The Light of Wonderment: A Letter to My Sons

Dear Jet and Dash,

You’ve probably noticed some changes in me this past year. More routines. More intention. A lot more Jewish things showing up in our house and in my life. I know you’ve seen the tefillin — which, I understand, look a little funny. Mostly, though, what you’ve noticed — at least what you’ve told me you’ve noticed — is that things seem to flow a little better. Dash, you said I had fewer bad habits and more productive ones. There have been more, deeper conversations between us. More time together.

None of this is an accident.

I want to tell you what’s been behind those changes. Not because anything was wrong before — it wasn’t — but because something big has shifted in me. Something I chose. And choosing it has made me more myself, not less.

You’ve both said, in your own ways, that you like seeing me this way. That it feels steady. That it feels good. That it makes sense. One of you said Judaism feels better because it is me. That meant more to me than you know.

This is the story of how that happened.

Crazy as it might sound, it all started with the Dodgers, and how they won back-to-back World Series in 2024 and 2025. That year, with those two championships on either end, is the exact same year I became a practicing Jew. And I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Not because G-d cares about baseball (although maybe He does), but over the course of that year, I found something I’ve been looking for my whole life.

You both know what the Dodgers mean to me. Jet, you especially — we’ve watched hundreds of games together, sweated through the playoffs, argued about lineups and complained about pitching changes and stayed up too late on school nights because the game went to extra innings. It’s one of the things we share. How many times have we been together when something impossible happens — a walk-off, a diving catch, a moment where we were on our feet screaming before we even knew why? There’s a feeling that happens in those moments that’s better than anything in the world. A feeling of being connected to something bigger than yourself.

I call it wonderment.

Wonderment is here all the time. We all may tune into to wonderment with practice.

What I’ve learned over the past year-and-a-half is that wonderment doesn’t just happen when Shohei steps off the mound and up to the plate and knocks one into the cheap seats. It’s always there, wherever we are. We just have to learn how to access it.

For years, I’ve been chasing that feeling — reading books, going on retreats, meeting teachers, what some people call gurus and every kind of spiritual seeker you can imagine. In all those years, it never once occurred to me that everything I was looking for had been part of me since I was born.

For years, I’ve been chasing that feeling — reading books, going on retreats, meeting teachers, what some people call gurus and every kind of spiritual seeker you can imagine. In all those years, it never once occurred to me that everything I was looking for had been part of me since I was born.

But that all changed in October 2024, when the Dodgers went to the World Series.

The Long Setup

I’ve been Jewish my whole life—obviously—but for most of it, that didn’t mean much. Your grandparents are Jewish but were not very observant when I was growing up. We had Passover seders, and I stayed home from school on the High Holidays, which was always a plus. But we didn’t belong to a temple. When my parents asked me if I wanted to go to Sunday school, that was a hard no. When they sent me to a Jewish sleep-away camp one summer, I felt like Jewishness was being shoved down my throat in a way that made me uncomfortable. I was miserable and homesick the entire time.

In college, I made Jewish friends who were more observant than me, and started going to High Holy Day services with them, and I liked it. Later, in grad school, I had a girlfriend who broke up with me soon after I refused her invitation to Yom Kippur services. She went without me and ended up sitting next to the man she would marry. I don’t know if it felt exactly like a message, but the very next year, when the High Holy Days rolled around, I felt compelled not only to go to services, but also to fast. I did it again the next year, and every year after that. Since I was in my 20s, I’d sometimes show up to services a bit hungover, sad to say. Those times, I’d sit there in temple and think, What am I doing with my life?

That’s actually what Yom Kippur is for, by the way. I just didn’t know it yet.

Of course, you know my story has a happy ending. Grad school is where I met your incredible mom, who wasn’t raised Jewish, but when we talked about getting married, did agree we’d raise you boys Jewish and we took a Jewish conversion class together.

It was important to me and I didn’t know why.

As we settled into marriage and parenthood and careers, I started to feel hungry for a spiritual connection. That’s when I started with the teachers and the meditation retreats — retreats where I’d stay silent for days or weeks at a time. The longest one lasted for 30 days. I’d sit there meditating, and whenever the teachers would say anything explicitly, sometimes, Buddhist, I’d think to myself: I’m not Buddhist. I’m Jewish. It was automatic — almost like a reflex.

