Jenn Dudzinski is one of these eight girls and now studies Torah almost every night. Jenn was dating a non-Jewish boy before transferring to Rutgers University. Her boyfriend would go to shul with her, and she would go to church with him. Both were very spiritual and loved nature. Jenn was vegan, her way of keeping kosher. She and her boyfriend were making plans to get married.
But as a transfer student, Jenn found herself limited to a selection of courses, choosing a Jewish studies track by default. She became infatuated with the thought of Spinoza, Buber and Kant, and started thinking more about G-d from a Jewish standpoint. At the same time, her distance from her boyfriend was affecting their relationship, and it didn’t help that he didn’t want to hear her keep talking about Jewish philosophy. When a girl in her Jewish studies class announced a Meor trip to Israel for $400, she seized on her favorite “categorical imperative” from class: “If something is good, you have to do it.” So, after a difficult breakup with her boyfriend, she went to Israel. That’s when the spark hit.
“It was the first time I’ve seen people studying Torah for the sake of studying Torah,” Jenn says. “I grew up with a Judaism so cut and dried, so formal. How could I connect to G-d that way?
“I wasn’t sure if I believed in G-d at the time. Not sure I believed in revelation at Sinai. I didn’t think to pray. I didn’t think to look into Judaism,” Jenn adds. But after returning from her trip, she sought out a rabbi and has been learning ever since.
Today, Jenn says that she davens, prays, because she wants a relationship with G-d. She says that she went from a “me-serviced” Judaism to a “Hashem-serviced” Judaism. “I don’t always do things because I want to. I do things because I think I should,” she says. Jenn says she is more satisfied with a day focused on mitzvot than one that makes ends meet.
While Jenn has moved toward a more religious path, others who have been “sparked” have embraced Judaism in a variety of ways, through Jewish work, social action, art or just the feeling of being a proud Jew.
In my own life, all it took was one teacher, one sentence, to steer me toward a Jewish path. Many others have also been able to tell their story of what brought them in with an "I know where I was when..." story. My friend Dan calls it "The point of no return." My friend JT, "The Jewish epiphany."
I can't exactly explain the science of what happens at the point of transformation. But as many affirmed in sharing their stories, the spark was always lurking, it just needed to be ignited.
I began my work on this topic without a hypothesis. I wanted the themes to form from the various stories shared. It happened that a majority, nearly all, of these transformational moments occurred in young adult life, which raises the question of what prerequisites must come together for someone to become “sparked.” Even more interesting, there seems little correlation between an individual’s current engagement (whether in religious life, communal and/or organizational work, etc.), and their backgrounds. Whether they grew up in an active Jewish household, whether they were provided with a strong Jewish education and identity or not, when the spark occurred it took each person in a unique direction.
The themes that emerge from their stories may not provide the answer to how we can inspire or engage all Jews, but perhaps they can ignite some sparks in our own thinking about how to open up others to a more fulfilling and meaningful Judaism. Perhaps it is possible for us to recreate some of the moments that sparked transformation. Or, as the founder of Jewtina Clothing, Adriana Lopez, has said, “These things are divine, if you will.”
Judaism immersed me
Rabbi Niles Goldstein, founder of The New Shul in New York City and author of Gonzo Judaism, came from a household which inculcated in him a very strong sense of Jewish identity, as well as one that sent him to Hebrew school three days a week. Nonetheless, thinking back on the experiences of his youth, Niles says that what sticks out in his mind as a Spark moment was his Junior year abroad when he spent a weekend in Safed with a Chabad family. It was the first time he experienced a mikvah and learned some of its deeper, mystical meanings.
“There was a whole magical aura to the experience, and since I was a philosophy major and a strong rationalist at the time, I was a bit skeptical about the whole thing,” Niles recounts. “I went into the mikvah naked and freezing. Yet despite my physical discomfort, I found it absolutely transformative, metaphysically.”
