In Part 1 of this commentary, we learned that the last letter of the Hebrew Aleph-Beit, which Hashem created, is the letter Tav. We learned that according to orthodox Judaism, the Tav represents the “lowest point in Hashem’s creation.” And we also learned that the Tav was first pictured as an X, or a scepter. When I was in Israel in 2023, I was told that the tav looked like a cross, much like the one used to kill a Jewish brother. Even this misguided thought points to salvati

Just like when He brought the Israelites out of Egypt, Hashem chose to take me the long way home to the Jewish faith. As I dug deeper and deeper into His Tanakh, and proclaimed more adamantly the Jewishness of G-d, I was also convinced that faith in the Jewish G-d would necessitate that faith in the Messiah of the Jewish people would mean having a Jewish faith as well. This clarity of vision brought on even more vitriol and antisemitic rhetoric from the pulpits.

My Long Journey Home to Judaism: Part 6 Home, Yet Not Free I finally made it home from Israel after the October 7th attacks. Like I said previously, I held myself together long enough to get home and give my mother a proper hello. When I got to our house, however, I completely fell apart. I allowed myself to grieve, to cry, to get angry (as we all must do from time to time), and to mourn. Then, I had to decide. Do I commit to the Jewish way of life or do I walk away from any