Journeys of the Soul

Twelve years ago Dan Fried had an epiphany from a most unusual source. When his daughter was forced to participate in a non-Jewish holiday concert in her public school, Dan suddenly found himself standing up for his religion. The experience launched him from being religiously apathetic to becoming an activist for personal freedoms and eventually to becoming a frum Jew. The events also revealed to him strengths that he did not know he had.

Dan grew up in Connecticut where he lives until today. He was raised in a Conservative Jewish home. After his marriage in 1984, he and his wife Marge joined first a Reform synagogue and then a Conservative synagogue. Both felt spiritually empty. They weren’t looking for religion but just wanted something that gave them a path in life.

One day in December 1998 their daughter Rachael, who was in the third grade in a local public school, came home from school singing songs about Jesus and Christmas. She said the kids were practicing songs everyday for their school’s Christmas concert a few weeks later.

Dan’s wife was outraged, but Dan shrugged it off. Marge told Dan that he needed to speak to the school principal and insist that the concert not include Christian holiday songs. Dan reluctantly agreed.

“I was the last guy you should call when my daughter is singing about Jesus. I was the bottom of the list to defend my daughter’s and my family’s Yiddishkeit.”

Dan had a close relationship with the principal so he expected that she would be receptive to his appeal. He was dead wrong. She belittled his request and refused to change the concert.

Dan researched legal precedent and returned to the principal with court decisions that supported the separation of Church and State in cases similar to his. Again she refused to listen.

The school had a high number of non-observant Jewish students, so Dan turned to their parents to garner support for his efforts. They all refused to help, saying they did not want to cause problems.

Around this time Dan received tickets to an upcoming Sunday Yankees game. He told Rachael and her sister Leah, who was in the fifth grade, that they could skip their Sunday Hebrew School that morning. Recalling his own childhood experience dreading Sunday school each week, he was shocked when they said they loved Sunday school and would not miss it for a baseball game.

“That’s when I realized that I was fighting a real fight. My daughters had a real built-in connection to Judaism.”

His daughters’ reaction gave new fuel to Dan’s one-man fight. He threatened the school with a lawsuit and began calling local media outlets. The school still refused to listen and said it would proceed with the concert.

The evening of the concert arrived. The Frieds arrived at the school and were greeted by local news outlets. The school’s principal welcomed Dan with a warm reception as if nothing had happened, but Dan walked passed her and entered the building. Around his neck he wore a camcorder to record the event, and on his face was a stern demeanor. This was the culmination of weeks of preparation and he was prepared for the coming fight.

The students took their place on the stage as every parent sat on the edges of their seats awaiting the confrontation. Who would back down - the school or Mr. Fried? Would he really make a scene?

The students began singing several general holiday songs. Dan’s stomach turned in knots as they began a song about Jesus. They sang several stanzas and then the choir conductor told them to stop. He announced that he wanted to demonstrate how the student can sing harmonies, but that the school had decided not to sing the specific religious song about Jesus that night. Dan had won!

The concert ended and the Frieds walked out of the room. The other Jewish families tried to pat Dan on his back as he went. He was ecstatic that the school backed down, but was disappointed at the other families for not supporting him.

Dan’s fight against the concert was a pivotal moment. He had discovered that his Judaism had real meaning for him and his family and that he was prepared to fight for it. Hashem saw Dan’s drive and eagerness and sent him messengers to assist on his growing appreciation for Judaism.

During the year before the concert, a frum family had moved next door to the Frieds. The Frieds watched them with bewilderment as they walked to synagogue in the snow and ate in a small booth outside their house for one week in the cold Connecticut autumn.

One Friday night the family invited the Frieds for Shabbas dinner. When the father put his hands on his children’s heads to bless them, Dan began to cry.

“I had never seen such a beautiful thing,” Dan said. “I asked him what he was doing. He told me that every Friday night we bless our children. I read the words of the blessing and water came to my eyes. I knew this is what I wanted. I knew right there and then I was sold, hook, line and sinker.”

