Journeys of the Soul

The Teshuva Journey: Parent-Raising

Michael Gros — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:00:51 +0000

In our previous column we profiled the challenges and exhilaration of the religious journey of a high-powered corporate executive - Yehoshua (Harry) Looks, who became observant while serving as a division president of a Fortune 500 corporation. While his work atop Edison Brothers Stores took him to exotic destinations across the globe, the roots of his and his wife Debbie’s religious journey were literally much closer to home.

Yehoshua was ambitious, focused and had a clear direction of where he wanted to go in life. And yet when his equally persistent six-year old son asked him pointed questions about their family’s religious observance, life for their family took a completely unexpected turn.

Debbie grew up in a strongly-affiliated Reform home while Yehoshua grew up in a less-affiliated Reconstructionist home. Debbie’s mother lit candles every Friday night and the family had Shabbat dinner every week and followed some laws of kashrut.

“Friday night was always important for me, but it was not until I was a teenager that I knew that Shabbat extended until Saturday,” Debbie said.

After their marriage and graduate school, Yehoshua and Debbie moved to St. Louis, MO, and then to Baltimore, MD as Yehoshua rose in the corporate ranks of Edison Brothers. They floated between different synagogues and chaverot (at one point in their journey they even had memberships in synagogues of four different levels of observance!)

In Baltimore, many of their friends from their Conservative chavera sent their children to a local Solomon Schechter school and the Looks family felt it was the right place for them as well. The school was affiliated with the Conservative movement and taught a background of basic mitzvot observance.

After moving back to St. Louis, they enrolled their oldest son Moshe in the first grade, again at Schechter. Moshe soon began noticing discrepancies between the religious practices he was learning in school and the family’s observance at home.

“As Moshe learned more, he started coming home with questions. One day he asked out of blue why don’t we keep kosher? I had never kept kosher growing up. My family belonged to [a] Reconstructionist congregation. I was aware of kashrut but it was a foreign concept,” Yeshoshua said. “I said ‘let me think about it,’ but it really was a way to put off the decision.

“The next day Moshe asked, ‘So?’ We decided then to do it.”

Moshe’s questions became the impetus for the family’s decision, and within a short time the kitchen was kashered. But it was only one of many times they did it – the family kashered their kitchen three or four times in total over the next few years as they became more observant.

The more he learned in school, the more questions Moshe brought home. Ironically for Yeshoshua the questions came at an opportune time in his life.

“As the questions got stronger for me, I was also approaching my midlife crisis. As opposed to buying a sports car, I got into religion.”

Around this time a new Conservative Rabbi came to town. Yeshoshua was drawn to him and the two men began learning Talmud and other sources together. From then on, Yeshoshua’s journey took off like a lightning bolt. He traded his daily 5:30 am racquetball game for a daf yomi shiur and began carting his Gemorrahs and canned food with him on his business trips to the Far East.

Back home the journey was slower for Debbie. Yehoshua jumped into many commitments earlier than her and he needed to learn patience, something hard for him, until Debbie and their children found their own path. The family still belonged to a Conservative synagogue but lived far from it. Once Yehoshua stopped driving on Shabbat, the distance became a challenge.

During one of Yehoshua’s many business trips, Debbie was at home with their children. They had not been to the Conservative synagogue in a while and Debbie missed the social aspects. That Shabbat, the Rabbi’s wife had invited Debbie and her children to come for Shabbat lunch. Debbie was still driving on Shabbat, so she buckled the children in the car and was about to pull out of the driveway. This time it was their six-year old daughter Elka’s turn to make a statement that would change the religious direction of the family.

“I looked in the back and Elka was in her seat crying, just crying, I looked at her and she said to me, ‘you wouldn’t even let me keep the mitzvah of Shabbat!’ I said, ‘sweetie this will be the last time’ and it was,” Debbie said. “You have to take this seriously. You can’t say one thing to your kids and then do something else.”

That was the last Shabbat the family attended the Conservative synagogue. They next joined an open and warm local Orthodox shul. When Moshe graduated from Solomon Schechter and the other parents enrolled their children in public school, the Looks family decided to send him to the Orthodox day school instead.

Next came a family trip to Israel, which clinched the family’s growth and commitment to becoming observant. Again though it was the inspiration of the children – after seeing and living a fully religious life during their stay in Israel, they pushed their family to even higher levels of commitments once back in America.

The Looks family is now geographically dispersed and two of the children are married – the parents are living in Israel and the siblings are in Israel, South Africa and the United States. They are still on paths of growth, but now are all pushing each other.

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Michael Gros writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

Published in The Jewish Press in October 2011

The Teshuva Journey: Of CEOs, Slugs and Shabbat

Michael Gros — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 20:12:28 +0000

When people become observant, they often face certain delicate situations in the workplace, from struggling to find kosher food at meetings to having to leave early on Friday afternoons in the winter to be home for Shabbat. But for a division president of a $1.5 billion retailer, becoming frum led to its own set of challenges, both harrowing and humorous.

Yehoshua (Harry) Looks grew up attending a synagogue affiliated with the Reconstructionist Judaism movement. He was always attracted to the intellectual side of Judaism. After he married his wife Debbie, the couple moved around; from Ohio to New York, then a stop in Boston for business school, to St. Louis, to Baltimore, and back to St. Louis. After shopping around, they eventually joined a Conservative synagogue.

Yehoshua’s spiritual journey started after his rise in the ranks of Edison Brothers Stores. At age forty, after ten years with the company, Yehoshua was promoted to president of the company’s international division. At this juncture, seemingly fulfilled in life, Yehoshua began asking questions about the authenticity of the Torah. These questions ultimately became a spiritual crisis. Based on numerous conversations with the rabbi of the Conservative synagogue, the two men began learning one-on-one together, studying the Talmud and other Jewish sources.

