Bruce is a ger tzedek who in honor of the 20th annivesary of his giyyur wanted to do a siyyum for daf yomi. These are his remarks from the simcha.
Dear Friends & Family:
This is going to be a long message, folks, so warm up your printers, you may prefer to print it out than read it all on the screen.
I think most of you know that this year I celebrated the 20th anniversary of my conversion. To celebrate, I decided several months ago to teach my daf yomi group the last page of Ketubot
(Kesubos for you Ashkenaz speakers) and then recite the hadran and kaddish, and then host a nice kiddush. I wrote to Art Scroll in
November asking them for an advanced peek at their translation of
Kesubos 112. But the editor, Rabbi
Danziger, wrote to say that they hadn't started, but he suggested that in honor of my simcha I might try translating the page for them and they would use what was usable. Well, it turned out that I did just that.
They published it in June and listed me as one of the editorial contributors.
Last Wednesday I taught the first side of the page to my group at our regular meeting, saving a little bit for the siyum on Sunday. On
Sunday we had 91 people, including all of the senior rabbis of the community, as guests at the Chinese restaurant here. I taught the end of the daf, said the Hadran and Kaddish with very few mistakes
(or at least no one pointed any out) and then, after the first course, I gave a speech which I've reprinted for you below. Believe it or not, I got a standing ovation.
Rabbi Anemer followed and dazzled the crowd as well. As we were about to bench, Rabbi Danziger of Art Scroll comes in. He presented me with another copy of the volume I contributed on. It was autographed and inscribed by almost the entire Art Scroll staff including Rabbis Zlotowitz and Scherman. Then he spoke, starting with a theme similar to that which I spoke about, and then moved onto the subject of converts being inspirations for those who were frum from birth. He noted that his rebbe once asked the class whether they would convert if they learned they had been switched at birth with a non-Jewish

child. Most, he said gave a perfunctory "of course." He thought about it a little and said,
"well yes, but only after two weeks."
Below is some background on what I taught and the speech itself.
At the siyum I taught some Aggadata which first included a story about how Rabbi Zeira made aliya. When he got to the river he found he had missed the ferry. So the Gemara tells us he pulled himself across with a rope. Rashi explains that he built a narrow bridge out of a plank, but needed the rope to maintain his balance as he walked across. Another story was about Rabbi Hanina. The
Gemara tells us that he removed obstacles from the road to Israel. Rashi explains that his purpose was that he did not want pilgrims to hurt themselves on these obstacles and then curse the Land. These stories play a role in the speech. Here it is:
___________________
Rabbi Anemer, distinguished rabbis, friends and family,
I want to thank all of you for coming here today. Although this simcha is another significant milestone for the Daf Yomi group of
Kemp Mill, it is a very special day for me, too, and I am deeply honored by your presence.
Twenty-five years ago, I didn't know an aleph from a bet. Who would have thought I'd be standing here today teaching a bit of
Gemara to so many distinguished rabbis and other talmidei chachamim.
Although it was my idea to celebrate the 20th anniversary of my conversion in this manner, I have been overwhelmed by the response to my siyum invitation from people who received it and from others who learned of my plans and efforts. People came up to me to tell me how moved they were; some said they were in tears. Apparently, word of my celebration has spread beyond this group of friends. Last week I received this correspondence from a total stranger:

"I just received a copy of your invitation to your double simcha.
What an awesome event! MAZEL TOV!! To read further of your background, I went to your website with the conversion article you wrote 19 years ago and ended up with tears streaming down my face while reading! . . . What a moving, informative, awakening article. It has inspired me to be a better Jew.
[I] can't wait to bring your article home and share [it] with my husband. We are members of Har Shalom. I would almost like to share this with our entire congregation! What else can I say? You are an inspiration to all!"
How ironic that people are saying that I'm an "inspiration" when I planned this event to tell you -- and others who couldn't be here -- what an incredible inspiration all of you have been to me. That is still my intent and from where I'll start. But since so many people have asked me to speak about why I became Jewish, I'll briefly discuss that as well.
Since this a Daf Yomi siyum, and all honors really should go to my tireless havrusos, I think its appropriate to tell you how I got started with this two and a half years ago.
First, much credit, and my love, go to my wife Nancy. Not only was she instrumental in pulling this siyum together, she is the one who encouraged me to learn formally with a havrusa or a group. And when I decided to learn Daf Yomi, it was a bigger commitment that
I'm sure she anticipated, but she accepted it with great pride and made sacrifices so that I could attend shiurim or at least keep up with the learning. My daughter,
Rachelli, has also been supportive and helpful. She taught me to read Rashi and would make me read it for her until I got it right.
Unfortunately, she could not be here today.
She is in Israel, as we speak, learning at the NCSY Michlelet study program for girls.
I could not have done this at all without the support and encouragement of both Nancy and Rachelli.
I was inspired to learn Daf Yomi, though, by Rabbi Anemer. Rabbi, you may not realize just how effective you can be by your words and deeds.
You set a true example of how a Jew should never settle back and say he has learned enough. And many of the stories you've told from the

