Imagine the challenge of learning a foreign language with its strange vocabulary, grammar rules, and idioms. Picture the struggle of moving to a new country and navigating an unfamiliar culture. Now, visualize an adult entering the Yam shel Torah, the “Ocean of Torah,” striving mightily to plumb the depths of the ancient Jewish religion with all its observances and intricate laws while also trying to figure out the subtle social nuances of frum society.
My involvement in Midreshet B’erot Bat Ayin, a women’s Torah study program in Gush Etzion, grants me the privilege of getting to know several converts and students studying for conversion. These women, from an array of nationalities, chose to leave their families, lifestyles, religions, and countries and travel to Eretz Yisrael to embrace the path of Torah. They were led by their strong desire and inner conviction, although they were under no obligation whatsoever. Meet the world of gerei tzedek, righteous converts, who undergo a complete changeover to pursue the truth. I share the story of one such woman, Amber, in hopes that it will inspire each of us to appreciate the privilege we have to be part of the am segula.
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Born in Hollywood, Florida, and raised in Delray Beach, Amber Smith met the description of a typical American girl. She is partially Spanish on her mother’s side and Irish-American on her father’s. During her childhood, Amber’s family celebrated traditional Christian holidays like any secular American family. Although not religious, the Smiths were occasionally “dragged” to church by their more religious relatives. Amber describes her upbringing as one in which ethics and values were enforced. When her family had a meal together, they even included their own prayer of thanks before eating. Always a bit spiritual in nature, Amber would address her own personal prayer to G-d before going to sleep at night.
After graduating high school, Amber began community college to get her associate degree in nuclear engineering with the goal of being a reactor operator. When Amber was about 21, she moved with her family to a small town in Northern Florida where her father became connected to a church through the new school Amber’s sister was attending. “For a while, my parents would wake me up Sunday morning and ask me if I wanted to go to church, and I would say no because at that point I didn’t care about religion,” Amber recalls. She thought that religious people of any faith were fanatical.
One day, however, Amber gave in and went to church with her family. This was the start of Amber’s spiritual journey. “I felt something click inside of me,” Amber says. “This was a powerful moment. I got this hunger that I never had before to learn more.” Every night Amber would spend her time reading the Old and New Testaments and Psalms. Looking back, she refers to herself as one of those people who always wanted to be in church, for any Bible study or get together. “That’s when I started to connect to G-d,” says Amber.
Amber explains that her worship of G-d was personal and she would pray to Him with her own words as is common with devout Christians. (This was before she was aware of hidbodidut!) She also began to repent for things she had done in her youth. “It just happened naturally,” she says. Amber describes this Christian phase of her life as constructive in that it “cleaned her up.” She burned her tarot cards, a form of idol worship, and stopped listening to wayward types of music, which Christianity considered bad for the soul. She also started giving charity and stepped up her modesty by removing any provocative clothing from her wardrobe. As an ardent Christian, Amber wished that everyone would believe in G-d, and so she went to malls with friends to missionize and “bring ‘holiness’ into other people’s lives.”
Although engaged in her newfound belief in G-d and the concepts of Christianity, Amber felt an emptiness inside her. “I felt a kind of sadness after praying to G-d before going to sleep. It was an aching, longing sadness, and I couldn’t get rid of it.” She asked her grandmother, a devout Christian, to explain why she had this feeling. Her grandmother suggested that maybe it was something she had to work through. But it wouldn’t go away.
While in a Florida college, studying elementary education, Amber started attending her grandmother’s charismatic church, where worship was emotional and passionate, as opposed to parents’ more sedate church. “It was there that I felt more free to worship G-d, and my relationship with Him deepened,” Amber shares.
The next chapter in Amber’s life began when she met a woman who would become a dear friend of hers. Amber first met Miri, a middle-aged Conservative Jew, through a mutual friend when Miri was visiting Florida. At that time, Amber was obsessed with near-death experiences. She wanted to hear someone’s experience of going up to Heaven as “proof.” Amber’s first meeting with Miri revealed that Miri had had a near-death experience years earlier. This fascinated Amber but also confused her because according to Christian theology, Jews didn’t go up to Heaven, and here she had met a Jewish woman who had such an account to share.
