Review
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Title: Notes of a Jewish Convert to the LDS Church: Conversion of a Soul
Author: Marlena Tanya Muchnick
Publisher: Peanut Butter Publishing
Order from: http://www.jewishconvert-lds.com/
Genre: Religious Nonfiction
Year Published: 1998
Number of Pages: 82
Binding: Paperback
ISBN10:
ISBN13: 0-89716-803-8
Price: $12.95
Reviewed by Kristie Wilkins for the Association for Mormon Letters
It was with great anticipation that I watched the mail for my copy of “Note of a Jewish Convert to the LDS Church: Conversion of a Soul”. As a reviewer this is the first time I have asked for a particular book. After reviewing “A Mormon’s Guide to Judaism” I was so taken with Sister Marlena Muchnick, her testimony, her remarkable love and respect for both the Jewish and LDS faiths, her love of her Savior and her delightful personality that I wanted to know more about her. I wanted to understand the circumstances that led to her conversion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and how a woman of Jewish faith found herself a devoted follower of Christ. Where did her journey begin? Interestingly enough – with universal questions faced by most every person on earth:
“For much of my life before I was led to the church, I thought a lot about spiritual things. I wanted to know how everything began. In the human mind there is always the hunger to know the Infinite Mind, to imagine where humanity is in the universes and what forces have brought us here to suffer, to have joy, to long for an encompassing Being who is incomprehensible. How can we conceive of the Infinite? How can we hope for a final destination beyond the stars when we see no Deliverer? What is the vehicle that will get us safely back to heaven for eternity? It was the answers to these questions that I was really seeking.” [42]
For Sister Muchnick the answers did not come easily and in fact were decades in the making. Marlena was raised in a Jewish home and taught about Jewish beliefs and cultures from early childhood. She describes Judaism as “a religion of history, an awareness of the presence of God in human events.” She shares that much of Judaism was a culture where “we celebrate that relationship throughout our lives.” [7] Although her family were strong in the Jewish culture, her parents’ divorce brought uncertainty into her life. “Divorce in Jewish life is regarded with sadness. We are instructed to choose valorous Jewish parents…. A home that is filled with love is like a sanctuary but a loveless home is against the teachings of God…” [9] Because of the natural upheaval of the divorce on their family, Marelena and her brother were not really encouraged to study as they otherwise would have been and this ushered in a time of apostasy and wandering in her life.
Sister Muchnick’s brother grew and in time married a woman who was a member of the LDS church and eventually converted to the gospel. He tried to share his new faith with his sister but it wasn’t for many more years, a road laden with trials, struggles and personal heartbreak, that she would come to the Gospel. She describes this time of living without searching – “There are times when people feel that the best advice is to listen to their own inner voice, moving with it as they are led by it, forgetting that their own reasoning is not a divine voice and can never be a safe guide to behavior. Human reason is only what we have accumulated in knowledge about our morals and our choices. Even with experience of life, reason alone is never enough guide us. We need divine help.” [14] She struggled with feelings of emptiness and a need for more in her life.
Sister Muchnick turned to service, filling her life with volunteering with refugees from all over the world. As much as she gave to the people she served, they shared with her something that would bless her life and spur her forward on her journey. She shares, “I don’t know how to describe the beautiful spirits of the people I met…except to say their faith in God was unshakeable.” [17] “Of the many things I learned in those years spent with the refugees, one primary idea became crystalized. That idea is simply that God transcends human thought. He is all knowing and all powerful. Even the awareness that there is a Heavenly Father, a divine power, is central to our identity as a race, for we are created in His image, by Him, to one day return to His presence.” [20]
As her life continued to take difficult turns, Sister Muchnick found herself one day drawn to seek a few moments of refuge in an empty LDS chapel near her home. As she sat and pondered and prayed she felt she was not alone, that someone was there and she had been heard. The more often she came back to quietly sit in that chapel, the more blessings were manifest in her life. But the fact that she found God more in an LDS church than in a synagogue was heresy in her Jewish culture, and she struggled to reconcile what she had found with feelings of betraying that which she had always known.
Over the next several years Sister Muchnick had encounters with the missionaries and wonderful experiences with the spirit but could not bring herself to fully embrace the Gospel. She eventually moved closer to her brother and his family and met a couple who were stake missionaries who would change her life. This brother and sister literally and figuratively gave her the room she needed to search, ponder and pray to know God’s will in her life. Their example and love provided the place where the spirit could take over and reach her heart. As she began to seek and receive revelation, she came to know God’s will for her personally and was given Divine direction that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world.
What is so remarkable to me is that Marlena Muchnick has retained her great love for her Jewish heritage and combined it with the light and truth of the restored gospel in a way that magnifies both. She has learned that to embrace the one you do not have to forsake the other.
“Jesus was a Jew. His perfect life, the manner in which he died and his resurrection were a sign to all of us that we are a united people. Our separate beliefs, once understood, once respected, will reinforce that unity. Then we can be worthy brothers and sisters to all we meet. I believe it to also be true that exposure to the Gospel Jesus preached will, without fail, enrich the lives of all Jews who truly seek to know God…. Because I am a Jew who has wholeheartedly embraced the Gospel according to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I can testify as to how both cultures have enriched my life.” [preface]
I have a profound respect for Sister Muchnick. I am grateful that she would honestly and humbly share so personal a story. I believe that her testimony can foster understanding and strengthen relationships between members of the LDS faith and their Jewish friends and neighbors. From that understanding and friendship, testimonies will grow and lives will be illuminated by the light of the truth that Jesus Christ is indeed the Savior of the world.