities to shift and transform things to make my own way through life. To me, affirmation releases me from the fear of not being enough. It tells me that I am enough exactly as I am. 

In this next part of my series I will be breaking down exactly how I have been able to move forward with my affirmation through rituals of my own making. With the help of my sponsopring rabbi I was able to achieve some pretty incredible things and I can’t wait to share them with you.