With his appetite for Jewish learning whetted, Yehoshua began to ravenously search for all Jewish sources he could find and began dedicating every spare minute to learning. He traded in his daily 5:30 am racquetball match for a Daf Yomi shiur.

A common challenge for people when they become observant is figuring out what to eat at business meetings and other events, and especially how to get kosher food in places far removed from Jewish communities. However keeping kosher was generally not a challenge for Yeshoshua, and it even helped him out of several sticky situations.

Yehoshua’s position took him on frequent business trips to China to check on factories and to open new offices. Before becoming religious, Yehoshua had been an adventurous eater and eagerly partook of the food at the lavish banquets during the trips. The feasts featured a varied assortment of Chinese delicacies, including meat of questionable origin and even insects.

However one food that Yehoshua could never develop a taste for was slugs, a common item at the dinners. “The fact that I could no longer partake of the meals for dietary reasons was a nice side benefit,” Yehoshua said, smiling.

As he become increasingly religious Yehoshua began bringing canned food with him wherever he went. Noticing this, his colleagues became concerned that he did not have enough to eat. One night in a restaurant in China a coworker, assuming that he could eat all vegetables, ordered for him a plate of string beans. A few minutes later the waiter brought a plate with a beautiful bed of string beans, crowned by lobster sauce filled with fresh pieces of seafood.

Yehoshua’s craving for learning went with him on his trips. Everywhere he went, he brought a Gemarah and his Daf Yomi cassette tapes. At the end of one trip to China, his long-haul flight back to America was delayed by fog in Shanghai.. So with extra time in the airport, Yehoshua sat in the business class lounge listening to his tapes to learn the day’s daf.

Within twenty minutes he was joined by two other frum Jews who were also stranded. Yehoshua shared his tapes with them so they could learn as well.

“Here we were waiting in the airport in Shangai, fogged in, and three yidden were learning the daf!”

Yehoshua’s religious growth came with some challenges at work. One of his superiors in the company was particularly unsettled with Yehoshua’s need to leave early on Friday afternoons in the winter. The boss began keeping track to the minute the time that Yehoshua left each Friday, and became increasingly cold to him.

One Friday the executive called Yehoshua into his office. He angrily berated Yehoshua, accusing him of slacking on the job by leaving early.. After several minutes of harsh attacks he roared at Yehoshua: “What am I going to do if your business falls apart on Shabbat and you’re not there to take care of it?!”

Yehoshua responded with composure and delivered a prefect response:

“You’re going to fire me. If my business falls apart on one day, I’m obviously not doing my job.”

Yehoshua’s boss had no rebuttal. Yehoshua calmly turned and walked out of the office and his boss never said another word to him about Shabbat.

In 1994 the Looks family took a 10-day trip to Israel to tour and study. The trip solidified the religious direction that they were heading in.

As the trip came to a close, Yehoshua, Debbie and their three children all agreed that one day they wanted to come back.

That day came much faster than they expected. In November 1995 Edison Brothers declared bankruptcy. In April 1996, the company bought out Yehoshua’s contract and he left with a severance package commensurate with his 15 years experience at the company.

With their future now wide open, Debbie suggested the family take a one-year sabbatical in Israel. They sold their house and cars and moved to Yerushalayim. The one year became two and then became a commitment to make Israel their home.. Yehoshua eventually became a rabbi. Since then he has worked in outreach and Jewish education in Israel and America, using his years of business experience to help manage Jewish organizations..

Since leaving Edison Brothers, Yehoshua’s life has taken a far different course. Now instead of overseeing the production of clothing based on ephemeral fashion trends, he is living and disseminating a product that’s eternal. And he’s working for a Boss who doesn’t mind if he leaves early on Fridays.

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Michael Gros writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

Published in The Jewish Press in July 2011

The Teshuva Journey: Blame the Amish

Michael Gros — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:57:57 +0000

If you want to know Beth Rubin’s role models to becoming religious, it was the Amish.

Beth* grew up in a very Jewish neighborhood of Philadelphia. Everyone that she knew was Jewish, and they all went to afternoon Hebrew school and had lavish Bar and Bar Mitzvah parties. In such a uniform community people took their Jewish identity for granted and felt no need for religious activities.

However even as a young girl something gnawed at Beth’s insides. She felt that she was missing something. Beth had a deep desire for purity, truth and a meaningful life. When her Nursery School teachers in the Conservative Synagogue sang about Shabbas and talked about Kosher food, Beth decided this was for her.

“I really wanted to live a life where there was more to it,” Beth said. “I wanted to keep Kosher to be close to G-d.”

Growing up in Philadelphia meant frequent school trips to the nearby Amish Country. Beth loved seeing the simple, basic lives lead by the Amish. Having never come into contact with religious Jews, she assumed that the Amish were the only people living a pure, clean lifestyle.

“I thought I belonged there,” Beth said. “I told my mother I was born in the wrong generation. I should have been born in the time of Little House on the Prairie. I wanted to move to the Amish Country.”

After college Beth went not to the Amish Country, but to Texas to attend medical school. Soon after arriving, she was invited to attend a Revival Meeting by a local Born Again Christian group. Beth accepted the invitation out of curiosity.

At the Revival Meeting were hundreds of people singing, clapping and standing on chairs. Energy filled the room, but Beth felt completely out of place.

“I thought to myself, ‘what is a nice Jewish girl doing here?’” Beth said with a laugh.

The event made Beth realize that she could no longer take her Jewish identity for granted. In Philadelphia she didn’t need to do anything to remember she was Jewish, but here in the Bible Belt under the threat of missionaries, she realized she needed to be proactive in practicing her religion.