bimah have been sources of inspiration to me. With your permission,
I'd like to retell one that especially drove me to learn daily.
I remember that you spoke about a father of a ba'al t'shuva yeshiva bochur.
The father had no training in Talmud, or even Hebrew. In his later years the father asked his son to teach him what he was learning in yeshiva and to show him why it so engrossed him. A general description led to questions and the questions led to more questions.
Finally they sat down together with a Gemara and studied. So, at a slow pace, the son patiently taught his father an entire blot of Gemara. When they finished the daf, the father announced that he wanted to make a siyum to celebrate the completed study of his first page of Talmud. Furthermore, he wanted his son to invite his rebbe, HaRav
Moshe Feinstein, z'tl.
They held that siyum, even though it was for just a single blot of
Gemara, and Rav Feinstein was there. As I recall the story, the man died the next day.
Initially, when the current Daf Yomi cycle had begun, I didn't realize that our neighborhood already had a small group formed. So I tried
Dial a Daf with the first page of Masechet Shabbat.
I found it a little frustrating. I like to ask my teachers questions; lots of questions. But here I am with my ear to the phone -- for an hour -- listening to a rabbi who couldn't hear me.
I remember on daf hey, the Gemara was exploring the scope of the concept of akira - the lifting up and transfer of an object from one domain to another, on Shabbat.
Reading from the Gemara, the rabbi said that a man placed a pole,
10 t'fachim high, in his r'shut ha'yachid (his private domain). On top of the pole he put a basket. So the rabbi on the phone asks: "What do you have if a fellow in the r'shut ha'ra'bim, throws an object from there, over the wall, and into the basket in the r'shut ha'ya'chid?" To me the answer was obvious,
"Three points!!!" But I had no one there to share with me my discovery that basketball was actually first described by the sages.

Rabbi Yonasan Hirtz told me that he belonged to a Daf Yomi group that met at the Yeshiva. So I went. Quite frankly, the group intimidated me at first.
At that time it consisted of six men, including four rabbis, a former rabbinical candidate, and the most intimidating presence - Judd
Lifschitz. I came home later and told Nancy who was there. Her response was ". . . and they let you in??"
At first it was very difficult for me. I didn't know basic Talmudic expressions and, worse, I was reading from a Soncino translation and constantly flipping back to its glossary to find a word that was being used.
But despite my lack of training, I was warmly welcomed, especially by Rabbi Pinchas Idstein. And I heard that Rabbi Zev Katz had approvingly told the girls in my daughter's class that I had joined his
Daf Yomi group. A week or two later Nancy and I saw Rabbi Idstein at a parent-teacher conference and he was enthusiastic about my attendance, promising Nancy that they would make a "rabbi" out of me. Of course, I'm not yet a rabbi, but Rabbi Idstein wasn't wrong, either. Since my name appeared in the credits for the Art Scroll Talmud, Rabbi Brody's son, Ezra, whenever he sees me, says "Hello Rabbi James."
Since those days, the group has grown a great deal and now includes men of all levels of learning and background. I've come to admire all of them for their dedication, as well as their wives and families who make their dedication possible. Their continual presence urges me to continue onward, as does Judd's harassment of anyone who misses a shiur. Judd is actually a great inspiration -- someone who has been there since the first day the group started and has hardly missed a day of learning despite his long hours at work and writing books. I also want to give special recognition to Sammy
Franco.
Sammy joined us with the first daf of Eruvin. When we completed it, he said the Hadran at the siyum -- held right here -- because it was the first tractate he had ever completed. It was that day I decided I wanted to teach a daf and recite the Hadran myself.
There have been so many people who have inspired me and pushed me towards more Torah learning. Perhaps I should tell you how all