The mikvah, which was built in the cave of a mountain, was an important piece of the spark for Niles, who has always been a nature lover. It took place in nature, it was immersive, and it was experiential, he says. It opened him up to Jewish practice. “Immersion experiences are so vital to the formation and growth of our identities,” he states.
“High school opened me in an intellectual sense, home in a communal sense. This was probably the first time Judaism had been presented to me in a very profound and effective spiritual sense,” he recalls. “[The experience] unconsciously stayed with me and became part of my practice.”
That experience played an important role when Niles made the decision to become a rabbi. Rather than going on to get a Ph.D. in comparative religion, he wanted to do something that was more “in the trenches.”
Ilya Khodosh says the American Jewish community had a hand in raising him. Born in Russia, and then coming to the States, all his Jewish programs were funded by American Jews. It almost seemed ridiculous to Ilya how supportive the Jewish community was and how much they cared. “They care about your professional life and your love life. No matter what I do, they are always kind of bringing me in,” he says.
Though Ilya appreciated it all, it felt like he was being indoctrinated in the summer camps he attended as a kid. Not until he fell into Birthright Monologues did he merge his passion for Jewish life with performance art.
"People do theater because after the show, people come up to you and say, 'This particular bit really meant something to me...made me feel something...reminded me of something personal in my life.' That's kind of what sustains performers," Ilya says. "After the Birthright shows, almost everyone who came up to us was Jewish. So all this positive response exuded a Jewish personality.
"This was the first time it became really obvious to me that the Jewish community was giving me exactly what I needed. When I was graduating, I didn't have any idea if I'd ever be performing again. I had a sales job for months where I was pretty unhappy, and was really feeling the post-college slump. Monologues gave me the opportunity to be creative and do work that I really cared about. It came at exactly the right time, with exactly the right group of people."
More than that, it was the first time he felt he had a role, a specific part in the community. It was the first time he felt completely comfortable going to all these events. Monologues eventually led him to complete a Bar Mitzvah program with the JEC of Manhattan, a program that shed new light on Judaism, as compared with classes he’s attended previously which were trite or made him feel guilty for not being “observant” enough, or volunteering enough.
Judaism tied me back to my roots
Ruvym Gilman had two choices on his Israel trip: to spend time with Katherine, the girl he had a pseudo-crush on, or to visit a mikvah. Luckily for him, Katherine continued to reject him with hugs at the end of each night, so he turned the other way and followed the rabbi to the mikvah. Ruvym describes his experience thusly:
As we step over the cold stone headings towards the mikvah at the end of the room, there’s the feeling that the bottoms of our feet are burning, that skin is searing. I bite down on my lower lip and join the line that edges its way towards the black water. Men climb down the steps and disappear into it violently, splashing about for a few seconds until there is nothing but the sound of a dull dripping and an emerging body, pale and wrinkled, walking away in silence.
It’s then that, for a moment, I’m no longer here, I’m somewhere else, and I see who it is that we are… This temporary reality, it’s not so far removed, it’s too close to deny or forget. A few decades earlier and I might not have had any other story to tell about myself, about these other boyish men who I’m standing here with. Faces blanched in terror, but mouths moving in prayer, eyes still blinking in a rebellion against our own inevitability. Even in the final moments, amidst the moans and the tears for an existence we haven’t even had a chance to get to know that well, there is still a warmth that pulses through our bodies and envelopes us in the hope for another world that has not yet arrived but which will find our descendents renewed and strong and proud. And in that world these same prayers that we have said for centuries will continue to be said, and every moment that they breath will be an honor to us, to all those who have come before.
Since that trip, Ruvym has become increasingly involved in Jewish life. He returned to Israel three times, the last being on the Shapiro Fellowship program, and currently works for Birthright Israel NEXT as their Legal and Business Affairs Manager.
“After everything, it suddenly became valuable to self-identify as Jewish and, on a reproductive level, know that my kids would one day carry on the traditions and customs and values that I was fortunate enough to inherit from my ancestors who had to endure what they endured to make it possible for me to be who I am today. You can’t just ignore all that because it’s inconvenient or you don’t feel like it. It’s almost a responsibility that you have to the past,” Ruvym claims.
