But then I was terrified. I was convinced I would be struck down from Heaven. In preparation for my imminent death, I said Shema. Again and again. I was not struck down. I wondered if Hashem didn’t really care after all.

My parents moved me from Bais Yaakov to Hebrew day school, thinking that a more relaxed atmosphere and more lenient standards would suit me better. But I found the move confusing. Everything that had been tantalizingly forbidden was right there for the taking. I was in a coed class, and on non-school days, my new friends wore what they wanted.

Most mystifying was the feeling that the kids around me naturally knew who they were and what was expected of them. It was as if they possessed a road map that I wasn’t aware of. I, on the other hand, felt insecure and lost. So I assumed the persona of the class clown. My position afforded me a certain strength — it allowed me to project the image of girl who was funny and confident and who knew exactly who she was.

I lasted three years in the Hebrew day school before I was asked to leave. When the principal summoned me into her office for the very last time, I concentrated on my face. I carefully arranged my features into a picture of disinterest. As if I couldn’t care less that I’d been thrown out.

But I couldn’t kid myself. It stung. Once again, I had been betrayed by the Jewish community.

By then I had been misdiagnosed with ADHD and a learning disability. I was put on meds and sent back to Bais Yaakov — as if all my issues had been magically solved. But the stimulants were counterproductive, because, as I learned later, my real problem was an anxiety disorder. My anxiety was exacerbated by the ADHD medication, and at time I felt like I was losing my mind.

My behavioral issues continued. When I got a second ear piercing, I was asked to leave again. I was homeschooled until the end of the year and was then enrolled in a high school for girls with issues.

One evening, my mother knocked on my bedroom door and walked in, looking uneasy. I squinted up at her. “It seems that you’ve decided to stop being frum.”

I didn’t answer.

“I… Well, I want to—”

She broke off, swallowed. “You need to know that while it breaks my heart, I still love you. Me and Daddy.”

I just nodded, strangely moved. She continued, asking me to stop sneaking around — she hated the way I changed my clothing as soon as I left the house. And she asked me to respect the house rules. For example, what I did in my own room on Shabbos was my own business, but I was expected not to break Shabbos in front of my parents and siblings. She made it clear that though they did not support my lifestyle choices, they still loved me.

My mother was as good as her word. She opened her home to my friends — girls and boys. People thought she was crazy for allowing my crowd into her home, but she insisted that I was better off spending my time in my home where she could see what I was up to and enforce some boundaries.

My family gave me the space I needed to be me and go through my own process. My mother often spoke to me about Hashem. She told me many times that Hashem still loves me and that I could always have a relationship with Him. She encouraged me to keep davening. Which I did — in my own words, in my own way.

Looking back, I see that my parents’ approach helped me come back. By separating my religious struggles from my relationship with them, they kept the door open.

I’m lucky. I have a friend who is ready to return, but won’t. Although the allure of the outside world has long worn off, the power struggles that erupted when she first began experimenting with the outside world are still there. To become frum would be to admit that her parents are victors — and she is not able to do that.

Although my parents handled my issues well, I continued to slide. I began mixing with the wrong people, and alcohol and drug abuse quickly followed. I left home. By the age of 15 I was living in the netherworld. I drank, the only way to escape the pain that pressed on me from the inside. But the high didn’t last. Again, I was filled with inexplicable despair.

It took just over a year until I was ready to get off the merry-go-round. I was tired of the craziness, of having nothing to live for except the next chemical fix.

One Friday evening, I was walking around the neighborhood. Alone. Feeling very far away. I looked up, and saw my mother in the window of our home, my sisters beside her. She was lighting Shabbos candles. I stood for a long time, watching, trying to blink away the tears. I wanted to go home.

But I wasn’t yet really sure if I knew where home was anymore. My house didn’t feel like home anymore — whenever I was there, I made such a mess of things. I was angry at the world and out of control.

During that time, a number of individuals managed to plant some seeds. One example was my exposure to Jewish teens in recovery, whom I met at a drop-in center for Jewish kids at-risk and in recovery. These kids were not frum — but they were deeply engaged in putting their lives back together and moving forward. They showed me that I could be a responsible, functional individual without being frum. Until that time, it hadn’t occurred to me that there was a middle ground.

Eventually I decided to become sober. But I couldn’t do it alone. I called a counselor from the girls division of a drop-in center for young Jews and a day later I was in rehab.

