How Aryeh Ackerman Chose Judaism Over Comfort

When Aryeh Ackerman began discovering the beauty and depth of Judaism, he was excited to start keeping Shabbat. But what he didn’t expect was the strong pushback especially from his wife. She asked, rightfully so, why he was suddenly bringing in hot plates and kosher food when he had married her as a secular man. And instead of insisting or fighting, Aryeh did something much harder: he chose to work on himself first.

It was one of the most difficult things he had ever done. But Aryeh, now 40, a pizzeria owner and business consultant from Kiryat Shmona, didn't give up. “I was fortunate to have amazing guidance from my rabbi, Rabbi Amir Katz,” he recalls. “One of the most important things he ever told me was that Hashem doesn’t want a Jewish home to fall apart. If you become religious in a way that divides your family, your children might run from Judaism altogether. But if you make peace in your home a priority, that itself is holiness.”

At the time, Aryeh and his family were living in an expansion neighborhood of Kibbutz Shamir, in northern Israel. The kibbutz was proudly secular. “On Yom Kippur, they were grilling pork steaks with cream sauce by the pool,” he says. “Not because they were hungry but to make a statement.”

When the Ackermans first arrived, it didn’t bother them. “We weren’t connected to religion anyway,” Aryeh explains.

So what changed?

Aryeh grew up with no connection to Judaism. The Passover Seder was just another excuse for a family dinner. His first real exposure came during Bar Mitzvah lessons. Even then, his mother warned the teacher, “Don’t you dare make him religious.” In the army, he heard Kiddush for the first time. Later, when he started dating his future wife, he told her upfront, “One day, I’ll probably become religious.”

Where did this idea come from? “I really don’t know,” he says. “It was like my soul was drawn to it even before I understood anything.”

A cup of coffee in the laundry room

After his army service, Aryeh took part in a personal growth workshop that planted the seeds of his spiritual search. Years later, now a father, those seeds finally began to bloom. “My oldest son’s brit milah was on Shabbat. The mohel had to stay with us. That Shabbat, I decided to keep it just for him. But after a few weeks, I realized I loved it. I decided to keep it for me.”

He bought a Shabbat hot plate and urn but his wife didn’t want them in the kitchen. “So I put them in the laundry room, on the floor. One day, I was making myself a cup of coffee there and I thought, ‘Why did I build this beautiful villa so I could drink coffee on the floor?’”

That moment hit hard. “I felt broken. And that’s when the yetzer hara, the inner voice trying to pull me away from good, crept in. The more I tried to get stronger in my faith, the more our arguments grew. One day, I said, ‘Let’s just go open a divorce file at the Rabbinate.’ We did. But by a miracle, we never followed through.”

Peace in the home is holy work

Some couples think that if one spouse becomes religious and the other doesn’t, the marriage is doomed. Aryeh disagrees. “Hashem doesn’t make mistakes. If you truly believe, then believe even when it’s hard. Don’t give up. Work on yourself.”

His rabbi helped him see his wife differently. “I began to understand that she’s a spiritual giant, even if she doesn’t cover her hair or keep all the mitzvot. She supported me through fire and water. That’s what matters.”

He shares an analogy: “I saw myself as a vehicle. If I wanted my wife and kids to come on this journey with me, I had to be a vehicle worth riding in. I had to be a super-husband, super-father, super-person. And how did I measure progress? When people started saying, ‘You’ve really changed.’”

One day, his wife said something that changed everything: “If you want me to accept you as religious, accept me as secular.” He listened. He stopped trying to change her. Instead, he focused inward. And that opened her heart.

Leaving the kibbutz, tears and all

Life on the kibbutz grew more and more difficult. “When I made Kiddush in the dining hall, people stared. On Shabbat, I had to sneak in the back because of electronic sensors. For food, I ended up eating just pickles and bread.”

Eventually, Aryeh felt ready to leave but his wife wasn’t. “I stayed only because she wasn’t ready. When she finally agreed, we put our villa up for sale and it sold in a month.”

He remembers crying in the synagogue like a child the day they left. “More than I was keeping that shul, it was keeping me.”

Why was he so afraid?

“I wasn’t just afraid to live there, I was afraid to die there. I didn’t want to be buried in a cemetery where people drive on Shabbat or where non-Jewish burials take place. That thought terrified me.”

Eventually, his wife who by then had taken her first steps toward faith understood. They enrolled their children in religious kindergartens. They moved out of the kibbutz. “She gave up her dream house before she ever saw a ‘reward’ for it. That was her way of saying, ‘I’m with you.’ That’s when I knew that my work on myself had paid off.”

Smiling through it all

Today, Aryeh is a business consultant, a relationship advisor, and a columnist for the local paper. Where does he find the strength to keep giving and doing?

“Only from faith. Hashem didn’t just give me belief, He gave me blessing too. We sold the villa fast and at a good price. My wife now thanks me that we left. And when people ask me, ‘Where’s that smile from?’ I tell them: It’s the smile of someone who truly returned to himself, to his family, and to Hashem.”