The Conservative Yeshiva summer essay

Compose a 1 to 2 page essay (double-spaced) discussing your religious background, your involvement in the Jewish community, why you want to study at the Conservative Yeshiva and your goals.
I am a product of the Reform Movement. As a high school student I took pride in my Reform upbringing, becoming an active member of my synagogue, NFTY, HUC-JIR Miller High School Honors program, and spent a life changing summer at the URJ Kutz Camp.
I transferred to Binghamton from a community college excited to be a part of a new Jewish community. My first Shabbat on campus was spent with a Hillel staff member, who happened to be my friend from camp. After such a warm introduction to Jewish life at Binghamton, I eagerly anticipated my first Hillel Shabbat experience on campus. I walked into the Reform Minyan that first Friday night, and found six other students sitting in a circle. The service leader mumbled through some prayers, attempting to get through the service as quickly as possible.
Dinner with the rest of the Hillel community afterwards felt a little more welcoming. Comforted by the familiarity of Jewish ritual, I relaxed as a student leader announced the page for Kiddush. As I waited for the familiar prayer I quickly became confused. What were they saying? I know the Kiddush, and this wasn’t it. As we concluded the meal and began singing, I again became uncomfortable. I wondered why we were using a Conservative bencher in a pluralistic setting. Why couldn’t we use the Reform ones?
The next morning my apartment mate and I trekked down the hill to Hillel’s Conservative Minyan. I had never been to anything but a Reform service. The unfamiliar siddur and new tunes intrigued me. I found myself going back week after week even without the security of my roommate, excited to learn more about a flavor of Judaism I was not accustomed to. After getting to know some of the regular Conservative Minyan-goers, I became more interested in understanding what it meant to be an observant Jew. As a Reform Jew, I felt observant. In a Conservative community, for the first time in my life, I felt like there was a whole world for me just waiting to be discovered.
When I returned to campus for my junior year of high school, I was greeted by two new (married) Hillel staff members- Shana Kantor (Director), and Rabbi Shalom Kantor (Hillel at Binghamton’s first ever liberal campus Rabbi.) This was the beginning of one of my most important relationships thus far in my Jewish journey. Rabbi Kantor was hired as the KOACH-Hillel Rabbi, expected to cater to all streams of Judaism, while focusing on the Conservative population at the same time. By the time Rabbi Kantor came to campus I had been appointed chair of KESHER, the Reform Jewish group on campus. This meant that Rabbi Kantor was my advisor. We met weekly. Most of our time was spent disagreeing with each other. Here was this new, young, Conservative Rabbi trying to tell me what the Reform community on campus needed. What did he know? Eventually, we found some middle ground and began to work together. I had found an incredible mentor.
We spent the next two years attempting to build up the Reform community on campus. Unsatisfied with the options I had as a Reform Jew on campus, I began to search elsewhere with Shalom as my guide. He made every aspect of my Hillel experience a learning experience. We spent hours over the next year studying halacha, liturgy, and talking about where I fit in along the Jewish spectrum.
After college I moved to Greensboro, NC to begin a Fellowship at the American Hebrew Academy (AHA), the nation’s only Jewish Pluralistic College-prep Boarding School. I am given the opportunity to mentor teens, create Jewish programming, and continue to study the subjects of my choosing. The pluralistic atmospheres both at AHA and Binghamton have afforded me the opportunity to continue to explore my Jewish identity.
Since I was a young girl, my dream has been to become a Rabbi. I had always assumed that I would attend HUC-JIR just because that’s what you do as a committed Reform Jew. After meeting Rabbi Kantor, I’ve begun to explore all different forms of Judaism. I have realized that I lack many of the text skills and ritual understanding of a more observant lifestyle, something that I hope to learn by attending the Conservative Yeshiva.