Finding Observance

On a life of religious transformation

I’ve hesitated in writing this story, as I’ve been embarrassed by what I gave away over the course of living it. In the interest of not burying the lede, I left Judaism in my late teens. Not the kind of abandonment that people sometimes talk about - just walking away or dropping their level of observance - but actually left for baptism in Christianity. As this article will detail, I’ve found my way back, but not without challenges.

I think the leaving started well before I had any sense of actually absenting myself from Judaism. I went to what I might term a “secular shul.” That is, it was a Conservative Temple with a religious school focused on education in only the sense of giving its students a general feeling of Jewishness, not actually on anything related to G-d. I have fond memories of being voted the best “history” student for several years in a row, because I had a good memory for the stories in the Torah. I was (ironically, in retrospect) even voted most likely to become a rabbi, one year.

We put on Purim spiels, lit Chanukah candles, and even had what was termed “junior congregation” on Saturdays in the school building, while the adults did their thing in the main sanctuary. When I was old enough, perhaps 12, I would go in with the adults along with my friend Jonathan, and we would peruse the siddurim and translations of the bible. On one notable occasion, we stumbled upon the story of Balaam and his talking ass, which for two 11-year-old boys was about as hysterical a story as one could imagine. At one point Jonathan read that, “he [Balaam] cruelly beat the animal,” and he turned to me and asked “does that mean he kicked his ass?”

We were asked to leave shortly after, trying to hold in our laughter.

But we rarely talked about G-d per se, certainly never discussed the broader Jewish landscape (outside of Israel, again generally), and I can’t remember anything about the scope of Jewish literature, either sacred or secular, ever being taught. It’s possible that they were (and they must have been, as I was generally aware of the Talmud, even if I had no idea of its contents), and the lessons simply didn’t make an impression on me, but if so, then that’s equally as indicting in terms of the quality of teching in that environment.

My home life was less Jewish. My mother, an avowed atheist (albeit with a Jewish upbringing), grudgingly took me to Hebrew school until I was old enough to take the city bus, at which point it became my responsibility to get there. My father (a convert to Judaism in the Reform tradition) was largely absent, and completely absent in terms of religous observance. Mom and I did light Chanukah candles at home each year, but that was the extent of any practiced Judaism within the home. There was a sense of certainty that I would grow up into a secular Jew, aligned with the politics of the left and appreciating the academic notion of religion as an individual good for some people, but not one which any reasonable person would embrace in a meaningful way. It was our ethnic heritage, but active belief was for those who needed a crutch.

I did make it through my bar mitzvah, and I dutifully memorized my torah portion and haftorah, and had a (banging, if I may say so) theater-themed reception. Shortly after all of that, my mom said something along the lines of, “well, the religion considers you an adult now, so you can decide whether to keep going to Hebrew school.” I decided against it, because at the ripe age of 13 years old, I decided I was an atheist.

Coming of Age

Religion of any sort didn’t come into my life from the time I was bar mitzvah until I began college. Some of my friends kept on through confirmation, but many also left and went on to whatever they ended up doing. In effect, I had basically no exposure to Judaism from the ages of about 13 through 18, beyond cousins’ b’nai mitzvah.

Something else happened at age 13 that I think also had an impact on my movement away from Judaism. Two things, really. First, my grandmother died after a short but devastating fight with brain cancer, which had a strong impact on my mom, killing any vestigial belief in G-d she had. Second, my relationship with my mother really got bad, both because I was a pubescent jerk, and because of some ongoing mental health issues she was dealing with. Both of these, to the extent I contextualized them religiously, drove me away from the conceptions of religion that I grew up with, which were already pretty limited.

By the time I got to college, I believed I had moved on from any religion and that I had become the secular humanist with a Jewish background that my mother had anticipated I would. Once there, on my own for the first time, I began making friends with largely the same background. My best friend in college, Simon, was a (mostly) secular Jew with a Conservative upbringing, and other than a shared cultural affinity that manifested during Chanukah, I don’t recall a single instance where our Judaism was discussed. My friend Adam was a great guy, and a huge pot-head, along with our friend (and Adam’s roommate) Bryan, both secular Jews (in Adam’s case, militantly secular). I may have come into contact with other, more religious Jews, but if I did they didn’t leave much of an impression.