of this began and about those people who most influenced me along the way.
I grew up as an Air Force brat, and I was raised in a generic
Protestant faith that is only experienced in military chapels. My parents had a strong faith in G-d, and passed that along to me, but I never knew them to be particularly zealous or doctrinaire. When my father retired from the Air Force we joined a Presbyterian church in Colorado Springs.
When I was 15 or so -- the age my daughter is now -- I had developed a deep faith in G-d. I even thought that perhaps one day I might want to be a minister. I didn't realize it then, but I had, on my own, already developed certain fundamental beliefs which were uniquely
Jewish, and antithetical to
Christian doctrine. But, as I said, I didn't know this yet.
Our church was a liberal church that believed in inter-faith dialogue.
One Friday night my church confirmation class went to the local synagogue, which was sort of a mishmash between Conservative and
Reform, to observe the service and ask questions of the rabbi.
Someone asked whether there was any significance to the color of the rabbi's yarmulke. He said, yes, he always wants one that matches his suit. Someone else asked why the cantor led the service instead of him. He answered, "because he has a better voice than
I do."
But I was a bit cocky, then, filled with the kind of zeal that a little knowledge and a lot of ignorance can give you when you're young. I tried to bait the rabbi.
"Has the Messiah come yet?" I asked.
"No," he said, "look at all of the suffering in the world."
"When will he come?"
"Certainly not until we get better for him."
"Then why should he come?"
"Exactly."

I realize now that his answers to my questions were brief and over-simplified.
But I was stunned. He hit me with one of my own theories that had no source in Christian doctrine: that Man plays a key role in the salvation of the world; that it is not doomed to destruction, and, that
Man, with G-d's help may be ultimately perfectible.
I later studied more about Judaism and little by little I saw that, it too, shared my belief and faith in mankind, and the strong belief that man must be accountable for his sins, but also given credit for his good deeds. At 16 I decided I wanted to convert.
But my road towards conversion was neither direct nor easy. Like the B'nai Yisrael, I wandered a while in the desert studying Torah as best as I could; at first by myself.
Like Rabbi Zeira, who I spoke of earlier today, I wasn't going to get anywhere if I waited on the bank of the Jordan for the next ferry.
I had to build my own bridges over the rivers that blocked my path no matter how narrow; had I waited I might never have merited to become Jewish.
First, I had to move. I didn't want to yet confront my parents with my decision to convert, but I didn't want to be held back, either. I took a small step when I started college in Greeley, Colorado. There was one synagogue in Greeley, a small reform Temple. They only met once a month or so. I remember my first service there. A man came up to me and said "good Shabbos." I didn't have a clue what he said. While I began learning a few things about Judaism in
Greeley, I soon realized that the tiny Jewish community in a small college town had the deck stacked against it. After Friday night services, Christian missionaries would try to engage Jews in discussions. That was my first, but not last, heated discussion with a
Christian missionary. Looking back I wish I had known the word
"chutzpah" because I would certainly have used it in that argument.
I had to move again. So I transferred to George Washington
University.
Once in Washington, the first big step was my first call to a rabbi. It may not seem a difficult move, but in the mind of a convert, it is a very big step. At first I went to a Conservative synagogue. It wasn't as church-like as a Reform synagogue; it at least had a veneer of

tradition. But like many Conservative Jews, I started with the
Conservatives because it wasn't
Orthodox. Like many of them, I had stereotype images of Orthodox
Jews and could not make sense of their level of observance. That misconception was a major obstacle for me. Fortunately, there were people who helped remove some of the other obstacles that blocked my way, just as Rabbi
Chanina removed obstacles from the roads entering Israel for the sake of its pilgrims.
First there was the cantor's family in that synagogue. Including the rabbi's family, the cantor was the most Jewishly observant in the entire shul.
In fact that family is now Orthodox. But they took me in, invited me for Shabbat meals with zemirot, Passover seders, and made me a part of their family.
After college, I moved to an apartment not far from their home and adopted their level of observance. That made me the third most observant adult in that synagogue.
After two years, I left the Conservative movement suddenly, although the seeds for discontent had already been within me.
I was supposed to meet the rabbi "after Shabbos" to go to a shiva house. I didn't understand until then that the rabbi's definition of
Shabbos wasn't the same as mine. He was gone before the sky was completely dark, and so was his car. Although he had assured me that his conversion had been strictly in accordance with Jewish law, I knew that if the members of the beit din were not at least shomer Shabbat, then my conversion was invalid. That night
I realized that I still wasn't Jewish, and started over.
Things got better, though. I began learning with Rabbi Bertram
Leff, who was then rabbi of the Eastern Avenue branch of Beth
Shalom. He taught me a great deal and in about a year took me to the beit din. He and his wife are in Israel right now, but we visited them in New York recently and he expressed his regrets that he could not attend this particular simcha and that I should pass on his good wishes to everyone here.
I also was fortunate to be adopted by another family, the Libermans, who are represented here today by Sara Rivka, Ruthie and their

