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OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M
THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
JUNE 4, 2020
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his is a story about two American Jews, each raised in traditional Conservative homes, with a fragmented grasp of Torah. Together, they created not just a Torah-observant family, but also a one-of-akind post-high school seminary in Israel for girls from public school backgrounds.
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abbi Yaakov Lynn had an unusual introduction to Shabbat observance. Growing up in what he called “the classic Conservative family” in East Brunswick, NJ, he had a solid Jewish identity that included Hebrew school, a bar mitzvah, and membership in United Synagogue Youth (USY), a Conservative youth movement. But it did not include Shabbat. At 16, he attended a USY Shabbaton and met Shomer Shabbat people for the first time. “I knew there was such a thing as Shabbat,” he recalled, but he never imagined knowing anyone who kept it. Meeting public school kids who kept Shabbat was eye-opening. “I was very challenged by that,” he said. “I had this thought going through my mind that never really went away, which was that I always believed in
Judaism. I didn’t know anything very much about Judaism, just what I learned in my Conservative Hebrew school, but I believed in Judaism. I believed in G-d. I believed that Judaism was true. “And now I saw that there was a thing called ‘keeping Shabbat’ and people did it, people who to go to public schools do it. So, if I believe it’s true, and I say I have a strong Jewish identity, and I see that it’s possible, then why don’t I do it?” At 16, Yaakov responded to his theological challenge in a surprising way. “I actually decided that I was going to try. I remember thinking that it sounded like such an awful thing to keep Shabbat. I went to the Conservative synagogue on a Saturday; I’m sure I drove there. And I remember reading things in Mussaf about how great Shabbos is and I was thinking,
apparently it’s supposed to be beautiful.” There was just one tiny detail to be worked out. “I didn’t know any rabbis,” he said. “I didn’t know any religious people I would feel comfortable talking to about it. So, I didn’t tell anybody. I smuggled into my room one of those Hebrew-English Chumashim they have at Conservative temples and a pink bat mitzvah yarmulke, and I hid them in the drawer. “And I would, on Saturday or Friday night – I don’t remember which – I would go into my room. I’d lock the door and open the drawer. I’d take out the yarmulke and the Chumash. I don’t know if I knew what parsha it was. I don’t know what I would read, but I would read from the Chumash.” Rabbi Lynn described this early experimentation as inconsistent. Sometimes he would drive to the syn-
“Mom. Dad. There’s something I have to tell you: I’ve been keeping Shabbat.”
‘I don’t understand. This sounds like an awful thing. How could it be so good?’ “I remember the moment – standing in this Conservative temple, I decided then that I’m going to try it, now that I know it’s possible and
agogue. Sometimes he would stop and buy something on the way home. He was trying to figure out Shabbat all on his own. “I had no idea how to keep Shabbat,” he explained. “I didn’t know about Shabbat meals. I went back and
for t h. I would watch TV if my parents had the TV on, but I kept saying ‘no’ whenever my family wanted to do something. “So my parents were getting concerned about me. I was locking myself in my room every Saturday, and I worked on Sundays in a drugstore, and so they didn’t see me on Sunday. They kept pushing me. ‘You want to do this today? You want to do that?’ And I’d just say no, and go back to my room. And then, finally, one day they confronted me.” Feeling backed into a corner, 16-year-old Yaakov took a deep breath and confessed, “’Mom. Dad. There’s something I have to tell you: I’ve been keeping Shabbat.’ “And I really thought they were going to keel over. They actually weren’t so shocked. And they felt bad that I felt embarrassed about it. But they definitely thought it was a phase.” That was the beginning of his teshuva journey. Today, Rabbi Yaakov Lynn is the founding dean and director of Meorot, a unique Jerusalem seminary designed especially for public school graduates.
A Path to Teshuva Although she never locked herself in her bedroom in attempt to keep Shabbat, Penina Lynn’s teshuva story runs along similar lines. Raised in Columbia, MD, between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., she also attended public school. Penina, who serves as the Director of Students at Meorot, described herself as having a “very typical traditional Jewish background. Hebrew
