The Unlikely Path to a Jewish Love Story

Edited by Zibby Owens, from her information, On Being Jewish Now: Reflections from Authors and Advocates, Zibby Books, Oct 1, 2024.

After I opened the glove compartment of this man’s automotive, beneath the crumpled 1991 Saab convertible handbook, I discovered a yarmulke. As a Shabbat-loving single woman in my late twenties on a second date, I took that navy suede kippah to be a sign from Hashem. Clearly I had found my bashert. 

For some, it’s an electrifying caress or a romantic getaway that sends butterflies to all the right areas. For me, a stack of dog-eared Jewish publications on a nightstand does the trick. A kiddush cup on the mantel that’s been handed down from one expertise to the next? Goose bumps. A family customized of banging on the desk in a rousing Dayenu? I swoon. My primal love language, one of the simplest ways to my coronary coronary heart and soul, is Yiddishkeit, a devotion to Jewish traditions and custom. 

The skullcap-in-the-glovebox suitor figured that out. Early in our courtship, he left me a late-night voicemail belting out a extreme holy days melody he had sung as a bowtie-wearing sixth grader in his synagogue’s junior choir. As we purchased further extreme, he faux-casually talked about in entrance of my ailing, non secular grandma that his Hebrew title was Menachem Mendel, similar to the Lubavitcher Rebbe. At our bridal ceremony, I reached the heights of ecstasy when, on bended knee, he surprised me with the traditional prayer of Eshet Chayil, declaring his dedication not merely to me, his “woman of valor,” however along with making a home collectively bursting with Jewish pleasure. 

As a child, time stood nonetheless when my father walked in our entrance door early on Friday nights, Shabbat flowers in hand, marking the beginning of our family’s cherished time collectively. From developing a sukkah out of threadbare sheets in our yard every fall to gleefully dancing on Simchat Torah accompanied by Bracha, our shul’s accordion participant; from waving Israeli flags in Independence Day parades to a decade of summers at Jewish sleepaway camp, there have been so many foundational recollections I wanted to re-create. 

I moreover spent my youth watching my grandparents mourn the dearth of their mom and father and siblings among the many many six million Jews who had been murdered inside the Holocaust. For lots of in my expertise, the Shoah was a catalyst for Jewish identification, an obligation to be vigilant about guaranteeing the survival of our heritage and our of us. It was ingrained in me by the Jewish thinker Emil Fackenheim, and by these of my great-aunts and uncles who miraculously survived Auschwitz, that together with the 613 mitzvot (commandments) inside the Torah, there is a 614th to adjust to: We must always not grant Hitler a posthumous victory. 

Since becoming a mum or dad, there is not a mitzvah I’ve taken further to coronary coronary heart—undoubtedly on account of I actually really feel the load of our historic previous and am eager about Jewish continuity, nonetheless above all, on account of I think about Judaism affords a avenue map for a purpose-driven lifetime of goodness and pleasure. By preserving kosher, as an illustration, sooner than a morsel of meals could even graze my lips, I am prompted to savor the reminder of who I am and the place I come from. For me, Judaism is the lens by means of which we are going to cultivate gratitude, honor our ancestors, improve moral kids, navigate despair, mark time with meaning, see the dignity in all humanity, current up for one another, and try to go away this world greater than we found it. 

Merely as my Jewish experiences anchored my sense of who I was on the earth as I grew up, I try to infuse my very own residence with Jewish values, Jewish music, Jewish prayer, Jewish meals, Jewish rituals, Jewish holidays, Jewish giving, and Jewish love. My therapist, an Orthodox Jew, has a saying: “If you would like the house to scent like Shabbat, you’ve purchased to make the potatoes.” It’s a metaphor we use to talk about how the magic of residing Jewishly doesn’t merely happen—not for me, my kids, or anyone. It takes work. 

Throughout the aftermath of October 7, I am doubling down on Judaism as a personal and communal toolbox for a life correctly lived. I blast Eyal Golan’s “Am Yisrael Chai” all via our residence, organize Shabbat dinners for an entire bunch, attend rallies in assist of releasing the hostages, and sound the alarm for Jews and non-Jews alike regarding the resurgent tsunami of Jew hatred. There are quite a few recipes for making the potatoes, I am learning, considerably after we’re activated by trauma, motivated to articulate a newfound sense of Jewish delight, and looking forward to a manner of group amid our vulnerability. Volunteer journeys to Israel are at functionality, associates have found their voices as political activists or social media warriors, mom and father are galvanized to confront every latent and blatant antisemitism in colleges, and enterprise executives are displaying moral braveness and administration. 

As I bless our three kids on Shabbat, I consider the unbearable void at Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s dinner desk and pray for all the hostages. We FaceTime our first cousins Goldie and Eldad, whose idyllic kibbutz life inside the Gaza Envelope was shattered when Hamas gunmen tried to interrupt into their protected room, the place they hid with their three youthful children. After which we welcome Shabbat with pleasure. My husband sings Eshet Chayil, merely as he did all these years up to now. Our eight-year-old performs Mah Tovu on the piano, our daughter lights the candles with me, and our oldest son chants kiddush sooner than heading out to basketball observe. That glove-compartment kippah from a very long time up to now has since been modified by one from our kids’ b’nei mitzvah, bedazzled with rhinestones on account of our daughter wished them to be sparkly. Our kids, it seems, have the weather to start out out making their very personal potatoes. 

Merely ultimate week, my husband despatched me a selfie of him spontaneously wrapping tefillin at Chabad. He nonetheless is conscious of how one can catch me off guard. For my upcoming fiftieth birthday, I’m holding out for a breathy, pillowside Oseh Shalom, and for a lifetime of making further potatoes.