By Emily Goldberg, Editor-in-Chief
When I was little, I was the girl that tried every extracurricular activity. Every year, my school handed out a colorful pamphlet filled with after-school programs, and at one point, I tried them all: gymnastics, acrobatics, circus tricks. One year, I was even in the after-school chess club.
I was curious, and I could not help but dip my toes in almost everything. However, after some time, I began to feel like I was missing out on something crucial. Something that others had that I did not: a passion to truly call my own.
That is, until I found dance.
Dance is a part of me. It defines who I am as a person. I can express myself through dance in a way I cannot through any other medium. Being in the studio, when the lights are dim and the world silent except for the music, I can access a place in my mind that is otherwise unattainable. I can be myself fully. And I let go.
I enter another universe. I have control and lose control all at the same time. The music becomes a part of me. It lives within me, constantly running through my veins.
Dance is a means through which I can channel my thoughts and emotions, especially when I am going through difficult times. I approached my mom as an energetic middle schooler, knowing that there was a piece to this puzzle of life that I was missing, and I practically begged her to help me find it.
When I entered that dance studio for the first time, everything clicked. Hip-hop, jazz, tap, lyrical, contemporary. I did it all because I could not get enough. From then on, I danced in that small studio in my neighborhood every night, and it instantly became my home.
When I decided to attend Yeshiva University for college, I approached the head of my dance studio and asked her about places I could dance in New York. When she gave me the names of a few places to look into, I did so, but with a sense of hesitancy.
I quickly learned that the dance studios in New York are not like the one in my tight-knit hometown. At home, my dance studio was practically all women, but in New York, this is far from the case. As a religious Jew, I did not feel comfortable putting myself in that type of environment that I felt would compromise my modesty. So, I realized I had to give up one of the most crucial parts of my life entirely.
And it destroyed me. Instantly, I went right back to feeling the exact same way that I had felt before I found dance: like an entire piece of my soul was missing.
When I began dancing seriously in middle school, I was simultaneously beginning to grow in my faith. I danced in competition level classes, but could never attend competitions on Saturdays. During the chagim, I was always scrambling, staying in the studio twice as long on other nights to make up my required technique courses. And when the holidays came around, I always felt uncomfortable when my dance studio played Christmas music.
Even with these difficulties, the dance studio in my hometown was the most welcoming place, and always worked with me so that I felt comfortable. They are my family, and always ensured that I could keep my religious practices without giving up my love of dance. However, in New York, thousands of people attend these dance studios, and when I found religious problems with them, ones that didn’t even exist in the studio in my hometown, there was not much they could do to help.
So, since crossing the George Washington Bridge, I have not entered a dance studio.
Being religious has come with making many sacrifices I never imagined I would have to make. Making these sacrifices was never easy, and always required asking questions of God I knew I would never understand the answers to in this lifetime. Here He was giving me dance, the thing that I needed most when all else failed, and taking it away from me at the exact same time.
I constantly find myself battling an inner desire to run right back into a dance studio. However, I know that as much as I love dance, doing so will mean compromising my faith. And that is a compromise I am just not willing to make.
Following God during the times when I do not understand His ways is the most challenging thing I have ever done; but I have also learned that it is when I commit myself to Him during these times that I also end up finding Him the most. Giving up dance is not the only sacrifice I have made or will have to make for my religion. Life is a series of sacrifices, and more often than not, we will have to give up what is most precious to us out of a commitment to something larger than ourselves.
Dance means everything to me. But God means more. Dance may have brought me to life, but God sustains me throughout my life. Making this ultimate sacrifice for Him was one of the hardest things I have ever done. But it was also one of the most obvious choices I have ever made.
I won’t lie and say that it was easy or that it instantly strengthened my relationship with Him. So long as dance is not a part of my everyday life, I will always feel a sense of emptiness. I will continue to hear the music play in my headphones and feel desperate to grasp onto what it is that I am missing. I will always feel that piece of myself calling out to me. Begging me to bring it back to life.
But at the same time, I know that I gave up dance for something greater than myself. And I would make that choice one thousand times again if I had to, knowing that just as music lives inside my soul, God does too.
And the spark of His flame is forever dancing within me.