During the latter part of my first year, I met a different group of friends. They were not the loosey-goosey leftists that my Jewish friends were, but were serious and thoughtful and generous (not that my Jewish friends were not generous, but it manifested itself through hosting parties and offering me pot). They were interested in discussing big ideas about life - undergirded by the idea that life had purpose. That there was reason behind what appeared to be the madness surrounding us. They were, as I soon found out, evangelical Christians.

I remember going over to my friend Chris’s apartment and him asking me what I thought life was about - what I thought the purpose of creation was. I remember vaguely pushing him off, saying something about life not really having purpose. The truth was, however, that despite my self-image as a deep-thinking, somewhat leftist atheist, I hadn’t given much thought to any of the questions that Chris (and others) were asking. I hadn’t ever really confronted the question of G-d, I’d just assumed his non-existence.

I don’t remember what the “breakthrough” was in terms of my re-adoption of my belief in G-d, but I know it happened in 2001. At some point, my mindset shifted and I have never again doubted G-d’s existence. I don’t know if it is a “G-d Gene” issue, if it was the company of believers living out their faith, or if there was some pursuasive set of arguments, but certainly by the end of that Spring, I had (re)gained my belief in G-d.

Importantly, I was still unconvinced of Jesus at this point. In fact, I tried (hilariously) to double-down on my Judaism. One memorable Shabbat, I decided to try to be shomer Shabbos, but knowing essentially nothing - and doing very little planning - I basically sat on my couch in the dark for Friday night after lighting two mismatched candles I found, and followed it by scarcely doing anything the following day, while eating nothing as I had prepared no food ahead of time. It goes without saying that I didn’t have much of a spiritual experience. Another time, I went to the Hillel on campus (I attended the University of Central Florida). Keeping in mind that I was still in what could generously be called a transitional phase in my life (I had bright green hair, earrings, and roller bladed everywhere), I showed up to Hillel for some event (maybe a Rosh Hashanah service?) and was thoroughly ignored by everyone. These two events, as silly as it seems looking back, marked the end of my involvement in Judaism for about 17 years.

Interestingly, my evangelical friends had encouraged me in this experimentation with my own faith, but as these had proved to be abysmal failures, they suggested I try to go to their Church. I was somewhat resistant, originally, but eventually decided to go and check it out. Additionally, in the Summer of 2001, I was introduced to the woman who would become my wife - and whose mother would soon start divinity school at Vanderbilt University to become a Prysbertian minister. So, increasingly surrounded by Christians, and quasi-attending a non-denominational Church, secure in my belief in G-d but not knowing what to do about it, I ended my Sophomore year of college.

Taking the Plunge

Part of the trouble with my religious upbringing is that nearly all of my education about my faith, certainly past 7th grade, came from a Christian perspective. The lack of love and the seeming legalism of Judaism are untrue if you’re operating from the inside, but if you have no experience in actually doing the faith, and no education otherwise, it’s easy to be convinced that cold rule-following is all there is in Judaism. My short, ill-informed experimentation had not demonstrated otherwise, and nearly all the conversations about G-d, what He wants, and the related elements were coming from a Christian perspective. So, naturally, and not having anything else (at the time) to go on, much of that perspective seemed really inviting.

I’ll digress into the first part of a metaphor here:

Imagine you grow up in a beautiful home, filled with amazing art, beautiful furniture, and outstanding food. You have your own room, well appointed, and in it, a small bookcase. Each year, you’re given a book or two, that you enjoy, but that are pitched at a slightly lower level of reading than you can handle. You read them, perhaps more than once, but eventually you put them on your small bookshelf and don’t pick them up anymore. You don’t notice other books in the house, but that doesn’t seem strange to you, because your books are just children’s books, and you figure that is all that people keep around. Eventually, you stop noticing how nice the other stuff is (the paintings, the furniture), because it’s just normal to you.

