Who Will You Serve?

My mother died in childbirth with me at the age of 30. My father remarried one year and a month later, and I acquired a step-mother. There was a lot of shouting in my house growing up and nothing in the way of love. Through the pain and anguish, I knew that I was different. From the youngest age, I felt a hunger for I didn’t know what. I just knew that I wasn’t like my family.

When I was five-and-a-half, we moved to Cook County, Illinois: dirt road and a house that needed a ladder to get to the second floor. There was a cornfield at my backyard. My favorite color was red. I was a monochromatic kid, a red top, and red sneakers all the time. It was my only stability.

When the shouting would start, I dressed in red. I’d take my older sister’s dog down the street and climb the gnarled crabapple tree. It was quiet in the canopy of leaves, and the light would filter through, creating a kaleidoscope of serenity. “Are you really there, G-d? Please talk to me. Will you be my Best Friend?” And we talked a lot, although, to tell the truth, I did most of the talking.

When I was nine-and-a-half, we moved back to Philly. We were poor. My school lunches were invariably two slices of government white bread, margarine, and mustard. My clothes came out of trash bags brought home. But we had a Red Radio Flyer wagon, and I could walk to the library and fill it with books, lots of books. My escapism precipitated my passion for literature. My dream was to become an English teacher. I had no money, but no matter. I knew that my Best Friend would help me.

About this time, after her parents passed away, my stepmother became a gi’ores. For some reason, I went through the conversion with her. Although I knew I was Jewish because of my biological mother, it was always a big secret. I was not allowed to wear a Jewish star or tell anyone. We lived in a Catholic neighborhood, and my step-mother was afraid of the Italian and Polish neighbors. I lived like a Marrano. When Chanukah came, I lit a tiny menorah with birthday candles in my room, facing the alleyway.

Now, because of her conversion, I met my rabbi and was welcomed at his Shabbos table. On Friday nights, I took two buses to get there. We spent hours debating emunah (faith) and halacha. I had exposure to Catholicism as a child, and because of my rabbi, I began to see the fallacy of what I had been taught.

Despite living in poverty, I won three scholarships and was the first person in my extended family of very loud relatives to attend a university, let alone graduate with honors. At the university, I was embarrassed to wear outdated, poorly-fitting clothes. So I learned to sew beautiful dresses made from donated lining remnants from the seats of Piper aircraft.

I met some special people there. My professor of Arabic was the ambassador from Israel. I had a longing for Israel, but I didn’t know why. He introduced me to Zionism and helped me get to Israel. My professor of Hebrew at Temple University, Dr. Uziel Adini, was phenomenal. He must have noticed my inferiority complex. Through him, I was simultaneously inducted into the Hebrew Honor Society and the English Honor Society. In the Hebrew honor society, I met other students, and this strengthened me. My Friend was guiding me.

After I graduated, I became the only white teacher in an inner-city school. It was situated halfway between the June Street and Hoop Street gangs and was dubbed the “Fortress on the Hill.” My students taught me a great deal. We had a lot in common because I understood them and their struggles. It was a very dangerous place. Idealism was not much armor.

Still chasing my dream to go to Israel, I saw an ad that Sherut La’am was looking for volunteers to work on a kibbutz that first summer I taught. I applied and was accepted. It was a dream come true. I was assigned to a non-religious kibbutz: far-leftist Hashomer Hatzair, actually.

Once, on a break, I hitchhiked to the Kotel. Emotions flooded through me. At the back of the plaza, near the flagpole, a young girl, a tourist, was vociferously complaining that she wanted to go to the men’s side because it was larger. She was hot with rage. In my head, I clearly heard a voice ask, “Who will you serve?” I thought to myself that if I served me, I would be like that girl. But if I want to serve Hashem, how could I serve Him unless I found out what He wanted from me?

That was the turning point, and it was a precipitous decision. When I returned home to Philly, I moved into an apartment so I could keep kosher. My family thought it was a joke, a foolish phase that I would get over in six months. So, six months and one day later, I invited them for dinner: a kosher meal on kosher plates. They came to the meal but were very upset that I was taking this path. I was rejected by my family and became a pariah. It broke my heart and still hurts after decades.

When I met my husband, I learned that his parents were divorced, and he had drifted away from observance. I brought him back, and we developed a plan that we dubbed “add a mitzva.”  Our observance grew and so did our knowledge and emunah. I insisted that my children be knowledgeable and frum and had to fight for that on several fronts.

I remember putting my daughter on an NCSY bus for her first Shabbaton in Richmond and telling my husband, “She’ll meet her bashert there one day.” She did – exactly 10 years later, when she was an NCSY counselor. I remember standing over her Jenny Lind cradle begging my Best Friend for a list of hopes for my little miracle girl, born after a long struggle with infertility. Our devotion and service to my Forever Friend resulted in other bone fide miracles, but those are stories for another time. It’s astounding that every single wish on that list has been fulfilled – miraculously and against tremendous odds.

My journey has been a long, hard, lonely struggle. My soulmate, a”h, left me a few years ago, but I smile to myself – and I know that he is also smiling – when I see our daughter and our son continuing what we started. My beautiful grandchildren are knowledgeable and frum. The family tree that was desiccated and barren has borne amazingly sweet fruit. I still converse continuously and intimately with my Best Friend, every day, all day, and I have proof that He hears me. These days, most of my comments are replete with hakaras hatov (gratitude).

Twice more over my 71 years, I’ve heard that calm, steady, guiding voice. Some relationships are worth the sacrifice, because it’s not everyone who can meet her Forever Friend in the arms of an apple tree.

Who will you serve?

Bracha Strimber is English department chair at Talmudical Academy