The Conversion

Michael had been studying at Besorat Mesora, a yeshiva in Jerusalem, for two years now and they still hadn't converted him. Others who had arrived after him had already gone in the mikvah, but Michael was still waiting, probably because he vocally disagreed in class when rabbis said the Torah ordered them to cleanse Judea and Samaria of Arabs. So he was still in yeshiva and his tuition kept being raised—he now paid several thousand shekels a month. His savings were almost completely burned up. Most of the other students paid only a few hundred shekels per month, if they paid anything at all, but they were halachically Jewish. When he asked how much longer his conversion would take, the rabbis gave elusive answers, saying they would know when he was ready, that it was different for different people.
On Shabbat, he had to be the Shabbos goy. They would “ask” him to do things, but he understood that if he refused, it would only add more time to his conversion. He wasn't allowed to touch a bottle of wine on the table. Someone else had to pour it for him. They would never count him in a minyan or zimmun. It was as if he didn't even exist. He couldn't concentrate on his studies anymore and would usually pace around the neighborhood, under the leafy green trees, going through different scenarios: if he was killed by a terrorist now, he wouldn't get a Jewish burial.
On his two year anniversary, he was ready to walk down to the bridge that crossed over the highway and jump off.
“I should convert to Islam,” he told his chevruta, Baruch.
They were sitting in the middle of the beit midrash, next to the bimah. It was ten in the morning, so the study hall was filled with shouts, like at a stock exchange. Michael and Baruch had to shout at each other to be heard even though they sat just inches apart. They were studying Orchot Tzaddikim. Everyone else there was studying masechet gittin, but Michael wasn't allowed in the gemara shiur because he wasn't Jewish, and Baruch wasn't interested in gemara, thinking it a waste of time.
“You can have my Jewish status,” Baruch offered. “I don't really want it anymore.”
Baruch, short and fat with bright red hair, often joked that he only wore a kippah so that when he stared at girls, they would think he was a religious fanatic and not a pervert, that his leering stares were looks of disapproval and not desire. A kippah was like a pair of sunglasses: he could look where he wanted and not worry about people seeing where his eyes pointed.
“Why don't you just get a quickie conversion?” Baruch suggested.
According to Jewish law, to become a Jew all Michael needed was three Jewish witnesses, a lake, and a sharp needle. He didn't have to sit through hours of lectures every day of rabbis trying to brainwash him into being a right wing settler. Of course if he wanted a conversion that would be recognized by the state, that would let him make aliyah, he would need to be a right wing settler. But as far as the ministry of the interior in the sky was concerned, any conversion would do. In Me'ah She'arim, the ultra-Haredi neighborhood which was hostile to the state, they would give him a halachic conversion without all the bureaucracy.
“It's totally kosher,” Baruch said. “I mean, it's a back-alley conversion, so they might do the hatafat dam with a coat hanger, but at least they toivel the coat hanger first.”
Michael stood up. “Let's go,” he said.
“Where?”
“Me'ah She'arim. Now.”
“Okay.”
They walked over to Me'ah She'arim, hiding from the August heat by walking from shady spot to shady spot, sometimes scurrying across Yafo Street in order to walk under a long awning. It was a dry heat, so as long as they stayed out of direct sunlight, their sweat glands stayed off.
When they got to Me'ah She'arim, they walked past the small shops of the treeless street, and asked men in black caftans where they could find a no-frills quickie conversion—just something simple, fast, and kosher. They were directed to Rabbi Horovitz.
His house was in a narrow alley. All of the walls were crumbling. Laundry hung out of the windows: shirts, pants, dresses, but no underwear. They probably dried their underwear inside, for reasons of modesty.
They walked up a flight of chipped cement stairs and knocked on the unpainted door.
A hunched over old woman with tufts of white hair popping out from under a brown scarf peeked out of the door. Most likely the rabbi's wife.
“Hi. My name's Baruch. This is Mik'hael. We want to see Rabbi Horovitz about a conversion.”