Not sure where to turn, Beth called the Jewish Federation and asked them to send her materials on local Jewish life. One of the items they sent was a copy of the city’s Jewish newspaper. Flipping through it she saw an ad for a local Jewish outreach and education organization. She was drawn to the ad and called the number.

The organization operated out of nearby Orthodox Jewish community and offered classes and Shabbat hospitality. Beth was invited for Shabbat and loved it. She began attending events in the local Orthodox community and returned for more Shabbat meals. She was especially impressed with the attributes and morals of the people in the community

One day during the week Beth was at a local business. A man passed by who looked like he had just stepped out of Amish Country, complete with a black hat, black beard, suit and all.

“He looked Amish, but I knew he wasn’t. I thought he was the Jewish version of the Amish,” Beth said. “I ran over to him and said ‘I think I need to talk to you.’ I spoke to him, and he introduced me to his wife.”

The couple lived in the local Orthodox community and invited Beth to join them for Shabbat. In time they became close friends. Beth began meeting more people in the community and saw that they were the models of the purity and truth that she valued. By this point, Beth had decided that she no longer wanted to be Amish because she realized that her own religion held the answers for her.

“I just wanted truth and wanted to be around people living a life of truth,” Beth said. “I just wanted to be close to G-d.”

One other event at this time convinced her of the existence of G-d and the truth of Judaism. During the first semester of medical school Beth was in the anatomy lab and saw a cadaver for the first time. She stared at the cadaver’s face and had an epiphany.

“I looked at the face and nothing looked back at me. It was just flesh and muscles and fat and organs. I almost felt at that moment that Hashem is palpable. When I look at you and you look at me, who is looking at me? It’s not your eyeball in you, it’s the Hashem in you looking at the Hashem in me,” Beth said. “My ears started ringing. I said that’s it, it’s Hashem! That was a major realization for me.”

Following this experience, Beth began to see the hand of Hashem more and more in the human body and the entire world. Combined with her new knowledge of Judaism as the source of purity and truth, she began to realize that this was the path that she desired. She is now a fully observant woman living not in Amish Country, but in the Texas community that inspired her return.

* Name and some details have been changed.

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Michael Gros writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

Published in The Jewish Press in June 2011

The Teshuva Journey: The Ties That Bind

Michael Gros — Tue, 17 May 2011 21:06:26 +0000

Sometimes it takes a bit of drama to help spur someone’s religious growth.

Eliahu Levenson began his journey to religious observance in 1984. He had grown up in a non-observant household and had little connection or interest in Judaism. In fact when his sister had become observant four years earlier, he viewed the event like a disinterested spectator from the sidelines. He was so removed from Judaism that the event had no conscious impact on his life.

Eliahu’s own journey began when he was invited by friends to attend a local Orthodox synagogue on Shabbat in Venice, California. He was totally shocked by the experience. He had always thought that Judaism was based solely on blind faith with no room for intellectualism or rationality. Yet in synagogue on that Shabbat he heard a sermon by Rabbi Daniel Lapin that challenged everything he thought he knew about Judaism.

“When I heard him speak my life changed overnight. For the first time in my life I heard a religious discussion that was based on logic and intellect, and not on blind faith. I was stunned. I never imaged there could be anything ‘logical’ about religious doctrine,” Eliahu said.

From that moment, Eliahu was hooked. He engaged Rabbi Lapin in theological discussions and every answer he heard penetrated his soul. He began returning to the community week after week and went to the rabbi and other families for Shabbat meals. He eventually became fully observant through the community.

A few months after beginning his own religious journey, Eliahu became interested in how his sister had become observant. She told him that she had heard a rabbi speaking on a radio program and was extremely impressed with how he presented Judaism. She was so drawn to what he said that she went to meet him in person afterwards, and she eventually became observant through his help.

That rabbi was none other than Rabbi Daniel Lapin. The messages that he presented were the key to bringing both Eliahu and his sister back to Yiddishkeit.

In 1986 after starting his religious journey Eliahu purchased his first pair of Tefillin. At the time he knew little about tefillin and even felt uncomfortable wearing them. He tried putting them on a few times but he could not get excited about them.

However Eliahu realized that if he wanted to change the way he felt about tefillin he needed to commit to wearing them on a regular basis. So he decided that he would begin donning tefillin before his 35th Hebrew birthday, which was several months away.

Eliahu’s birthday fell on a Monday that year, and so promised himself he would begin wearing tefillin one day earlier on Sunday morning. At the time he was a member of his Orthodox synagogue’s baseball team. The games were every Sunday. Eliahu planned to daven in shul in his tefillin and then head to the game afterwards.

Unfortunately Eliahu overslept and missed Shacharis in synagogue. He was now faced with a choice: stay home, put on his tefillin and daven by himself, which would result in his missing the game. Or forgot about his commitment, skip shacharis and head to the game.

The shul’s baseball team was the only Orthodox team in the league and it was having a stellar year. They had a chance at the league championship, a first for the team. Eliahu worried that he would let his teammates down if he missed the game. He decided to go back on his promise to himself, skip that day’s tefillin and go to the game.

It was an exciting, close game. Eliahu was playing catcher. During one of the final innings the opposing team had a runner on third base. Eliahu knew that if the batter hit a ground ball his teammates would throw it home to get out the runner.

The batter hit a low bouncer and the runner took off from third base like a shot. The short stop snagged the ball bare handed and immediately threw it to Eliahu. The throw was too high but Eliahu leapt for it. Eliahu missed the ball and fell back to earth just as the baseman was sliding into home. The baseman slid directly into Eliahu’s leg and Eliahu crumpled to the ground.

People gathered around Eliahu. His teammates picked him up and carried him to a friend’s car. He went straight to the hospital, where x-rays showed that his leg was broken in four places.

“I knew in my heart without any question that I was in the hospital because I failed to honor one of the most important commitments of my life,” Eliahu said.