mother Esther. My relationship with them had begun before I left the Conservative movement.
But I was always at home in their home, and without their support and informal lessons in what Judaism was all about, I don't know if I would have become Orthodox. Their intense scholarship, love of
Israel, and strong family bonds completely erased my misconceptions about Orthodoxy. Also, I learned that when benching, not every family raps the table when they say "v'al shulchan" -- the Libermans (when they were all together) lifted the entire dining room table.
Rabbi Leff wanted me to live in Georgetown, or near enough to it, because that was becoming a mecca for young single Orthodox Jews.
Rabbi Philip Rabinowitz, z'tl, was the rabbi there. Here was a man who lost his family in the Holocaust while he was learning in
Chicago, lost his wife on the day of his daughter's wedding, and lost his life, murdered 16 years ago by a person who is still unknown. He served on my beit din, married
Nancy and I, and did something I'll never forget. We were married not even two years and had been unsuccessful in having a child. As far as I knew, Rabbi Rabinowitz had no knowledge of our frustration. But he met with us in his home one motzai Shabbat and told us that we would have a child with beautiful eyes.
Three days later he was murdered in that very room. His house was a crime scene and could not be used for shiva. But on the last day of shiva, the police allowed just 10 of us, myself included, to daven shachrit in his dining room.
Later that day, Nancy and I learned that she was pregnant with our only daughter Rachelli, who, indeed, has beautiful eyes. Rabbi
Rabinowitz, in so many ways, helped me build bridges to Judaism, to married life, to parenthood, and to experience intense mourning.
Since the road to married life is filled with many obstacles, I also owe a debt to Suzette Pollak Klein, who is here with her husband Max.
She was the one who convinced Nancy to go out with me a second time. She was also the person who opened her home to all visitors, including Rabbi Rabinowitz's children when they were sitting shiva. Although she was not born into an observant home, she and her late husband Harry Pollak, became observant and raised two children who are also observant and committed to Yiddishkeit. I am privileged to be a talmid of and

a close friend to her son, Rabbi Daniel Pollak, who honored me by coming here from New York with his family to be here today.
I must apologize for taking so long. There are so many people who have inspired me over the years, and I could go on and on. But before I close, I have to give great credit to three people who especially helped me with this project. First Rabbi Idstein. When
Rabbi Danziger of Art Scroll offered me the chance to translate the last daf of Kesubos, I first said to him,
"halevai," if only I had the ability. Furthermore, I was mad at myself that I had wasted 20 years as a Jew without acquiring the skills needed for this task. Rabbi Idstein, who works himself to exhaustion for the sake of Torah, told me that I had to do this project and could, and offered to take time from his family and his work to learn the commentaries with me.
Then I must thank Washington's newest Rav, Rabbi Dovid
Rosenbaum, soon to be the Rabbi of Bethesda's Congregation Am
HaTorah. As I worked on translating the daf, I kept a notebook of what I thought the Gemara and Rashi said. Dovid went over my notes with me and corrected my mistakes and proof-read my typed drafts.
Finally, I need to thank my very good friend, Yehiel Weill. Yehiel worked with me throughout the project. He helped me during late night phone calls when I was struggling trying to figure out the shoresh of irregularly conjugated Aramaic words. Then he spent many nights with me, as late as one in the morning, going over my pronunciation of the text. You see, until recently, Aramaic and I were not on speaking terms. But
Yehiel has changed that. I'm proud to have him as a teacher and as a friend.
Today I've spoken about some of the bridges I've built over more than 20 years to reach this point in my life and to advance my study of Torah. I believe that like Rabbi Zeira, one can -- and must -- bridge all obstacles to his or her spiritual development. As we learn in the Likutei Maharan, "Kol ha'olam koo-lo, gesher tzar m'od,; v'ha'eekar lo l'fached klal." "The whole world is a narrow bridge, but do not fear." Fortunately, there have been many people in my life like Rabbi Haninah who cleared the path and made my journey easier. I have faith that there will be others who will do the same

for me in the future. But I, too, must strive to clear the road for those who will come after me.
Thank you all for coming.