Over the course of that year, Amber kept in touch with Miri over the phone, discussing conflicting Christian and Jewish ideologies. Simultaneously, Amber became interested in a “messianic temple,” where she was taught that Christian holidays have roots in pagan tradition and that one should celebrate Jewish holidays instead. “In the beginning,” Amber describes, “I became upset and begged G-d to prove me wrong if the new beliefs I was being taught were true, because I had been wrong before.” Slowly, she became more convinced, and on a trip to California to visit Miri for Purim, Amber asked if she could move in with her. Little did Amber know that her short visit would turn into a five-year stay!
Amber was 23 and had completed her associate’s degree in elementary education with plans to pursue her bachelors degree. “Education is important to me,” emphasizes Amber, “but I figured G-d is more important, and I was ready to leave everything for that. I know that was pretty extreme, and I wouldn’t suggest that path for others.” In fact, Amber admits that her parents were totally against her decision to leave university. Amber explains that she was not on the level of being a Jew yet. Her interest was in getting to know Miri better, whom she trusted and had a close relationship with. She felt comfortable with Miri because of her open-mindedness. Miri herself had a limited religious upbringing. She was a secular Jew who explored other religions before her search returned her to Judaism.
For three months, Miri allowed Amber to live with her free of charge until she found a local job. While living with Miri, Amber learned all kinds of new things, like candle-lighting before Shabbos and how to make challa. One turning point for Amber was a video that Miri showed her featuring Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi debating a pastor using Jewish and Christian scriptures. “The rabbi basically proved the pastor entirely wrong, presenting actual evidence that couldn’t be denied. This really shook me up and made me doubt my beliefs. I was very torn,” Amber continues. “This was an emotional thing for me because I was very afraid that if I stopped believing in JC, I would go to hell.”
Amber kept praying to G-d to show her which religion was the truth. “I felt like I was going crazy,” says Amber, “but after the shock, I got angry, wondering how G-d could have let me believe a lie that Christianity was the truth.” After a time of not praying at all, Amber began to seriously explore Judaism. “And then I made the mistake, the worst thing I had ever done,” says Amber with emotion, “which was that I did not speak to my family for two years.” She explains that she felt offended by her family’s being upset with the choices she was making. For those two years, Amber’s parents gave her space. Knowing she was safe, they didn’t check up on her, allowing her to explore on her own. Finally, Amber broke the ice and called her parents asking for forgiveness. Looking back at that chapter in her life, Amber reflects that, because of her experiences, she is now especially sensitive to religious extremes.
Amber had been living with Miri for a year, when Miri was diagnosed with a serious form of cancer, which shook up Amber’s faith because she couldn’t fathom how G-d would lead her to her spiritual mentor only to most likely take her away. When Miri’s condition became severe a couple of years later, Amber partially left her job and received payment from the state to be Miri’s caretaker. For the last six months of her life, when Miri was in hospice, Amber quit her other involvements to solely care for Miri 24/7. Any time she left the house, she found someone to cover for her. She describes that time as “the hardest thing I have ever gone through.”
During this period, Amber was living as a Noahide, keeping the seven mitzvos bnei Noach. Miri introduced her to Rabbi Lazer Brody’s shiurim online, which opened up a whole new world of Torah study as well as access to Breslov women around the world. Amber occasionally expressed her interest in converting to Judaism, but Miri discouraged it.
Looking back at the early stages of her encounter with Judaism, Amber explains that she chose the route of Orthodoxy because she felt that other beliefs are watered down versions. “There has to be a real standard of what Judaism is from the Torah. It’s clear that they kept themselves to a high standard in the Torah. These other people, who eat pork and shrimp and intermarry after it says in the Torah not to – I knew that what they were doing was not right.” Even so, before understanding what the Oral Law was, Amber struggled with things like wearing skirts and not mixing milk and meat. She reflects, “I knew Hashem was pulling me in this direction like a magnet. That was how I felt; I couldn’t resist.”
Toward the end of Miri’s life, Amber describes how Miri was doing a lot of personal study and religious growth herself. “Miri was looking inside and doing a lot of soul searching and repentance; she knew her illness was terminal.” After Miri passed away, Amber worked selflessly to enable her to have a Jewish burial and tombstone, as her own children are very estranged from Judaism. A Chabad rabbi in Sacramento guided Amber with all the details. With Miri’s passing right before Pesach, Amber joined the kind Chabad family for the Seder.