She opened the door wide for them and waved impatiently for them to come in. They followed her through a narrow hallway and into a room lined with sagging bookshelves. She went off to get her husband and they sat down on the wooden chairs which threatened to break under their weight. Michael began to cough from the mildew smell wafting from the ancient books.
A moment later, an old man shuffled out and shook their hands. He had long white pe'ot and sky blue eyes swimming behind a sea of wrinkles. He wore the trademark black caftan, but with a knitted white kippah on his bald head.
They all sat down and the rabbi asked, “Who wants to convert?”
Michael raised his hand.
“What about you?” the rabbi asked Baruch.
“No thanks,” Baruch said.
“So then why are you here?”
“Moral support.”
“Moral support,” the rabbi muttered like he was gagging on the words. Then he turned to Michael. “Why do you want to be Jewish?”
The question took Michael by surprise. He had been converting for so long that he forgot why he wanted to do it in the first place. He gave the rabbi a generic answer about wanting to be closer to HaShem and how doing something that was required of him had greater value than doing something voluntarily.
“You know,” the ancient rabbi said, lightly slapping at his white beard with his fingers like it was a light vapor he could brush away. “If I convert you, the Zionist state would never recognize it. You won't get citizenship.
Michael nodded. “I think it's better to be a Jew in hootz la'aretz than to be a gentile in eretz Yisrael,” he said.
Horovitz shrugged, gave his beard a final slap, and set his hands in his lap. He gazed intensely at Michael, who felt like he had been challenged to a game of stare eyes.
“I hate Zionism,” the rabbi said.
Michael kept quiet, not sure how to respond, and held the rabbi's gaze.. That was probably the right response. It seemed to be a rhetorical statement.
“What's the bracha on a pineapple?” Horovitz asked.
“Adamah.”
“You know all the holidays? Shabbat?”
“Yes.”
“And you plan to be religious? Until a hundred and twenty?”
“Yes.”
“Wouldn't you rather have all the gashmius and all the meaninglessness?”
“Feh.”
“Okay then. We'll convert you. You're circumcised?”
“When I was a baby. In the hospital.”
The rabbi nodded. “When do you want to do this?”
“As soon as possible. Today. Can we do it right now?”
“I'll need to find two more rabbis. That won't take too long. There's plenty of rabbis around here. I'll just stop into the beis midrash and pick up a couple.” The rabbi cleared his throat and stroked one of his white pe'ot. “Now, halachically I can't take any money from you for converting you, so it's going to be free.”
Michael was glad to hear that. He was so used to getting ripped off. When he started learning at Besorat Mesora, his tuition was a third of what it was now.
“However,” the wizened rabbi said. “It costs money to heat up the water for the mikvah. So I'll ask you to pay for that.”
“Okay.”
“That's a thousand shekels.”
“I actually don't need hot water. Cold water's fine.”
“Eight hundred.”
“What do you heat the water with?” Baruch asked. “Burning hundred dollar bills?”
After bartering for a while, they settled on a price of seven hundred and twenty shekels. The rabbi went to the beis midrash to round up two more rabbis. Michael and Baruch went to the cash machine to withdraw the money from Michael's account. Then they all met up at the women's mikvah, a small brick building next to a tall, ancient synagogue.
The two other rabbis with Rabbi Horovitz were as old as he was, dressed all in black, one with a black satin kippah, the other with a white knitted kippah.
“Just one minute and we'll start,” Rabbi Horovitz said. He went with the other rabbis into the other room, probably for a cup of coffee.
The mikvah room had blue tiles on the floor and walls. Off to one side of the room were several shower stalls with no curtains. On the other side, tiled steps and a metal handrail led down into a rectangular hot tub. The smell of mold and chlorine hovered in the moist air. It was like a locker room, except this place was cleaner. Probably because it was a women's mikvah.
Michael paced around the tiled floors, stroking the crotch of his jeans.
“Stop jerking off,” Baruch said.
“I have to,” Michael said. “I don't want to be like Daniel.”
