"Converting"

So, I jumped in.  I started attending the Hebrew class that Rabbi teaches on Thursday nights.  I stayed for the afternoon class on Shabbat.  I was excited and enjoying every minute of my new Messianic walk.  I asked one of the young men in the Hebrew class how one goes about becoming a member of the congregation.  My understanding of what he said seemed simple: complete the classes given on Shabbat and the Hebrew course.

When I started attending Sar Shalom, the afternoon class was in the middle of the book, To Be A Jew, A Guide to Jewish Observance in Contemporary Life, by Rabbi Hayim H. Donin.  Immediately following that we started reading, To Pray as a Jew, A Guide to the Prayer Book and Synagogue Service, also by Rabbi Hayim H. Donin. This was a wonderful way for me to start my Messianic experience.  By reading these books my faith deepened and my love for the Jewish people grew.  These books are a must read if you have any interest in what it means to be Jewish.  

I was beginning to have a deeper understanding of who my L-rd was.  For example, the prayers that have been said for thousands of years in Jewish Synagogues, yes the ones in the Siddur, the Jewish Prayer Book, are the same prayers Yeshua and his disciples would have prayed.  These are the same prayers said by the observant Jewish community to this day. How awesome is that!

I was loving my Messianic walk.  But when I would tell my family and close friends that I was "converting" they didn't understand what I meant.  What seemed so easy for me to do, like going Biblically Kosher, was proving to be difficult for some members of my family.  "But we are not Jewish," I was told by my well meaning family, "we have our own traditions."  For me, it wasn't giving up my culture.  It was adding a new dimension, a deeper, richer meaning to it.