How do you knit together two conflicting upbringings — one baal teshuvah, one frum-from-birth — into a harmonious whole? Several couples share their stories and secrets

Chani, a 20-year-old Bais Yaakov graduate, was visiting Eretz Yisrael one summer when mutual friends introduced her to Aaron, a new baal teshuvah. Her first impression was favorable. “I remember being so impressed because he wasn’t embarrassed to admit that he didn’t know something,” she recalls.

The disparity in their backgrounds, however, made her hesitant to pursue the match. She returned home determined to put the brief encounter behind her.

Aaron didn’t forget her so quickly. After six months of learning in Israel, he contacted her and asked if he could come to the US for a visit — just to see if there was anything to talk about.

“We definitely clicked,” she says. “He made a great impression everywhere he went, and he wasn’t scared off by my parents’ opposition. By the time he left, I said, ‘Okay, I think it’s going to work, but I don’t want to get engaged until I meet your family.’” That potential hitch was quickly dismissed once Chani saw how warm and accepting Aaron’s parents were. The young couple got married that summer.

Eleven years later, Chani says that meeting her husband was the best thing that ever happened to her. Together, they are doing kiruv in her husband’s hometown and her life has more Yiddishkeit in it than she would have ever thought possible.

Yet she also admits that it takes tremendous siyata d’Shmaya to succeed in building a cohesive marriage when spouses come from vastly different backgrounds. “It could have easily not worked,” she says.