My wife and I have just returned from a glorious week spent in the Canadian Rockies and I can fully echo Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch’s remark after a visit to the Swiss Alps: “Now I shall be able to answer affirmatively when Hashem asks me in the World of Truth “Did you also see My Alps?’$$separator$$”

No word is more overused today (though I may be a little behind on teen lingo) than “awesome.” But how else to describe majestic peaks wreathed in clouds under a glorious blue sky and emerald lakes? One cannot help but be filled with a sense of awe for the Creator.

Our base for this magical week was Calgary or more specifically the House of Jacob Mikveh Israel (HOJMI) shul. HOJMI is the kind of out-of-town shul that I love where every person has a story about how they got there. A few members may have had an after-school cheder background but apart from the rabbi rosh kollel and kashrut supervisor I only met one shul member with extensive yeshivah training.

Calgaryis in some ways an ideal community for baalei teshuvah. In a one-shul city the worshippers are of necessity a variegated lot. A small community does not have the luxury of fussing about fine differences. All are accepted. A baal teshuvah can focus on his inner growth without concern about taking on alien styles of dress that might not mesh easily with his job as a car mechanic blacksmith or martial arts teacher.

Of those dressed in the familiar yeshivish black and white with tzitzis out a number turned out to be geirim or in the process of conversion. In areas like Western Canada with lots of Bible-reading religious Christians there tend to be lots of geirim.

More awesome even than the Rockies is the ability of these special souls to see the Truth so clearly — as if hit straight between the eyes by bullets shot from the pages of Tanach itself — that they are willing to turn their lives entirely upside down. Even a baal teshuvah does not require such clarity. The baal teshuvah feels he is returning to his authentic Jewish self as he takes on religious observance; the geir has to discover an entirely new self.

One such special soul Yehuda Gerlitz approached me after Shacharis one morning to share his story. I had already heard him daven from the amud the previous evening in a manner that would have passed without notice inBoroPark.

Both Yehuda (Scott) and his wife Elisheva Miriam (Aimee) were raised in devout Christian families. In 2003 they decided to move from Calgary to Rocky Mountain House a town of 7000 with no less than 20 churches more than two hours northwest of Calgary to set up a branch of the Fortune 500 investment firm for which Yehuda works.

Over time the Gerlitzes grew religiously disenchanted until they attended a Christian presentation on the Feast of Tabernacles (Succot) at which they were invited for a Sabbath meal by a family in a nearby “messianic” congregation. Messianics try to keep the commandments of the Torah as they understand them while retaining their Christian faith. That church would be the unlikely conduit to Scott and Aimee becoming Jews. Within weeks of that first Sabbath meal they decided to keep Shabbos and kashrus and began driving over two hours toEdmonton(and later toCalgary) in order to purchase kosher meat. For Pesach they threw out all their small appliances.

Trying to find out what Shabbos and kashrus entailed they found their way to ArtScroll’s Web site and purchased The Shabbos Home and The Shabbos Kitchen by Rabbi Simcha Bunim Cohen. Those works introduced them to the 39 melachos and as a consequence they had to leave their new church because they could no longer drive on the Sabbath.

Husband and wife spent hours every night pouring over Tanach and visiting the Aish HaTorah and Chabad Web sites. They began ordering an eclectic Jewish library — Mesilas Yesharim Kitzur Shulchan Aruch Tehillim Pirkei Avos a transliterated ArtScroll siddur and works of Rabbi Shalom Arush. They were also learning Hebrew together with their children from children’s alef-beis books and educational DVDs.

Eventually they discovered Rabbi Tovia Singer’s Outreach Judaism a group that responds to Christian missionaries and its 24-part response to Christian proofs. One day Aimee told her husband “the Trinity is false.” It was like a spell had been broken.

In the meantime the Gerlitzes met Denise and Ivor Kavin owners of a kosher deli inCalgary on one of their shopping expeditions. (New faces are immediately noticed inCalgary’s relatively small Jewish community.) Denise began sharing Shabbos recipes and not so gently nudging the couple away from Christianity.