Eliahu’s leg was operated on in the afternoon and he spent the next two days in the hospital. Eliahu was clearly struck by the irony of being in the hospital on his birthday, the same hospital in which he was born 35 years earlier.

Eliahu later asked his rabbi if it was significant that he spent his 35th birthday in the same place as his birth. Without hesitation the rabbi replied that the 35th birthday was the midpoint of Eliahu’s life. He had spent the first day of the second half of his life in the place he had spent the first day of the first half of his life.

Eliahu’s birthday also marked a major transition in his religious commitment. Though he had missed the first day of his commitment, the event propelled him to take the mitzvah of tefillin seriously and soon afterwards he began to wear them regularly. Thus the event truly was a birth, a new beginning for him in his journey towards observance.

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Michael Gros writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

Published in The Jewish Press in May 2011

Hashem’s Commando: The Journey of Rabbi Lazer Brody

Michael Gros — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 19:23:52 +0000

If there was a contest for a new Jewish Super Hero, Rabbi Lazer Brody would win hands down. Fondly known as Reb Lazer, he’s a decorated veteran of an IDF special forces unit, a Ba’al Teshuva, a Breslever Chassid and a yeshiva mashgiach.

Larry Brody was born in 1949 and grew up in a non-observant home in Silver Spring, Maryland. He made aliyah in 1970 and joined the IDF, where he was placed into an elite Special Forces unit. He participated in many daring missions during and after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. When the First Lebanon War broke out in 1982, the IDF called him up to complete a delicate assignment.

The Soviet Union supported the Arab world in their wars against Israel and the 1982 war was no exception. Placed in the corners of the courtyard of the Soviet Embassy in Beirut were Katyusha rocket batteries which could fire 38 missiles a minute. They had caused significant casualties in the first days of the war. However Prime Minister Menachem Begin ruled out an air or artillery strike out of fear of hitting the embassy. The Israeli military was at a loss of what to do.

The Chief of Staff of the IDF, General Rafael Eitan, decided to send in a Special Forces unit to neutralize the missile batteries. It was a suicidal mission, sending soldiers into a den of terrorists deep in the heart of west Beirut.

Brody was chosen as the second-in-command of the mission. So on the first Saturday afternoon of the war, Brody and eleven other soldiers infiltrated into west Beirut. As soon as they entered the streets they were spotted by snipers. Bullets rained down on them, followed by artillery fire and rockets. Pieces of concrete and shards of glass filled the air. The squad commander was cut in half by a rocket, and then just feet away from Brody, a piece of shrapnel sliced through the thigh of the unit’s radio man named Raffi.

Rabbi Brody hoisted Raffi onto his shoulder and dragged him behind a car where he applied a tourniquet. Sniper fire raked through the car and a piece of a glass cut across Rabbi Brody’s left eye. His eye filled with blood which coagulated very quickly. Brody could not see through his eye and assumed he had lost it forever.

Debris and black smoke filled the air, stinging the soldiers’ eyes and clogging their lungs. Another soldier was killed. Brody, with Raffi on his shoulders, began darting from doorway to doorway to avoid the shooting.

“I can’t believe that any purgatory is worse than that day in Beirut,” Brody said. “I looked at my watch and I anticipated an expected life span of an additional 60 seconds.”

Brody felt helpless, with no ability to get himself out of the situation. He suddenly did something he had never done before – he cried out to Hashem to save him.

“I looked up. All of a sudden it came out of my mouth – ‘Hashem! G-d, get me out of here! Is this want you want from me? Is this it?”

Suddenly he heard a voice call out to him. “Eliezer Rafael,” it called, using Rabbi Brody’s Hebrew name. He had not heard his Hebrew name since his Bar Mitzvah. He realized that his prayers to Hashem were being answered.

“Don’t worry my son. I’m going to take you out of there,” the voice continued. “You need to change your life and I’m going to take you out of here. But you’re going to change your life because this isn’t your war.”

Suddenly 200 feet overhead, screaming out of the sky, came two jet fighter jets with Stars of David on their wings. The ground shook and the planes sprayed the snipers with bullets. Then everything suddenly quieted down.

Rabbi Brody looked up with tears streaming from his good right eye. The tears melted the coagulated blood in this left eye and he began to see through it again.

Just then an IDF halftrack vehicle appeared on the street and four medics jumped out. They took charge of Raffi and the other casualties. The medics told Brody that they had been in east Beirut, which was controlled by Israel’s Christian allies, and had made a wrong turn. As they were trying to make their way back, somehow they had ended up on that street.

The medic vehicle departed and the soldiers regrouped under Rabbi Brody’s command. They continued the rest of the way to the embassy and destroyed the missile launchers, clearing the way for a full-scale IDF invasion of west Beirut.

After the war questions filled Brody’s head. Why did he live through the battle? And what life changes was Hashem asking for?

Brody found his way to yeshiva, first to a Karliner yeshiva and later to Aish Hatorah. There he joined Uri Zohar and other Israelis who were beginning to find their way back to Judaism. Rabbi Brody spent eight years at Aish Hatorah and eventually became a Breslever Chassid. He’s now the Mashgiach of the Chut Shel Chessed Yeshiva and the author of the Lazer Beams website (http://lazerbrody.typepad.com). He has also written or translated ten books.

“My life isn’t my own. It belongs to the Jewish people and the Ribbono Shel Olam. I don’t deserve a moment to live. That’s why I dedicate myself to Him.”

As an IDF soldier, Brody’s goals were clear: obey your commanding officer’s orders and fulfill your mission perfectly. He has the same goals now, but his officer and mission are of a much higher source.

