To blog or not to blog

Well, I've been toying with the idea to start a blog (one that I'd actually work on on a continual basis).  I guess I've started.  S, here it is.  Great.  Wowwy!  What the hell to write about?  There's a lot going on right now but I don't think I need to go over all of the details of familial life, though I may dabble in that in the future.  Right now I want to talk about something that I hope I'm not alone in: Being a born Jew who was not raised in *ANY* way as a Jew.  There has to be more people like me out there.

I'm going to skip around a bit, sorry.  I'm new to blogging and my mind works in a stream of consciousness way.

It's amazing.  Here I am going to be 34 (tomorrow.  yay me!) and, though I had interest in Judaism growing up (and always identified as a Jew), it wasn't until my wife and I found out we were pregnant that I really got interested.

I went to a conservative temple a few years back and the rabbi scared the shit out of me (as do most people of authority).  I think the whole situation scared me though.  A three hour service where the whole congregation knew Hebrew, knew the songs, knew the Jewy-lingo, knew each other, etc...  I felt like a stranger in a strange land.

A while back my wife and I went to a Unitarian church which was nice enough but there was no direction. No spirituality.  Half the time I went there it felt that people were there more for feeling like they were in a support group than in a house of worship.  I guess churches & temples can have that AA feel to them but still, I needed G-d in my worship not poetry slams and movie night.  I'm not making fun of what they were doing, it just wasn't my bag is all.

Anyway, when I knew we were having a kid, I finally got the balls to really pursue Judaism and, I have the Unitarian church to thank for that.  They had my now rabbi speaking on Passover.  I was hooked!  He was so engaging.  Long story short, my wife and I have been going to his temple ever since.  It's been almost 3 years now.

In those 3 years I've started to learn Hebrew, took a two year Basics in Judaism course, became a Bar Mitzvah and found a spiritual home.  My wife has too and she's in the conversion process now.  Interestingly enough, I feel like this whole process has been like a conversion process for me.  I'm so jealous of our congregation.  Most of them grew up singing the songs, reciting the prayers, celebrating the holidays.  I'm still learning (though I feel much less a stranger than I did in the past).  In these 3 years of being a super jewy-jew, I have yet to find anyone who has a similar story...  The nicest thing though is, because I *feel* like a convert, I can connect with my wife on this.  That feels good.  We're both learning how to be Jews and, how to raise our daughter as one too.

That's all for now I guess.

Cheers, until next time...