One day, you’re invited to a friend’s house. You go in, see that it’s as well appointed as your own home, but you also notice that they have books everywhere. They take you into their library, and show you around. There are more books than you can imagine there, at every level, about every subject you are interested in. Looking back, you wonder how you could have ever gotten by with your tiny bookshelf in your room.

I took the bait.¹ I began to get involved more in the church I was attending with my friends, and even began to attend a bible-study. At the time, the church was quite small, very homey, and people were friendly and warm to me, despite my odd appearance. Additionally, my future wife’s family was equally wonderful, and more and more I was surrounded by Christians who were seemingly living out their faith in ways that didn’t seem possible within how Judaism was explained to me (via the New Testament, primarily).

To this day I’m not clear why I didn’t seek out more information. I’m a researcher and reader by both nature and habit, and indeed reading was a big part of this story up to this point. I read all the C.S. Lewis I could get my hands on, and became intensely interested in theological questions of attonement and predestination. The idea that these questions could have been addressed within a Jewish framework simply did not occurr to me. Looking back, I’m embarrassed by it, but I just simply did not look for any theological justification for Judaism as a whole, or for any of the specific bits of substance I was interested in. In part, no doubt, it was 19 year old hubris that made me think I already had all the information I needed, but it still seems somehow unaccountable.

In any event, by the Spring of 2002, I had found myself less often making the argument against Christian positions (which was my normal stance before this point), and found myself making arguments for its positions. I remember one evening, out near Disney World, finding myself wondering if I really believed in Jesus and decided that I must, since I was arguing for things in the Christian cannon, from a Christian perspective. As close as I can tell, that was my point of conversion to Christianity. I was baptized in a pond in Orlando, Florida, within the year.

Still Seeking

Interestingly, I didn’t really find any kind of rest within my newfound conversion. There was a lot of zeal, but it made for more questions. What did I believe relative to atonement? What was my perspective regarding predestination? Perhaps more importantly, what was my church’s position on these topics?

I went to talk to my Pastor at that time, a young man named Isaac Hunter. I put these questions to him, and more, a found that his positions were…squishy. Not that he didn’t have his own beliefs, but he was uninterested in making them concrete for the church he ran, as it might run off potential (or current) parishioners. While I can’t remember the details of the conversation anymore (this must have been around 2003), I do have the distinct memory of walking away quite unsatisfied with his answers.

This began for me a period of seeking out, within Christianity, a “home.” More and more this was in consultation with Jessica (by now we were close to engagement), who shared my iffyness on the church I had been attending, and who herself was interested in exploring other potential options church-wise (at this time, she was still living in Ohio and I in Florida). I didn’t move yet, but found myself less interested in the non-denominational movement as a whole for its lack of historical grounding and wishy-washy theology.

In the Summer of 2004, Jessica and I got married in a wedding on Longboat Key, Florida and officiated by Isaac. Jessica had moved down 6 months earlier, at the insistence of her soon-to-be-pastor mother, because there was concern we didn’t know each other well enough to make a marriage work (we had been long distance for the 2.5 year duration of our relationship). After our honeymoon in the Keys, we set up shop in Orlando, where I worked as a Resident Advisor at a non-profit for the homeless and Jessica worked first for a textbook company doing layouts, and then for a construction company as their admin.

A year later, we had found ourselves moving away from the church we had started with. The theological issues hadn’t improved, and more and more it was clear they were more interested in growth than anything else. We then started attending a Lutheran Church, which was more in keeping with some of the things Jess grew up with (like the liturgical calendar), and I liked it because it was a bit more historically grounded and the theology was clearer. I was unclear about why some things were the way they were (e.g. what the justification for the break with Rome was, ultimately, in all Reformed Churches), but could live with the discomfort for awhile.

In 2006, I decided to continue my graduate work in Texas, while Jess (who had just been promoted) stayed on in Florida, so we went back to a long distance relationship. While pursuing my PhD in Criminal Justice, I came under the mentorship of a strong Catholic. I admired his dedication to his faith, and really respected him as a scholar, desipte our strong differences in political outlook. Given that there wasn’t an obvious alternative in Huntsville, Texas, I began to attend the Catholic Church there, and my religious reading became more Catholic at this point.

