Stories of Return

The story of the rebellious child has actually happened. Don’t believe me? Just ask my parents...

It is hard work to reconcile—in one’s own mind and heart—belief in an omnipotent Creator with all of the information one acquires from the secular fields of wisdom. It is even more challenging to communicate that fusion to others—friends, family, colleagues—to show people that one can be both a thinking person and a religious person...

Encountering my old friend, I saw that it wasn’t too late, that someone else could leave religious life and survive, even appear to thrive. So a new question arose in my mind: What is keeping me here?

I think the solution to elevating life lies in a box of raisins. It lies in being fully present and noticing the tiny nuances that take place in every bite of our lives . . .

I have written before about not judging others for doing more or less than me. The words may have sounded good at the time, but now I realize that I hadn’t really internalized them...

I’m rediscovering every day that each person has his or her own journey and pace. The key, I think, is not to judge others, and to be an example of goodness...

Here it came. The controversial cliché I’d been hearing so often. Flashy and scandalous, there was only one word that could end a sentence like that. A word I loathe. A word that makes me cringe and brings my blood to its boiling point. The B Word. “Brainwashed?” I asked. “Well, yes,” she conceded. “They think you’ve been brainwashed.”

When I hear the word "religion," I instinctively cringe. My stomach turns. My hands become clammy. My throat dry. On occasion, I have been known to break out in hives. This tends to confuse people who know me as a Torah observant Jewish woman...

I should have seen it coming when he wouldn’t drive to synagogue with us anymore, or eat at our favorite non-kosher restaurants. One minute, he was just our baseball-cap-sporting patriarch, watching videos with us on Saturday afternoon while we munched on gummy candy. The next minute, he was a bearded, kippah-wearing, Torah-quoting stranger…

I lost consciousness of My Self. I felt myself being turned around and around in the current. I did not stand my ground, but rather I had no choice but to let go. It sounds frightening and disorienting, but it wasn't. I had lost My Self, and in that moment, my Soul stepped in as so totally whole and complete where My Self had stood...

Even before I was born, I was being groomed for stardom. The name chosen for me was Kelly Dianne Scott. Not only did it have the distinct advantage of being as non-Jewish as possible, it was carefully structured to look symmetrical up on the marquee...

Like many in my generation, I went looking for truth in Buddhism, meditation, Tarot cards, and "mind-expanding" drugs. What I found left me adrift and afraid, anchored only in cynicism, an Italian boyfriend, and far too much wine...

My journey has taken me from my grandfather's primitive Baptist Church in Arkansas, to an ashram in the Catskills, and finally to Orthodox Judaism...

I was demanding a point blank answer to my question. "Please listen to exactly what I am asking. I just want to know – what’s my bottom line here? That’s all I care about."

Genius that she is, my mom didn't try to force me. She knew better than to give a teenager something to rebel against. We had an agreement; in the house we would keep kosher, out of the house I could do what I wanted...

Like many men and women of my generation, I was caught up in proving myself. One successful academic publication begot more. A teaching award necessitated that I earn the next higher honor...

Not only was I passionate about performance and creative endeavors in general, but, as I got older, I also began to delight in the recognition that it promised...

I searched for spirituality elsewhere: in expressive arts, in the vastness of science, in noble humanitarian causes, in all kinds of places. Places where I believed no one would judge me superficially, by things like how I was dressed...

When I was little, my grandfather would hide a book for me each time he visited our house. I would find it after a long and dramatic search, and with a delight matched entirely by my grandfather's. What we did not realize, and I now realize with immense gratitude, was that he was laying the path for my healing and return...

Any kind of duplicity is both a talent and a burden. And I lead such a life. I am a Jewish woman walking the line between belief and practice...

I come up with excuses for the way I live my life. I power-walk so fast I plow down pedestrians—without remorse. I tell myself it's not my fault they can't keep up with foot traffic, not my fault they can't keep up with life. Life is moving fast and if you slow down, well… I didn't know what would happen since I'd never really tried it...

Besides the problem with the idea of labels in general, and the inappropriateness of the term "Orthodoxy" to a lifestyle that is itself a growth form, I have a very serious issue with the personal limits the term creates...

So there I was at Harvard's most exclusive garden party, unable to imagine any place higher. And all I was doing was standing there feeling relieved that nobody was noticing me...

I was sure that G‑d had given up on me, sure that I was being overlooked. The space between us seemed infinite and never-ending. But something stirred...

Judaism, in Russian eyes, is less like a religion, and more like a chronic, debilitating disease that they sincerely wish I could be cured of sometime very soon...

Trying to keep kosher represents my own evolving relationship with food, G‑d and being a Jew . . .

Sometimes finding peace of mind can be as easy as acknowledging our own will...

This year has been the most meaningful to me as a Jewish woman because the coming of the High Holy Days marks one full year since I decided to explore and immerse myself in Judaism. I actually started this journey as an experiment...

I was trying to fit in, be "cool," and at the time, my profoundly limited vision did not allow Judaism and "cool" to occupy the same sentence (unless the word "not" was involved). So, the novice soul searcher in me sought the teachings of sages and mystics elsewhere – mostly of the psychedelic variety...

