Sorry it's been pretty silent on the homefront - my life has been fairly dull.
Well, I finally met with Rabbi Misha about properly beginning the conversion process. He was quite hesitant, which...I'm not sure I was expecting. He was very serious and very blunt with me about not wanting to waste his time with someone who converts and then disappears, and seemed to be most concerned about the fact that all of my close friends are evangelical Christians and I'm not friends with any Jewish people. I think worried that I'll be a Messianic Jew or something like that, which...no thanks.
He said he wouldn't see me again until I've gone to four services and read at least one of the two books he recommended to me. I bought three books on Amazon (take THAT you doubting Rabbi you!), and on Friday night, I went to services for the first time. He told me to write down how I felt about it so that I remember, and I'm just now getting to it.
To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel. The services themselves were fine - lots of singing and standing and sitting. and I was interested in what was going on the whole way through. There was no Torah reading since it was Erev Shabbat, and I'm finding myself interested in how Saturday services are different. (No one goes to those though. If I do go, it won't be until I feel solidly on my feet at Erev Shabbat.) I was concerned about the age of the congregation - with the exception of the nice girl who sat next to me and helped me through, they were all extremely aged. Emiy (the nice girl) mentioned something about a children's something going on in another room, but I'm not sure if that means all of their parents were there too, or if all of these children were being raised by their grandparents.
The congregation was also smaller than I expected. I suppose having been raised in a mega-church, my concept of "normal" is a bit off, but there were definitely less than a hundred people there, maybe less than fifty. To be honest, that made me a little angry about the Rabbi's hesitation with me - dude needs all the congregants he can get. (But then I realize that time spent with me is time not spent with trying to get all his current Jews into seats and engaged.)
As far as any spiritual feelings...I honestly can't say I had any real stirrings. I enjoyed the service, and I didn't feel embarrassed to try and sing along with the prayers even though I didn't know them at all (as opposed to the way I've always felt at church, which is embarrassed all the time even though I know all the songs), and I definitely want to go again, but I wasn't moved in any particular way during it. I'm not bothered by that though.
I do think that I'm going to go again this Friday, and then perhaps after that I'll try the other two Reform shuls in town, just to get a sense of what else there is. He said I had to attend four services - he didn't say where.
