By Hayley Goldberg
I am not sure if it is possible for a group of students who grew up in middle-class secular Judaism to appreciate a hostel on the northernmost border of Israel with a group of Orthodox Jews to lead them. Having only the knowledge of reform Judaism that my father taught me in Sunday Hebrew school, Orthodox Judaism was a scary and unusual lifestyle to lead. But it was also too peculiar to leave my questions unasked; I wanted to know how someone could willingly subject themselves to the rules and regulations set out before them by something so powerful and incomprehensible.
Within the first 24 hours after arriving at the hostel, over twenty new Hebrew words and Jewish concepts had been thrown at me. I tried to grasp onto them, lest I drop them and forget I was in Eretz Yisrael, where learning is the key to connection. To everyone else on the trip, these learning sessions were merely fillers for time as we were bussed from one exciting activity to the next. For me, they were the breeding ground of my derech, the path that would lead me to seminary.
I went to public school my whole life and knew of nothing different – private school was only ever mentioned in the context of the Catholic school near my district. There were few things that I truly enjoyed throughout highschool: music and my school’s Jewish Student Union (JSU). The only reason I even signed up for JSU was because my neighbor was the one running the table at my school’s club fair (talk about Jewish geography). I was hoping to walk away never to hear about JSU again, but their countless emails about free pizza eventually reached me. That’s when the fun began.
Throughout high school, my mental health plummeted. Turning on my computer for online school once COVID-19 hit became a chore. The only days I looked forward to were the infrequent Latte and Learns at Starbucks with JSU. Those days I felt comfort knowing that I would see friends without having a screen blocking my social interactions. JSU became a safe haven for me as I clawed my way through school.
Towards the end of my sophomore year, a new opportunity was presented to us at JSU: a month-long Summer trip to Israel called The Jerusalem Journey (TJJ). There was something about the draw of Israel that felt like it could heal my soul. Sure enough, my friends and I signed up for TJJ the summer after my senior year. Graduation came and I, unlike my peers, wasn’t on my way to some fancy school, I was headed to community college, and most importantly, Israel for the summer.
I told my friend on the 10 hour flight that I would know I was in Israel when I started crying. I didn’t know it at the time, but this would come from a connection to the holiness of the land that I could only ever dream about; I cried as soon as the wheels hit the tarmac.
I decided to do something strange while I was on TJJ – keep Shabbat. The motivation to do so came from the wrong places and I surely didn’t do everything by the book, but I gave my phone to an advisor beforehand to keep myself accountable – I was going to do this. There was something about Judaism that drew me in even if the origin was still unknown to me.
Still, I contested every bit of information that my advisors shared with me; it boggled my mind that women weren’t allowed to read from the Torah or put on tefillin, and to me, this surely meant that Judaism was sexist. What was so special about skirts anyway? My questions kept building up into a slight bout of rage.
I had to find a space where I could ask my questions and learn the answers, or in my case, fight them. It was at that exact moment that our trip took us to learn about the wonderful world of seminary. I listened to the stories the directors of the seminary told, in awe of how they could surrender their lives to Orthodox Judaism. I decided to apply to Machon Maayan on the spot. I shocked a few people that day, including myself. I had been told explicitly that there was a very small chance of me being able to get in at the last minute, but I didn’t let that discourage me.
As the trip closed out, I remember looking out the bus window at the power lines as we drove to Ben-Gurion Airport with tears in my eyes. Would I be back? Would seminary be as exciting an experience as TJJ? Would I change as a person? I turned to my advisor and asked her that last question, “Would it be the worst thing in the world if you did?” she responded. This shocked me, but it also opened my eyes up to the possibility of growth.
As I awaited my answer, I ate meat and dairy separately, I tried only wearing skirts and dresses (and failed at it miserably) and I did my best to put my phone away each Friday night. My family wasn’t so receptive to my choices. I was being asked questions that I didn’t even know the answers to.
I will never forget the morning when I woke up to a WhatsApp message from the director of Machon Maayan saying, “Call me when you are free.” My heart was pounding so fast I could have sworn that it would burst out of my chest. This was the moment; she would either be delivering the best news I could receive or the saddest. My father woke up that morning to the sound of me screaming with joy as I ran through the house. I was going to seminary, and I would be leaving in two and a half weeks.
As I was packing to leave, one of my TJJ advisors sent me a list of helpful things to take with me: skirts and long sleeve shirts bolded at the top of the list. After having spent so much energy getting to this point, I knew that I wasn’t going to allow myself to get kicked out of seminary for a dress code violation. I went into seminary with the mentality that even though I wasn’t going to replace my closet at home, it wasn’t worth fighting now and giving up the opportunity to be at seminary, especially now that I had put all of my energy into it. The next few days were spent buying clothes that fit the definition of tzniut, or at least what I had been told to do.
There were a lot of difficulties in taking on a religion I didn’t even know if I believed in. In spite of what I was taught, I would high-five my male friends. What was so important about touching anyway? It was only a high-five after all. All of these rules seemed impossible to understand and even more ridiculous to keep, and I had a very difficult time subjecting myself to them.
I had gone from zero to one-hundred in the blink of an eye. I knew nothing about Judaism at the start of my TJJ trip in Israel and went into seminary thinking that I could not only live as a frum Jew, but thrive as such. How wrong I was. I spent every night of the first month of seminary crying on the phone to my dad telling him how much I hated it there because I had no friends, I didn’t know how to do anything that they did, I couldn’t follow along in classes and I had no idea how this would help me later in life. Everything I had gotten from TJJ was lost. I would go back into my room on Friday nights just to plug my headphones in under my covers for the next 25 hours. It became a game to me – what new rules that I learned that I could break just for the fun of it. It wasn’t my finest moment, but it was the only way I could cope with this new life I was trying to live.
Months later, my seminary went to Poland, which drastically changed me. Learning about the Jewish people that would do anything to keep Shabbat while in a death camp affected something deep within my soul. I realized that this wasn’t a game anymore, it was a life I had the privilege of learning about and being able to lead. When we landed back in Israel, the first thing I did was donate my clothing that no longer fit my definition of modesty.
I realize now that jumping into Judaism so quickly wasn’t the right way for me to grow religiously. As much as it seemed easier to dive head first into the religious world of Judaism, I ultimately would have drowned without the help of others. After seminary, I knew that I needed to continue the slower journey. I ultimately rejected acceptance to community college so I could apply to YU and join the Mechina program, through which I have successfully taken on a stable religious lifestyle. My journey was simply a matter of taking a breath before the fall – Mechina was my breath of fresh air; slow and steady wins the race after all.
Photo Caption: Jerusalem, Israel
Photo Credit: Jayson Boesman / Unsplash