On Thursday they were talking on the radio about an incident in which a monkey had escaped from the Safari in Ramat Gan and was running around the streets of Ramat Gan-Tel Aviv (the monkey was subsequently captured in a tree and returned to the Safari).

I heard them interviewing someone from the Safari - I think it was the director. The conversation was fairly humorous as they discussed how the monkey escaped and if it is dangerous and residents shold beware - the radio show host let out a sigh of relief when she was told that the monkey is not dangerous - she said something to the effect of "so we don't have a King Kong running loose in Tel Aviv?".

The director being interviewed said something very interesting. He said that the monkey is definitely scared and regretting his decision to jump the fence. The monkeys are not familiar with the environment outside the walls of the safari, and he is definitely feeling pressure as he does not know where to go, where to get food, and sees nothing familiar. The monkeys, he said, do not like change.

It seems we are not so unlike... we humans also do not like change. Most of us (myself definitely included) tend to stick with the familiar and rarely go out and take risks in unfamiliar territories.

Lawman's Thoughts on Life's post about his personal situation and the options he is considering is a perfect example of this.

What would you do if you found out you were not Jewish?

If you were suddenly told that you were adopted as a child, a non-Jewish child, and converted to Judaism, you are given a choice whether to accept that original conversion performed in your youth or to reject it and live on as a non-Jew. What would you do?

It happened to someone my wife knew a long time ago and she (17 years old at the time) decided to reject the conversion and live as a non-Jew.

I never really understood why people convert to Judaism. People can continue to live their lives as gentiles and still live meaningful lives. They can change their ways and habits if they are unhappy with the circumstances within which they find themselves. They can change all sorts of things, but to change and convert to Judaism is something I never really understood. Of course there are exceptions where someone is specifically drawn to Judaism and then it seems like an obvious change, but that is not usually the case, especially in today's world of assimilation and intermarriage. The Baleboostah wrote a nice write-up a while back about why she and her family are converting to Judaism and I wonder whether most converts have similar reasons.

I do not know what I would do in that case. A non-Jew could be a wonderful person and righteous and merit a portion in The World to Come, all without converting to Judaism. And he would do that without all the restrictions Judaism would place on him as a convert, let alone the societal (not necessarily halachic) restrictions.

The situation is different, I think, with Baalei T'shuva. Hirshel wrote about how he does not understand why people become frum and how many more are leaving the path than those joining (I am not familiar with the statistics so I do not know if that is accurate or not).

Hirshel is getting a lot of flak because people misunderstood his point. People think he is saying that living a frum lifestyle is not worthwhile or valid. That is not what he meant and while I do not agree with his conclusions, I understand his point.

I think I understand the Baal T'shuva better than I do the convert because the Baa' T'shuva is already Jewish. The Baal T'shuva sees religion as the correct path within Judaism and has decided that he wants to live according to the correct path. It will not be easy making the change, but he is willing to go through the hardships in order to be honest with himself and his beliefs.

I would wish that our society would be more open and accepting of Baalei T'shuva than it currently is. There are countless stories of schools that refuse entry to children of Baalei T'shuva and the like. We seem to want people to become Baalei T'shuva but then don't want to associate with them once they do.