By 2008 I had determined to become Catholic. I liked that it was the original historical Church, and that there was a broad literature of apologetics and theology from me to draw on. The cleaving to tradition appealed to me, and in my respects I think it created some reminiscence of my days in Temple. The order of the service was broadly the same, and the style in some respects reminded me of the Rabbi of my youth, Rabbi Roth. In any case, Easter of 2009, I was received into the Church, with my mentor as my Sponsor.

Settling

I was done. I had found my theological home. And I threw myself into it, as I do with most things, at 200%. I attended daily Mass, began to be one of the people responsible for distributing communion, even helped host a morning communion service (which wasn’t a mass because there was no actual Priest there). I went to weekly confession, read all things Catholic, and even listened to Catholic radio - though often found myself disagreeing with the hosts both politically and theologically.

To be honest, I never really considered my position vis-a-vis my Judaism. Again, looking back, it seems impossible that I didn’t really consider it given the number of times within the New Testament that the Jews were set up to be the boogeymen. This, perhaps, was somewhat assuaged by the post-Vatican II efforts to subdue some of that nascent antisemitism, but still, I remain somewhat shocked at myself. I never stopped considering myself Jewish in some respects, though I wouldn’t have claimed to be Jewish if someone asked, but it just wasn’t something that was top of mind.

Interestingly, Jessica, while having attended some of the RCIA² classes with me, was absolutely uninterested in becoming Catholic. She would attend Mass with me on Sundays, but was simply uninterested in Catholicism. Nominally, she remained Presbyterian (the denomination of her Youth), but was individually non-committal.

In 2010 we moved to Connecticut, where I started working at the University of New Haven as a Visiting Assistant Professor. My Mass-going continued, and when we left in 2011 for Tiffin, Ohio, where I had gotten a new job, things continued on much as they had been in Texas and Connecticut. I went to Mass most days, helped out, did confession, and read widely.

During the years in Ohio we also grew our family. Our son Noah was born in 2012 and our daughter Madeline was born 22 months later in 2014. Both were baptized, though not in the Catholic Church, as by this time Jessica’s mom was an ordained minister, so she did the baptisms. There were still some religious issues within Catholicism that bothered me, particularly the place of women in the Church, but overall I felt pretty fulfilled.

Then we moved to Mississippi.

Things Get Upended

I took a job at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) in 2015 as an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice. It was a big step up for me, as Tiffin University, while a good school, was very teaching-oriented and USM would soon become an R1 University - with highest research. Jessica, too took a job at USM, becoming the Assistant to the Dean of the Honors College, a job which she grew to love deeply.

We originally settled in Petal, Mississippi, and had the kids in the Univeristy-affiliated daycare. When Noah was old enough, he moved to the relatively good public school but we were unhappy in Petal, so we were excited to move to Hattiesburg in 2016 and put our kids in the Catholic School there, which was also highly rated. In general, the kids’ Catholic school experience was good, but it was expensive, and I had concerns particularly about the math education. I didn’t really have religious concerns, because we were attending the Church attached to the school, though Jess was only interested in attending on Sundays and not moving any farther down the road to Catholicism. At this time, it was also becoming clearer that Noah was dealing with ADHD, and was struggling a bit with a worksheet-based curriculum.

Through the Church, I had met a group of people who were on the Social Justice committee, and I started attending the meetings regularly, becoming somewhat of a lay leader of the group. Through this, I found out about a set of retreats on the Louisiana coast, run by the Jesuits, and I attended my first one in December of 2018, by which time both kids were at the Catholic School. The retreat was fantastic - just for men - but the whole retreat was silent. There were multiple lectures each day by a guest Jesuit priest, who was equally good. It felt profound, the material was interesting, and it was outstanding for introspection. I would attend again in 2019, with that year having a deep impact on my movement back to Judaism.

