When my friend, Debra, learned that a young man she knew had been in a tragic accident and was comatose, she went to the hospital to visit him every day for three months. No one knew if the man would emerge from his deep, distant sleep, but Debra believed that he would.
Growing up religious in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, I didn\’t have much choice when it came to religious studies: it was full time till I was 18. I always felt it was being shoved down my throat.
So I stayed away from religious studies for about a decade — from college, through marriage, a year of service in Vietnam and three children.
During that time I stayed close to religion through observance, community and friends, but I avoided any formal religious study.
I felt a great, humbling appreciation that I was now doing what so many of my ancestors had wished to do for thousands of years.
Almost every Friday afternoon for the last few months, I\’ve been visited at my office by a pair of young Chasidic Jews — high school students in big black hats and sporting the wispy beginnings of what I am certain will someday be fine beards.
The UPS man brought an envelope containing a beautiful ray of hope, an exceptional picture book by Jane Breskin Zalben titled \”Let There Be Light: Poems and Prayers for Repairing the World\” (Dutton Books, $15.99).
To address the needs of congregants not fully comfortable with Hebrew liturgy, Rabbi Shelton J. Donnell, along with a group of lay leaders, spent eight years developing a new siddur.
By the time you read this, it\’s probably too late for me. To repent, I mean.
It was a postcard-perfect afternoon outside Kerckhoff Hall on UCLA\’s campus on Tuesday, Aug. 6., but Debra Bach could not stop crying.
We are entering the homestretch. Aug. 9 is the first of Elul, the last month in the Jewish calendar.
I wear a piece of red string around my right wrist, a talisman for healing.
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