Lisa Colton, founder of Darim Online, had a similar Spark experience while she was in Israel. During her first trip to Israel in 1996 with Livnot U’lehibanot, Lisa hiked Gamla, and found the ground covered with shards of pottery.
“As I held this scrap in my hand, I was filled with awe that my ancestors dug this clay from the earth, shaped it into bowls and cups, and fed their children from these vessels.
“That connection to Jewish people who lived nearly 2000 years before me helped me to realize the power, strength and value of the continuity of Jewish peoplehood, and the rituals and traditions that bind us together. It placed me in a web of Jewish history that transcends time, geography and our cultural and religious diversity. I felt CONNECTED. It made me want to know more. And do more. And to honor and continue the traditions that had come before me. I was one link in a massive chain, and felt the honor, as well as responsibility, to continue to link it forward,” she recalls.
Judaism pushed me to defend who I am…
Brian Silvey was the typical Jewish kid who went through a watered-down Jewish educational system. His education didn’t seem valuable at the time and he had “more bar than bar mitzvah,” he jokes. When a woman came up to Brian at the pool where he was a lifeguard during college and invited him for Shabbat, he was open to it. “What do you do on Fridays?” she asked. “Internally, I was thinking get high, gamble, women, burn mezuzahs (story to come).” “I hang out with friends,” Brian responded. This opened Brian up to Shabbat and what he considers authentic Jewish family and holiday experiences.
A month earlier, Brian would most likely have said “thank you, but no thank you” to a Shabbat invitation. That was until he experienced something devastating in the company of his fraternity brothers. While part of the hazing process was getting hit with anti-Semitic jokes, the boiling point came when one night, at a rented beach house, his fraternity brothers started ripping out mezuzahs from the doorposts, tearing the scrolls and eventually throwing them into the fireplace. Brian said he felt obliged to stop them, but when they asked him what these are, these mezuzahs, he stood frozen; he couldn’t respond.
‘“Well, if you’re the Jew and you don’t know, then why should we care?!’ they asked me.”
This question was shocking and painful, Brian says. He spent the whole night crying outside the beach house, ashamed. But that question led him to accept that invitation for a Shabbat meal and ultimately became the catalyst to a life of Torah and Judaism. “Have to have faith that G-d is directing everyone in the right direction. G-d has infinite ways of making things amazing.” (Read Brian’s story on Aish here.)
The same holds true for Ian Bloom, who lived in a strong Jewish community his whole life. When he went to school in Pittsburgh, it was the first time he experienced “anti-Semitism.”
I had a girl ask me what does being Jewish mean. After explaining it to her a little bit, she pretty much stopped talking to me because of my views. Being up there too was the first time I experienced ‘anti-Semitism.’ You know all the stupid stereotypes that people have. That’s when I decided that I am going to start representing Judaism. I never hid my religion, and I do know people that do. I have always let people know that I am a Jew. My screen name even has to do with Judaism. Representing Judaism is very important to me. I feel that if people see the pride that I have, then they may realize that they can come out of their shells and have pride, too.
Ian started a group on MySpace called “Crazy, Sexy Jews” to showcase that pride and literally wears his Judaism on his sleeve (or hat).
… Judaism forced me to question who I am.
After a late-night discussion with an attractive girl across the hall, Andrew Getraer found himself answering the question, what type of person he’d like to marry. “Well, I wouldn’t marry you,” he said to the girl.
“What!?”
“Well, I want to marry Jewish.”
Andrew shares: “We then spent the next four hours, she telling me what kind of prejudiced, thoughtless person I was.” Andrew was forced to reflect on what made him Jewish, considering that the only priority he had within Judaism was marrying Jewish. She called him on his hypocrisy, and they began to discuss what being Jewish means.
“She helped me clarify what I wanted, and we started learning about Judaism together.” About two years later, they got engaged and six months later married. After the wedding, Andrew’s wife decided to formally convert. Today, Andrew and his wife keep a kosher home and are shomer Shabbat with their five children. He is now a Hillel director and their kids attend a yeshiva day school.
