The iceberg
I’m a writer by trade, and Ernest Hemingway is one of my favorite authors. While he has fallen off most curricula, the man won a Nobel Prize for a reason and is worth your time.
He once wrote this:
If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.
This is known as the Iceberg Theory, or, as I prefer, the theory of omission. It applies here more than it seems obvious. Because people see the outward signs of Judaism, like wearing a kippah or putting up a menorah, or even the presence of challah at your local supermarket, and think little of the traditions beneath.
There are thousands of years of history behind the easily visible, and when you’re like me, you take hold of the Jewish iceberg by these things first and have to wrestle with everything found beneath the surface second. It’s a worthwhile endeavor.
See the world through Jewish eyes, says Rabbi S. Live the year. It’s more than services and prayers. It’s bringing values into focus and the steady accumulation of understanding the world from a Jewish perspective. As a convert, you do not necessarily memorize things; you’re becoming them, and they become yours.