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Michael Gros writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

Published in The Jewish Press in April 2011

Out of Africa

Michael Gros — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 20:10:28 +0000

Julie Kaminsky’s journey to becoming observant was launched in one of the most improbable locations – in the country of Guinea in West Africa. There, a group of religious Muslims inspired Julie to discover her own religion.

Julie grew up in a Conservative Jewish home. After college she wanted to find a unique experience that would allow her to help mankind in a foreign country, so she joined the Peace Corps.

She was supposed to be assigned to a program in Eastern Europe, but one month before graduation she received a phone call telling her that the assignment had fallen through. Would she instead consider going to Guinea? Julie’s fluency in French would serve her well in Guinea, and she was offered the opportunity to teach English in a high school there. She agreed and ten days after graduation she left for Africa. Among the items she took with her was an ArtScroll Siddur, which she had received from her brother, who himself had become a little more observant in college.

Julie’s small village in Guinea was populated with devout Muslims. Julie was very open about her religion and wore a Jewish star around her neck. The town’s residents treated her well, and actually looked up to her because they knew that many of their religious beliefs originated in Judaism.

“They thought I was amazing, Judaism – that’s the basis of their religion, Everything comes from our religion. All they wanted to do was show off their knowledge - they told me, ‘we know about Abraham and Moses.’ They loved it when they first saw my ArtScroll siddur – they would see the Hebrew and compare it to their knowledge of Arabic,” Julie said.

The townspeople peppered Julie with many questions about Judaism and wanted to know how it compared to Islam. For example they recited blessings after meals and prayed five times per day, ritually washing their hands, legs and back each time. They wanted to know how Julie prayed, but because she did not do it regularly she was at a loss to answer.

“There were all these parallels to stuff that I knew. It was so much part of their life that I felt left out since Judaism wasn’t so much part to my life,” Julie explained. “They related to me by the fact that I had a religion – they asked me, ‘When do you pray? What do you say?’ but I had trouble answering their questions.”

Within the first week Julie burned through all 10 romance novels that she had brought with her. She then dove into her ArtScroll siddur, pouring over each page and every footnote to try to find answers to the questions she was receiving. The ideas she was reading began to penetrate her soul as well. She used her ample free time for introspection on her religious upbringing compared to the practices she was seeing and reading about in her siddur.

Julie also learned more about Shabbat from her ArtScroll siddur. She didn’t know very much about it, but tried to try what she knew, which proved to be very easy as there was no electricity and few distractions in Africa. Julie began lighting Shabbat candles, though the candles melted almost as soon as they were lit.

Julie’s mother had sent her a Jewish calendar to help her keep track of the holidays. Julie had a friend also serving in Guinea for the Peace Corps. Her friend had become religious in college and though they lived 100 miles apart (a six day’s journey!), the two women tried to get together for most of the holidays. Julie’s friend had built an eruv around her house to connect it to her outhouse. The two women even made makeshift Pesach Seders together with whatever items they could scrounge up. Watching her friend trying to observe Shabbas and the holidays in Africa gave Julie the strength to try to do the same.

After her year and a half assignment ended, Julie packed up her few belongings and her newfound religious observance and moved back to America. She had left an impression on the people of the village, but their impact on her was far greater.

“Africa was the beginning, a start, an opening, a chance to look at something in a different way. I realized I could look at something unbiased and not judge people. It had the same effect on my Judaism. I could view it with an open mind, not how I was fed it in Hebrew school. I knew there was value in this for me and my life.”

Living in Africa and seeing how people helped each other despite their abject poverty demonstrated to her the significance of community. Julie moved to Atlanta, Georgia and immediately searched for a community to join. A friend told her about a class given by a local Jewish educational organization, the Atlanta Scholars Kollel. Through the class she found her way to the Orthodox community of Atlanta centered around Congregation Beth Jacob.

The first time Julie walked into the local Orthodox community she was intimidated, but again her experiences in Africa helped ease her in. She told herself to imagine being in Africa again and to try to find common ground with the people she was meeting. In only a short time she felt at home as everyone wished her “Good Shabbas!” and welcomed her, embracing her in ways very much like she had felt in Guinea.

Julie eventually wed and is raising her family in Atlanta. While the community has many beautiful stories of other dramatic returns to Judaism, Julie had one of the longest journeys, going the furthest both physically and spiritually to find her way back.

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Michael Gros writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

Published in The Jewish Press in March 2010

The Dreamer

Michael Gros — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 20:43:06 +0000

Jeff ran in terror. The gigantic dog was gaining on him and he had nowhere to hide. He knew that within seconds it would sink its razor-sharp sharp teeth into him. And then suddenly, the dog lunged at somebody else and Jeff got away.

Jeff Feder awoke in a cold sweat. He couldn’t shake the nightmares. The dreams about wild dogs and other savage animals had filled his sleep every night since he had arrived in Eilat.

Jeff had grown up in a non-observant home in New Jersey and spent his high school years with long hair, a lip ring and enmeshed in a counter-culture lifestyle. He searched desperately for meaning and substance to life, but felt only frustration at the inability of the world to provide serious answers to his existential questions. After he finished his first year at Emory University in Atlanta, GA in May 1996, Jeff decided not to return for a second year. Instead he set off to travel to try to find his place in the world.

His journeys took him all the way up to the frigid waters of Alaska, where he worked on a fishing boat, and down to the sandy beaches of Key West. He thought he would relish the freedom and independence, but he had never felt so alone and frustrated in his life.

In the midst of his journeys his mother offered to sponsor him to fly to Israel to record a video of his great-aunt speaking about how their family had survived the Holocaust in Hungary. Jeff flew to Israel, recorded the video, and then set off for a 10 day vacation across the country.

Jeff spent the first few days in Jerusalem with an observant cousin named Asher and his wife Yehudit. They asked him if he would be interested in attending a fascinating series of classes on Judaism at Yeshivat Aish HaTorah. He found the classes to be interesting but not life-changing.