“When you have some Jewish background, some Jewish identity, [the Spark] is lurking. It needs a catalyst to provoke it. It’s latent in every Jew,” he argues. “What I’ve seen – the catalyst is almost always another person.
“There is usually another person who is a role model, living a Jewish life and owning it, seeing it be important to them. I see it on campus quite frequently,” Andrew says. “In some cases it’s enough to be in a community and see that. In other cases, it’s when someone comes up and says, would you like to do this with me?” he states.
“That’s what outreach is.”
One of the reasons Andrew is a Hillel director is because of that conversation with his now wife. “It sparked something and brought a whole new meaning in my life. I want to help people in a serious way. This is a time where people are wrestling with this – 18-25. Those questions are much more at the surface of people’s lives,” he says.
According to Andrew, a lot depends on a confluence of circumstances – a person’s psychology, history, internal and external life. “Have to have a lot of paths cross at the same time. Have to be ready in your own maturity and psychology, have to experience something profound. Happens for people at all different times,” he explains.
In order to help others walking into his campus Hillel find sparks too, Andrew never makes anyone feel that they’re not Jewish enough and instead affirms that wherever a student is, they should grow. Encourage them to recognize that even if they’ve gone to yeshiva for 12 years, they are not done, he says.
Judaism surprised me
Whether it’s attending a service for the first time that sparked a need within, learning something profound that came from Jewish thought, or feeling for the first time a genuine Jewish experience, Spark moments are all around.
It wasn’t until a friend’s uncle was in the hospital that something sparked Sarah Lefton to start G-dcast.com.
“The G-dcast project started when I heard a crazy story about Jewish law and amputation (Go ahead, google "halacha and amputation"). A friend's uncle was having his leg amputated because of diabetes complications. In pre-op, a nurse asked the patient, "So, what do you want us to do with the leg after the surgery?"
What would you do with it? Bronze it? Build a table out of it? Donate it to another amputee? I learned that observant Jews are concerned with the body being intact after death, and they often bury the dislocated limb in their own future funeral plot…or have it preserved until the right time in the future when it can be buried with the rest of the body.
This was to me a wild story that seemed tailor made for a cartoon. I didn't know that Judaism could be so colorfully *weird*. It sparked a series of conversations with friends - including the writer Matthue Roth and the artist Nick Fox-Gieg. Wouldn't it be amazing to make a short-film series about crazy, Jewish stories? Stuff that's totally off the wall, but serious and fascinating?”
Music Producer Glenn Grossman attended a Purim event with StorahTelling and says “…the sense of community, ritual and love amongst all of these beautiful, young and smart, Jewish people who were my age made me feel more open, comfortable and receiving of what it really meant to be a Jew.” Aside from a Bar Mitzvah, Glenn had no connection to Judaism until meeting his now fiancée Naomi Less who opened him up to a Jewish world he did not know.
“You can’t be Jewish and Latina,” is what Adrianna Lopez heard growing up all her life. She knew a lot about her Latina side, but not much about her Jewish side. Without searching, she began a job at 21 with a Jewish woman who, she says, “Kind of mentored me.” That was the Spark that lit her curiosity about Judaism and desire to learn more. Today, she and her daughter have founded a clothing line called Jewtina to show off their pride that you can be both Jewish and Latina.
When Faithann Brown lost her good friend Aimee, a Jewish girl at the age of 19, to suicide, she asked the question, “If G-d doesn’t save people from killing themselves, what does he do?” Raised in a black Pentecostal tradition, Faithann didn’t know about Kaddish, but decided she would do it for her friend, at the same time helping her alleviate the guilt about not having done enough to prevent Aimee’s suicide. Faithann said she believed in a G-d of redemption and intervention, one who could save her.