Another talmid from Besorat Mesora, Daniel, had also converted. He arrived a year after Michael did, but quickly converted in half a year. That is, it would have been half a year, but ended up being seven moths. Daniel was also circumcised in the hospital as an infant, but when the rabbis went to take a drop of blood from his penis, they found that his circumcision wasn't kosher—there was too much skin left. The test for a kosher circumcision was to pull the skin completely over the head of the penis, then release it and see where it ended up. If the glans was completely uncovered, then the circumcision was kosher. But if even a small bit of the skin covered part of the head of the penis, the circumcision was no good and they would have to cut more off. Daniel had too much skin. He had to go to the hospital, get circumcised a second time, and then wait a month for it to heal before going in the mikvah and becoming Jewish. If Michael had to wait another month, or even another day, he would probably jump off the bridge onto the highway. He had tested himself out and when he was completely flaccid it was too close to call. It depended on if the rabbis judging his penis were strict or lenient. But if he was able to be slightly erect—not rock hard, but not completely flaccid either—then the skin would snap back, completely exposing the head of his penis.
“At least stop making that face,” Baruch said.
“Sorry.” Michael said, trying to remove the look of pleasure off his face, but continuing to stroke himself.
“What's your first mitzvah going to be?” Michael's chevruta asked.
“Asher yatzar. I'll say it when I climb out of the mikvah.”
Baruch laughed.
“You know, Besorat Mesora is going to expel you if you go through with this conversion. They'll throw you out on the street—won't even give you time to pack a suitcase.
Michael still wanted to have a conversion that would that would let him make aliyah. But he couldn't wait any longer to become Jewish halachically.
“I just won't tell them.”
“You're going to keep it a secret?”
“Yeah. You can't tell anyone either.”
“So you're going to pretend you're not Jewish. I used to do that. It won't work.”
The rabbis walked into the room. Michael continued to stroke himself, but tried not to make it too obvious. He yawned and feigned that he was scratching his belly while sneaking a couple fingers down to his crotch to do the fiddling. Rabbi Horowitz had removed his black jacket; his white shirt had deep yellow stains around the armpits. He set a small black plastic box on the white plastic table. Michael supposed that was the box with the needle in it.
“You have something for me?” Horovitz asked.
Michael reached into his pants pocket, taking a surreptitious swipe at his erect penis, and brought out seven hundred and twenty shekels. Horovitz counted the money, counted it a second time, and stuck the bills in the breast pocket of his stained shirt.
“Now I have something for you.” Horovitz opened the black box, took out a needle and pulled the plastic cap off of it, exposing the pointy tip.
When Michael saw a needle, the terror worked like a magnifying glass, making the pin look the size of a jousting spear. The blood instantly fled from his penis, leaving it limp and shriveled.
“Down with those pants,” Horovitz said, setting the needle down on the with table.
The two rabbis hovered in close on Michael's sides, boxing him in. He could smell that they had eaten fish for lunch.
As Michael unbuckled his belt, he tried to discretely bring his penis back to life, tickling it with his pinky and ring finger.
“Yalla!” the man on Michael's left said.
Michael tried to think dirty thoughts, but it was difficult with three Orthodox rabbis standing so close to him that he could smell the fish on their breath and the shampoo in their beards. He gave his penis a rub as he pulled down his pants but it didn't do anything. (This had never happened to him before.) His penis couldn't even stand up to save its own life. It didn't realize what the consequences would be for not standing up at this crucial moment—a second circumcision.
Horovitz grabbed the fleshy part and pulled it over the head of the penis. Michael felt like it might pop inside out and stay that way. The rabbi had coarse hands, not like a man who had spent his life in a beit midrash, but like a man who worked outdoors with his hands, like the rabbis in the days of the gemara. When the old man let go of the skin, it rolled back, caught for a moment at the end of the head like a basketball hanging on the edge of the rim, uncertain if it would go in or not. Then it rolled free, completely exposing the head. Two points.
