Finland: Our Egypt, Part 1

Leaving the Church in 1990 opened up a new reality for me. I was no longer a registered member of a Christian congregation, yet I was not yet Jewish. I suddenly entered a life formally without a religion. Spiritually it was a very empty world. That was a difficult experience since religion and spirituality had been such an important part of my life and personality. But on the other hand, the spiritual vacuum allowed a genuine search that, up until now, had not been possible. I started the exploration and enjoyed the freedom. The odyssey in the spiritual "no-man's land" lasted a few years until our family found a haven in Judaism and Eretz Yisrael.

 

What I found did not seem completely new to me after all, since my previous religion, Christianity, was based upon Judaism, but had been changed and falsified. Now I became eager in my search. I was no longer content with substitutes – I wanted the real thing.

 

The rabbi in Helsinki, Michael Alony, guided my family and I in our first conversion to Judaism. This Orthodox conversion was not the only one for us, but it brought us to Israel. My wife and I both were filled with an urge to come and live in the land of the Jews. We wanted to enter Israel as Jews and our conversion in Helsinki made this possible. The dream of those few years came true when we made aliyah to Israel from Finland in 1996. The move to Israel gave us roots in a completely new setting. The branch connecting us to our old homeland was severed; we were now replanted in a land that hopefully will witness the flourishing of new offspring growing up as Jews.

 

Jewish halacha (law) is very strict on conversion – when we arrived in Israel, we found that our first conversion in Helsinki was not adequate, since our rabbi there was unknown, and therefore had to go through the process once more. This process required years of learning for all of us. Being tested in front of a court of three rabbis is no tea party, but it was worth it. We had to undergo these tests a few times. Finally we were accepted, and my wife and I were married again. We found a congregation, a community of friends. This was our aliyah to Am Yisrael– we became one with the Jewish Nation.

 

Life in Israel is incomparable to anything else. First of all we live as Jews in the only place we can call our own. This is the Jewish state where the national holidays are Jewish holidays. But all that glitters is not gold. In Israel we have to fight and struggle for our very existence, but at least here we are equipped with the means to do so. Threats emanate from inside Israel and from abroad. Is there a gasmask at hand in case of a missile attack? Suicide bombers strike at bus stations. Cellphones are frenetically ringing, everybody is calling to make sure their loved ones are safe. Life in Israel also means more expenditure than income, yet somehow you survive. It must be the land of miracles.

 

But we really and truly love it in Israel, simply because it is home. The sun is warm, the wine is good and whenever we feel like it, we can go up to Jerusalem. My wife and I have not been back to Finland since we arrived in Israel over seven years ago. Maybe we will visit one day, but Israel is our home. Finland represents our Egypt that we left for Eretz Yisrael.

 

 

This is not only my story. Through thick and thin, our family has stayed together. All six of us converted, twice. We are all still here. With no regrets. This is our aliyah to Eretz Yisrael, our settling in the Land of Israel. I am leaving this book, my personal account, as a document, a legacy to my children and, with God’s blessing, their children. Our four daughters have been completely involved in this story all along the way. They were young when we moved from our home in Finland to Australia, started school in a new language and had to adjust to a different environment. Back in Finland it began all over again with new schools, new friends and new languages, this time Swedish and Finnish. Without doubt, moving to Israel was the most difficult of all the moves. Sometimes I feel anxious just thinking about how much we have put them through.

 

Young people are very adaptable, and they certainly learn from their experiences, but my hope and prayer is that we did not make their early years too hard with the many moves and difficult decisions. When we left the Church they followed automatically, because of their young age. Still, for them it meant staying out of confirmation class, when all their classmates attended the Church-learning program. Later on, during our conversion in Helsinki, the girls were old enough, although just in their teens, to accept on their own the new faith and sign a statement declaring their readiness to live a Jewish life and bring up their children in the Jewish faith.

 

As the statement reads: "If I shall be blessed with male children, I promise to have them brought into the Covenant of Abraham. I further promise to bring up all the children with whom God shall bless me in loyalty to Jewish beliefs and practices and in faithfulness to Jewish hopes and the Jewish way of life."

 

My wife Runa, who became Ruth, followed me closely in every aspect of my religious development, and never hesitated about any of our life-changing decisions. We want to see the continuation of our faith in our children. Our conversion is a commitment for life and for generations to come. I want my children to know how privileged I am to have had a chance to gain membership into the Family of Israel. It came with a price, but it is a privilege, not a sacrifice. My prayer is to live a life worthy of the sacred fellowship that we have been privileged to join. 

 

 

(Strangers No More, by Shlomo Brunell. Reprinted with courtesy of Gefen Publishing House 2005 www.gefenpublishing.com)