“I didn’t come to Temple Beth El expecting to convert, but it happened anyway,” Faithann writes in an article at ReformJudaismMag.com. “Although I’d long ago stopped believing in some of Christianity’s major tenets, including the necessity of intercession as a means for connecting with God, I just thought it was because I wasn’t religious; it never occurred to me that I just hadn’t found the right religion for me. But attending a Reform congregation, with its emphasis on study and questioning and on a direct, personal relationship with God, was helping me cope with life’s transitions.”
Julie Leye Blum, who now works at the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA), says she always had the Spark lingering in her, waiting for an opportunity for it to flame. A few weeks before she moved to Brooklyn, she went with a friend to a Shabbos dinner at a Chabad house.
I enjoyed it so much that I kept coming back. Part of it was the rabbi—a young, passionate guy I instantly felt a connection with. Part of it, frankly, was the food. (I was otherwise subsisting on blueberries and smoked gouda, like some odd combination of squirrel and hipster.) A larger part, though, was that I had always wanted to learn more about Judaism, as it had been important to my mother, and I wanted to honor her. I decided I would dedicate a full year to learning about Judaism.
I worked overtime at the Strand to make up for the hours I would miss by taking off for Rosh Hashanah. I’m not sure if I went to services the first night, though I definitely remember the meal, and the skirt I was wearing—it had a print of houses all over it, which on closer inspection turned out to be churches. The rabbi asked us to go around the table and sum up what we hoped for the year in one word; mine was ‘balance.’
The next morning was the first day of Rosh Hashanah—my first day off since I had turned my life upside down—and I woke up to the sound of my own singing. Literally. I was sleeping and the sound of my own voice woke me up: a clear, high song floating out of me, and towards the ceiling. I was Sparked.
My Spark Story
I can’t say there is just one point that can convince someone to become a passionate and devoted Jew. But, for me, it was just one question that set me free, so to speak.
I grew up in an amazing first-generation Russian family where hidden Jewish traditions were always a part of our thick Russian culture – Yiddish words, traditional Jewish foods, an importance placed on high-holiday celebration. But being Jewish was never first and foremost in my mind. As far as I was concerned, it was “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
I remember one kid, Danny, in middle school came up to me and asked “Aren’t you embarrassed to be Jewish?” I instinctively responded, “No! Aren’t you embarrassed to ask that question?” But really, I was embarrassed. I was one of a handful of Jewish kids in my school and really couldn’t tell you a thing about what it meant to be Jewish.
I attended born-again Christian youth groups on Friday nights because my best friend went. They converted me without my knowing (yes, true story) and that was the second time I felt my Jewishness rise up again. In high school, I pretended to be a fan of Marilyn Manson because he was considered weird and cool, until one kid, Jonathan, said “Of course you’re the anti-Christ! You’re Jewish.” I didn’t know how to defend against that, so I didn’t.
Despite all these random moments, there wasn’t anything that triggered me to seek out who I was until I was sitting in a Maimonides Fellowship class at Rutgers University (which I signed up for because of the scholarship that went with it). The rabbi said during a class, “You only fall when you forget who you are.”
I didn’t understand the statement.
What does that mean? You only fall when you forget who you are? Am I falling? Am I falling because I don’t know who I am? Who am I?
A tricky thing to say to confused college students who have no idea who they are, yet. (Though I’m pretty sure I was the only one obsessing about this line.) The rabbi went on to talk about something else, while I was making a mental list narrowing down who I am. I finished with one solid statement: I am Jewish.
Before this moment, I never put that title first and foremost. I was everything else before I was Jewish. But all those things could be taken away. I realized my Judaism could not be (even with the conversion). And so it was then that I got curious; that I started questioning what it meant to be Jewish. It was then, learning what Shabbos was for the first time, that I realized the reason my grandmother shouts when the lights get turned off Friday nights is because of Shabbos. “It’s Friday! It’s Friday,” she would yell. Little did I know that Friday was code word for a forbidden practice while she was growing up.
Taking a memoir class later that year, I decided to start asking my grandmother questions about our family.
“Was our family observant?”
“Oh, my father, he loved the holidays,” she would tell me. “He celebrated every single one.”
Every single one? And I did not know about Purim, Shavuot, or even Shabbos.
