by Chana Levin

Mrs. Levin lives in Jerusalem. Her poem, “Prayer,” was featured in JO Dec. ’96_.

Several years ago, The Jewish Observer featured an article, “Lehavdil,” by Aviva Minsk, (May ’97) in which the author writes with justifiable pain that for many F.F.B. (Frum from Birth) families the idea of a B.T. (Baal Teshuva) marrying their daughters or sons is “beyond the pale.” I would like to reassure her along with other B.T.’s that not all F.F.B.’s feel that way. I think I am uniquely qualified to comment. Twenty-five years ago, I, from an F.F.B. family, whose father l”z received semicha from Rabbi Yosef Kahaneman at the esteemed Ponovezher Yeshiva in Europe, married a baal teshuva – and a relatively new one, at that.

Why did I do something that was almost unheard of then, and even today? I suppose the simplest – and best – answer is that we were bashert for each other. Hashem – the greatest Shadchan of all – had it all arranged. We needed each other to become the people we are now. Had I married one of the nice, complacent, interchangeable young F.F.B. men with whom I had met on shidduchim, I probably would have remained on the same religious level all my life, doing everything by rote, never growing.

As soon as I met the man who was to become my husband, I knew he was different. At first, I was most impressed with his obvious intelligence. One snowy winter afternoon we went for a long walk, and he told me his story – how after a totally secular upbringing, he had decided to lead a Torah life. He explained all the difficulties that decision had brought.

Twenty-five years ago, the baal teshuva movement was just starting. My husband did not have an instant support group, special programs, Shabbatonim or even the trusty ArtScroll Siddur to help him. He was basically a pioneer, struggling along on his own, trying to make sense of the strange world of Orthodoxy he had chosen – or felt compelled – to become part of. Everything was new to him and could be achieved only with difficulty. When a family invited him for Shabbos, he was handed a bentcher but held it upside down! He had to struggle to learn Alef-Beis from a child’s sefer. For someone who had always known academic success in the secular world and was in fact attending a prestigious law school at the time, it was definitely not an easy transformation.

Another obstacle he had to face was alienation from his parents, as they had felt he was rejecting them and their values. Somehow he had the strength and courage to maintain his newfound beliefs and eventually succeeded in repairing the rift between him and his family.

I was so moved by his story, I knew then he was my bashert for whom I’d been searching for so long, and that our futures were to be inevitably intertwined.

So we were married. My husband continued on his spiritual journey, and by so doing took me along with him, away from my F.F.B. complacency. I learned to see the world of Torah through new eyes, giving me a different perspective on things I had always taken for granted. The experience was like a fresh breeze blowing into a musty room, which had been sealed up for too long.

Several months after our wedding, we went for a short visit to his family in New Jersey. They were friendly and welcoming, going out of their way to accommodate us with specially bought kosher food and paper plates. Somehow, they even found two candles for me to light on Friday evening. But as I did so, I reflected that it was probably the first time that Shabbos candles had ever been lit in that house.

I began to wonder how my husband, having grown up in such a secular environment, had ever managed to move so far away from it. In shul on Shabbos morning, I watched from the Ezras Nashim as my husband davened. He prayed with such kavana that I could only thank Hashem for this neis, the strength he had been given to leave his former life and claim his Jewish heritage.

Then his mother told us a quaint family story of the strange old lady – her grandmother – who was so “old-fashioned” that she never removed her headscarf. Even when she wanted to wash her hair, she had her daughters hold a towel over her so that the “beams of her house” should never see her uncovered head. “Just like Kimchi,” I exclaimed in wonder, recalling that story.

So my husband did have yichus, after all! The chain had nearly been severed, but he had reconnected it now. Surely it must be in the zechus of his great-grandmother, the tzaddekes, that the next generation of the family is now frum again.

When our oldest son was three, we carefully explained to him that Abba was a baal teshuva and discussed what it meant. We told him that when Abba was a little boy he had never known the beauty of Shabbos, the fun of Purim, the excitement of finding the afikomen on Pesach, building a succa or lighting Chanuka candles. On Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, he didn’t go to school, as in New York City even the public schools were closed then. But his family didn’t go to shul either. He had always felt that he was missing something. But now, through our children, he could experience all the joys he’d been denied in his own childhood. We explained that a baal teshuva was someone who had chosen to become frum, and that was very special. Our son then insisted, “I want to be a baal teshuva, too.”

At first we tried to rationalize with him and he started to cry. Then we realized that all of us can be – and should be, in a very real sense – “baalei teshuva.” We should all continue to grow – spiritually, in mitzvos and learning – never being satisfied, always striving for more, perfecting ourselves into becoming the Jews we have the potential to be.

Now my husband is teaching in a yeshiva here in Israel, writing sefarim, and doing kiruv (outreach) work with new baalei teshuva. For who can empathize better than one who has gone through the experience personally? This past Shavuos, we had the privilege of having a new baalas teshuva stay with us. Having grown up in a secular, leftwing kibbutz, she recently discarded its emptiness and, like Ruth, found inner strength and a new meaningful life for herself as a frum woman. She was thrilled with the whole concept of Shavuos as Mattan Torah, having only experienced it before as a secular “harvest festival.” As we walked together to a midnight shiur for women, she looked up at the starry sky as if truly expecting it to open at any moment.

“Hashem is giving us the Torah tonight,” she said with such joy in her voice, it was contagious. I told her that her enthusiasm was a real inspiration to me.

Then she thanked me for being a positive role model for her, as the woman she was striving to become.

If one of our sons should one day want to marry such a dedicated young woman, I would certainly give them my blessing and be proud to have her as my daughter-in-law.

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