Before Times

When I first decided that I needed to embark on the path towards converting, I had been learning as much as I could, in any way I knew how, via the internet. I would spend 6-7 hours/day reading information about Orthodox Judaism. I had no idea how else I could learn, but I knew I needed to find out as much as possible. I stumbled upon many different message boards, blogs, webpages, and mp3 sites. Some of them were better than others. Some of the best:
1. 613.0rg (not 316 as I had written...sometimes, I'm a bit disnumeric.)
2. simpletoremember.com
3. aish.com

I won't post sites for the worst, but I do want to describe some of them:

1. A webgroup advocating that Christians convert to Judaism only to later convert to Christianity in order to be the ultimate type of Christian. This one made me tear up. I did not, and still do not, understand the logic behind this. The site had pages of information about answering questions in certain ways in order to deceive a Beis Din into allowing a Christian to convert. This is the type of group/person/advocacy/action that makes it even more difficult for those of us who are sincere. If I were on a Beis Din and I saw this site, I would probably stop handling conversions, or I would make them even more difficult than they already are.
2. A few websites from the same Rabbi & Congregation which advertise conversions done online. I had a hard time finding out the affiliation, and at the time, I didn't realize that such a thing would almost certainly not be orthodox. I wrote to the Rabbi, feeling it would be less intimidating than my mental image of meeting with one in person, and was told I could certainly go through the classes and just needed to send a check for $500 and he would send me the materials. Thankfully, at the time I didn't have the money (I always knew being a poor student has its reasons), or else I certainly would have purchased it.
3. Websites that would apply only to the most extremely holy people, I think.

Clearly, my mind was being filled with information, but I realized that I couldn't trust most of it and that I didn't have the information or knowledge to cull the quality from the trash. I wish there were more online resources that were reliable or helpful, but I've learned the best thing to do is to immerse yourself in a warm community, find chavrusas and read. Again, I started this blog in the hopes that others in the process would find that there is at least one other person experiencing similar bumps in the road.