Man Converts to Judaism After Discovering Tax Benefits, Regretting It After Discovering Everything Else
He did not anticipate the holidays, the guilt, or the quantity of opinion his mother-in-law would have about his parking.
A 34-year-old accountant from New Jersey completed his conversion to Judaism last spring, citing research he described as "very thorough." The research, he confirmed, consisted primarily of a spreadsheet comparing religious holiday structures and their tax implications. The spreadsheet did not include a column for guilt.
He says the first few months were "manageable." The high holidays were "more than expected." Passover, he reports, took three weeks to prepare for and approximately four hours to survive. "Nobody told me about the Haggadah," he said. "That thing is long. I had questions about the questions."
When asked if he had any regrets, he paused for eleven seconds, which sources close to him describe as his personal record. "No," he said. Then: "Maybe about the parking thing." He did not elaborate on the parking thing. His mother-in-law, reached separately, elaborated at length.