One additional oddity, and one that I think ended up having an outsized impact, was I began listening to the podcast Jesuitical, which was geared towards young(er) Catholics. On this podcast, they hosted the hosts of another podcast called Unorthodox, which is a Jewish podcast, which I then downloaded out of curiosity. In some ways, upon first listening to it, it was like hearing a bit of home, as my mom’s family was all from New Rochelle, and the podcast was recognizable in that quasi-familial sense you get when you hear from people who are from near where you are. In another way, it was nice to hear about things half-remembered from my childhood, so I became a regular listener.

Unorthodox also had another curious effect as I listened to more episodes. I started to realize how small my world of Judaism had been (and continued to be). Nearly everything I thought I knew about Judaism had been channeled through Christianity or general American culture (with its reliance on Christian cultural hegemony). I began to hear about Jewish writers and texts from Jews, hear reference to the Talmud (even if just jokingly), and basically just hear people glorying in their Jewishness. I started to read more Jewishly, in a limited way, though I wouldn’t have described that way it to myself.

Then, in 2019, I went to do the second silent retreat in Louisiana.

I don’t remember exactly why I wrote it, but I found myself writing a story during a rainy period of the retreat during which I normally would be walking outside and thinking or praying. This in itself was strange, as though I enjoy writing, I basically never write fiction. I think I was writing for Noah, but this is what came out.

There was a man who inherited great wealth from the generations before him. Hordes of gold and silver, jewels, and other valuable items. When he was young, he would look at them and think of all the ways he might spend the gold and silver, and all the things he could get for the other valuable objects. As he got older, he worked to add to the store of treasure, but he lost interest in what was there before the things he added. He no longer thought about what he had, but just what he could add. Eventually he grew old and could not remember the early riches at all, and thought all he had was only that which he added in his life, and it seemed a very small and unworthy amount of treasure, and he lamented that he was unable to gain more, having forgot the great wealth he inherited.

When I reread the story, it hit me hard. I don’t know why I reinterpreted it at that point, as I hadn’t really written for myself, but I suddenly saw myself as the boy who had forgotten his inherited riches.

This was compounded by something else that happened at the retreat.

The year before, the guest Priest had been pretty fabulous. In 2019, the Priest was interesting, but less engaging. But one of his talks focused on “the Jewish world of Jesus.” During the talk, he spoke about how Jesus would have understood the world from a Jewish perspective my mind wandered, and suddenly, and unbidden, it occurred to me to ask how the Jewish world would have seen Jesus. The answer, which seems obvious in retrospect, is that largely, the Jewish world didn’t really care about Jesus. He simply didn’t matter. Of course, there were those engaged in the debates of the time, but your average Jew probably not only had no idea who Jesus was, if they had heard about him, they probably just shrugged and moved on with their day. After all, while some Jews were converted, the vast majority remained unconvinced.

It is hard to overstate how large an impact on me these combined elements had. Not only had I given up things I didn’t realize, but that I had done it for a reason that would not have mattered without the Christian perspective from which I had been convinced.

I was completely uncertain what to do. I wouldn’t describe it as an immediate loss of faith, but it was approaching that. To complete my metaphor from above:

One day, you come back to your well appointed home and look at door that you had never seen open before. Perhaps you were curious about it when you were younger and it had been locked, or perhaps you simply never tried to open it. But now, you open the door, and behind it is the most magnificent library you have ever seen. Books about every topic of interest, things at your reading level, and far above - more than could ever be finished in a lifetime. Enough to make you totally forget the books and library at your friend’s house; and it had been in your house the whole time, but you never looked.

Subsequently, I formally withdrew from the Catholic Church, and have not been back to any Church service since.

Coming Home

At this point, you might be wondering about my long-suffering wife. She had been religiously dragged around by me all over creation, and now here was another turn - a U-turn - in the road. Truthfully, I tried to explain it to her as best I could at the time, in a very long but wholly inadequate letter, and she didn’t really understand. I cannot possibly blame her. I barely understood at the time myself. She still doesn’t, but is willing to work with my quirks. G-d bless her.

Coming home from that retreat, and really beginning in 2019, I began to read earnestly in Judaism. Many of the early books I read were actually for converts, since I’ve not really found texts for reverts. This was a good starting point for me, since it covered many of the basics. What I found was that many of the things that drew me towards Catholicism specifically, were really me seeking to better connect with history and tradition, and Judaism does that in far more, and better ways (for me).

