In the past I thought: If some religious people behave this way - I don't want to be religious!

In the past, I was disconnected from my Jewish roots. Although I grew up in a religious, Shabbat-observant home, during my military service, I became lax in putting on tefillin and keeping Shabbat. In my heart, I thought that after marriage I would return to keeping Shabbat and putting on tefillin, but it didn't happen. The false comfort of not observing Shabbat took over, and I didn't have a good enough reason to return from my wayward path. Despite this, deep in my heart I felt emptiness, and lived with the feeling that my life lacked meaning.

Occasionally, a thought would arise in me and I would ask myself, how is it possible that we have such a wonderful Torah, which contains all the guidance for a good and proper life, with health, joy, and happiness, and infinite goodness - yet the public in general, and me in particular, are not connected to the Torah and its commandments? I found that I identified the Torah with people who had external religious symbols, and wherever a person acted contrary to the Torah's way, I said to myself: If this is religion, then I am not willing to be religious.

I'll give some examples that caused me to despise Torah observers who weren't mindful of their actions. There was a case where a person, who held a position and appeared to me as distinctly religious, erupted in the synagogue. He did not subdue his impulse and responded to another person with a fervor reminiscent of a soccer field - all this during prayer.

Or a case where one of the more respected congregants wanted to tell me cheap gossip that bothered him. Fortunately, I asked him to spare me these things.

Every negative behavior by a religious person distanced me from religion, back to the false comfort zone.

My conscience troubled me especially during holidays, and on Yom Kippur the desired change came. I arrived with my young son at the synagogue named after the paratrooper Alfasi Shlomo, of blessed memory. I went to sit in a chair in the aisle between benches reserved for regular worshippers, and a certain person, sitting on a bench in his reserved place, told me (with an unwelcoming demeanor, to put it mildly): "This seat is taken." No one thought to direct me to an available seat, and I found myself standing outside with my son, hearing the prayer through the glass lattice. What intensified my feeling of insult was the fact that the supposedly reserved chair remained empty until the end of the prayer. Unfortunately, my aversion to religion only intensified, and I lost hope of returning to the embrace of the Torah.

Today I know what nevertheless brought me back to the Torah and its commandments, which I didn't know then.

He who asks - eventually receives an answer

In the Song of Songs it is written: "A king is bound in tresses." Rabbi Nachman of Breslov says that the "tresses" are our thoughts (the pathways of the mind), and says that a person who contemplates and strengthens his thought in some matter - will certainly achieve it. The Chazon Ish writes that thought has great power to create actual reality in the world of action. What happened to me over the years is that the dominant thought in my mind was the question of what I needed to do to return to religion. For the wonderful Torah was given to all of Israel, and any Jew who wants the Torah - let him come and take it. The understanding and interpretation of the Torah is not one-dimensional, and does not belong to this person or that. From my perspective, I gave a positive, constructive, and empowering interpretation to everything written in the Torah, and when I reached a junction of misunderstanding - I knew it stemmed from a lack in my understanding. To my great joy, from an experience of about 70 years, I knew that he who asks - eventually receives an answer. And the amazing insight that permeated my mind was to give a different interpretation to events, so that my reality would change. I had compassion for a person who did not act according to the Torah's way, and even gave him the benefit of the doubt in my thoughts. I made a complete separation between the Torah and its commandments and people. I stopped judging in my mind people who behaved incorrectly. I radiated love to people, and accepted differences with patience and tolerance. I fulfilled the verse "As water reflects a face, so one's heart reflects another." The Or HaChaim explains: "For hearts can understand the hidden." At the same time, I took positive examples from many good people who behaved correctly. I magnified every positive behavior on one hand, and minimized (to the point of ignoring) negative behavior on the other.

At the same time, I remembered an empowering event from my childhood in Ramla. Rabbi Yitzchak Abuhatzeira (Baba Haki of blessed memory) dedicated his sermon to an incident where someone spat on the stairs leading to the synagogue, causing disgust to people. The rabbi reprimanded those who don't consider the pain they cause others. As a small child, I saw how important consideration for others is. What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. The echoes of that sermon accompany me in every action, to this day.

My life changed beyond recognition. Every morning after saying the morning blessings with great intention, I ask myself what good deed I can and should do today, asking Hashem "guide me with good counsel from before You," and so on this path.

During the High Holy Days, we prayed to the Creator "Remember that we are dust." In my humble opinion, we need to know and remember that we are dust; this is the key to behaving with humility, without keeping score against others who did something inappropriate to us, which grows to monstrous proportions the more a person values himself. The Lubavitcher Rebbe says: A person who feels offended - it's a sign that he is prideful. Do not despise any person; find a positive point in him and magnify it, imagine the greatness of the Creator's love for each and every one.

What can we do, when in every generation they try to destroy us physically or spiritually, like the Cantonist Decree in the 19th century, when Tsar Nicholas I decreed mass conscription of children for education in a military framework, and when they reached adulthood - the Jewish children were drafted into the Russian army, with Christianity forced upon them, literally uprooting Jewish identity from Jews. Sometimes we despise Russian Jews, instead of having compassion for them, loving them and bringing them closer to Judaism. We must express what we have learned about being "responsible for one another" - with love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and prayers from the depths of the heart to the Creator. The unity of the people is very important to the Creator, and whoever prays for his fellow - is answered first. Don't be strict with others, shooting poisoned arrows of criticism at the self-image of others, thereby fixing a shattered self-image. Know where to place a comma in a sentence. As "The words of the wise, spoken quietly, are heard!" "Judge every person favorably" and "Don't judge your fellow until you reach his place."