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Binyamin L. Jolkovsky
Her response? On Saturday night, she and her family had bagels.
"I couldn't come up with too much of anything else," she said. "And that
seemed pathetic to me."
Exactly. The incident (which took place at a youth social club) was a
rude awakening, and it served as a catalyst -- one of several over the
years -- that helped change her life. Although she had grown up in a
secular environment, Bieler today is the wife of an Orthodox rabbi and a
fixture in her observant suburban community.
Her story is one of more than 30 inspirational tales of spiritual rebirth
featured in Richard Greenberg's Pathways: Jews Who Return.
Pathways is a grassroots look at the ba'al teshuvah phenomenon, a
30-year-old movement that has seen tens of thousands of secular or
marginally observant Jews reconnect with their spiritual roots. Through
Pathways we learn how and why those connections were made.
All outreach books seek to inspire, this one included. But Pathways has
a unique approach. It promotes Torah Judaism, not only by glorifying it,
but by demystifying it. By democratizing it. Pathways demonstrates that
normal people can and do embrace Yiddishkeit as viable, enriching and
fundamentally healthy lifestyle.
Those who have made the spiritual journey come from all walks of life --
law, finance, show business, medicine -- and from all areas of the United
States and beyond. In Pathways, each of them takes the reader on a
spiritual travelogue; they tell their own stories in their own words. And
they tell them well. As the author explains in an introductory section,
only "the most interesting and insightful" narratives were chosen for the
book.
The narrators include some recognizable names such as syndicated film critic and author
Michael Medved, psychologist Miriam Adahan, and musical performer Moshe Yess. Most, however, are
"ordinary" people who accomplished an extraordinary feat --- reconnecting
with a religious heritage that had been buried beneath layers of
assimilation.
What brought them back? You name it. The catalyst may have been an
outreach program, a trip to Israel, the birth of a child, the death of a
loved one (or other spiritually profound experience), an encounter with
another person or even an encounter with Shabbes. There are plenty more.
Rarely, however, did a single event do the trick.
For many, the trip back to observance is a highly complex process. It
is slow, incremental, and sometimes turbulent. Culture shock can result.
Relations with friends and family can be frayed. To its credit,
Pathways openly discusses these and other difficulties that often
attend the ba'al teshuvah experience.
What emerges is a collection of mini-portraits of lives in transition, of
real people grappling with real issues -- and ultimately growing
spiritually as a result. The stories are put into context through the
author's use of factual reporting on the origins, development and overall
import of the ba'al teshuvah movement.
The result is a work that is credible and accessible to a wide range of
Jews, from the deeply assimilated to those who were born and raised
frum but have grown blase about it. Pathways would make an excellent
gift, particularly for Chanukah, a festival that is deeply concerned with
the issue of Jewish
Return ticket
A RABBI ONCE ASKED Joan Bieler: "What about you makes you Jewish?"
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky is JWR's editor-in-chief.
