Spark Ignited: The Difficult Journey to Orthodox Judaism, The Process and the Perils by Michaela Lawson with Ashirah Yosefah, Menorah Books, Jerusalem; ISBN 978-0-98915-205-1 ©2013, $22.95, p. 164, plus glossary
Reviewed by Fred Reiss, Ed.D.
WINCHESTER, California — Michaela Lawson, author of Spark Ignited with Ashirah Yosefah, is quite clear: religious conversion of any type, particularly the conversion from one religious extreme to another, such as her journey from Fundamentalist Christianity to Orthodox Judaism, is filled with intellectual dissonance, emotional distress, and physical distance. She calls conversion a “process of confusion,” but it much more. Religious conversion is similar to a cultural shock, like arriving as an immigrant in a country of one’s choice without knowing the language, laws, and customs of the people.
Spark Ignited is a guide to help potential converters understand their inner struggles. Lawson describes the religious life of devout Christians, a community about which she has intimate knowledge, which not only consumes their own lives, but extends outwardly, wanting “the entire world to be saved so that they will go to heaven.” Their lives revolve around the question, “What would Jesus do?”
Lawson recounts her own conflict with inherent contradictions within the New Testament, such as resurrection, sin, and the meaning of the expression “to fulfill the law,” as well as with Fundamental Christianity’s presentation of the Hebrew Bible. At some point in her life she came to the realization that the New Testament does not supplement the Hebrew Bible, it supplants it. When she raised questions in Bible class, the answers, such as “to have faith” and “cast out the devil” only lead to more inner turmoil.
Friends shunned her as she moved in their eyes from devout Christian to heretic, resulting in feelings of overwhelming loneliness and self-doubt. She compares the religious convert to salmons swimming upstream to return to the place of their birth—their native spawning grounds—many don’t make it, but those who do find fulfillment. She is telling the reader that leaving the church, or any religion for that matter, is not for the faint of heart.
Spark Ignited is a manual to help neophytes understand alternative conversion procedures, warning of possible perils in the future by not obtaining a strictly orthodox conversion and cautioning the reader to choose their conversion rabbi and Bet Din (the Jewish court that oversees the conversion) carefully, as not all conversion processes are equal. In doing so, she is alluding to the controversy within Judaism of who is a Jew. If the convert plans to make aliyah and become a citizen of Israel under the Law of Return, then the convert must find a rabbi and Bet Din acceptable to the Israeli government. The reason for this warning is that the Law of Return is only applicable to Jews recognized by Israel’s Interior Ministry.
Spark Ignited is a handbook that provides some of the requirements, religious vocabulary, and behaviors a new convert, particularly those coming to Judaism via Christianity, will need to survive in their new religion. Lawson tells the potential convert that Jews and Christians think differently: ask a leader of a Christian Bible class, get an answer; ask a rabbi in a Torah class, and get a question. Even rabbis have a rabbi, so the convert must learn to shrug off their “I know everything” mentality and learn humility. She tells potential converts that Jews are warmly accepting of them, as Jews remember from the Book of Exodus (2:22) that they, too, were “once strangers in a strange land.”
Spark Ignited concludes with three personal stories, one by Avichai Barlinski, one by Yosefah, and one by a person named Yael. Together they show that different people starting on different paths can each arrive at the same place; namely their journey from various sects of Christianity to Orthodox Judaism.
Undoubtedly Spark Ignited, by providing a brief, profound, and insightful glimpse into the conceptual pitfalls and poignant moments in the Jewish conversion process, will be a source of knowledge, comfort, and discernment not only to the one being converted, but also to the members of the congregation which the convert will ultimately join.
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Dr. Fred Reiss is a retired public and Hebrew school teacher and administrator. He is the author of The Standard Guide to the Jewish and Civil Calendars; Ancient Secrets of Creation: Sepher Yetzira, the Book that Started Kabbalah, Revealed; and a fiction book, Reclaiming the Messiah. The author can be reached through his website, fred.reiss@sdjewishworld.com.