In summer 2008 Yehuda contacted Rabbi Zev Friedman who was then preparing to leave his post as HOJMI’s rabbi. Rabbi Friedman told him that he and his wife had gone as far as they possibly could on their own and would have to move toCalgaryorEdmonton. Yehuda spent that entire night pacing back and forth. The next morning he received a call from a partner in his firm’sCalgaryoffice who told him that he was moving to the firm’sTorontooffice and asked him whether he’d like to take over hisCalgaryclients.

Yehuda jumped at the opportunity. The Hashgachah pratis of the Gerlitzes return toCalgary was even clearer than that of their departure. Yehuda began attending minyan and learning with Rabbi Chaim Safren the founder of the two-man Calgary Community Kollel. “Having a rabbi changed everything” he told me. Suddenly he and his wife could get answers to all the questions that had accumulated during their years of self-study. And the Safrens treated the Gerlitzes like family.

The community also received them with open arms. After their third child was born even before their geirus the community members supplied them with kosher meals for two weeks. When Rabbi Yisroel Miller who took over from Rabbi Friedman in 2009 was introduced to Yehuda he embraced him in a bear hug and told him “I feel like I’m meeting an old friend.”

On Rosh Chodesh Nisan 5770 the Gerlitzes and their three older children were ready for geirus before Rabbi Mendel Senderovic’s beis din in Milwaukee. They have been Jewish less than four years now yet Yehuda has already served as copresident of the local day school. On Purim the whole family with the children dressed in Purim costumes goes to the local shopping mall to hand out mishloach manos to all the Israelis working in the mall. Not a familiar sight in Calgary. And it is safe to say that Yehuda is the only local investment counselor who goes to work every day wearing a large velvet kippah with his tzitzis out.

Yehuda tells me with excitement of a new Dirshu Mishnah Berurah Yomi shiur to which he was introduced by a visiting rabbi from Lakewood and of a series of Master Torah shiurim on Gemara that he has just downloaded. His biggest concern is that he and his family should be able to keep progressing rapidly in their Yiddishkeit. And he worries that he has not shown sufficient hakaros hatov to Hashem for the new neshamah of which he is intensely aware.

At the aufruf prior to Yehuda and Elisheva Miriam’s wedding Rabbi Miller told Yehuda (in front of the entire congregation) “May you continue embarrassing us.”

I know what he meant.

Sharing the Burden

On the above-described vacation we did not content ourselves with what could be seen from roadside scenic outlooks. Armed with a list of highlights thoughtfully provided by a member of HOJMI we dragged ourselves up numerous winding trails.

One of those walks toward a mountain ridge was punctuated by repeated queries as to whether it was really necessary to reach the top. Driven by what my wife diagnosed as “oldest child’s syndrome” which apparently mandates that tasks commenced must be completed and buoyed by the thought of how impressed our children would be when they viewed photos of how high we had climbed we pressed on. (We didn’t tell them that we were passed near the summit by a 75-year-old woman who had already biked 31 miles through the mountains that day.)

Fortunately the answer to the question of whether it was necessary to reach the top turned out to be a resounding yes as the other side of the ridge opens to a magnificent glacial field.

One thing I noticed on these hikes up and down various trails was that almost everyone we passed going in the opposite direction smiled and said hello. The smiles from those descending the trail seemed to offer assurances that however long the climb ahead it would be worth it.

It occurred to me that one of the reasons for the smiles is the feeling of sharing a common challenge as nearly everyone — except for a few fit Germanic types in spandex — finds themselves breathing a bit harder than usual. We smile and greet one another to offer encouragement.

Truthfully a few-kilometer uphill hike ranks pretty low on the scale of life’s challenges. There is almost no one who doesn’t carry around some hidden pekel of disappointments and challenges (even the most blessed among us) against which a mountain hike pales in comparison. That’s part of the human condition.

Doesn’t it make sense then for us to greet everyone who crosses our path with a smile as an acknowledgment that we share something in common and offer a bit of encouragement?