Each person who turns away from the path of Torah has his own sad trajectory. Fortunately, many of them loop back, returning to Torah from a place of authenticity, finally finding the beauty and joy within Yiddishkeit
My parents, both baalei teshuvah, got married when my mother was 19 and my father 29. All five of us kids were born within six years. I was the youngest.
My childhood was tough. My parents fought a lot, and their marriage eventually devolved into dysfunction. We lived in an insular frum community, without any understanding of baalei teshuvah or support for them, and my mother felt stifled.
As their relationship deteriorated, my father used Judaism as a weapon, and my mother responded by becoming less and less religious. She moved us to a Modern Orthodox school. She stopped covering her hair. She introduced a TV to our home, gradually leaving it on more and more, eventually put it on a timer for Shabbos… and eventually put it on on Shabbos. By the time I was in eighth grade, only my father, one sibling, and I were still frum.
I wanted to be frum. I was very involved in NCSY and I loved Judaism. I fought my entire eighth grade year to go to a Jewish high school.
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