The ramblings of a neshama
It’s my (English calendar) birthday and I’m taking a look at how I got here. I never, in a million years, would have predicted becoming frum. My whole life I strongly identified as Jewish. Which was problematic. I have one Jewish parent and it’s the “wrong” one. I was living my life, if not happily, semi-successfully. I worked as a rowing coach and coxswain, with intermittent teaching jobs- I’ll maybe write more about my sports background at some point- and dated various guys. At 26 (I think… maybe 25) there was a shooting at the Tree Of Life Synagogue in my home town of Pittsburgh. I had been very mildly Jewish until then . But suddenly, it felt like no one in my life understood me. I walked into a Conservative shul, seeking a community who instinctively understood what was probably an epigenetic fight or flight reflex. (It’s fight. This is me. It’s always fight). Let me be clear about one thing. I’ve always even drawn to the beauty in Judaism. While my family was so secular as to