When I became Jewish, I began seeing homeless people.

I was not unaware of the homeless before I converted to Judaism. When I moved to Philadelphia in 2008, it was the first time I saw people living on the street. I was shocked. I grew up in rural Lancaster, Pennsylvania. There were poor people, certainly, but no obviously homeless people. So I was unprepared when, while walking to the office on my first day of work in the city, a homeless man accosted me. Unnerved, I passed him without responding. He cursed me. “Welcome to Philly, country boy,” I thought, amused by my uncertainty. When I told friends the story, I made it about myself. And thus I began the process of cynically numbing myself to the sight of people begging in the street. Within a few weeks I was so acclimated to city life that I had adopted the standard reaction to the homeless. I didn’t see them. I didn’t hear them. And I certainly didn’t give them any money.

My conversion to Judaism lifted the veil with which I had covered my eyes. A famous verse from Torah reads, “Tzedek, tzedek tirdof.” (Deuteronomy/Devarim 16:20.) The verse is usually translated into English as “Justice, justice shall you pursue.” But “tzedek,” meaning justice, may also be translated as “righteousness,” and, less exact, perhaps, but more common, “charity.” Thus righteousness, justice and charity are bound together in one concept. We give to others not necessarily because we like to, or even because we want to, but because we are instructed to. (And the repetition of “tzedek” in the verse, unusual in Torah, is interpreted by the rabbis as an indication of its importance.)

On the day of my beit din, the rabbinical “court” with whom I met prior to my conversion, I confessed to my rabbis that, as a result of my studies, I had once again begun seeing the homeless as people. I at that time had not been able to bring myself to give change to anyone who asked, but just as I had not hardened myself to my fellows at one time, the act of breaking old habits would be a process. I continue to work on it. I think this is the purpose of the mitzvot.

Right now you might be wondering: “This is a wedding blog. What does any of this have to do with marriage?”

Jewish values are really universal values. Most people, and all faiths, believe in the importance of charity. And that is something that Shannon and I have in common, despite the fact that she is not Jewish. Tzedakah is the Jewish tradition of charity, and Shannon and I both have embraced it as part of our lives together. We find common ground in the Jewish expression of a universal value.

The last line of our ketubah states, “Together, we will work for peace and justice with empathy and hope, taking action to help heal the world.” We give tzedakah, sometimes in money, sometimes in units of time, as our resources permit. I believe I speak for us both when I say that, as our resources grow, so too will the amounts that we give. To that end, we have a little tzedakah box into which we put change on Shabbat and on holidays. (We inaugurated it during last year’s Rosh HaShanah dinner with 18 cents, 18 being the Jewish symbol for life. Tzedekah is often given in multiples of 18.)

Shannon and I are building our future together with shared values, expressed “Jewishly.”