Journey of Converting to Judaism

It's not easy to convert,

certainly not to Orthodox Judaism,

but you did it. Tell us about your decision

to go on this journey.

Was it because you were in love with Jared

or also with Torah values?

Is a religious Jewish life challenging for you?

So I never normally talk about this,

but we're amongst friends, right? It's just us.

It,

it's funny, in, in retrospect, the

decision is so right and so

obvious, and at the time, obviously, going through,

through the process, I, I stayed very open-minded because

as many of you in this room know, this is

not a commitment you can enter into

lightly. Uh, a decade later, Jared and

I

are grateful every day to have the

grounding of, of the Jewish life that, that we enjoy

together. But at the time, it was quite intimidating.

The,

the amount that I had to learn, the,

the lifestyle that I was taking on.

But

it has been such an enormous blessing in

our lives, and I see this especially as we raise our

family and, and, and our children.

I really think that so much of what makes

Judaism special is how it

ensures connectivity to family

and, and family members. And especially in the roles we find

ourselves in today, where we have an

unprecedented situation of, of two parents working

in, in the West Wing and, and, and raising a young family,

making that time around Shabbat and

around the Jewish holidays to invest

in our relationship with each other, to disconnect from

the world to the extent that, that we are able, is

a tremendous blessing. So I feel incredibly

grateful for the values that

Judaism enables us to, to instill in,

in our children, but also for, for all that it gives back, um,

to me and Jared in our relationship with one another.

So I feel, I feel very blessed.

You asked if, if I did it for love, and

I guess the answer is in part, but no.

Because I actually converted before we became engaged.

I felt that it was incredibly important

to make the decision for myself and myself alone,

and I felt that I needed to feel

the, the connection deeply enough after going

through two

years of learning, that it was something I wanted to do

independent of my love for Jared and

independent of our relationship.

And if it wasn't something I was willing to do independent of

my love for him,

I wasn't sure that it could sain- sustain itself over time.

Mm-hmm.

And I think in retrospect, I'm, I'm really glad that I

looked at it that way because it is a major commitment, and it's been

a very, very, very fulfilling one.

But I don't think somebody could do this for somebody

else. You have to do it for yourself, and, and then it has benefits

for, for the rest of your life.

And that's more than I've ever said on the topic before.

So it's here. It's staying here, right?

Yes.

Yes.