That was a lovely job you did {leading the service / leyning Torah / chanting the Haftarah / making Kiddush / leading Birkat ha-Mazon}. Did you grow up doing this?
Actually, no. I converted. Really? How long ago? February 6, 1996. I was 23 at that time, and nearly three years out of college. But it was the culmination of about five and a half years of learning, experiencing, exploring, and gradually living Judaism What was your background before that? I was raised Lutheran. I grew up in the small suburban town of Valparaiso, Indiana, home to Valparaiso University (a Lutheran institution) and hence demographically slanted toward the high-church: Lutherans, other Protestant varieties, and Catholics. I knew exactly one Jewish family, who lived a few blocks from us. There actually was a synagogue in Valparaiso, but I never knew of it until my junior or senior year of high school, when it made the news because a fire broke out in the building where it was located (above a storefront) and they eventually built a new building of their own. (I still make a point of driving past it every time I’m home. It’s called Temple Israel. Last I heard, they have a