Dan and Marge began learning more about Orthodoxy. They soon pulled their daughters out of public school and enrolled them in a local Orthodox day school. With their daughters taking the lead, the entire family fell in love with Orthodoxy and became observant.

The Frieds have since become leaders in the local Orthodox community. As a volunteer project, Dan runs a service called ConnectIsrael.com which broadcasts shiurium and Jewish communal projects around the world via videoconferencing. He sees it as his way to give back to the Jewish world.

“Everyone has a calling in life. Mine is to stand up and do something,” Dan said. “From the day my kids were singing about Jesus I stood up and haven’t sat down since.”

Dan’s role as a community activist at first caught him by surprise, but it was just what he needed to turn his life around. He still looks back this time of year and smiles at the ironic beginning of his journey.

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Michael Gros writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

Published in The Jewish Press in December 2010

The little acts of kindness that we do every day can have life-changing impacts on people. Jay Cantor is proof. The common interactions he had with religious Jews helped him to understand the eternal relevance of Judaism and to overcome the lifelong stereotypes he had possessed.

Jay lived in Manhattan and worked in sales. He had grown up in a non-observant home, and had reached a point in his life that he felt that something important was missing but could not identify it. Two of his close friends, neither Jewish, had gone through emotional challenges and had found spiritual support from their religious beliefs. Jay longed for something similar.

“I felt burned out in my life. I’ve always been very curious, sensitive and operated from the heart. I felt like things just weren’t put together,” Jay said.

Jay worked in a real estate office with 50 other salespeople. He had been a salesman for his whole life, but felt like he was stuck in a rut.

At the end of each month the company announced the name of the most successful salesperson. Nearly every month it was the same person, an unassuming, serious man. The man always wore a dark suit and a baseball cap, but other than that he didn’t stick out at all.

Jay hoped that he might be able to glean some wisdom from the successful salesman. One day he approached him and asked for advice.

In the conversation Jay found out that the man, Sammy Rappaport*, was a religious Jew. Sammy was eager to speak with him, but the conversation took a direction that Jay could have never predicted.

“I said to him, ‘I want to know your secret.’ [Sammy] spoke to me but didn’t speak one word of business,” Jay said. “He just listened to everything I was saying about my life. He figured out that I was single and Jewish and needed some direction. He started tossing things out to me, giving me ideas for my life.”

Jay found out later that Sammy’s suggestions were based on Mishlei, Pirke Avos and other Jewish sources. At first Jay doubted that Judaism could hold the answers to his challenges.

“I thought, ‘what will this Orthodox Jew, living in some shtetl, know about my life?’” Jay said.

Jay’s mind was filled with age-old stereotypes about religious Jews and he assumed they all applied to Sammy. But as he listened to Sammy in the first conversation and subsequent discussions, he slowly began to see the wisdom that Sammy possessed.

“This guy was pulling ideas from a thousand years ago, of people that experienced the same things I was experiencing. He could pull these stories and apply them to my life. I said there’s some real wisdom here.”

Jay and Sammy began meeting everyday, sometimes for just a few minutes, other times over lunch. Sammy continued to give him additional practical ideas for life.

One day at work Sammy asked Jay if he would be interested in putting on Tefillin. Jay had never done so and jumped at the chance. The two men headed for a nearby fire exit and Sammy taught him how to wear them.

That one experience turned into a daily practice. Jay and Sammy would rendezvous for a few minutes each day on the fire escape so Jay could put on tefillin. Sammy also began teaching him the tefilos during their outdoor meetings.

Sammy connected Jay with several local outreach organizations. At Aish NY he met Rabbi Avraham Goldhar, the organization’s educational director. Jay was immediately impressed with him. Rabbi Goldhar also disproved Jay’s misconceptions of Orthodox rabbis – he was young, clean-shaven and approachable.

A few months later Jay attended another Aish event. The room was packed but Jay spied Rabbi Goldhar across the room. Rabbi Goldhar’s reaction upon seeing Jay amazed him.

