The Unlikely Path to a Jewish Love Story

Edited by Zibby Owens, from her guide, 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, below the crumpled 1991 Saab convertible handbook, I found a yarmulke. As a Shabbat-loving single lady in my late twenties on a second date, I took that navy suede kippah to be an indication from Hashem. Clearly I had discovered my bashert. 

For some, it’s an electrifying caress or a romantic getaway that sends butterflies to all the proper locations. 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 technology to the subsequent? Goose bumps. A household custom of banging on the desk in a rousing Dayenu? I swoon. My primal love language, the best way to my coronary heart and soul, is Yiddishkeit, a devotion to Jewish traditions and tradition. 

The skullcap-in-the-glovebox suitor figured that out. Early in our courtship, he left me a late-night voicemail belting out a excessive holy days melody he had sung as a bowtie-wearing sixth grader in his synagogue’s junior choir. As we bought extra severe, he faux-casually talked about in entrance of my ailing, spiritual grandma that his Hebrew title was Menachem Mendel, identical to the Lubavitcher Rebbe. At our marriage ceremony, I reached the heights of ecstasy when, on bended knee, he stunned me with the normal prayer of Eshet Chayil, declaring his dedication not simply to me, his “lady of valor,” but in addition to creating a house collectively bursting with Jewish pleasure. 

As a baby, time stood nonetheless when my father walked in our entrance door early on Friday nights, Shabbat flowers in hand, marking the start of our household’s cherished time collectively. From constructing a sukkah out of threadbare sheets in our yard each 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 wished to re-create. 

I additionally spent my youth watching my grandparents mourn the lack of their mother and father and siblings among the many six million Jews who had been murdered within the Holocaust. For a lot of in my technology, the Shoah was a catalyst for Jewish identification, a duty to be vigilant about guaranteeing the survival of our heritage and our folks. 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 along with the 613 mitzvot (commandments) within the Torah, there’s a 614th to comply with: We should not grant Hitler a posthumous victory. 

Since changing into a mum or dad, there isn’t a mitzvah I’ve taken extra to coronary heart—definitely as a result of I really feel the load of our historical past and am keen about Jewish continuity, however above all, as a result of I consider Judaism affords a street map for a purpose-driven lifetime of goodness and pleasure. By preserving kosher, for instance, earlier than a morsel of meals may even graze my lips, I’m prompted to savor the reminder of who I’m and the place I come from. For me, Judaism is the lens by way of which we will domesticate gratitude, honor our ancestors, increase ethical children, navigate despair, mark time with that means, see the dignity in all humanity, present up for each other, and attempt to go away this world higher than we discovered it. 

Simply as my Jewish experiences anchored my sense of who I used to be on the earth as I grew up, I attempt to infuse my 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’d like the home to scent like Shabbat, you’ve bought to make the potatoes.” It’s a metaphor we use to speak about how the magic of residing Jewishly doesn’t simply occur—not for me, my children, or anybody. It takes work. 

Within the aftermath of October 7, I’m doubling down on Judaism as a private and communal toolbox for a life properly lived. I blast Eyal Golan’s “Am Yisrael Chai” all through our residence, arrange Shabbat dinners for a whole bunch, attend rallies in help of releasing the hostages, and sound the alarm for Jews and non-Jews alike in regards to the resurgent tsunami of Jew hatred. There are numerous recipes for making the potatoes, I’m studying, significantly after we are activated by trauma, motivated to articulate a newfound sense of Jewish delight, and eager for a way of group amid our vulnerability. Volunteer journeys to Israel are at capability, associates have discovered their voices as political activists or social media warriors, mother and father are galvanized to confront each latent and blatant antisemitism in faculties, and enterprise executives are displaying ethical braveness and management. 

As I bless our three children on Shabbat, I take into consideration the insufferable void at Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s dinner desk and pray for the entire hostages. We FaceTime our first cousins Goldie and Eldad, whose idyllic kibbutz life within the Gaza Envelope was shattered when Hamas gunmen tried to interrupt into their protected room, the place they hid with their three younger youngsters. After which we welcome Shabbat with pleasure. My husband sings Eshet Chayil, simply as he did all these years in the past. Our eight-year-old performs Mah Tovu on the piano, our daughter lights the candles with me, and our oldest son chants kiddush earlier than heading out to basketball observe. That glove-compartment kippah from a long time in the past has since been changed by one from our youngsters’ b’nei mitzvah, bedazzled with rhinestones as a result of our daughter wished them to be sparkly. Our youngsters, it appears, have the elements to start out making their very own potatoes. 

Simply final week, my husband despatched me a selfie of him spontaneously wrapping tefillin at Chabad. He nonetheless is aware of how you 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 creating extra potatoes.