A Ritual Before Meeting with Your Beit Din for Conversion

This spring I took a class on creating our own rituals with Ammud JOC TorahThe Five Books of Moses, and the foundation of all of Jewish life and lore. The Torah is considered the heart and soul of the Jewish people, and study of the Torah is a high mitzvah. The Torah itself a scroll that is hand lettered on parchment, elaborately dressed and decorated, and stored in a decorative ark. It is chanted aloud on Mondays, Thursdays, and Shabbat, according to a yearly cycle. Sometimes "Torah" is used as a colloquial term for Jewish learning and narrative in general. Academy led by RRC student May Ye.  As I’ve been getting closer to meeting with my Beit DinRabbinic court consisting of three rabbis or learned members of the Jewish community. and completing the final steps to becoming part of the Jewish peoplehood, I found myself wanting to craft a moment for the excitement and nervousness I’m sure will accompany me on that day. Mayyim Hayyim’s “7 Kavanot for Mikveh Preparation” inspired me to begin the ritual with four kavanot as a grounding moment.

4 Kavanot Before Meeting with the Beit Din

1. B’tzelem Elohim. I am made in the image of Gd. I am divine, creative, whole.

2. Eyeh-asher-eyeh. I will be what I will be. What happens will happen. My path is divinity.

3. Elohai neshamahSoul shenatata bi tehorah hi. Gd, the soul you have given me is pure.

4. Be here, now.

Blessing before Meeting with the Beit Din

May it be your will, Creator, that I wrestle with you for the rest of my life. May I build deep Jewish community, filled with ahava and simcha and emet. May I have a deep love of Torah. May I pass down mitzvotLit. Commandment. It is traditionally held that there are 613 mitzvot (plural) in Judaism, both postive commandments (mandating actions) and negative commandments (prohibiting actions). Mitzvah has also become colloquially assumed to mean the idea of a “good deed.". May our people’s minhag, recipes, and jokes bless my children and my children’s children. May my love of the Jewish people grow. May I feel belonging and chosenness in all spaces.

Blessed are you shekhinahThe feminine name of God, expounded upon in the rabbinic era and then by the Kabbalists in extensive literature on the feminine attributes of the divine., lifebreath of the world, May it be your will, Gd of my ancestors, that I be a part of all IsraelLit. ''the one who struggles with God.'' Israel means many things. It is first used with reference to Jacob, whose name is changed to Israel (Genesis 32:29), the one who struggles with God. Jacob's children, the Jewish people, become B'nai Israel, the children of Israel. The name also refers to the land of Israel and the State of Israel. for the rest of my days. Remember me for a full life, of blessings, of compassion. Blessed are you divine revealer for opening my heart to my Jewishness which has always existed.