But I never thought to look to Judaism for whatever I was seeking at that retreat. I believed, in my soul, that spirituality was something you found somewhere else. Being Jewish was something I just was.

Then that fall of 2024, something began to shake loose. I went on another retreat, right in the middle of the playoffs, which also happened to be between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It was 10 days of silence, sitting and walking meditation, no talking, no eye contact.  Ten days of listening to nothing but my thoughts.

And two big things happened.

First, I decided I needed to learn more about Judaism. I thought of a kind man I knew through work, Ezra Kest, who was observant. I told myself: When I get home, I’ll ask if I can go to shul with him.

Second, I had an epiphany. It came to me during meditation, and it was this:

You have to know you are worthy to receive.

And we are all born worthy. It is our birthright. Choose accordingly.

This might sound abstract, but stay with me. After all those years I’d been seeking a spiritual connection, I think part of why I never found it was that I didn’t believe I deserved it. The epiphany was that worthiness isn’t something you earn. It’s something you accept.

I came home from that retreat changed, although I didn’t know how much yet.

The Wolves and the Text

A few weeks later, on a Friday in late October, your mom and I drove up past Palmdale to a wolf sanctuary. The Dodgers were playing Game 1 of the World Series against the Yankees, and we were listening on my phone during the drive — it was tied early, first or second inning, when we got out of the car. I was there to lead an event about wolf packs and leadership for my YPO group, a business leadership association — the guy who runs it has this whole philosophy about how wolves taught humans to form tribes.

While there, we learned about the four archetypes of a wolf pack: the King/Queen, the Warrior, the Lover and the Knower. Everyone was supposed to pick which one they were.

I couldn’t pick one. I saw aspects of myself in all of them.

So, I stood in the middle … and something clicked: I’ve always been like this. I see all sides. I’m a mediator by nature. For years I thought that made me a fence-sitter. That day, for the first time, I thought maybe it was something else.

Then they brought out the wolves. About 30 of us sat on the ground, and the wolves wandered to whoever they felt drawn to. They came to me. I don’t know if it was because I’d just spent 10 days in silence, or something about my energy, but they came and stayed.

When I checked my phone after the event, I had a text from Ezra, the man I had decided to contact: Would I like to come to temple the next morning for Shabbat?

There were reasons to say no, number one being that the World Series was on! Also, I’d been away from you guys, and your mom. But I thought about the retreat, and the epiphany and the wolves — and I texted back: Yes. Looking forward to it.

Game 1

We drove home from the sanctuary with the game on. I’m not proud of this, but I was watching on my phone while the Tesla was on autopilot. The car yelled at me three times before it forced me to take the wheel.

Don’t ever do that, by the way.

By the time we walked in the door, the Yankees were ahead 2-1 — Giancarlo Stanton had hit a two-run homer. Jet, you were on the couch, watching. I felt a little guilty. I should have been home with you, especially since it had been a rough game.

The Dodgers tied it in the eighth. Ohtani doubled, took third on a throwing error, scored on a Mookie Betts sac fly. Then the game went to extra innings, still tied 2-2.

In the top of the 10th, Jazz Chisholm singled, stole second, stole third and scored on a fielder’s choice. Yankees up 3-2. We were down to our last three outs.

This is where I need to tell you something that might sound crazy.

I sat in my chair — the same chair I always sit in — and I started thinking back the retreat, specifically those thoughts about worthiness. As each player stepped up to bat, I wondered: Does he know he’s worthy? I watched Gavin Lux walk. Tommy Edman singled. Ohtani came up with runners on second and third but fouled out. Then it was Mookie’s turn. I wondered if Mookie knew he was worthy. The Yankees seemed to know he was, since they intentionally walked him, loading the bases. They wanted the lefty-lefty matchup with Freddie Freeman.

So, there was Freddie, standing at the plate, bases loaded, bottom of the 10th, down by a run. I thought about everything that had happened: the retreat, the worthiness, the wolves, saying yes to temple.

And I thought: Does Freddie know he is worthy right now?

I don’t know how to explain this except to say I felt connected to something. I felt Freddie was tapped into that energy I’d been looking for—aligned with something larger than himself. I felt the energy and I focused on Freddie.

