Tzitzis transformed me into the man behind a movement
As told to Rivka Streicher by Yehuda Yosef Skriloff
Just a few years ago, I was 17, in yeshivah, but I wasn’t keeping Shabbos.
It wasn’t quite a mainstream yeshivah, but it was a safe space for guys who were struggling. It gave us a framework, with rebbeim who were willing to hear us out. They were shepherds of a wayward flock, there to give us back the treasure — we only had to want it.
But I wasn’t sure that I did. I had come from a frum background, went to the right schools, but by the time I hit my mid-teens, I was struggling deeply. I dropped one religious rite after another — brachos, davening, my kippah and tzitzis. I’d wear my kippah in yeshivah, but not outside. I didn’t want this overt symbol of Jewishness on my head; I just wanted to blend into wider society.
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