“I thought he sees hundreds of people a day. I thought he wouldn’t remember me, or would just nod at me and walk right past me to his office,” Jay said. “But he came up to me. He didn’t just say, ‘what’s your name?’ or ‘Jay, where have you been?’ But he said ‘Jay Cantor, how have you been?’ At that moment I said, “wow, these people are real.”

Jay then attended a weeklong Aish learning program in Israel. He was inspired by the classes and trips, but was even more inspired by the average frum Jews he met. Everyone showed a sincere concern for him just because he was a fellow Jew.

Following the trip Jay went back to America, packed up his life, and then returned to Israel for another two and a half years of learning. He became fully observant during his time in Israel. He then returned to America, got married and went back to school to become a social worker. He’s now living in Passaic, New Jersey.

Jay’s journey was launched and guided by the average religious Jews he met in his life. He’s now trying to give other Jews the same opportunity, from hosting non-observant friends for Shabbat to sharing Torah thoughts via email with family and friends.

“The idea of Jews being a light to the world is that we’re supposed to do what we’re supposed to do. We’re supposed to be ourselves, and that will then give off a light,” Jay said.

The frum Jews that inspired Jay showed a true concern for him. He’s now returning the favor by showering other people with true Jewish love.

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Michael Gros is the former Chief Operating Officer of the outreach organization The Atlanta Scholars Kollel. He writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

Published in The Jewish Press in November 2010

* Not his real name

The journey of Jeff and Amy Brooke was born out of tragedy, but through it they were able to see the tremendous joy and beauty of Judaism.

Jeff grew up in a Reform Jewish home in Norfolk, VA. For years the region had the heartrending status of having the highest intermarriage rate in the country, at 90 percent. But over the last twenty years a small frum community has been growing in the area and is having some success at turning the tide.

Amy grew up in a similar nonobservant home in Brooklyn. After the couple wed, they settled in Norfolk. Amy’s parents moved to the area soon after, with visions of migrating south to a quiet vacation home on the water. They found lots of water in Norfolk but not much else and grappled to find sufficient recreational activities.

So one day her parents turned on the television. They stumbled upon a televised class given by Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis. They were mesmerized by her persona, her passion and her material. They quickly contacted her NY-based outreach organization Hineni and ordered many of her tapes and books. Over the next few years, Jeff and Amy watched in disbelief as her parents became observant, literally before their eyes.

“We thought they were acting a little bit odd,” Jeff said. “We were observing them in an interested but horrified way.”

During this time, Amy became pregnant with their first child. Jeff realized that they needed a more spiritual direction in their life to help guide them in properly raising their child.

Simultaneously Jeff’s 25-year old brother experienced a relapse of the leukemia which had afflicted him during childhood. Every procedure was attempted, including a bone marrow donation from their mother. Sadly, all of the efforts were to no avail. Jeff’s brother passed away just a few months after his relapse.

The two events left Jeff grappling for answers and direction.

“Putting the two together - having any kind of loss makes one think about his place in the cosmos, and having a child makes you think about where you are and where you’re going. It was a time of spiritual searching,” Jeff said.

Just before Jeff’s brother passed away, Norfolk gained its first outreach Kollel as Rabbi Shlomo Goder moved from Monsey with three other families. The Kollel members heard that Jeff’s brother had passed away and so came to pay a shiva visit at their parents’ home.

Jeff was incredibly impressed – the Kollel members had just moved to town and Jeff had barely met them, and yet here they were going out of their way to show their care and concern to a Jewish family simply because they were fellow Jews. For Jeff, the presence of the religious Jews in the shiva house also provided a much-needed grounding and perspective.

“Shiva in a non-observant Jewish home is a joke, or worse, it’s offensive. There are usually a lot of loud mouth relatives knocking around, eating bagels, trading stock tips, clapping each other on the back,” Jeff noted. “It’s bad enough when an older person died, but it’s horrendous when it’s a young person.”

At the back of his parents’ house was a den, and Jeff would steal away there during shiva to escape the cacophony of visitors in the front sitting area. Jeff was joined there on many nights by one or more members of the Kollel. They spoke to him about the Jewish perspective of death and also gave him an opportunity to share his tormented feelings.