Michael started to sigh in relief, but was stopped mid-sigh when the rabbi splashed a cotton ball with rubbing alcohol and used it to scrape the side of Michael's penis. It was cold. Then the ancient rabbi picked up the needle and brought it towards the alcohol-swabbed flesh in a jabbing motion.
Micheal's hand, without consulting his brain, slapped Rabbi Horovitz in the face. Hard. He knocked the rabbi back, sending him sprawling against the plastic table.
Michael was aghast at what he had done. Baruch had his fists up, ready if the rabbis decided they wanted a fight. The rabbis had the numbers, but Michael and Baruch had youth. All five people in the room had muscles atrophied from beit midrashes so it would be a sad battle if the rabbis wanted to go at it. Horovitz was either rubbing his cheek in shock and pain or he was stroking his beard in contemplation—it was hard to tell which. The other two rabbis looked around calmly, seeming not to register what had just happened. They were probably still thinking about the gemara sugiya they had been pulled away from.
“I'm so sorry,” Michael said. “I didn't mean to do that. It was just a reflex.”
Horovitz smiled, steadying himself on his feet. “It's okay,” he said. “Happens all the time. It's a normal reflex. HaShem, in his infinite understanding of human nature, which he should understand since he made us, made us hit people who come after our private parts with sharp objects. If HaShem hadn't given us the instinct to protect our genitals from sharp metal objects, the human race might not be around.”
The other rabbis murmured their assent.
“That's also one of the reasons—there are many reasons—but that's one of the reasons that there have to be three witnesses for hatafat hadam. One to take the drop of blood and two to hold you down.”
He nodded at the two rabbis standing to Michael's sides and they grabbed Michael's arms, holding them firmly.
Michael looked away, towards the mikvah water, the rectangular hot tub. The fluorescent lights reflected off the soft ripples. He gritted is teeth and waited for the pain.
“All done,” Horovitz said.
The rabbis released Michael's arms. Horovitz was holding a tissue to Michael's penis. He told Michael to hold it. Michael took the paper and looked at it. There was a round drop of blood in the middle of it.
“I didn't feel anything,” Michael said wonderingly.
“That's because I used a really sharp needle.”
Michael started to pull his pants back up.
“Nu. Keep those pants off. Take off your clothes and get ready.”
Michael put the bloody tissue in his wallet. He planned to later put the tissue in between the pages of a book, like a beautiful autumn leaf that he would press and keep.
He stripped naked and got in the shower. There was no shower curtain, so he turned his back to the rabbis and Baruch. After that, the rabbis inspected his fingernails and toenails to be sure they were properly manicured. Apparently he couldn't become Jewish without a proper manicure and pedicure. Once they were satisfied that his nails were short enough, he was told to get into the mikvah.
He stepped onto the stairs leading into the water. As soon as his toe touched the water, he screamed “FUCK!!!” and jumped away.
“What's wrong.”
“It's ice cold. I thought you were going to heat it.”
Horovitz sighed. “The heater doesn't work.”
Michael figured it didn't matter. He just wanted to convert. He could suffer a few minutes of ice cold water. He descended into the icy water, naked except for his blue and yellow striped kippah. When the water level reached his groin, the pain he had feared from the needle struck him—now like a thousand needles—making him gasp and suck in air through his teeth. He got up to his shoulders. Once a body part got under the water, it didn't feel so cold anymore. He wanted to dunk his head, take the plunge and get the coldness over with, but he figured he shouldn't go under until the rabbi told him to. He didn't want to create any halachic problems.
Rabbi Horovitz started to ask questions.
“You gonna keep Shabbat?”
Michael nodded his head.
“You have to say it out loud.”
“Oh. Sorry. Sure. I mean yes, I'll do Shabbat.”
“Kashrut?”
“Yep.”
“Taharat mishpacha?”
“Yes.”
“You believe there's only one god?”
“Yes.”
“You wearing contact lenses?”
“Yes.”
“Get out of the water.”
“Why?”
“You answered one of the questions wrong.”
“Which one?”
“Your contact lenses are a mechitza. You have to take them out.”
“But I didn't bring a case for them. Do you have one?”
“We don't wear contacts.”
