One of the highlights of the coming festival of Shavuos is our reading the Megillah Rus(th) the story of the heroic Moabite princess who abandoned a life of luxury in her homeland to accompany her impoverished mother-in-law Naomi back to Yehuda where she joined the Jewish nation and after her marriage to Boaz became the progenitor of the future Royal House of David and Moshiach (our righteous redeemer) According to the Midrash Ruth Rabbah, she was the daughter of King Eglon and the grandaughter of Balak, kings of Moab.
Shavuos is a time for the Jewish nation to stop and reflect on the thousands of geirim (converts) who have often risked their lives to join the Chosen People, going back to Yisro, the father-in-law of Moshe Rabbeinu and have made major contributions to the well-being of Klal Yisroel.
Among the famous geirim are Onkelos who translated the Chumash into Aramean (Targum Onkelos) when that was the lingua franca of most Jews in the world going back almost 2,000 years ago. More recently during the times of the Vilna Gaon, there was the legendary righteous convert – Avraham ben Avraham (, who gave up a life of nobility as the son of Count Potocki, who was caught by the Polish authorities and burned at the stake on the second day of Shavuos 1749 for renouncing Catholicism and refusing to denounce his new-found faith in Judaism.
Recently with the advent of youtube podcasts, some Jewish podcasts have use the medium to tell the stories of Jews who have fascinating stories to tell. Two such podcast options are Meaningful People and Inspiration for a Nation. Meaningful People started a few years ago with Nachi Gordon and Yaakov Langer. About a year ago they went their separate ways and Nachi was joined by Momo Bauman. Yaakov Langer in turn went on to do interviews with Jews on his own podcast titled Inspiration for a Nation.
Nissim Black Timor-David Aklin
Among some of the Meaningful People podcasts focusing on gentiles who made the leap towards becoming Torah-true geirim (converts) are:
- Ayelet Elnecave – “Why I Left Christianity and Became a Jew” (1 hour and 24 minutes)
- Mayer Weiss – “A Journey from Hispanic Upbringing to Hassidic Judaism” (1 hour and 30 minutes)
- R’ Gavriel Sanders – “The Journey for an Evangelical Christian Turned Rabbi” (1 hour and 30 minutes)
- “The Story of Nissim Black” (one hour and 24 minutes)
- “From the NBA to Judaism – The Story of Amar’e Stoudemire” (one hour and 13 minutes)
- Among the Inspiration for a Nation podcasts is the one hour and 13 minutes story of Timor-David Aklin titled “I Left Islam for Judaism.”
Fascinating Insights into Different Spirtiatual Journeys
Each of the above six podcasts offers fascinating insights into different spiritual journeys of individuals who made not easy choices, but followed what they felt was emes (truth) in order to come closer to G-d. Unlike many Hollywood or entertainment personalities, their decision was not based on a desire to marry a Jew.
In her podcast interview with Nachi Gordon, Ayelet Elnecav told of how she grew up in a strongly Evangelical home and went to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee where her goal was to become one of the world’s greatest missionaries in the history of Christianity.
Ironically, it was studying the history of Christianity in a world history course that Ayelet came to the shocking realization that all her concepts of the truth of Christianity had collapsed into dust. She started studying other religions, including Buddism and even witchcraft and came to the conclusion that they too were not the truth.
Tells Her Story in a Very Humourous Manner
Ayelet took a course on Judaim and came to the shocking realization that this was unique. Whereas other religions discouraged asking tough questions, her professor explained to her that Judaism was a religion that was contantly asking such questions and not afraid to do so. She tells her story in a very humorous manner and that explains why today she is a popular teacher at Neve Yerushalayim seminary in Jerusalem.
As we prepare for the festival of Shavuos and receiving the Torah anew on Mount Sinai, you might find it worthwhile to google some of the above mentioned podcasts and in the process gain valuable chizuk (inspiration) as it will give us new ideas to make changes in our own approach to Judaism and our personal avoda (service) to Hashem some 3,336 years after Matan Torah, the greatest event in the history of not only the Jewish people, but the entire Universe.
Reprinted from this week’s email of The Jewish Connection.