“They were not working me over, but were sincerely concerned about our family. We spent a lot of time talking about life and death,” Jeff said. “In retrospect I couldn’t tell you once [specific] thing we talked about. But it was just the fact that someone would care enough to come and be there.”

The genuine concern of the Kollel members also helped Jeff and Amy to begin to appreciate Torah-true Judaism and understand the religious path that her parents were following. They began to see the religious lifestyle as something truly beautiful and meaningful.

Following shiva, one of the Kollel members invited Jeff and Amy to their house for Shabbat. They were hooked! They soon got involved in the local Orthodox synagogue, which just happened to be located near their house. They received many more Shabbat invitations and made friends in the community. Jeff began learning one-on-one with a Kollel member and loved it.

Jeff’s learning helped him to realize something else that he had sorely misunderstood about Judaism. Jeff felt that there had to be a spiritual side to life. He just didn’t know how to find it and never thought that Judaism had the answers. But now when he came face-to-face with Torah-true Judaism, he immediately knew that it held the spiritual direction he was seeking.

“To know that my own religion was the source of something so true and spiritual, it was an awakening,” Jeff explained.

Since those events nearly twenty years ago, Jeff, Amy and their two children have been on a direct upward shot. They’ve become fully religious and have helped to found and lead many local Orthodox organizations. Amy’s brother and sister-in-law have also become frum.

The puzzle that Jeff and Amy began assembling during the shivah has been steadily growing, piece by piece. It’s now a beautiful picture of a life lived with love, deep purpose and spiritual meaning.

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Michael Gros is the former Chief Operating Officer of the outreach organization The Atlanta Scholars Kollel. He writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

Published in The Jewish Press in October 2010

Of all the places in the world to first learn how to build a Sukkah, Jonathan Gross did so in the most unlikely of places: the barren desert of Kuwait. Even though he was miles from any other Jew and lacked standard building supplies, he was able to build a kosher sukkah that lasted him for the entire holiday.

Jonathan grew up in a Conservative Jewish home in Queens, New York. He attended college at SUNY-Binghamton and then law school at Hofstra University. In June 2004 he joined the U.S. Army as a legal expert. He entered with the rank of First Lieutenant and was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). He was later promoted to Captain, and was sent on two tours of duty to Iraq and was involved in many legal missions involving prisoners, Iraqi courts and other issues. While he was not an infantryman, he had taken combat training and experienced his share of ambushes, bombings and gunfights. He also saw many miracles up close.

When he first joined the Army he was stationed at Fort Campbell, located on the Tennessee-Kentucky border. There he helped soldiers and units with legal problems before deployment. The base lacked a regular Jewish chaplain and with Rosh Hashana approaching, Jonathan realized that no Jewish services were planned and he would be all alone. Jonathan called a friend of his from college who at the time was in law school at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. The friend was going to the nearby synagogue Congregation Beth Jacob, and invited Jonathan to come along.

So Jonathan drove the 300 miles from Fort Campbell to Atlanta. The Beth Jacob community is tremendously warm and Jonathan felt extremely welcome. He returned to the community for Yom Kippur and Sukkot. He continued to come to the Beth Jacob community for other holidays during his year at Fort Campbell.

The day after Yom Kippur in 2006, Jonathan was deployed to the Middle East. He was sent first to Kuwait and then into Iraq. He tour of duty would last until the following September. The Beth Jacob community continued to look out for him during his deployment. Families in Atlanta stayed in touch with him and sent him care packages.

Jonathan arrived in Kuwait just before Sukkot, and immediately tried to find if a Sukkah would be available on his military base. He quickly found out that the base had no Jewish chaplain, and certainly no sukkah. But encouraged by a friend in Atlanta named Kivi Bernhard, Jonathan set about to make his own. With just days to go, he was at a loss as to where to find the necessary materials in the barren desert.