Nobody moved or said anything for a few moments.
“Look,” Rabbi Horovitz said. “You're going to have to choose. What's more important? Contacts or becoming Jewish.”
They managed to find some plastic cups in place of a contact lens case. Not having any contact lens solution, they filled the cups with tap water. Baruch held the right lens cup in his right hand and the left lens cup in his left hand.
“Don't mix 'em up now,” Michael cautioned his friend.
When Michael climbed down the steps a second time, the cold water wasn't as much of a shock to his system. Horovitz started with the questions again.
“Shabbos?”
“Yes.”
“Kashrus? Taharat mishpacha?”
“Yes and yes.”
“How many gods?”
“One.”
“Any other contact lenses in your eyes?”
“No.”
“Okay. Go ahead. Take off your kippah and go under.”
He took off his kippah, set it on the tile next to the pool and went under the water. If the mikvah was like a mother's womb and he was being born again, that was one cold mother. He forgot to close his mouth. When he came up he was coughing and spitting out water.
“Put back on your kippah and say the bracha.”
As he was setting the kippah on his wet hair, he suddenly realized that he didn't know the bracha.
“Which bracha?”
Horovitz sighed, shook his head. “Kidshanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu al mitzvat t'vilah.”
Michael said the bracha, took off his kippah, took a deep breath, and plunged into the freezing water.



Michael felt better. He no longer wanted to jump off a bridge. He just wished he could tell people that he was Jewish now, but if he did, the rabbis would surely throw him out of the yeshiva. He wanted to make aliyah, to spend the rest of his life in Israel, and to do that he still needed a conversion recognized by the state.
He kept the tissue with the spot of blood in his pocket and fingered it as he went about his day. He wanted to show it off, to say hey look at this, but he knew he couldn't. He had to keep his Jewishness a secret for now. And he had to be sure that he wasn't eating bread with only two other men or he would be required to make the zimmun.
His first Shabbat as an official Jew was at the yeshiva. It was an “In Shabbat,” so all the talmidim had to stay. Down in the cheder ochel, as they were bringing out the fish, Rabbi Bauer walked over to Michael and tapped him on the shoulder.
“I need you to do a mitzvah,” Bauer said. “A woman forgot to take out the light in her refrigerator. Can you go help her?”
Michael couldn't think of what to say. How could he refuse without setting off any suspicions?
“I'll save you some fish,” Bauer said.
He apparently thought the shocked look on Michael's face was a fear of missing the fish.
“Okay,” Michael said.
“Thanks a bunch.”
The rabbi told him the address. It was right down the street from the yeshiva.
Michael, trying to force a smile on his face, stood and made his way out of the cheder ochel, up the stairs, and out the door into the street. The street was quiet. Everyone was inside at their Shabbat tables. The only sound was the wind rustling through the tree branches and the muted singing of Shabbat melodies wafting from open windows.
Michael walked around the streets, taking a long detour to get to the Abramovitz fourth floor apartment. He tried to think of a way out of this situation. Was there some shinui he could use to get that light bulb out of there so that Mrs. Abramovitz could close her refrigerator and not have her food spoil? No. There was no shinui. But maybe by the time he got there, the problem would have solved itself. There was no reason for him to stress out about something that might work itself out. Maybe the bulb would burn itself out or maybe they found someone else to turn it off for them.
He walked up to the fourth floor, which was the top floor, and found the door marked Abramovitz. The sounds of voices and silverware tinkling came from the other side of the door. He rapped his knuckles on the wood.
“Come in! Door isn't locked!”
He opened the creaky door and saw the young couple seated at a small table with a white tablecloth covered with a sheet of plastic. There was coleslaw, chopped liver, pickles, gefilte fish. Two candles glowed from within a small glass box set next to the open window. The shelves were lined with gemara sets which looked brand new, their spines uncreased and gleaming. The Abramovitzes were Michael's age, maybe a couple years younger, in their mid-twenties. The man wore a white shirt, tan pants, and sandals. He had a pinched face and clips on his kippah despite only having about a millimeter of hair. He smiled at Michael and pulled his glass of red wine closer to himself. His wife wore a flowing black robe, but it was obvious she was quite pregnant. Her hair was carefully tucked into a scarlet and gold bandana. Not a stray hair showed.
