WHen I was growing up, my mother gave us a minimal jewish education.But B”H.. Sunday mornings she drove us to our Reform Synogogue to a kids’ Sunday School Class. It was impressed upon me that the Orthodox have unreasonable laws especially surrounding what is considered kosher, which were suited to set them above and beyond everyone else and were therefore snobbish to anyone less observant.Oh, and intimidatingly wealthy, to boot. Although, when I would see them on TV they appeared so humble and I would think “those are my people..and one day I am gonna live like that”.
But I loved my synogogue as a little girl. And identity as a Jew. I often asked my mother why we didn’t have Shabbat. So she did it a few times. Candles and grape juice.
From the moment I would walk into the lobby of the shul, there was the smell of Chanel perfume, of velour seats in the ‘santuary’, and this feeling that I belonged and was special to G-d here cause I was a jew. B”H.
Although I never learned Hebrew, and in fact stopped going altogether once my mother remarried a man of another religion I never forgot I was a jew and that idol worship was an abominable repulsion.
Because I went to a public school I really did not know any other jews. And until I was 26 years old I never met a frum person in my life, where I was invited immediately upon our acquaintance to their shabbos meal. I was impressed with the unique simplicity of their home, and the unparalled genuine concern and love they seemingly held for me.
Within a short time, I was keeping shabbos and then kashrus, completely committed in heart and soul and before I had to wait too long i was already a kalla. B”H.
Only later did I reflect back and laugh at what funny notion I had held of Religious Jews growing up.