From One Religion to Another

I've come across stories of parents, disappointed about their children leaving the religion in which they raised their children.  Some of them see it as a failure.  Others have hopes that their children come back.  In fact, my parents and I are one of those stories.

I was raised to be Jewish, and I came to be very proud and passionate about that.  I enjoyed lighting candles for Chanukah.  I loved our Passover Seder.  I even made the decision for myself to be Bar Mitzvahed.  What went wrong?

To be honest, in the back of my mind, I'd always had an attraction to Christianity.  Before I could read, my parents would sometimes read from a children's book of Bible stories.  As Jesus was a major part of western culture (and still is), my parents thought I should learn about him and his story.  I was quite fond of hearing and reading about Jesus.

After being Bar Mitzvahed, I slowly lost interest in religion.  However, after about eight years, I ended up starting to go to church.  I slowly became more in love with Christianity, and I became quite fond of several Progressive Christian writers.  Becoming a Christian helped me better myself, and the symbolic system fit well with me.

I didn't have any problems with Judaism.  None at all.  However, when two people in a romantic relationship break up, does it mean they didn't like the other one, or does it mean that the two just weren't right for each other?  Although I'm still on my spiritual journey, I feel that this is the path that I was meant to be on.

When someone moves from one religion to another, it might be that they had a problem with that religion, but it might just be that it didn't fit them.  Like Felix Mendelssohn was, I am very proud of my Jewish background.  However, I feel that becoming a Christian has brought out some of the best in myself, and I feel that I have been of much more value to the Christian religion as well.

Shalom!