I froze. The classroom around me seemed to spin slowly, the familiar sounds receding to a distant hum. Mrs. Greenbaum continued speaking, but she suddenly seemed too far away for me to hear. In what felt like slow motion, I dropped my pen onto my notebook. My mind and heart churned. What had Mrs. Greenbaum just said? Had I misheard her? Had I misunderstood my favorite, dynamic, engaging, amazing teacher? Or had she really just said those words… “You didn’t have to convert… you were chosen, chosen by the Ribbono shel Olam Himself!”

But what if I did have to convert? What if my mother wasn’t born Jewish?

I was so proud to be Jewish. So grateful. So aware of how special it was, and how special my family was, for choosing to be part of Hashem’s Chosen People. My entire life, since way before my conversion when I was eight years old, I’d known how special it was to be a giyores, to have chosen Hashem and His Torah. And then to reaffirm my Yiddishkeit when I became a bas mitzvah, to reaffirm my loyalty to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, to the mitzvos, to the Jewish nation.

But… but maybe Mrs. Greenbaum was right. Maybe… maybe I wasn’t good enough. Because I wasn’t born Jewish.

After that Erev Shavuos lesson, I withdrew into myself. I closed myself off from others, and I stopped sharing my history. Being a giyores was a source of tremendous pride and joy to me. But at that moment I realized that unfortunately, not everyone shared my view. And like every other teenager, I didn’t want people to judge me negatively. If Mrs. Greenbaum — one of the greatest teachers I’d ever had — thought that converts were not as special as born Jews, then what were other people bound to think? After all, she was a teacher, a wise, inspiring, special person.

I was just a teenager, and I had a lot to learn. I had to learn to forgive Mrs. Greenbaum and be able to continue learning from her. I had to learn to filter what people said; to realize that just because someone else’s worldview was different from my own, that didn’t make my worldview wrong. I had to learn that even wise and wonderful teachers are human and can make mistakes. I had to learn to worry less about what others thought about me, and I had to strengthen my emunah in my own worldview, to affirm what I knew to be true: that I was a giyores, and that that was a special, remarkable thing to be.

to be continued…

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Jr., Issue 934)