Friday, September 11, 2009

"The shock of teshuvah"


"My father was an ardent Socialist, almost a Communist.

Once I visited the places in Spain where he fought in the civil war as a volunteer in the International Brigade.

I read Lenin before I read the Bible.

It wasn’t very fashionable when I became an Orthodox Jew.

Nor was it easy.

I felt like the character in the Kafka novel who wakes up one day and discovers that he has become a cockroach.

I had always despised those Orthodox people. I really disliked them.

I used to throw stones at them.

And then one day I woke up and discovered that I belonged there.

It was a shock.

I don’t know if I have ever really gotten over that shock."

--Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz



From
Pebbles of Wisdom from Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz