I saw a woman in tears as she stood in the synagogue ballroom

For several years, I attended a local synagogue. Every Sabbath at noon, after hours of prayers and lectures, the community would gather downstairs for a large communal lunch in the ballroom.

One Sabbath, I found myself in conversation with a woman who had been going through the conversion process to become Jewish. She spoke openly about how slow the process felt and how deeply it had been triggering old traumas and feelings of rejection.

She shared that when she reached out to one or more of the rabbis involved in her conversion, she often felt a cold shoulder. They had not been there for her in the way she needed.

At one point she said something that stayed with me: she felt as though she was standing in front of me, but practically dying inside.

From my own exploration of my Jewish roots, I have come to understand that the Jewish people are described as a “Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation” (Exodus 19:6). To me, that suggests a calling to guide others toward greater inner harmony and connection with the Divine. It does not imply superiority, but responsibility — a higher standard of what it means to live as a model of compassion and spiritual depth.

Watching this woman suffer quietly during what should have been a sacred and supportive journey was deeply troubling. The situation became even more startling when I offered to send her an email expanding on some of the ideas we had discussed. She hesitated and said I should not email her, because she was concerned that the rabbis overseeing her conversion might somehow be monitoring her account.

I was stunned that she genuinely feared being watched — that she believed her private communications might be accessed. Whether grounded in reality or not, the fear itself spoke volumes about how unsafe she felt.

I sensed that I might have been one of the few people with whom she shared these deeper feelings. I imagined her days unfolding in a quiet pool of sadness and inner turmoil, while those overseeing her process may have had little awareness of the depth of her distress. It reminded me how easy it is, in any structured system, for authority figures to lose sight of the human heart standing before them.

When I first began exploring Judaism, I thought I was leaving behind what I once called “the land of gurus.” Over time, however, I began to notice that strong hierarchies and deference to authority can appear in many spiritual traditions. Within religious Judaism — as in other faiths — a common response to personal struggle often becomes: “Go ask the rabbi.”

Structure and ritual can provide meaning and stability. Yet I sometimes wondered whether an overemphasis on laws, customs, and repeated prayers could risk overshadowing the inner transformation they are meant to cultivate. At one point, I calculated that fully participating in all the practices of the particular sect I had encountered would amount to nearly one hundred full days a year devoted to religious observance — fifty-two of those days spent reciting the same prayers three times daily.

Ritual can be beautiful. But without heart, it can become heavy.

I felt deep compassion for this woman — a sincere and sensitive soul — enduring so much pain in her attempt to join a faith community. It left me questioning whether the idea of “conversion” sometimes misses the deeper point.

Perhaps the only conversion that ultimately matters is a conversion of the heart.

The Hebrew prophet Ezekiel wrote centuries ago:

" I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you;

I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."

That vision of spiritual renewal — a softened heart, awakened from fear and rigidity — feels universal to me.

More than external conformity, what our world seems to need is this inner transformation.

Too often we keep the mind busy while neglecting the heart.

I look forward to a time when more people experience that quiet, profound heart renewal — the kind that makes us gentler with one another, more aware of suffering, and more courageous in love.

#lovebandb #apoetstale