One day, just by accident, I started reading Chaim Potok's "My Name is Asher Lev." Although some people call the book anti-Jewish, I became captivated with the idea that Jews have laws and live by them. That little bit of inspiration sent me back through history to learn at what point Christianity had abandoned Jewish values, what Jewish values it had abandoned, and why Jews have persisted in maintaining these values for 2,000 years. Before long, I was telling people -- actually promising people -- that I would become a Jew.

People ask me when I first knew I had to be Jewish. I don't remember any one particular event. I have a feeling that there was a voice talking to me every night as I slept telling me that I was destined to become a Jew. The more I heard it, the more convinced I became.

I really do believe that I was meant to be a Jew. There is a Chassidic thought that all righteous converts were at Mount Sinai with every other Jew, born and unborn. The difference is converts were born of the "wrong" parents. [I later found out that my great, great, great, great great grandfather was Gov. David Emanuel, who served as Georgia's governor in 1801, and who had converted to Christianity from Judaism.]

I studied for four years before I found the courage to go to a rabbi and ask to be converted. He put me on a long and rigorous study plan after he was convinced of my sincerity. All along I found that my own ideas I had developed before talking with any Jews were in fact Jewish. Sometimes word-for-word. I've met other observant converts with similar experiences.

Many people convert through Conservative or Reform rabbis. But I became Orthodox because I felt that I had to go all the way in order to be consistent and honest with myself.

The basic question I had to ask myself is what makes a Jew? We learn that the Jews are the chosen people. But it is not just that G-d chose the Jews, but more importantly that the Jews chose G-d.

We chose not only to believe in His existence and kingship over the world, but we also chose to accept His commandments. In any conversion, Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox, the male convert must undergo circumcision.

If he had been circumcised as a baby, then even a ritual bris milah must be performed by drawing a drop of blood. Why should anyone want to go through such an ordeal just to say he's Jewish and to go to temple on Friday nights? Circumcision is performed on converts because this is one of the commandments that G-d gave to Abraham. Notice I said commandment. Not suggestion.

We were given more than the 10 commandments. G-d gave us 613 commandments at Mount Sinai. He commanded strict observance of the Sabbath. He commanded us to keep kosher homes, not because kosher food is better for you (would G-d command us to do something that isn't healthy?), but because He wanted us to be holy and separate from the pagan world. For us it should be enough that He commanded it.

My parents taught me to be consistent. It wouldn't be right for me to look at all of America's laws and decide to keep every law except those laws concerned with stealing. Life might be easier if I could take things that don't belong to me, but people can't just choose to observe those laws that are most convenient to them.

In the same sense, I don't feel right going through the Torah and then deciding only to keep certain commandments and not to accept the others because I think they are outdated or inconvenient.

Being honest with yourself and consistent to your principles is never cheap. I had to give up my dream of being a newspaper reporter because American newspapers don't hire people who can't cover a breaking story whenever it happens. And I've had to risk breaking up the good relationship I've had with my parents. Although there is great tension, fortunately I am still on speaking terms with them.

This article was originally published in the Baltimore Jewish Times in 1981.