As a music student, I find myself hearing the world differently. I hear melodies in the buzz of everyday life, in the constant rumbling of the city buses that take me to and from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, in the melding of my iPod with my neighbor’s, and in steady rhythms of the coffee shops around the city where I do my homework.
Truly, this heightened sense of music in the world is always with me. My brain is always working out sounds into song and life into music.
Just as I sense and hear the world differently because I am a musician, I find myself more and more each day sensing the world differently because I am a Jew.
My experience is my own. I was not raised Jewish, and I have no Jewish family.
A little over a year-and-a-half ago, I could barely read the Hebrew alphabet and I could not comprehend the concept of fasting on Yom Kippur. Yet, I learned, and I completed my conversion to Judaism eight days before my 24th birthday.
So I am not your average Hillel student or your average Jew. But then again, I’m not sure in this whole process I have met any average Jews — only extraordinary ones.
My first time at Hillel was for a Shabbat service and dinner following a meeting I had had with then Jewish Campus Service Corps fellow, Benji Berlow. I was nervous, confused, and barely knew anything about how the Kabbalat Shabbat service worked.
Living two bus-rides and a mile walk through Kletzsch Park from Congregation Beth Israel where I was doing my conversion study with Rabbi Jacob Herber, I had a happy alternative in Hillel for a service on Friday night. The services there were open to all and continue to be that way two school years later. Students from all backgrounds and observance levels, Jews and non-Jews came together that night and made each other welcome on Shabbat.
As my studies continued, my world began to change, and I began to sense living life as Jew. Melodies for services came easy as the musician in me took over, and I used to find myself humming “Sim Shalom” just as often as the Brahms symphonies.
The smells of Shabbat dinners at Hillel heightened my sense of smell, and the light my first night’s candle for Chanukah is something I will not ever forget. I was experiencing — sensing — the world as a Jew, more and more every day.
I even learned how to taste my life Jewishly when a family invited me to their home one Shabbat afternoon for kosher Chinese take-out they had brought from Chicago. This same family made me feel so welcome at CBI and within the Milwaukee Jewish community that I knew this monumental decision was a right one.
As I write this in the earliest days of 5769, I experience my life as so integrally Jewish that I can barely remember a time when I did not sense it. I credit the Jewish community of Milwaukee for helping me, welcoming me, and teaching me.
I would like to thank Rabbi Herber and the members of Congregation Beth Israel who have and continue to make my Jewish experience one of overwhelming richness and vibrancy.
Additionally, my fondest love and friendship goes out to the supportive staff and my peers at Hillel Foundation-Milwaukee.
I am not an average Jew, but how could I be when I am a part of such an extraordinary Jewish community?
Amanda Ruppenthal is graduate student in clarinet performance and music history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She will be graduating in May 2009. She has been serving as the vice president of Tzedek of Hillel Foundation-Milwaukee since February 2008.
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