He crushed the first pitch into the right field pavilion.

It was a walk-off grand slam. The first in World Series history.

We won 6-3. I grabbed you and we screamed and hugged and I thought: This is it. This is what I’ve been looking for. This feeling.

That’s wonderment.

The next morning, I went to temple.

Temple

Ezra was waiting for me when I arrived. He handed me a copy of the Torah and told me to follow along in English while the rabbi read the Hebrew.

I opened to that week’s portion, and the first words I saw, and heard in Hebrew, were: In the beginning.

I want you to understand what this meant. The Torah is read on a yearly cycle. Every synagogue in the world reads the same portion on the same Shabbat, and they start fresh each fall after the High Holy Days. I had shown up — by accident, by invitation, by whatever you want to call it — the very first day of the very first week. The beginning of the beginning.

It felt like the whole thing had been designed for me. Like I’d walked into a classroom on the first day of school, syllabus in hand, no catching up required. If I’d come two months later, I would have been lost. I probably wouldn’t have made the commitment I made that morning.

But I wasn’t two months late. I was right on time.

Another wonderment.

I decided, sitting there, that I would read every Torah portion for the entire year. Every week, I would read what Jews around the world were reading.

And I did.

The Three Responses

Here’s something I didn’t expect: I didn’t know any of the stories.

I mean, I knew of them — Moses, the Red Sea, the Ten Commandments — but I’d never actually read them. So, every week was a surprise. I didn’t know what was going to happen next. It was like watching a TV show for the first time, no spoilers, genuinely excited and wondering how things would turn out.

And because I was reading it while living my actual life — going to work, sitting in board meetings, negotiating deals — I started to notice that the Torah was giving me practical instructions. Not abstract spiritual wisdom. Actual guidance for situations I was facing.

Here’s an example. Over the course of a few weeks, I noticed that when people in the Torah faced conflict, they responded in one of three ways. They could appease — give the other side what they wanted to keep the peace. They could walk away — remove themselves from the situation entirely. Or they could respond with awe — stand up with such force and clarity that the other side had no choice but to take notice.

I’m a real estate developer by profession. I’ve taken negotiation classes. I have graduate degrees. No one had ever laid it out so simply.

And the real question the Torah kept asking was: when do you stand up? When is it right to respond with awe instead of appeasing or walking away?

I met a man once, years ago, named Abe Foxman. He was the head of the Anti-Defamation League. We had a conversation I’ve never forgotten, and at the end of it he looked at me and said, “You got to stand up, Andrew. You got to stand up.”

I didn’t fully understand what he meant until this year.

This is where Hanukkah comes in — and I know you boys know the Hanukkah story, or at least the part about the oil lasting for eight days, instead of just one. But here’s what I learned this year: before the miracle of the oil, there was a different kind of miracle. The Maccabees stood up. They were a small group, outmatched and outgunned, and they chose to respond with awe. They took back the Temple. And only then — after they made that choice — did they find the oil that lasted eight days.

We talk about the oil because it’s the easier miracle to explain. But the harder miracle, the one that required human choice, came first.

The question I keep asking myself now is: what are the things worth standing up for? And the answer I’ve come to is this: we stand up when we’re aligned with something greater than ourselves. Not when we’re angry, not when our ego is bruised, not when we just want to win. We stand up when we’re serving G-d—whatever that means to you.

Which brings me to the Omer.

The Omer

I had never heard of the Omer before October, 2024. Or maybe I had heard the word once or twice and never asked what it meant. It turns out it means something very simple: counting.

After the Jews leave Egypt, before they arrive at Mount Sinai and receive the Torah, there’s a waiting period. Forty-nine days, plus one. Seven weeks. And during that time, you count each day. That counting is called the Omer.

At first, I didn’t understand why this mattered. Why count days? Why not just get to the moment?

But the more I learned, the more it clicked. You don’t receive something as powerful as the Torah — or wonderment, or connection — by accident. You prepare yourself to receive it.

The tradition teaches that during these 49 days, we work on our character. Not vaguely. Not philosophically. Very specifically.

