Paving the Road to Yeshiva

you as far as my background in Judaism secular reformed whatever you want to call it had a Bar Mitzvah basically you know did all the normal things that a secular Jew growing up in the Midwest would do I grew up in the San Francisco there in California growing up I was I was generally uncomfortable with you know the practice of Judaism just due to my lack of knowledge i was born in Brooklyn New York and the family grew up in Flatbush at the first project inspire convention that I went to as a shabbaton called the body and soul retreat one of the people I met there was a guy from boro park named kitty klein i sat next to this young man told him good shabbos and that's the first time I laid my eyes on Roger Goldberg he asked me if I had put to fill in on that day which I hadn't I hadn't started putting on tefillin yet so we went and put on tefillin and then chatted for a little bit afterward as a result of that action I started putting filling on dropping our eco gives me a call use a cup for shabbos sometime here's my number and I had such an amazing time at the meal is the family saying the family gathering Asmir sanna d VAR torah and the meal I saw something that was above anything I've ever seen before they came here for a shabbos meal and he was very interested in participating being there with my mom and being there with the bee guns who made it so easy and so comfortable and you know they're obviously religious but I'm obviously not but yet that divide doesn't matter because of that atmosphere that they've created they've helped but with my mother and I become more religious after really getting to know Adam and Jerri and Parvati and soul retreat told and I realized that the next step for Adam would be to go to air to Cheryl and some sort of learning working situation he said he's going to go over summer time he wants to go for six week program to a Shiva in Israel to check it out the see if it's really if he's rail is really ready to take the next step we looked into the best programs for him they could combine the working and learning that he was looking for Israel did bring the sense of home this comfortability the sense I can be myself what it means to be Jewish everyone told me there's no place like learning Israel and they're just roll the learning is the best they should throw they have a program called essentials it's a three program very beginning education about jewish studies for a year and a half a money in asia tour coming towards the stroll to learning achieve a full time to be around such amazing people other jewish people really see a big difference in my life and I'm much happier I feel I feel like I'm doing something important that matters and that's when a better me my family the Jewish people if you would have asked me two years ago do I ever see myself studying in a yeshiva I would have thought that you were absolutely crazy that now that I'm here I realized that this is an environment that is geared towards personal growth immediately when he got there he felt that this is his place he decided that it does just doesn't want to be the fur just a few weeks he wants to make this is permanent home the different gestures that people are helping me organizing to fill in for me huh Bruce's for me going to shabbos it changed my whole life I saw there's people that that I have on my team there's people that care for me I'm in yeshiva and I'm learning Torah it affected my whole life forever I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for the help of other Jewish people we decided to take the care to see how I'm doing to to see if I wanted to grow in Judaism they were there to help me they were there to show me the opportunities that I didn't even know I had there are so many Jewish souls that are out there that don't know much about religion adesh kite and it's up to us as the firm community to step up to the plate and and show them just show them what the turret represent show them with the tour is what do we have in common we grew up secular we were embraced by the Orthodox community we never expected to be religious we certainly never dreamt of learning in a yeshiva thank you thank you thank you thank you you