He then traveled south for three days to Eilat. It was there that his nightmares began. The first night he dreamt that he was being attacked by savage, monstrous creatures and skeletons of wild animals. The next night he dreamt about the dog. After three days in Eilat, Jeff traveled to Tel Aviv. His nightmares became progressively more vivid and terrifying each night. A non-Jewish friend suggested that maybe G-d was trying to send him a message through the dreams. Jeff initially doubted the thought but eventually considered it.

“The idea of G-d trying to give me a message was completely different from my concept of G-d,” Jeff said. “My concept of G-d was that it was some kind of force that doesn’t have a will of its own, but in my dreams someone was trying to send me a message.”

The fact that some power was trying to communicate with him stood in contrast to the deep loneliness he was feeling. He felt comforted by the thought of a divine force looking out for him.

One evening Jeff decided to walk through downtown Tel Aviv to try to find answers to the chaotic thoughts cramming his head. There, in the middle of Disengoff Square in a pouring rainstorm, everything began becoming clear.

“I had this whole idea through high school of being invincible, that I was the center of things,” Jeff recalled. He had never been egotistical, but simply believed that he was always correct and the rest of the world’s was wrong. “After all these dreams, I had a moment of internal reckoning. None of this is working. I have to make a change. G-d wants me to change.”

Once he made room for G-d in his life, Jeff felt extraordinarily happy. He realized that he needed to learn more about G-d and the messages that He was sending. He decided to return to Jerusalem the next morning.

That night Jeff had only good dreams.

Jeff stayed again with Asher and Yehudit. He told them about his dreams and in particular the dream of the vicious dog. Asher told him that when people have nightmares about dogs, it is customary to read the verse (Shemot 11:7) that recalls that the dogs of Egypt did not bark when the Jews departed in the Exodus. The verse records that the dogs differentiated between the Jewish slaves and their Egyptian masters.

Jeff said he never understood why G-d would distinguish between Jews and non-Jews. But in the verse and in his dream he saw that even dogs knew the difference. The dog in his dream only attacked the other man. This helped Jeff realize that Hashem also could differentiate between people.

“I thought, ‘if he’s the G-d of all humanity, why does it matter who I am?’ But He was telling me you’re a Jew and I care,” Jeff said. “When I realized I was a Jew, I knew that Jews and G-d have a certain relationship. I had to find out about that.”

The next day Jeff went back to Aish HaTorah. He skipped the introductory classes and signed right up for classes on practical Judaism and mitzvot. Within a very short time he became an observant Jew. Once he had stumbled upon Hashem through the explanation of the dreams, and living in the spiritually fertile atmosphere of Israel, it was a very quick road to becoming religious.

Jeff spent six weeks at Aish and then returned to America. He now felt much more confident about the value of the world and his place in it. He finished Emory, and soon after returned to Israel. He now goes by the name Yitzchak and lives with his wife and children in Jerusalem.

While in Atlanta after his return to America, Jeff was at synagogue one Shabbat morning and received an aliyah to the Torah. His jaw dropped when he realized that the aliyah included the very verse from Parshat Bo that he had recited in his cousin’s house in Jerusalem.

“It was like G-d was keeping an eye on me. It was like he was saying, ‘are you sticking with the plan here? It was kind of scary,” Jeff said.

Once again, Jeff realized that Hashem was looking out for him.

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Michael Gros writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

Published in The Jewish Press in January 2010

One Holiday Concert Too Many

Michael Gros — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 21:11:30 +0000

Twelve years ago Dan Fried had an epiphany from a most unusual source. When his daughter was forced to participate in a non-Jewish holiday concert in her public school, Dan suddenly found himself standing up for his religion. The experience launched him from being religiously apathetic to becoming an activist for personal freedoms and eventually to becoming a frum Jew. The events also revealed to him strengths that he did not know he had.

Dan grew up in Connecticut where he lives until today. He was raised in a Conservative Jewish home. After his marriage in 1984, he and his wife Marge joined first a Reform synagogue and then a Conservative synagogue. Both felt spiritually empty. They weren’t looking for religion but just wanted something that gave them a path in life.

One day in December 1998 their daughter Rachael, who was in the third grade in a local public school, came home from school singing songs about Jesus and Christmas. She said the kids were practicing songs everyday for their school’s Christmas concert a few weeks later.

Dan’s wife was outraged, but Dan shrugged it off. Marge told Dan that he needed to speak to the school principal and insist that the concert not include Christian holiday songs. Dan reluctantly agreed.

“I was the last guy you should call when my daughter is singing about Jesus. I was the bottom of the list to defend my daughter’s and my family’s Yiddishkeit.”

Dan had a close relationship with the principal so he expected that she would be receptive to his appeal. He was dead wrong. She belittled his request and refused to change the concert.

Dan researched legal precedent and returned to the principal with court decisions that supported the separation of Church and State in cases similar to his. Again she refused to listen.

The school had a high number of non-observant Jewish students, so Dan turned to their parents to garner support for his efforts. They all refused to help, saying they did not want to cause problems.

Around this time Dan received tickets to an upcoming Sunday Yankees game. He told Rachael and her sister Leah, who was in the fifth grade, that they could skip their Sunday Hebrew School that morning. Recalling his own childhood experience dreading Sunday school each week, he was shocked when they said they loved Sunday school and would not miss it for a baseball game.

“That’s when I realized that I was fighting a real fight. My daughters had a real built-in connection to Judaism.”

His daughters’ reaction gave new fuel to Dan’s one-man fight. He threatened the school with a lawsuit and began calling local media outlets. The school still refused to listen and said it would proceed with the concert.

