“I’m open to it,” I answered, and took the leap into a world I had hardly heard of

I was 19, just a few months out of seminary, when I met my husband. He was the first boy I dated, and I was ecstatic.

On our sixth date, we sat together in Mike’s Bistro, and over braised ribs and poached duck he told me that he didn’t think he really wanted to go to law school like his résumé stated, even though he’d taken his LSATs and his two older siblings were lawyers. He went on to paint a picture of his dream to get involved in kiruv, perhaps with an organization that his parents were involved in for years, despite them being FFB “in-towners.”

He asked me what I thought about cooking Shabbos for 20. I balked, and the little bubble I was floating in popped for a second. “Cook for 20?” I answered incredulously. “I don’t even know how to cook for two yet!”

“But do you think you might be able to in the future?” he asked hopefully. His eyes were alight, dreaming of the life we could build together.

“I’m open to it,” I answered, and took the leap into a world I had hardly heard of.

Am I leaving Me behind?

We spent the first year of our marriage in Eretz Yisrael. I learned to cook and keep house while keeping on top of my studies; he learned in yeshivah. At night we attended a kiruv-training program where I learned whatever I’d need to know to fill a role in an outreach position.

We were one year into the two-year program and packing up to spend the summer in the States, when my husband got his first offer: The organization his family had been involved with offered him a position in an established community, some hours away from where our parents lived. Within 24 hours, we went from packing up for the summer to wrapping up our lives in Israel.

I bid farewell to everything that had become so familiar over the past year — the fruit store where the owner knew my last name, the cracked sidewalks, the gregarious cab drivers, the Old City and the Kosel — as we tied up the little life we had built there in a quick, sloppy bow. With overstuffed suitcases and harried looks on our faces, we embarked on our next chapter.

Am I leaving Me behind?