“I can’t say how it happened. There’s no way to explain it but for the hand of God,” Jonathan said. “I was in a totally remote, desolate area. Kivi encouraged me to build a sukkah. He said ‘somewhere, from the beginning of time, there was vegetation planted for you to build a sukkah. It’s waiting for you.’”

Military Chaplains are expected to help all soldiers in need, regardless of their religion. So Jonathan reached out to the Christian chaplain on the base to help him build his sukkah. Jonathan described what he was trying to build and the minimum measurements for a Kosher sukkah. The chaplain eagerly helped and the two men found an extra cardboard box and two unused metal poles.

Jonathan still did not know where to find vegetation to place on the top of the sukkah as schach. The chaplain also had no ideas. But that day Jonathan traveled to a rifle range 45 minutes away from the base. When he arrived he found a small dried-out bush growing there, just waiting for him to arrive. So Jonathan pulled it out of the ground and brought it back with him to his base. He and the chaplain erected the cardboard box and poles and Jonathan placed the bush on top.

The sukkah stood the entire week, surviving even huge sandstorms that knocked down tents and other more permanent structures on the base. Each day Jonathan sat in his sukkah to eat his meals and pray in peace. Finally on the last day of the holiday as he was leaving the sukkah, his uniform got caught on one of the bush’s branches and the whole sukkah fell down.

Jonathan witnessed the Hand of God many other times during his deployment. He even found a minyan on his father’s yahrzheit to allow him to say Kaddish, one of only two minyamin he found during his year tour.

Jonathan returned to Iraq for a second tour of duty, from October 2007 to November 2008. During this year he experienced many other miracles, some which saved his life and others which enabled him to keep mitzvot while he was deployed. During his second deployment Jonathan was stationed on a large base in Baghdad which had an observant Jewish Chaplain during his entire deployment. On the base there was also ample kosher food and services on Shabbat and Holidays.

Jonathan did not have to build another makeshift sukkah that year, because a total of three sukkot were assembled on the base. Thus in the least expected place, Jonathan found the resources to help him continue his religious growth.

Jonathan is still in the Army. He is currently an assistant professor in the law department of the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. He and his wife live in White Plains.

While a sukkah is supposed to be a temporary structure, this year, as last year, Jonathan will undoubtedly be using more permanent materials for his sukkah than a cardboard box and a bush.

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Michael Gros is the former Chief Operating Officer of the outreach organization The Atlanta Scholars Kollel. He writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

Published in The Jewish Press and Aish.com in September 2010

Stop in at the Gann El auto repair shop in Atlanta and you’ll be greeted with an ear-to-ear smile by owner Greg Herman. Take a look around the shop and you’ll find plenty of broken cars and the tools to fix them. Nothing in the shop gives away Greg’s previous life, except of course the full-size wrestling ring tucked away in a back corner.

For seventeen years Greg was a professional wrestler. He went by the name Demon Hell Storm and wrestled with everyone from Hulk Hogan to Ricky the Dragon and Sergeant Slaughter. But his journey back to his roots has been more exciting than any match in the ring.

Greg was born in 1964 and grew up in Miami. His mother was one of the top educators in the Reform movement.

Greg always knew he would be a wrestler. He’s five-foot-ten and at the height of his career weighed 265 pounds with only 3 percent body fat. After high school he attended a wrestling school and then signed a contract with the Global Wrestling Federation. Over the next seventeen years he wrestled on TV and for live audiences across the U.S. and around the world.

On the mat he was a match for almost every competitor, but outside the ring he had a harder time dealing with them. Every night he traveled to a different state with his fellow wrestlers, many of whom were former criminals who had become Born Again Christians. On bus trips they taunted him about his religion and tried to get him to become a Christian.

“I felt at that point in my life I needed to know who I was so I could rebut their claims,” Greg said.

Greg grappled for answers, and spoke over his religious questions with his parents. One day as he was approaching his 30th birthday, his parents asked him what gift he wanted. They were shocked at his answer.

“I said I wanted a Tanach. My mom almost had a stroke,” Greg said.

So his parents sent him a copy of an English Tanach and he began pouring over it to look for answers.