This Spark moment tied me to my grandmother, to my Judaism, to growing and learning. Having a wonderful mentor there at that time when I needed it helped tremendously as well. There are many times when I am unclear if I am “falling” in my personal life or in my Jewish growth. Yet my mentor is there to provide for me the exact wisdom I need taken from Jewish text.
The power of mentoring and relationships
Andrew Getraer of Hillel can’t help but stress the importance of relationships – the open invitations, the encouragement, the transparency in their own lives; living Jewish lives. Students do outreach all the time and don’t even realize, he says.
Rabbi Niles Goldstein also emphasizes the significance of a support system. “If you don’t have a support system of other people, you have to have a lot of discipline. Outreach is as much about relationships as it is about programs,” he notes. Niles says there is no magic bullet when it comes to programs; there is not one program that works for everyone.
“The community is missing the mark completely if there isn’t as strong an emphasis placed on relationships,” he asserts. “We need seekers to know there are people out there ready, willing and able to meet them wherever they are on their journey.”
Niles believes that if we dig deeply enough, it’s not too hard to find Jewish teachings or practices that connect with our other interests and passions: arts and culture, nature, social action. For many Jews, it’s a “wow” moment when they discover that Judaism has an enormous amount to say about social justice, for instance. We need the right teachers to expose them to the right teachings, he states.
“There is a dance between meeting people where they are, exposing them to these powerful traditions, and not watering them down,” he cautions. “We have an obligation not to oversimplify or pander. If we can ignite the hearts and souls of genuine seekers, they can have real impact on Jewish life in the future. Our strength has never been in our numbers, but in our commitment.”
Conclusion
Sometimes it takes just one line, maybe even from a stranger, to change one’s direction. Paula Winnig, executive director of Footsteps – an organization that helps people who are leaving isolated religious communities find a place in the larger society, says that all it takes sometimes is for people to hear one thing that Sparks them to leave their religious life. The interesting thing, she says, is that they aren’t necessarily leaving Judaism. They are leaving that specific model of Judaism. They are leaving because something in them, even from childhood, says, this isn’t the life I was supposed to lead; this isn’t the type of Jew I am supposed to be. Some of these individuals live in virtual poverty to live the life they know is right for them.
Judaism can be a very powerful experience. Some people go to great lengths to find themselves spiritually, intellectually and communally in Jewish life. Some people are hit so hard with an experience, an epiphany, that they are unable to ever go back to a dull or non-existent Jewish life. The point is that these experiences can happen at any moment, from any direction, and then take on a life of its own. The important thing is to be there for people who have those lurking Sparks or who are already on their way and need some authentic “where to go from here” guidance and support.
Take-Aways: Questions to ask ourselves
What are the lessons we can take away from these stories? Should we send everyone to a mikvah or recreate “anti-Semitic experiences” and hope for the best? The truth is we have to have faith that we all will find Judaism in our own way, sometimes through a venue entirely unrelated to Judaism. But based on these stories, there are some themes that emerge and questions we can ask:
- Are we immersing learners in Jewish experiences?
- Are we opening up opportunities to see Jews living Jewish lives?
- Are we building relationships? Are we extending invitations to potential Jewish “Spark” moments?
- Is programming getting in the way of concentrating on relationships? If so, how can we restore the balance?
- Are we mentoring people at the time they need mentors? Are we providing the right mentors to the right learners?
- Are we offering a variety of entry points into Jewish life?
- Are we allowing Jews to struggle with what it means to be Jewish? Or are we feeding it to them?
- Are we creating leadership roles for our learners?
- Are we providing spiritual, as well as communal and intellectual venues for seekers?
Jewish journeys are unpredictable and serendipitous. But the Spark moments are real, and they come for individuals perhaps more often than we recognize. Often, it can be just one person who Sparks another. Every moment is a potential outreach moment. How we respond in that moment, whether we fan the Spark, douse it, or simply go on with our own lives, unaware, may make all the difference. What will we choose to do? {ddrfs}