Two weeks later, on Yom Kippur, my insurance coverage ran out. Motzaei Yom Kippur my father came to pick me up. That’s when the work really began. I was scared, and the world was an intimidating place. I needed to learn to face myself without escaping through drink — and I did so, through the 12 steps.

Over the years, I have come to realize that the best way to understand addicts and kids off the derech is to visualize this huge void inside them that needs be filled with spirituality — with a real and solid relationship with Hashem. But a child at risk or an adult in the throes of addiction can’t tune into G-d and instead tries to fill himself with shopping, food, drugs, or any number of other things. But that hole is a G-d-sized hole; it can’t be filled with physicality.

I was not able to break free of my addiction until I found Hashem.

This was a struggle, as I was not ready to live an observant lifestyle. What helped me was understanding that I could have a relationship with Him without being religious. A very wise person advised me: “Start by saying please and thank You to Hashem at the beginning and end of each day.”

Over time, the please and thank You became a conversation. And slowly, gradually a relationship was nurtured. Later on, years later, I linked my relationship with Hashem to observance of His mitzvos.

After four months of sobriety, I enrolled in a community college. I was humiliated to realize that I couldn’t even pass the courses to get into the remedial program. Instead I joined the BED (basic education) program. There, for the first time in my life, I encountered teachers who knew how to teach me. As well, my education was personalized: I learned subjects I was interested in.

Being in college rebuilt my self-esteem. I still remember the day I got a math quiz back — I had received 95. Something shifted inside me. I was smart! I could learn! That grade empowered me to commit to my education. I took advantage of the many free labs my college offered and had the teachers show me how to improve my work. I worked myself up slowly, from remedial 1 to remedial 3, and from there into regular classes. I even made the dean’s list and graduated with a 3.9 average. I was accepted into a good university and began to train as a social worker. I was doing well emotionally and excelling in school.

At 19, with my life back on track, I got engaged to a recovered alcoholic — and then only then did I begin to think seriously about my future. What did I want my marriage to look like? What kind of home did I want to build? I realized then that, although I wasn’t observant, Jewish values were hugely important to me.

One Shabbos, we were eating a meal at our rav — the unofficial rav of a bunch of at-risk kids. The conversation ebbed and flowed, the food was passed around, and my fiancé offered a tidbit of information I hadn’t known about him. He was adopted.

Adopted?

The rav, with an equally casual tone, asked him to dig up his conversion certificate.

My fiancé shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t have one.”

Even as I couldn’t believe it, I could. His parents were Reform. Why should they have converted him?

The rav tapped his finger thoughtfully on the table, closed his eyes for a moment. I watched him, knowing that my carefully constructed life had just crumbled.

We left the meal and took a long walk home. We talked. Would he convert Orthodox? No. There was no way a bunch of guys with beards could tell him if he was or wasn’t Jewish. He offered to try a Conservative conversion. But I couldn’t do it. I may not have been a practicing Jew, but I couldn’t marry a non-Jew.

The heartache almost ripped me in two, but we parted ways.

I had two choices left to me: I could descend back into the alcohol abyss, and give up all that I had struggled to achieve over the years — or I could trust that Hashem had something better in store for me. I chose the latter.

I decided to move to Israel. I had been very inspired by my visit to the Holy Land when I was 18, and now I enrolled in an internship program in Tel Aviv. Ironically, I soon became the go-to person whenever someone wanted to know how to conduct a Shabbat dinner or celebrate a chag. Finally one of my friends asked me why I wasn’t frum. It was a good question. I had the value system, a strong relationship with Hashem, and the knowledge.

I knew I wanted to build a home based on Torah values. I realized that I was waiting for a magical solution — for something outside of me to make me frum. The time had come for me to do the work.

I was spending Shabbos with a friend, and just before we lit the Shabbos candles I turned off the phone. I decided that I would keep Shabbos at least for Friday night. I had a great Shabbos and kept my phone off the entire time.

Soon I was keeping Shabbos and kashrus, but very little had changed on the outside. Once I was in Jerusalem and caught sight of my reflection in a store window. All of a sudden I felt very exposed. I changed my dress code.

It didn’t happen overnight. It was a slow process, one mitzvah at a time. And I needed to experience every mitzvah myself in order to own it. But today, I am married and living according to the truth, using mitzvos as my vehicle to connect with Hashem.

Not that it’s always easy. There are times when I chafe at a particular mitzvah. Yet I’ve changed my questions. Instead of asking, What’s the point? I investigate: What do I need to do to enhance my connection to this particular mitzvah?

And I find that it all comes down to what my big brother says: “Judaism is not a religion. It’s a relationship.”