In 1996 Greg suffered a career-ending injury: in the middle of a match he tore his bicep and pectoral muscles in his right arm. During his recovery, he fell back on the other trade he knew well: fixing cars. He took a job in a Florida mechanics shop.

A few months later a customer came into the shop. He was dark skinned and something about him stood out. Greg assumed he was a Black Muslim. Greg badgered the man about being Muslim. To his surprise, the man told him he was actually Jewish (he was an Orthodox Jew from Yemen). The man then gave Greg a ribbing of his own.

“What are you?” the man asked.

“I’m a Jew,” Greg said.

“Then why isn’t your head covered?” the man asked.

“Why should I cover my head?”

”There’s a G-d above you,” he said. “And why aren’t you wearing tzitzit?”

“What are those?” Greg asked.

The man briefly explained tzitzit and other concepts to Greg. As he was leaving the store the man invited Greg to join him in shul on Shabbat. Greg declined, but accepted the man’s offer to join him in shul on Sunday morning.

Sunday morning came and Greg met the man at his Orthodox shul. The members were all aging, straight-laced white-haired men. Greg looked out of place.

“You can imagine what guys there thought. I showed up at synagogue, driving a jeep with 40-inch tires, a winch on front, all covered in mud. I was wearing a sweatshirt, but they could see my 200 pound frame. My hair was down my back tied in ponytail,” Greg recalled. “The guys were scared of me! They didn’t even believe I was Jewish.”

Despite their initial reactions, the synagogue members quickly welcomed Greg. He began coming every week and soon began to feel at home. He slowly began keeping mitzvot and learning more about his heritage.

A few years later Greg moved to Atlanta and opened his mechanics shop. He began learning with a local Chabad Rabbi and joined a Young Israel.

Greg’s role models used to be famous wrestlers. Now his role models are the average Jews that he sees on daily basis doing kindnesses for each other.

“I’ve lived the other life — I like this one a lot better,” Greg said. “You can have a world full of lunatics that are just out to stab each other in the back or a world full of people trying to help each other. Which world would you rather live in?”

Greg now tries to live a life based on the Jewish values he sees all around him. He goes out of his way to help organizations and people in his shop, even when they cannot afford them. He frequently hosts fundraising events for local Jewish charities, including running wrestling tournaments. It’s for those events that he carts out his old wrestling ring.

In the ring Greg still moves with speed and agility. Watching him, it’s easy to imagine him in his former life. But the kippah on his head is an indication that life is just a little different now.

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Michael Gros is the former Chief Operating Officer of the outreach organization The Atlanta Scholars Kollel. He writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

Published in The Jewish Press in July 2010

In a blur of colors and a roar of engines, the Formula Ford race cars sped around the race track at the Riverside International Raceway in California. Hitting 125 miles an hour, George Gottlieb* pulled his car away from the pack. Lap after lap, the other cars tried to keep up with him but to no avail. After ten laps the checkered flag waved as he crossed the finish line, far ahead of his competitors. The thrill of his first victory filled his body as he jumped out of his car in a high.

Minutes later, George stood atop the winner’s podium clutching his trophy. It was a moment he had waited for literally his entire life. This was just the beginning of his career and he could already picture himself on the podium many more times after future successful races.

However as he basked in his victory, a feeling nagged at him.

“I was very excited that I had just won, but as I was standing there holding the trophy I realized something was missing,” George said. “I ended up feeling empty. I thought there had to be more to life than just this.”

George stepped down from the platform and slowly walked away from the track. Since a young boy he had dreamed about becoming a racecar driver. He had planned his whole life towards that goal, but now he just walked away from it.

“Being a professional racecar driver, it’s like any athlete. It’s totally consuming. You’re always thinking, going over tracks. It’s a 24-7 job,” George explained. “If you’re not completely 110% in it, you’ll never make it. I realized at that moment it just wasn’t what I wanted in life.”

