I’d Be Lost Without the Torah

There is a teaching that every Jewish soul was at Mount Sinai receiving the Torah. We also learn that souls are recycled so that they can complete their mission in life, and that converts had Jewish souls all along – they just didn’t know it. 

I’m a convert to Judaism, and this rings especially true for me. I never really clicked with people until I met Jewish kids in high school and we immediately became friends. Growing up, I dated Jewish boys. The Holocaust deeply disturbed me. 

When I was a child, my mom took me and my sister to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. I saw piles of shoes and a video of the Nazis dumping Jewish bodies into mass graves. I could never get that image out of my head. I had recurring nightmares that I was also in the Holocaust. 

After I converted, I learned that my DNA was just a little bit Jewish – 0.6% Ashkenazi Jewish to be exact. I am part German, so I’m guessing there was some intermarriage in my family. My family’s name is Schindler, so perhaps we helped save Jews during the Holocaust. 

Learning the Torah was what convinced me to convert to Judaism. I’d heard those seemingly preposterous stories about Adam and Eve and Noah’s Ark when I was a kid, and they didn’t make any sense. God seemed angry and bitter. Who wanted to be religious under a God like that?

But once I entered into an Orthodox Jewish conversion program, I learned about the Torah on a deeper level. I studied the commentaries and found that so many of the questions I had in life were answered right there in this book. It also helped me understand the world around me, including where laws and morals come from, and the origin of so many sayings I was familiar with, like “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” and “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” 

Jews are supposed to learn Torah as much as possible. For instance, we do not earn money just to have it — we earn it so we have more free time to study Torah. Every week, I learn Torah with two chavrutas — study partners — over the phone. We discuss the Torah portion, prayer, rituals and customs, and how they all tie into our lives. How Torah is still incredibly relevant to us today. 

Studying Torah is a form of self-care for me. I have an extremely busy and sometimes overwhelming life. I feel like social media, emails, phone notifications and the pressures of modern life are traps for me.

Learning Torah calms me down. It centers me and helps me not only decipher what’s going on in my life, but also in the world at large. It’s my guidebook. Without it, I would be lost. That’s why I relate to the Jews on Har Sinai. 

Learning Torah calms me down. It centers me and helps me not only decipher what’s going on in my life, but also in the world at large. It’s my guidebook. Without it, I would be lost. That’s why I relate to the Jews on Har Sinai. 

This past Shavuot, we celebrated receiving the Torah. We were spiritually lost when we were slaves in Egypt and then physically lost in the desert, too. God gave us the Torah at that time not to make our lives more difficult or tell us what to do, but to show us how to live in the best way. God wants us to be happy. By doing mitzvot, we can become closer to God, feel His presence in our lives and experience true joy. 

On Shavuot, I went to synagogue to hear the Ten Commandments, and it reminded me how they saved me and continue to save me every day. Because of the Torah, I’m in alignment with my Jewish soul. I know what’s really true and what really matters. And, I’m living a fulfilled life I never could have imagined was possible.

Kylie Ora Lobell is the Community and Arts Editor for the Jewish Journal.