As you may know, I’m not Jewish. My wife and kids are. From a spiritual perspective, I’m a Gentile living in the land of Messiah. And I’m satisfied that that’s where I belong, at least for now. But none of the unusualness of this increasingly common situation is going to keep my girls from becoming bnot mitzvah. And that means a bunch of my Gentile relatives and friends, who have never been to a bat mitzvah and don’t know what to expect, are going to come to my girls’ bnot mitzvah… and still don’t know what to expect.

When I first started attending synagogue with the rest of my family, I also didn’t know what to expect. Fortunately, I found the people at Ruach Israel friendly and accepting. But the liturgy overwhelmed me a little (despite the fact that I already knew a little Hebrew), and I didn’t know what the rules were. And it wasn’t until years later that I had learned enough to begin to truly appreciate some of the magic of the weekly Shabbat Shacharit (or even knew how to spell “shacharit”).

So this post I’m writing primarily for those friends and family who will be visiting for the bat mitzvah, to give them a heads-up on some of the things I wish I had known six years ago.

On Friday, I usually post an attempt at humor. (Some times more effective than others.) Today, however, I thought I’d tell the story of how a Gentile pastor’s kid from western Pennsylvania ended up identifying with a Messianic Jewish synagogue.

Firstly, I’m not Jewish. When I was a boy, my father, a pastor, passed on to me (at least in part) his love for the original languages of the Biblical texts along with a healthy respect for Judaism (which at the time I didn’t realize was so unusual or important). He taught me a little Biblical Hebrew (and a bit of Koine Greek).

Then, in my twenties, I married a nice, Jewish girl who believed in Yeshua (which, again, at the time I didn’t realize was so unusual or important). She had been raised Catholic—which is a completely different story that she can tell sometime, if she wants. But she had heard the stories of her family’s nascent Jewish roots.