After cleaning out Miri’s apartment, Amber had her own life decision to consider. A friend whom she had met through the Facebook page Breslov Israel lived in Ramat Beit Shemesh and referred her to Midreshet B’erot Bat Ayin to study for conversion. Before flying to Israel, Amber visited her family for three months to reconnect. Finally, she was able to admit to them that she didn’t believe in Christianity and JC anymore. “At last, I felt free, after lying and hiding my beliefs from them, dancing around the truth,” Amber laughs. During her visit, Amber tested herself by not living a Jewish lifestyle to see how she would feel. She kept her faith as a Noahide but didn’t practice the mitzvos she was accustomed to doing with Miri. The only exceptions she made were lighting Shabbos candles one time and fasting on Tisha B’av.
The experiment convinced her. “I felt certain that I could not live as a Noahide,” Amber exclaims. “It wasn’t enough for me. I felt a huge longing in my heart every Shabbat; it was torture not to do anything to observe Shabbat.”
Amber was now fully ready to carry on and shoulder her decision with fortitude. She sold many of her possessions, including the car she had gotten from Miri, in order to pay for her flight and the conversion program tuition. In the beginning, Amber’s family felt hurt by her decision to explore Judaism, thinking that Miri had brainwashed her. They tried to convince her not to go to Israel and convert, arguing that it was foolish to throw away her money and future. When they tried to get into religious debates with her, Amber would respond with love and a desire for amicable relationships. After a year of Amber’s studying in Israel, seeing that their daughter wasn’t changing her mind, Amber’s parents have finally ended the debates and persuasion. “Honestly,” explains Amber, “their biggest fear is that I would cut ties with them again, and that’s legitimate.” Now that she is in close contact with them, sharing videos, messages, and pictures, and having long phone conversations, Amber is grateful that she has been able to bridge the gap.
At this point, Amber has completed her year of learning and is waiting to meet with the Rabbanut in the near future. She has chosen to follow Sefardi minhagim after converting and studies halacha with great intensity. Amber explains the process of her conversion in Israel. When she first entered the conversion program on a three-month tourist visa, she gathered letters of recommendation from people who knew her in Jewish communities to present to the Rabbanut. She explains that the rabbis in the Rabbanut want to see that a potential conversion student didn’t come to Israel on a whim and decide to convert. After reading her story, the Rabbanut interviewed her, trying to discern her sincerity. They tried to dissuade her from undergoing the process and asked all kinds of personal questions to understand her motives.
Amber is thankful that they opened her file after the first meeting. If they had decided not to open her file, she could have appealed it in another six month’s time. With her file opened, she continued her studies for about a year while on an extended tourist visa. Anticipating the second meeting, Amber is ready to present herself to the rabbis, who will assure themselves that she has enough Jewish knowledge and a good grasp of halacha. For a female applicant, the end of the process is approval by the Rabbanut, upon which a meeting is scheduled with a beis din. The beis din looks over the file, asks penetrating questions, and makes a decision if the person can convert. If accepted, the person is called back to the room, where she takes an oath to live a Jewish life and says Shema. The final step is going to the mikva and exiting with a new Jewish soul.
Amber’s biggest challenge thus far has been finances as she is living on savings, not getting help from her family, and working only minimally. Although her family gives her money on her birthday and holidays, they will not fund her conversion, which they disagree with. Other struggles in the beginning included modesty according to halacha and following along in shul. Hebrew language is a current struggle as Amber would like to make aliyah after finishing her conversion.
One thing Amber truly appreciates in Judaism is the sense of community. She describes her wonder at how each member of the community looks out for the next. When someone passes away, for example, a minyan is formed in the shiva house, or if a woman gives birth, people are there to help with meals, etc. Converts, especially, need the community to be there for them, says Amber. Often they don’t have family support and may feel all alone. She notes that it is important to be sensitive to a convert’s past and family. “You may be curious about their journey, but try not to ask them all the time. It can be very frustrating if you are at a Shabbat meal. You don’t want to be interrogated all the time about why you decided to convert. So be sensitive!”
Amber reflects on her religious journey: “I don’t know why Hashem called me; I am very humbled. I don’t feel like I did anything to deserve it. He could have just left me to be a Christian. Why did He choose to show me the truth? I have no idea. I am just really grateful He did!”
