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The baal teshuvah’s choice implies a rejection of a way of life that family and friends still find fulfilling. On the flip side, family and friends often assume, outwardly or not, that a baal teshuvah ...

Some days ago, I had an interesting conversation with someone. Coming into this conversation, I intuitively believed that a person who is firm and unbending would naturally be more disciplined and ...

Bruce Cantz grew up in the San Fernando Valley, where he had a good Conservative upbringing and was bar mitzvahed at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino. Now a baal teshuvah (returned to Judaism) who goes by ...

Question: What do righteous, learned Torah scholars and newly observant Jews, or baalei teshuvah, have in common? Answer: The way they recite blessings. No, it’s not funny, nor meant to be. It’s ...

In Cedarhurst, the Long Island hamlet a few miles southwest of JFK Airport, the rumble of low-flying planes was audible inside the Chofetz Chaim Torah Center, where Ayelet, billed as The Kosher Komic, ...

The Ramban [Torat Hashem Temima; chapter 7] writes that most of the mysteries of creation are encapsulated in parshat Bereishit, - so caution must be taken, not to understand the parasha on a ...

HUC professor documents the role of language in taking on new, observant lifestyle. Princeton — Over a kosher Chinese meal at a Lunch & Learn program in Princeton University’s Center for Jewish Life, ...

Feeling more alone than at any time since arriving in New York, I looked inside myself for anything that could anchor me to bring me back to who I was, to move away from illusions of romance to my ...

only just beginning to stagnate under the white candle. Notice how carefully he arranges his words by sound: “stain/drained,” “stagnate/candle”; the way ...

Sign up for the Yiddish Brief, a bissel of all things Yiddish, brought to you weekly by our Forverts editor Rukhl Schaechter. A new video recording in which the late ...