Through the Desert

I awoke abruptly from my Shabbos nap to see my older sister, visiting from out of town, standing over me. Half asleep and not wanting to eat treif Chinese food, I replied, “Oh, I’m okay, I don’t think I’m going to eat until later. Don’t worry about me. I’ll sit with you when it arrives.”

“You’re a witch!” came her booming response, as she stormed out and slammed my bedroom door. Out in the living room I heard, “Your daughter doesn’t want to be part of the family!”

As a psychotherapist, it’s not too often that my baalei teshuvah clients come in to discuss their BT experience in therapy. They look at me with surprise when I want to spend time on that aspect of their life during my evaluation: “How much of your family is frum? How much support did you get? What’s it like visiting their homes these days? How does it feel at holiday time?”

More often than not, they simply shrug and say, “It is what it is.”