The evening of the concert arrived. The Frieds arrived at the school and were greeted by local news outlets. The school’s principal welcomed Dan with a warm reception as if nothing had happened, but Dan walked passed her and entered the building. Around his neck he wore a camcorder to record the event, and on his face was a stern demeanor. This was the culmination of weeks of preparation and he was prepared for the coming fight.

The students took their place on the stage as every parent sat on the edges of their seats awaiting the confrontation. Who would back down - the school or Mr. Fried? Would he really make a scene?

The students began singing several general holiday songs. Dan’s stomach turned in knots as they began a song about Jesus. They sang several stanzas and then the choir conductor told them to stop. He announced that he wanted to demonstrate how the student can sing harmonies, but that the school had decided not to sing the specific religious song about Jesus that night. Dan had won!

The concert ended and the Frieds walked out of the room. The other Jewish families tried to pat Dan on his back as he went. He was ecstatic that the school backed down, but was disappointed at the other families for not supporting him.

Dan’s fight against the concert was a pivotal moment. He had discovered that his Judaism had real meaning for him and his family and that he was prepared to fight for it. Hashem saw Dan’s drive and eagerness and sent him messengers to assist on his growing appreciation for Judaism.

During the year before the concert, a frum family had moved next door to the Frieds. The Frieds watched them with bewilderment as they walked to synagogue in the snow and ate in a small booth outside their house for one week in the cold Connecticut autumn.

One Friday night the family invited the Frieds for Shabbas dinner. When the father put his hands on his children’s heads to bless them, Dan began to cry.

“I had never seen such a beautiful thing,” Dan said. “I asked him what he was doing. He told me that every Friday night we bless our children. I read the words of the blessing and water came to my eyes. I knew this is what I wanted. I knew right there and then I was sold, hook, line and sinker.”

Dan and Marge began learning more about Orthodoxy. They soon pulled their daughters out of public school and enrolled them in a local Orthodox day school. With their daughters taking the lead, the entire family fell in love with Orthodoxy and became observant.

The Frieds have since become leaders in the local Orthodox community. As a volunteer project, Dan runs a service called ConnectIsrael.com which broadcasts shiurium and Jewish communal projects around the world via videoconferencing. He sees it as his way to give back to the Jewish world.

“Everyone has a calling in life. Mine is to stand up and do something,” Dan said. “From the day my kids were singing about Jesus I stood up and haven’t sat down since.”

Dan’s role as a community activist at first caught him by surprise, but it was just what he needed to turn his life around. He still looks back this time of year and smiles at the ironic beginning of his journey.

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Michael Gros writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

Published in The Jewish Press in December 2010

The Power of Kindness

Michael Gros — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 21:06:21 +0000

The little acts of kindness that we do every day can have life-changing impacts on people. Jay Cantor is proof. The common interactions he had with religious Jews helped him to understand the eternal relevance of Judaism and to overcome the lifelong stereotypes he had possessed.

Jay lived in Manhattan and worked in sales. He had grown up in a non-observant home, and had reached a point in his life that he felt that something important was missing but could not identify it. Two of his close friends, neither Jewish, had gone through emotional challenges and had found spiritual support from their religious beliefs. Jay longed for something similar.

“I felt burned out in my life. I’ve always been very curious, sensitive and operated from the heart. I felt like things just weren’t put together,” Jay said.

Jay worked in a real estate office with 50 other salespeople. He had been a salesman for his whole life, but felt like he was stuck in a rut.

At the end of each month the company announced the name of the most successful salesperson. Nearly every month it was the same person, an unassuming, serious man. The man always wore a dark suit and a baseball cap, but other than that he didn’t stick out at all.

Jay hoped that he might be able to glean some wisdom from the successful salesman. One day he approached him and asked for advice.

In the conversation Jay found out that the man, Sammy Rappaport*, was a religious Jew. Sammy was eager to speak with him, but the conversation took a direction that Jay could have never predicted.

“I said to him, ‘I want to know your secret.’ [Sammy] spoke to me but didn’t speak one word of business,” Jay said. “He just listened to everything I was saying about my life. He figured out that I was single and Jewish and needed some direction. He started tossing things out to me, giving me ideas for my life.”

Jay found out later that Sammy’s suggestions were based on Mishlei, Pirke Avos and other Jewish sources. At first Jay doubted that Judaism could hold the answers to his challenges.

“I thought, ‘what will this Orthodox Jew, living in some shtetl, know about my life?’” Jay said.

Jay’s mind was filled with age-old stereotypes about religious Jews and he assumed they all applied to Sammy. But as he listened to Sammy in the first conversation and subsequent discussions, he slowly began to see the wisdom that Sammy possessed.

“This guy was pulling ideas from a thousand years ago, of people that experienced the same things I was experiencing. He could pull these stories and apply them to my life. I said there’s some real wisdom here.”

Jay and Sammy began meeting everyday, sometimes for just a few minutes, other times over lunch. Sammy continued to give him additional practical ideas for life.

One day at work Sammy asked Jay if he would be interested in putting on Tefillin. Jay had never done so and jumped at the chance. The two men headed for a nearby fire exit and Sammy taught him how to wear them.

That one experience turned into a daily practice. Jay and Sammy would rendezvous for a few minutes each day on the fire escape so Jay could put on tefillin. Sammy also began teaching him the tefilos during their outdoor meetings.

Sammy connected Jay with several local outreach organizations. At Aish NY he met Rabbi Avraham Goldhar, the organization’s educational director. Jay was immediately impressed with him. Rabbi Goldhar also disproved Jay’s misconceptions of Orthodox rabbis – he was young, clean-shaven and approachable.

A few months later Jay attended another Aish event. The room was packed but Jay spied Rabbi Goldhar across the room. Rabbi Goldhar’s reaction upon seeing Jay amazed him.

