You hesitate before asking, because you suspect the question will be read as a promise. If I ask what conversion involves, will they think I have chosen it? If I ask what a mitzvah means, am I claiming I intend to keep it?
Set that fear down. A question is not a vow. The whole of Jewish learning is built on questions that precede their answers — the Gemara itself is a long, honest record of people asking before they conclude. To inquire is not to bind yourself. It is to find the ground under your feet.
You may ask without binding yourself. The question is permitted long before the answer is owed.
Orientation Before Authority
This house has a motto: orientation before authority. It means there is real work that comes before you approach anyone who carries weight. That work is locating yourself — understanding what you are actually drawn to, what you are confusing for something else, what words mean before you use them.
Many of the questions burning in you right now are orientation questions. They do not require a decision. They require honesty about where you are. You can ask those of a book, of the tradition, of yourself, with no one owed anything yet.
Carrying the Real Question Forward
There will come a question that is no longer orientation — a question about your own life and what it would mean to live as a Jew. That one is not asked into the air. It is brought, carefully, to a living rabbi who can hear it as the serious thing it is.
But you are not there yet, and you do not have to pretend to be. Ask the orienting questions freely. Let them clear the ground. The heavier question will announce itself, and when it does, a teacher will be waiting — not a screen.