Talking to a rabbi (my husband and I regularly did work for him on properties he owned when we had a plumbing business) just absolutely ruined me on traditional Christianity. Mostly because he was actually such a funny guy. I've never been so entertained talking about religion or anything else. A really smart cookie.
I developed a lot more respect for all religions as soon as I realized that the Witnesses have none and how invalid that is. I've learned something from every person of faith I've ever spoken with, even if I don't agree with them at all. I started picking the brains of anyone I met who was well educated in their own particular faith.
But I got originally became curious about Judaism after my paternal grandfather died and my family, specifically, my aunt, knowing he had been an orphan from age 5, decided to try and find out what his real name and background was. We had always assumed he was Irish, as the name he was adopted under, Rose, is an Irish name.
Imagine our surprise when my aunt found his parents immigration papers into the United States doing this genealogical search, and they were in German...and there were several pictures of them in traditional Jewish clothing of the period and after we got the papers translated, well...we found out my grandfather had been born Jewish, orphaned young (his parents died in the Spanish influenza epidemic and so did his two younger siblings...a brother and a sister) and adopted and raised by a Methodist family in Arkansas when he was 7. Of course his real last name wasn't Rose, either. It was Rosenberg.
The whole thing started when my aunt was puzzled doing the geneaology because we didn't seem to have any connection to any other family in America with the last name of Rose.
I really don't believe my grandfather ever remembered any of that...he lost his family traumatically at quite a young age and had very few memories of his birth family, from what I was told.
