Thursday, May 16, 2019

Why did I do teshuva?

I had a meeting with an interior designer in an office in Israel. A relative of mine was present, and this relative did not look so frum.
The manager came into the meeting at some point and smiled at me and asked "when did you lachzor b'teshuva?"
I was a bit taken aback by the question. How does he know I am a baalat teshuva?
Here I was, in 90+ degree weather with long sleeves, a long skirt, socks, and a head scarf. Am I such a flaming baal teshuva just because I am sitting next to someone who is not dressed charedi?
In any case, I politely answered "almost 15 years ago."

He continued smiling and asked "and WHY did you lachzor b'teshuva?"

I thought about it for a minute. There is my teshuva story, but that's actually not the answer. The answer is really very simple: because Torah is emet.

So I answered "because the Torah is Emet."

Then the man went on a long rant how some people are fanatic, some people dress charedi yet do bad things, and you can be in this world and in the world of Torah and work all day and just learn for an hour, so why not? and bla bla bla.
Ok.
I did not understand what on earth his rant had to do with my answer.

But it made me realize - some things really are simple. We choose to make them more complex than they are.