“I thought he sees hundreds of people a day. I thought he wouldn’t remember me, or would just nod at me and walk right past me to his office,” Jay said. “But he came up to me. He didn’t just say, ‘what’s your name?’ or ‘Jay, where have you been?’ But he said ‘Jay Cantor, how have you been?’ At that moment I said, “wow, these people are real.”

Jay then attended a weeklong Aish learning program in Israel. He was inspired by the classes and trips, but was even more inspired by the average frum Jews he met. Everyone showed a sincere concern for him just because he was a fellow Jew.

Following the trip Jay went back to America, packed up his life, and then returned to Israel for another two and a half years of learning. He became fully observant during his time in Israel. He then returned to America, got married and went back to school to become a social worker. He’s now living in Passaic, New Jersey.

Jay’s journey was launched and guided by the average religious Jews he met in his life. He’s now trying to give other Jews the same opportunity, from hosting non-observant friends for Shabbat to sharing Torah thoughts via email with family and friends.

“The idea of Jews being a light to the world is that we’re supposed to do what we’re supposed to do. We’re supposed to be ourselves, and that will then give off a light,” Jay said.

The frum Jews that inspired Jay showed a true concern for him. He’s now returning the favor by showering other people with true Jewish love.

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Michael Gros is the former Chief Operating Officer of the outreach organization The Atlanta Scholars Kollel. He writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

Published in The Jewish Press in November 2010

* Not his real name

Putting the Pieces Back Together

Michael Gros — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 20:40:14 +0000

The journey of Jeff and Amy Brooke was born out of tragedy, but through it they were able to see the tremendous joy and beauty of Judaism.

Jeff grew up in a Reform Jewish home in Norfolk, VA. For years the region had the heartrending status of having the highest intermarriage rate in the country, at 90 percent. But over the last twenty years a small frum community has been growing in the area and is having some success at turning the tide.

Amy grew up in a similar nonobservant home in Brooklyn. After the couple wed, they settled in Norfolk. Amy’s parents moved to the area soon after, with visions of migrating south to a quiet vacation home on the water. They found lots of water in Norfolk but not much else and grappled to find sufficient recreational activities.

So one day her parents turned on the television. They stumbled upon a televised class given by Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis. They were mesmerized by her persona, her passion and her material. They quickly contacted her NY-based outreach organization Hineni and ordered many of her tapes and books. Over the next few years, Jeff and Amy watched in disbelief as her parents became observant, literally before their eyes.

“We thought they were acting a little bit odd,” Jeff said. “We were observing them in an interested but horrified way.”

During this time, Amy became pregnant with their first child. Jeff realized that they needed a more spiritual direction in their life to help guide them in properly raising their child.

Simultaneously Jeff’s 25-year old brother experienced a relapse of the leukemia which had afflicted him during childhood. Every procedure was attempted, including a bone marrow donation from their mother. Sadly, all of the efforts were to no avail. Jeff’s brother passed away just a few months after his relapse.

The two events left Jeff grappling for answers and direction.

“Putting the two together - having any kind of loss makes one think about his place in the cosmos, and having a child makes you think about where you are and where you’re going. It was a time of spiritual searching,” Jeff said.

Just before Jeff’s brother passed away, Norfolk gained its first outreach Kollel as Rabbi Shlomo Goder moved from Monsey with three other families. The Kollel members heard that Jeff’s brother had passed away and so came to pay a shiva visit at their parents’ home.

Jeff was incredibly impressed – the Kollel members had just moved to town and Jeff had barely met them, and yet here they were going out of their way to show their care and concern to a Jewish family simply because they were fellow Jews. For Jeff, the presence of the religious Jews in the shiva house also provided a much-needed grounding and perspective.

“Shiva in a non-observant Jewish home is a joke, or worse, it’s offensive. There are usually a lot of loud mouth relatives knocking around, eating bagels, trading stock tips, clapping each other on the back,” Jeff noted. “It’s bad enough when an older person died, but it’s horrendous when it’s a young person.”

At the back of his parents’ house was a den, and Jeff would steal away there during shiva to escape the cacophony of visitors in the front sitting area. Jeff was joined there on many nights by one or more members of the Kollel. They spoke to him about the Jewish perspective of death and also gave him an opportunity to share his tormented feelings.

“They were not working me over, but were sincerely concerned about our family. We spent a lot of time talking about life and death,” Jeff said. “In retrospect I couldn’t tell you once [specific] thing we talked about. But it was just the fact that someone would care enough to come and be there.”

The genuine concern of the Kollel members also helped Jeff and Amy to begin to appreciate Torah-true Judaism and understand the religious path that her parents were following. They began to see the religious lifestyle as something truly beautiful and meaningful.

Following shiva, one of the Kollel members invited Jeff and Amy to their house for Shabbat. They were hooked! They soon got involved in the local Orthodox synagogue, which just happened to be located near their house. They received many more Shabbat invitations and made friends in the community. Jeff began learning one-on-one with a Kollel member and loved it.

Jeff’s learning helped him to realize something else that he had sorely misunderstood about Judaism. Jeff felt that there had to be a spiritual side to life. He just didn’t know how to find it and never thought that Judaism had the answers. But now when he came face-to-face with Torah-true Judaism, he immediately knew that it held the spiritual direction he was seeking.

“To know that my own religion was the source of something so true and spiritual, it was an awakening,” Jeff explained.

Since those events nearly twenty years ago, Jeff, Amy and their two children have been on a direct upward shot. They’ve become fully religious and have helped to found and lead many local Orthodox organizations. Amy’s brother and sister-in-law have also become frum.

The puzzle that Jeff and Amy began assembling during the shivah has been steadily growing, piece by piece. It’s now a beautiful picture of a life lived with love, deep purpose and spiritual meaning.

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Published in The Jewish Press in October 2010