There are seven core character traits. Love. Compassion. Awe. Humility. Ambition. Connectedness. Receptivity. Each week focuses on one of those traits. And each day within that week explores a different expression of it, again through those seven traits. So one day might be love within love. Another might be compassion within love. Then awe within love. You focus on that idea — that energy — for the next 24 hours.

I decided to do it. Every day. No skipping.

What surprised me was how practical it was. This wasn’t sitting on a cushion for hours trying to empty my mind. I went about my regular day — meetings, conversations, decisions — but I wasn’t on autopilot. I was paying attention.

When the focus was love, I noticed love. When it was awe, I noticed awe. It turns out awe is everywhere, once you’re looking for it. When the focus was compassion, I noticed generosity. Not generosity as an idea, but generosity in action. I was more conscious of it. Listening instead of interrupting. Giving without calculating what I was going to get back. Being generous with my time, my patience, my attention.

It turns out awe is everywhere, once you’re looking for it.

When it was humility, I noticed when I needed less of myself in the room.

None of it felt forced. It felt natural. Like something that had been there all along, waiting for me to notice it.

Another trait that really struck me was ambition. I had spent much of my life being ambitious in the conventional sense — building things, succeeding, accumulating stuff. I’d done all that, but it didn’t lead to what I was actually looking for.

During the Omer, ambition took on a different meaning. My ambition became directed toward something larger than me. Toward connection. Toward wonderment. Toward serving something beyond my own success.

What I noticed, as the days went on, was that I felt more connected — to people, to ideas, to something I can only describe as an underlying current. And the further I went, the more I didn’t want it to end.

I remember thinking: Why didn’t I know this existed? Why isn’t everyone doing this?

It felt like a complete system. A kind of ancient technology designed to shape a person, day by day, into someone capable of receiving something sacred.

By the time the counting ended and the Torah reading reached Mount Sinai, I understood something I hadn’t before: the revelation wasn’t just about what happened on the mountain. It was about who the people had become by the time they arrived.

And that idea — that preparation matters, that character matters, that connection isn’t random — changed the way I understood everything that came next.

Mount Sinai

After the Omer comes Mount Sinai.

That’s where the Jews receive the Torah. But what I learned is that Sinai isn’t a one-time event. It’s a cycle. We go up the mountain. We receive something. Then we come back down and live our lives. Then we go up again.

That’s how it works.

I used to think Judaism was about belief, or about rules — a long list of things you were either doing or not doing. What I’ve come to understand is that it’s really about presence.

I don’t ask anymore whether G-d exists. I ask: Is G-d present?

And presence, I’ve learned, isn’t automatic.

When we’re distracted, reactive or acting only out of self-interest, maybe the answer is no. But when we’re intentional — when we act with generosity, when we try to live by the teachings of the Torah — then yes. Presence shows up. Not like a big clap of thunder, or even certainty. As clarity. As calm. As connection.

In Judaism, these intentional acts are called mitzvot. I used to think that word meant “rule.” I’ve come to see it differently. A mitzvah is a step up the mountain — a way of bringing dignity, awareness and connection into something ordinary.

You don’t do them all at once. You do them incrementally.

That mattered for me, because nothing about Judaism was forced on me growing up. When it was, at that summer camp, it made me want to run in the other direction. Now I see it differently. I get to choose this. And choosing it — freely, as an adult — makes all the difference.

You’ve both seen me putting on tefillin — those small black boxes and straps I wrap around my arm and my head in the morning. At first, I’m sure it looked bizarre. Maybe it still does.

But that practice is how Mount Sinai shows up in my actual life.

A friend from college once mentioned, almost in passing, that he puts on tefillin every morning. That stayed with me. Later, when I began spending time at shul, the rabbis asked — gently, without pressure — if I wanted to learn how to do it.

I said yes.

Tefillin take a few minutes. You wrap them in a specific way. You say a few words. Inside those boxes are verses from the Torah.

That’s it.

But there’s something important about starting the day by bringing intention to your head — to your mind. Over time, I realized that what I had been looking for all along wasn’t some abstract spiritual experience.

It was peace of mind.

The Omer, Shabbat, tefillin — they all work together. Not to eliminate the noise of life, but to quiet it. To keep you from being swallowed up by the day. To bring focus where there used to be static.

