“He was so cruel!”
This was uttered–in a tearful, anguished voice–by a cousin my family was visiting when I was 19 years old, in what was possibly the most embarrassing moment of my life.
I’d just transferred colleges at the beginning of my sophomore year, and had met Orthodox Jews for the first time. From my first encounter with this new group at Hillel dinner, I was intrigued: drawn to their passion; their eagerness to discuss weighty questions; their joy in their religious observance. I’d grown up “Conservative,” and in our home, that meant following a few commandments, both real and imagined: eating gribenas and schmaltz on major holidays; having strong feelings for our local Chinese restaurants; and the strict observance of exactly one mitzvah–thou shalt not eat pork. Everything else seemed negotiable. Now that I was getting to know a very different type of Judaism, I’d started keeping some new Jewish rituals, too: attending Shabbat services; eating kosher foods; even saying the traditional “Shacharit” morning prayers each day.
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