A reintroduction, I guess.

Hello friends,

I was here once upon a time, back in 2012. At the time, I was learning and exploring Vaishnavism. I was fairly involved at the local ISKCON temple and would occasionally go up to a temple in another city. I figured that was going to be my life. I was 33 back then, had a one year old and another on the way.

These days, I'm 40, have three kids, and a member of the Jewish community. That last part is an odd change, I know. Around 2015, I discovered that my mother's family had fled Europe for the United States. Once here, they had everyone baptized as Catholic in the hopes that the persecution they faced wouldn't follow them to America. My mom and her family had never really gotten along. When I finally made contact with my great-aunt and brought up some genealogical digging, she let me in on the little family secret. At first, I wanted to learn more about their story, then about my family's heritage, and ultimately the religious aspect of Judaism. Here was this part of my life that I had never known and I wanted to know everything about it. My wife (who was about the least religious person I had met) surprisingly felt really connected to Judaism, and ultimately she and my daughters converted.

I decided that it made the most sense to study Judaism deeply. I've been doing rabbinic studies for the past two years and took on a large swath of Jewish observance with my family. It's left me feeling connected to a culture and to a social network, but ultimately spiritually unfulfilled. I've been trying to read the spirituality that I love and have drawn from the Gita into Jewish texts, replacing prayer with japa and meditation. It's not working particularly well, and I think it's because I really just want to engage with what actually inspires me and not read that inspiration into something else.

Of course, it's all the result of my own spiritual exploration - choices that I've made - so I can't really bellyache about it. I'm just not sure what to do about it, either.

Anyway, nice to meet you all again. This was always a good place to learn and connect.

Namaste,

Thank you for your visit and bringing us up to date on your journey of the past few years.

Pranam.

Namaste,
Welcome back and good to see you. Interesting journey; thanks for sharing. I think it is important to connect to our roots and heritage. Nothing wrong with trying to find fulfillment and peace there.