“You must be Mik'hael,” she said, standing and walking over to him. “Thank you for coming. I just bought so much food, enough for the entire week and it would all spoil if it wasn't for you.”
She walked into the kitchen and Michael followed. The cramped room was filled with the smell of burnt chicken. Cholent bubbled on the blech. There was a large refrigerator with an ice maker. The refrigerator door was open; Michael saw it was overflowing with food.
“It sure would be nice if that light bulb wasn't there,” the woman said. “Yep, if someone would remove it, that would be grand.”
Michael stared at the light bulb in the refrigerator for a moment and didn't say anything.
“Be careful,” the woman said. “Don't electrocute yourself or anything.”
Michael placed his hand on the refrigerator door and looked closely at the light, trying to will it to turn off. He wondered if using the Force was allowed on Shabbat.
Finally he turned to her and said, “Look, there's been a misunderstanding. I can't turn off your refrigerator light.”
She furrowed her brow at him. Twice.
“Well I can't do it,” she said. “I'm Jewish.”
“Neither can I,” said her husband, who was leaning through the kitchen door, cradling his glass of wine. “I'm also Jewish. And if someone doesn't do it, the food will spoil. Then we'll have nothing to eat tomorrow or all week. My wife only goes shopping once a week, so as you can see, the refrigerator is stuffed with food for the whole week.”
“Well I can't do it either,” Michael said.
“But you're a goy,” the man said. “Goyim don't have to keep Shabbat.”
Michael felt the blood rising into his head.
“I won't do it,” he said. “And it's very offensive for you to ask me to do it. You should go find some Arab to be your Shabbos goy, not someone who's trying to be Jewish.”
“There's no Arabs around here, and even if there were, I would never let an Arab in my house.”
“Well don't ask me to do it.”
Michael stormed out of the kitchen and strode to the door
“There's more than becoming Jewish than just halacha,” the man called after him. “It's about being holy and having middot, and one of those middot is Chesed. If you don't want to help us now, then how we trust that you'll be loyal if you become a real Jew?”
“I hope your food rots and you eat it and get botulism and die,” Michael said and slammed the door behind him.
When he got back down into the cheder ochel, he squeezed into his seat on the bench and started to eat a chicken thigh. No one had saved him a fish.
It wouldn't be long before the everyone found out that he was Jewish now. He might as well tell them.
He took out the tissue and held it up with both hands. The conversation about the parasha stopped and they looked at the tissue.
“What's that?” one of the talmidim asked. “A Japanese flag?”
“It's my blood.”
“You had a nose bleed?”
“No. It's blood from my penis.”
“You cut yourself shaving?”
He shook his head. “I finished my conversion. The other day I went in the mikvah.”
There were cheers of mazel tov, and then the singing started. They stood up, danced around, and carried Michael around on their shoulders. Usually this was reserved for men who had gotten engaged, but now they made an exception.
The next day, the rosh yeshiva called Michael into his office and asked to see the tissue with the drop of blood on it. When Michael pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to him, the rabbi scrutinized it closely, holding it up to the light as if checking for a water mark. Then the rosh yeshiva pressed it to his face and noisily blew his nose into it. If the rabbi wasn't at least eighty years old and frail as a spider web, Michael probably wouldn't have been able to stop himself from leaping across the desk and strangling the man. The tissue was an irreplaceable memento. But when the rabbi tossed the bloody, snotty tissue onto the desk, Michael didn't pick it up. He just stared at it. Blood pulsed in Michael's temples as the rosh yeshiva told him that he was expelled from Besorat Mesora and that he had to get his things and leave the dorm immediately. Michael didn't look at the rabbi's face. He just stood up and walked out of the office. He wasn't sure where he would go, but he knew it would be far from Besorat Mesora.