I became Religious Because of the Family Purity Laws by Anonymous

Posted by JewishMom on Mar 16, 2017 in Inspiration, Jewish Moms | 8 comments

Last week at the playground my neighbor, a mother expecting her 4th child, and I were standing by the slide…The story she told me about how she became religious gave me goosebumps. Here’s what she told me:

I was in my mid-thirties, living in Tel Aviv near where had I grown up. Looking around me, everyone I knew was single. Eternally single. I was secular, but one thing I knew: I wanted to have a Jewish home. That was very important to me. But how would that ever happen? The people in my circles, all of us young secular professional, were always dating and sometimes living together, but almost never getting married. And the few people I knew who actually did get married, seemed to always get divorced in the end.

I was not observant, but I was drawn to spirituality. The high-tech company I worked for would send me all over the world to work at their various offices, but as often as possible I would fly through Thailand so I could visit the Bangkok Chabad House. I loved attending Rav Nechemiah’s classes, which I did whenever possible for several years.

At one point, Rav Nechemiah contacted me and told me I really should participate in a several-day retreat to learn more deeply about Judaism. It wasn’t so convenient for me, but he insisted, so I made it happen. I enjoyed all the classes, but it was a class from Rav Nechemiah’s wife that would change the course of my life.

The rabbanit told us about the laws of Family Purity, the two weeks of physical separation between husband and wife, followed by 2 weeks together following her immersion in the mikveh. When she told us about this, my mind started to race. This was IT! This was the ANSWER! This was the secret to how a Jewish home could exist and flourish in the modern world.

After the class, I went up to the rabbanit with tears in my eyes. “This is what I want, I want to keep the laws of family purity! I want to have a Jewish home! But tell me, how in the world am I going to find a husband willing to observe these laws? I’m not even religious!”

But in the end, the impossible happened.

When I met him, my husband had been religious for 5 years already. I wasn’t religious at all, I came to our first date straight from the beach!

But b”H, I learned more and became fully observant, and afterwards I realized that the date of our wedding was the first anniversary of that class I attended which opened my eyes to the possibility of living my greatest dream–having a Jewish home with a husband I love, of my own.

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