Even among "my people" in the Dominican Republic, I am considered rather pale; but in a crowd of Ashkenazi Jews, people tend to see my measly tan as exotic. I only wish I could tell all the gawkers outright that, just two years ago, I was a non-practicing Catholic...

Why would any sane, successful and intelligent human being choose to give up a comfortably "free" secular life for one seemingly dictated only by rules, regulations and customs?

Some of my friends thought I was becoming "religious." That was a good one, considering I always thought an observant Jew was someone who noticed that the carpet needed a cleaning...

When I was eighteen years old, I had an internship at an auction house in Geneva. It was exciting and I befriended many interesting people, and yet, I still felt very much alone...

It was a frustrating see-saw that seemed to have no end to its tilting. Live in the world, or with the world. Neither extreme would satisfy completely, and a balance seemed impossible to achieve....

Why does she take the word of an archeologist at face value while rejecting the historic testimony of an entire nation? Why do I accept an ancient document filled with puzzling statements as my guide for 21st century living?

In that initial rush of excitement, I didn’t really get what it means to be a Jew. That finally having a Jewish soul, fully present and accounted for, doesn’t mean that you’ve climbed to a certain place and now you can just rest there...

Not that I had anything against Rabbis per se, I was just young and more interested in carving out my own brand of spirituality. But, here I was, as low as I had ever felt, knocking gently on the proverbial “heaven’s door.”

The rabbi was speaking of women's inherent spiritual superiority to men. My hand shot up. "Where are the men? Shouldn't they also hear of our elevated status?"

I had never seen such a strong bond and commitment in my life. The mere mention of his name would make their eyes sparkle. I never thought that I would be able to admire and respect someone so much...

From the Rebbe's own personal example, I learned that there was nothing in the world a Jew need fear; that every place and every action and every moment called for a Jew to bring G-dliness into the world...

I turned to my husband and said, "I am ready to look for a house and move into the Jewish community." My husband's stunned face said it all...

They were carrying branches and fruit. They wanted me to wave them in the air, to shake them in all directions. For G-d. For world peace. For unity...

My very own roommate, Jen, the Japanese-American, looked at me and said, loud and clear, "Bad Jew… off to the showers with you!"

On Shabbat morning I would sit beside my grandmother in synagogue, and the exhaustion of the week would melt as we prayed. But as soon as Shabbat ended I would go back to my struggle to create a picture perfect life instead of a real one...

I do not believe the many Germans who say that they knew nothing of the concentration camps. I was there in Germany and I knew about them. I remember feeling that it was terrible, but I had no special feelings for the Jews, because I did not know even one...

If only I understood back then what I'm beginning to understand now, I would have saved myself many fights and arguments. If only I knew that the biggest fear my mother had, or has, is of losing me to some unknown...

I think that I've had the ebbs and flows of this feeling throughout my life. Sometimes I feel so close to G‑d that I can almost touch Him; other times I feel like more of an empty shell rather than someone with a G‑dly soul...

It had been more than half my lifetime since my first visit to Israel in 1978, and I was overcome with palpable excitement and curiosity...

There are more than six billion people living on this planet, and most of them have their own opinions about G‑d. They also have a story behind their opinion…

One night, as I come home from school, I open the front door and hear strange noises coming from the living room, a mixture of radio static and a voice speaking in a foreign language...

We have traversed three continents. Twenty-five hours of flight, and twenty-five hundred years of yearning. We have arrived home with our family. Jet lagged and disoriented but so grateful to have arrived safely in the Land of our forefathers...

I had just come home from having a painful medical procedure when the phone rang. To my astonishment, it was a woman from a local radio station telling me I just won tickets...

Week after week, year after year, decade after decade, I watched this enchanting ceremony, never allowing myself to imagine my mother not being there to kindle the lights. How quickly the years passed. What I thought would never end was ending...

So it's not like I am trying to make some kind of bartering deal with the Cosmic Infinite Source of the Whole Universe. It's just that I realized that maybe I'm a lot more into a vast variety of details than I ever faced – whether it's a bus coming on time, the temperature outside, or even the subtle qualities of a co-worker or mate.

The few brief words I say out loud into the air, I hope are going to be heard by the Cosmic Source of the Universe. And I'm hearing them. So that makes, at least, kind of two of us. But I also am coming to believe that prayers, like a butterfly's fluttering wings, can create vibrations, that can eventually create a full-blown tornado, in some far-flung other place in the world...

As my intellect catches up to my heart and soul, I have begun to understand the fluctuations in my relationship with G‑d. The path to a Torah-observant life is neither direct nor measurable. It winds, it dips and rises, and it can be obscured by mirage

And then I realized, living in Israel is more than just the sum of its parts . . . It is a whole other realm of existence. It’s a parallel world . . .

I never met him, never spent time standing in a room with him, or watched him speak in front of large crowds of people. But still, this man I never met has irreversibly changed my life, the lives of my husband and our children, and, I would imagine, generations to come...