Telling My Story

Mazal Tov to early Beyond BT contributor Shoshana on her recent wedding to Mordechai Goldberg. In honor of this wonderful simcha we’re reposting this piece from December 5, 2006. When people meet me, and find out a bit of my background – being from Alabama, not growing up in an Orthodox home – they often [...]

Inferiority Complex

I was having a discussion with someone recently and he mentioned that one of the problems in the baalei teshuvah mindset is that BTs are often scared to question things they hear, especially from people who grew up religious because they anticipate that their own knowledge base is lacking in comparison. BTs just assume that [...]

Going Home?

As I planned my holidays this year, I decided that my travels should include the exotic locales of Providence, Rhode Island; Baltimore, Maryland; and Lakewood, New Jersey. Well known, respectively, for quaint villages, being a third of the Triple Crown and world-renowned institutions of higher learning, I was quite looking forward to seeing such a [...]

Honor All Your Failures

In preparing for a move, I was going through an old stack of papers and found inside a pamphlet that I was apparently given during one of my trips to Israel, entitled “How to get deeper into Torah without going off the deep end.” I don’t remember reading this pamphlet previously (because I probably received [...]

Fanning The Flame

Rabbi Tatz has a shiur that I listened to many years ago about how the initial spark of inspiration to any new activity or dream is extremely intense. After a while, the intensity dies a bit and what is left is a lower-burning flame that must be worked at, with much effort, to be kept [...]

Should We Attempt to Make Our Family Frum?

My brother recently has been searching for answers to the age-old questions. Why is life so difficult? Why is he faced with challenges? Why don’t things turn out the way he wants them to? He also wonders about God and religion and his place in the world. He’s been asking a lot of people these [...]

More Lessons from Psychology

I am currently taking a class in which the professor has been introducing several different cultural identity models. While each model was developed specific to a particular culture, they can be used more globally as well. Interestingly, while studying William E. Cross’ African-American Identity Model, I found a lot of similarities with the journey that [...]

Shidduch Considerations – Seeing Challenges As Opportunities for Growth

My parents are divorced. No one else in my family is frum. I have a lot of non-Jewish cousins. Unfortunately, but realistically, my brothers will probably marry non-Jewish women. I live very far away from the rest of my family, seeing them about once a year. All of these things are not normative in the [...]

Lessons From Psychology

I’ve been reading Irvin Yalom’s book “Love’s Executioner.” It’s a collection of true stories from his experiences being a therapist. For someone who is in training to be a counselor, it’s an inspiring set of stories and points out many key points in the development of an outlook to dealing with patients and one’s own [...]

Internalizing Tzinus

I was talking to someone the other day about the topic of tznius. She is newly observant and she asked me about the halachas of dressing in a modest fashion – now that the weather was getting warmer, she wanted to know what she could and couldn’t wear, and in observing others, she was a [...]

Finding Your Comfort Zone

I think one of the hardest parts of becoming a baal teshuvah is in finding a comfort zone. Being an Orthodox Jew is not a once-a-week thing, or even a once-a-day thing. It’s something that permeates and becomes your whole essence – your actions, your thoughts and yourself. It’s easy to get overwhelmed when facing [...]

Keeping in Touch with Before Teshuva Friends

Make new friends, But keep the old, One is silver, And the other gold. This was always one of my favorite songs throughout childhood. My family moved around a lot when I was younger, so it was difficult to sustain friendships while changing locations every few years. My friendships, even today, are mostly ones that [...]

An Orthodox Jew with a Tattoo

When I was 18 years old, before I knew anything about Orthodox Judaism, I got two tattoos. It was the thing to do – I was in college and a bunch of my friends were doing it. As well as the fact that it was an excellent opportunity to upset my parents. I didn’t know [...]

Bridging Backgrounds

It’s very natural to try to insulate yourself with those who are as similar to you as possible. As a BT, we often form bonds with those who have gone through the same experiences as us – those who have also changed the direction of their lives to include Torah. This is a comfortable enclave; [...]

Connecting to Others Through Davening

Growing up in a Reform Jewish congregation, I grew up with religious services conducted overwhelmingly in English, with great musical accompaniment. They lasted about an hour, included an organ and cantor with a wonderful voice, and some responsive readings, again mainly in English. On High Holidays, our synagogue employed a professional choir, featured a violin [...]

Reverse Discrimination in Dating

A friend of mine who is also a BT was recently dating a guy who was frum from birth. She really liked his personality, his enthusiasm and his sense of humor. There seemed to be a lot going for them as a couple, which is why they were introduced in the first place. But she [...]

Making Chanukah Cookies

Growing up, one of my family’s annual traditions was making Chanukah cookies. We would spend an entire day rolling out dough, cutting out shapes and decorating hundreds of cookies. After we were finished making them, we would save some for ourselves and then package up the rest in bundles to give to friends. My parents [...]

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