George grew up as a Reform Jew in California, surrounded by many other non-observant Jews. Even as a teenager he felt that there had to be an order to the world and a higher divine purpose. He looked deeply into his Reform Judaism but felt that it lacked the answers he pursued. He investigated nearly every other religious system he could find. He explored parts of Christianity, looked into Native American beliefs and tried Eastern religions. Nothing rang true.

“I kept finding castles in the sky that didn’t turn out to be anything,” George said. “I was always searching for truth. I knew there was something out there.”

George was at a loss for answers to his religious questions, but applied his energy towards his goal of racing. As a child he constantly watched races on television and daydreamed about races. Once he learned to drive, he tried to race whenever he could. As a teenager he begged his parents to let him become a professional racecar drive, but they repeatedly refused.

But the years of nagging paid off. At age 18 when he was a freshman in college, he convinced his parents to let him attend the Bob Bondurant Driving School in California for one day of advanced driving training. George drove exceptionally well on the course. His instructors told him that he would make an excellent driver and that he had a successful career ahead of him. But again his parents refused.

“Over our dead bodies,” they told him. But realizing that they could not limit his choices forever, they added, “But if you really still want it, when you graduate college you can do it.”

After graduation George found a job in commercial real estate. He saved up enough money to travel to France to attend a two-week session at an elite racing school. He raced Formula Renault Turbo Martinis and absolutely loved it.

George returned to America and started working for the Skip Barber Racing School in California. It was in that job that he raced on the nearby racetrack and had his epiphany on the winner’s podium.

After realizing that his lifelong dreams were over, George began looking for other outlets for his energy and new paths to pursue in life. Soon after, a friend told him about a local class hosted by the Jewish outreach organization Aish HaTorah. He attended it and was hooked. In the class a rabbi presented popular secular topics and solicited feedback and discussion from the attendees. At the end of the class he provided the Jewish outlook on the topics. Every answer hit home with George.

“Every time I noticed how right [the Jewish perspective] was. I knew I was going on the correct path.”

With his interest lit, George began attending more local classes and then decided to attend a six-week Aish HaTorah summer program in Israel. This program solidified his realization that Orthodox Judaism held the answers to his questions. He came back for another year to learn.

Throughout his religious growth, George shared some of what he was learning with this sister and parents. During his year in Israel George’s sister graduated college, and he convinced her to try an Aish program in Israel. She loved it and stayed on to learn. Their parents had retired at a young age, and so came to visit George and his sister in Israel. They attended a handful of classes at Aish, spent time in the Aish community, and decided that this was for them as well.

Now the entire Gottlieb family is observant, all thanks to George’s constant curiosity. The fervor and dedication that he had applied towards his earlier goal of becoming a successful racecar driver led him and family towards the correct course on the racetrack of life.

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Michael Gros is the former Chief Operating Officer of the outreach organization The Atlanta Scholars Kollel. He writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

Published in The Jewish Press in June 2010

* Not his real name

Penina Taylor’s life has come a full 360 degrees – she was born Jewish but then converted to Evangelical Christianity. She became a leader of a Messianic Congregation and succeeded in converting many other Jews to Christianity, including her own parents and sister. After 17 years she finally found her way back to Judaism and now tries to help other Jews escape the clutches of the Church.

Penina chronicled her life’s story in the book Coming Full Circle, which was published in November 2009. Shortly after the book was published, she shared her story with The Jewish Press.

Penina grew up in a turbulent, loosely-affiliated Jewish home. Her parents, both Jewish, had gotten divorced when she was four years old. As a child she had been emotionally and physically abused by a family friend. Understandably when she reached high school, the typical teenage challenges were compounded by the emotional baggage she carried with her. Penina was looking for answers and emotional support.

When she was a little more than 15 and in tenth grade, she overheard a born-again Christian girl in her class evangelizing other students. Penina initially reacted with anger and confronted the girl. But as she spoke to her, and in follow-up conversations, the other girl succeeded in winning her over. Penina began attending church with the girl and within the year she decided to convert to Christianity. She committed herself almost immediately to bringing other Jews into the Christian fold.