In some respects, the COVID-19 pandemic was a blessing for our family. We took our kids out of the Catholic school, and I began homeschooling them. Since I was working from home (the University had gone remote), I began to take some online Yiddish classes, and began to study Torah a little more systematically. On a whim, I started the Daf Yomi cycle, and while I’ve not been perfect, have largely kept up (even if I often don’t understand what I’m reading). We enrolled the kids in Hebrew school (I even co-taught the year we were online), and Jess has agreed to raise them Jewish - which is a show of remarkable charity on her part.

In 2020 we moved back to Ohio, to be near Jess’s family. I have commuted down to Mississippi when necessary, but have been able to be mostly remote for the past year or so. We have a new synagogue here, and a new Hebrew School for the kids, and the community is very welcoming - though none of them know this story, as I’ve been embarrassed to tell it. Jess’s family has been incredibly supportive, and we often have them over for Shabbat dinner on Friday nights. Madeline lights the candles.

As I’ve always found myself more attracted to traditional observance, and as I’ve become more observant over the past couple of years, we are continuing to face challenges. I attempt to keep kosher at home (and out, really, but less successfully), but it’s difficult to do with a wife who loves pork products! We also light Shabbat candles, and I am essentially shomer Shabbos, though the kids and Jess are not (kids don’t do electronics, however). I have become a full-time kippah wearer, though covered with a hat when I’m out, and am attempting to get more consistent with laying teffilin and doing my prayers, though this is made slightly more difficult with no Orthodox community to speak of in the area.

I have lots of challenges left. My kids halachic status bothers me, as while I’m okay with them in a Reform temple, I’m much more draws to Modern Orthodox observance and they wouldn’t be seen as full halachic Jews in that context. Same with Jess, who has shown much (very understandable) ambivalence regarding her own religious leanings, and has no interest in Judaism (though she will attend certain ceremonies). Given that there is not a shul within walking distance, and I don’t drive on Shabbat, working out how to manage attendance is still problematic, but I have faith that over time we will figure it out.

One thing that has given me recent solace is Rabbi Solovietchik’s book On Repentance. In it he says,

Man may wander about in circles and become entangled in all sorts of vain couses and pursue empty ideas. He may believe that he has found the true goal in his life’s fight for socialism, for “civil rights,” for communism, or any of the other “isms.” He makes a circuit of Beth-el, Gilgal and Mizpah, he searches for gods, overtunrs worlds, and it may appear to him that he can see ahead and is hearlding a new and better future - but always and ever “his return is to Ramah, for there is is home.” God, who is there after man sins gives him no peace. Soon his world will be overtunrned… Then, willingly or not, he will return to Ramah, to his home where is mother Hannah welcomed him with her longing and supplication, where he lay in his cradle and absorbed the affectionate dulcet melodies sung to him by his mother.

I don’t really have any takeaways, nor any big lessons aside from exploring your own house before wishing you had another, as you’ll eventuall circle back to the beginning in any event, as did Samuel in the story hinted at in the quote above. My plan is to use this space to write about some of those challenges as I encounter them, as a place to pose questions, and perhaps even to get some answered. I started here, because I have felt like less of a Jew because of this journey, and needed to tell the story. I know they say a Baal Teshuva can stand where a Tzaddik cannot, but it never feels that way from the BT perspective - especially while its in process - and it still doesn’t to me. There will be those who probably will still reject me from the larger Jewish community, but I hope few of them, and I at least feel good enough about where I’m currently at, and how I’m growing, to no longer worry so much about it.

Not all of my posts will be this long, or this personal, but please consider subscribing if you’re interested in reading more about my journey as it continues, or more about my other interests regarding data and quantitative methods.

1. I say “took the bait” here tongue-in-cheek. I really don’t think that was the purpose of my friendship with any of those people who were influential in my conversion process. I’m still friends with some of them, and many of them had their own movement out of Christianity for one reason or another.

2. Right of Christian Initiation for Adults - the course required for those converting to Catholocism.