Think about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. You don’t start at the top. You deal with food and shelter first. Then safety. Then belonging. Only after that do you reach meaning.

Judaism works the same way. Mitzvot help you climb. Each one builds on the last. Over time, they create a kind of purity — not perfection, but clarity. Less noise. Less ego. More alignment.

When we act generously, when we’re conscious instead of on autopilot, when we bring intention into everyday moments, we create the conditions for connection.

That’s what I mean when I say we connect with G-d.

Not because we declared belief, but because we prepared ourselves for presence.

This way of thinking changed how I see everything.

For example, eating became ethical. I had a head start since I’ve been vegetarian for several years now, for reasons that had nothing to do with Judaism. But through this lens, I began to see eating itself as a spiritual act — something that could be done with awareness, dignity and respect for life. If and when I choose to eat meat again, I know I’d want to do it consciously and ethically.

Time became sacred. I learned that there’s a mindful way to put on your shoes. A specific blessing for seeing a rainbow. Even an intentional order for bathing your body. Ordinary moments, approached with awareness, become moments of connection — not because you have to, but because you want to stay awake.

That’s Mount Sinai. Not a mountain in the desert, but something you climb every day — when you choose generosity over impatience, awareness over autopilot, dignity over convenience.

You go up. You come back down. And then you go up again.

Yom Kippur

After Mount Sinai comes the High Holy Days.

In the story of the Jewish people, this is the moment right before entering the Promised Land. You’ve received the Torah. You’ve learned how to live. Now you’re asked a deeper question: What are you going to do with it?

On Rosh Hashanah, we coronate G-d as King. On Yom Kippur, we do something even more intimate. We offer ourselves in service.

That word — service — used to feel abstract to me. This year, it didn’t.

Yom Kippur is about purification, but not in the sense of perfection. It’s about clearing space. Letting go of the noise, the excuses, the habits that pull us away from who we want to be. It’s a reset. Standing there on Yom Kippur, fasting, praying, surrounded by people all doing the same thing, I felt something I hadn’t felt before. Not guilt. Not obligation.

I felt purpose.

It became clear to me that being Jewish isn’t just about personal peace or private connection. It’s about responsibility. For me, about being of service — to G-d, to other people, to the world. That’s when the idea of writing this article, of explaining all this to you boys, really came together.

We are always going up and down Mount Sinai. We prepare ourselves. We receive. And then we’re asked to bring what we’ve received back into the world — with dignity, generosity and joy.

That, to me, is the power of Yom Kippur.

Wonderment, Again

And after all that — as if on cue — the Dodgers went back to the World Series.

And they won.

Two championships, on either end of the same year I returned to Judaism, or turned to it for the first time, really, in a serious way. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Again, not because I think G-d cares about who wins a baseball game, but because wonderment shows up when you’re paying attention.

That year, watching the games, I noticed something different in myself. There was less noise and more focus — and, despite one of the wildest World Series I’ve ever experienced, I felt a sense of calm that wasn’t dependent on the outcome (even though I really, really wanted us to win).

I felt what I can only describe as peace of mind. And, as Eddie Murphy once said, without peace of mind, what’s the good of anything?

Peace of mind doesn’t mean nothing goes wrong. It means your head isn’t filled with static. It means you’re not alone with the loudest voice in the room being your own fear or doubt. It means there’s light where there used to be noise.

That’s what this time has given me. And that’s what I want you both to understand.

I don’t expect either of you to follow my path. You don’t have to do everything I do. But I want you to know that what you’ve seen me doing — the praying, the learning, the rituals that may have had you questioning my sanity — came from a place of choosing. Not being forced. Choosing connection. Choosing responsibility. Choosing to stay awake.

We are all worthy of wonderment. We are all capable of connection. And we all have the ability to bring a little more light into the world, in ways big and small.

That’s what it means to be Jewish to me now.

So, wherever you go, however you live, remember this:

Pay attention. Be generous. Choose dignity. And when wonderment shows up — whether in a synagogue, a quiet moment or a Dodger game — let yourself receive it.

That’s the invitation.

Andrew Gross, born and raised in Los Angeles, has built a career in Real Estate Development and teaches at UCLA Anderson School. You may contact him at andrew@wonderment.org.