Her first targets were her mother and sister, and they soon converted as well. Following high school Penina attended Bible College and became a counselor for the Billy Graham Crusade evangelical organization.

After college Penina decided to marry her non-Jewish high school sweetheart named Paul. Penina had not seen her father in years, but had always dreamed about him escorting her down the aisle at her wedding. With her mother’s consent, she found her father and invited him to visit for a couple of weeks so they could get to know each other again and discuss the upcoming wedding.

During the visit her parents fell in love with each other again and decided to get remarried. But it wasn’t proper for her now-Christian mother to marry her still-Jewish father, so while they were together Penina and her mother convinced him to convert as well.

Following Paul and Penina’s wedding, the young couple moved to England for his service in the United States Air Force. They joined a local church and began doing missionary work there.

During this time, Penina and Paul began having some very strange experiences. One day as she was reciting her Christian prayers, Penina felt that G-d was telling her to light Shabbat candles on Friday nights. She spoke it over with Paul and he consented. Neither felt that it was contradictory to bring Jewish rituals into their Christian life; rather they both that doing so could make her a stronger Christian.

A few weeks later, Paul was reading his copy of the Old Testament and stumbled across the rules of Kosher eating. He showed them to Penina, and told her that because she was Jewish, she had an obligation to follow the rules of the Torah. She agreed and decided to abandon shellfish and pork products.

“I always felt that it was really important to worship G-d in truth,” Penina said. “[Our life was] a journey of discovering the truth of how G-d wanted us to worship Him.”

Later when reading the New Testament, they discovered an ambiguous statement that implied that married women should cover their hair. Paul and Penina had long before abandoned their Xmas tree upon learning of its non-Christian pagan roots. Penina was now covering her hair, eating kosher and lighting candles (while still attending church on Sundays).

Penina and Paul eventually moved back to Maryland to be near her parents. They founded their own Messianic Congregation which combined both Christian and Jewish rituals. Penina was extremely curious about Judaism, and began buying all of the Jewish books she could find. She was still committed to Christianity, but tried bringing some of the Jewish ideas she was learning into their church and personal lives.

They eventually were told about a house for sale in the Upper Park Heights neighborhood of Baltimore, in the middle of the frum community. They decided that there was no better way to try to convert Jews than to live among them. So they moved in and began attending a local Orthodox synagogue.

Paul felt like it was not ethical to hide their true identity from their neighbors, so they revealed themselves to the rabbi of the synagogue. The rabbi explained to them that it was impossible to be Jewish and Christian simultaneously. He referred them to local Jews For Judaism anti-missionary group. They called the group, and a man named Mark Powers came over to speak to them.
Although Mark had not been a missionary himself, he had been working as a counter-missionary for years. He challenged them to explain their beliefs in Christianity and the Jewish sources that they thought supported their Christian way of life. One by one, Mark showed them that their entire belief system was based on lies and mistranslations. Penina returned time and again to him with more questions. She was both curious to learn more, and terrified to find out how wrong she had been.

“Like bricks, the foundations of my faith were being pulled out one by one, and eventually there was nothing left to support the tower. It all came tumbling down,” Penina said.

Penina began slowly rebuilding her beliefs around true, authentic Judaism. She launched herself on a new journey of discovery of how to live as a frum Jewish woman. Her four children decided to follow suit and also eagerly embraced Judaism.

The events in his family were initially difficult for Paul. He had spent his entire life as a Christian. But several years later after watching the positive changes in his family, he decided on his own to convert. Penina even succeeded in helping her parents give up Christianity, and they eventually became Orthodox and moved to Israel. Sadly, Penina’s sister is still an evangelical Christian.

In December 2006 the Taylors made aliyah, and Penina founded an anti-missionary organization, the Shomrei Emet Institute. With her deep training and experience on both sides of the missionary world, she’s now trying to save other Jews from making the mistakes that cost her so many years of her life.

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Michael Gros is the former Chief Operating Officer of the outreach organization The Atlanta Scholars Kollel. He writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

Published in The Jewish Press in May 2010