Edited by Zibby Owens, from her information, On Being Jewish Now: Reflections from Authors and Advocates, Zibby Books, Oct 1, 2024.

After I opened the glove compartment of this man’s vehicle, beneath the crumpled 1991 Saab convertible handbook, I discovered a yarmulke. As a Shabbat-loving single lady in my late twenties on a second date, I took that navy suede kippah to be a sign from Hashem. Clearly I had found my bashert. 

For some, it’s an electrifying caress or a romantic getaway that sends butterflies to all the suitable places. For me, a stack of dog-eared Jewish publications on a nightstand does the trick. A kiddush cup on the mantel that’s been handed down from one period to the next? Goose bumps. A family customized of banging on the desk in a rousing Dayenu? I swoon. My primal love language, one of the simplest ways to my coronary coronary heart and soul, is Yiddishkeit, a devotion to Jewish traditions and custom. 

The skullcap-in-the-glovebox suitor figured that out. Early in our courtship, he left me a late-night voicemail belting out a extreme holy days melody he had sung as a bowtie-wearing sixth grader in his synagogue’s junior choir. As we acquired further extreme, he faux-casually talked about in entrance of my ailing, religious grandma that his Hebrew title was Menachem Mendel, an identical to the Lubavitcher Rebbe. At our wedding ceremony, I reached the heights of ecstasy when, on bended knee, he shocked me with the usual prayer of Eshet Chayil, declaring his dedication not merely to me, his “lady of valor,” however along with making a home collectively bursting with Jewish pleasure. 

As a toddler, time stood nonetheless when my father walked in our entrance door early on Friday nights, Shabbat flowers in hand, marking the beginning of our family’s cherished time collectively. From setting up a sukkah out of threadbare sheets in our yard every fall to gleefully dancing on Simchat Torah accompanied by Bracha, our shul’s accordion participant; from waving Israeli flags in Independence Day parades to a decade of summers at Jewish sleepaway camp, there have been so many foundational recollections I wanted to re-create. 

I moreover spent my childhood watching my grandparents mourn the dearth of their mom and father and siblings among the many many six million Jews who had been murdered throughout the Holocaust. For lots of in my period, the Shoah was a catalyst for Jewish id, a accountability to be vigilant about guaranteeing the survival of our heritage and our of us. It was ingrained in me by the Jewish thinker Emil Fackenheim, and by these of my great-aunts and uncles who miraculously survived Auschwitz, that together with the 613 mitzvot (commandments) throughout the Torah, there is a 614th to adjust to: We should always not grant Hitler a posthumous victory. 

Since becoming a mom or father, there’s no mitzvah I’ve taken further to coronary coronary heart—truly because of I actually really feel the load of our historic previous and am smitten by Jewish continuity, nevertheless above all, because of I take into account Judaism gives a freeway map for a purpose-driven lifetime of goodness and pleasure. By conserving kosher, as an example, sooner than a morsel of meals might even graze my lips, I am prompted to savor the reminder of who I am and the place I come from. For me, Judaism is the lens by way of which we’ll cultivate gratitude, honor our ancestors, enhance moral kids, navigate despair, mark time with which implies, see the dignity in all humanity, current up for one another, and try and go away this world larger than we found it. 

Merely as my Jewish experiences anchored my sense of who I was on this planet as I grew up, I try and infuse my very own residence with Jewish values, Jewish music, Jewish prayer, Jewish meals, Jewish rituals, Jewish holidays, Jewish giving, and Jewish love. My therapist, an Orthodox Jew, has a saying: “If you need the house to scent like Shabbat, you’ve acquired to make the potatoes.” It’s a metaphor we use to discuss how the magic of dwelling Jewishly doesn’t merely happen—not for me, my kids, or anyone. It takes work. 

Inside the aftermath of October 7, I am doubling down on Judaism as a personal and communal toolbox for a life properly lived. I blast Eyal Golan’s “Am Yisrael Chai” all by way of our dwelling, handle Shabbat dinners for tons of, attend rallies in help of liberating the hostages, and sound the alarm for Jews and non-Jews alike regarding the resurgent tsunami of Jew hatred. There are quite a few recipes for making the potatoes, I am finding out, considerably as soon as we’re activated by trauma, motivated to articulate a newfound sense of Jewish pleasure, and anticipating a means of group amid our vulnerability. Volunteer journeys to Israel are at functionality, buddies have found their voices as political activists or social media warriors, mom and father are galvanized to confront every latent and blatant antisemitism in colleges, and enterprise executives are displaying moral braveness and administration. 

As I bless our three kids on Shabbat, I take into accounts the unbearable void at Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s dinner desk and pray for the complete hostages. We FaceTime our first cousins Goldie and Eldad, whose idyllic kibbutz life throughout the Gaza Envelope was shattered when Hamas gunmen tried to interrupt into their protected room, the place they hid with their three youthful children. After which we welcome Shabbat with pleasure. My husband sings Eshet Chayil, merely as he did all these years prior to now. Our eight-year-old performs Mah Tovu on the piano, our daughter lights the candles with me, and our oldest son chants kiddush sooner than heading out to basketball observe. That glove-compartment kippah from a few years prior to now has since been modified by one from our kids’ b’nei mitzvah, bedazzled with rhinestones because of our daughter wanted them to be sparkly. Our children, it seems, have the parts to start making their very personal potatoes. 

Merely remaining week, my husband despatched me a selfie of him spontaneously wrapping tefillin at Chabad. He nonetheless is conscious of how one can catch me off guard. For my upcoming fiftieth birthday, I’m holding out for a breathy, pillowside Oseh Shalom, and for a lifetime of making further potatoes.