Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life--in Judaism (After Finally Choosing to Look There)

To return to where we started: the mishnah subtly makes the revolutionary claim that our ultimate worth as human beings is a function not of what we achieve in the world, but of the simple fact that we have been created by God.

we can now envision the life cycle not as stages in the life of each Jewish individual, but rather as the unfolding expression of the covenant at every moment of each person’s life. It is not our life cycle we celebrate; it is the life of the covenant linking God with the Jewish people that is worthy of our attention and that justifies our celebrat

Jews-by-choice also bring with them a unique passion for Judaism. Many speak of “falling in love” with Judaism for a variety of reasons: because it invites them to wrestle with God, because it identifies the home as a sanctuary, because Judaism is inseparable from a call to social justice. For born-Jews whose Jewish education and connection stopped