Whatever the issue was, she would tell me to be mevater and do what Uri wanted. “It’s not that important,” she would say

"A sk a rav.”

If there was one thing I took with me from seminary that was it. Don’t make a move in life without asking a sh’eilah.

I had become a baalas teshuvah in my teens and this advice — which I had heard over and over again from the teachers in the kiruv seminary I attended in Jerusalem — struck a deep chord within me. I was new to frum society after all and if I wanted to follow the Torah path faithfully I had to seek counsel from those older and wiser than me.

After seminary I wrote a letter to one of my rebbeim asking for guidance but he wrote back advising me to find a rav or rebbetzin in my community who could act as my mentor as he couldn’t possibly fill that role from across the ocean.

Back home I signed up for a local second-year seminary program where I developed a close relationship with one of the teachers Rebbetzin Shulberg. Rebbetzin Shulberg was married to a rosh yeshivah and she exuded simchah warmth and love of Torah. Utterly unworldly she had raised her large family in a small simple apartment with no luxuries — the Shulbergs had never even taken a family vacation — yet she was obviously not missing anything in her life. Most of all I was impressed with the rebbetzin’s palpable emunah and connection with Hashem. This was the person I wanted as my mentor.

I ate several Shabbos meals at the Shulberg home and each time I was struck by the way the rebbetzin and her husband would laugh together at the table almost like a young couple. The talk at their Shabbos meal revolved around divrei Torah and was peppered with plays on words using pesukim and statements of Chazal and the more I saw of their life and family the more I wanted to recreate that special atmosphere in my own home.

In one of the rebbetzin’s classes she taught us that while we have full bechirah when making a decision once the decision is made and we experience the ramifications we have to believe with absolute conviction that whatever happened was Hashem’s will. “That’s what real emunah looks like ” she said.

At the end of that second seminary year a shidduch was suggested for me with a young man named Uri who was also a baal teshuvah but hailed from different country and culture.

After meeting him I had several concerns that I discussed with Rebbetzin Shulberg who didn’t know Uri personally but had heard about him from the shadchan. “His background is so different from mine ” I said. “And he’s very quiet. I don’t feel that I know him or understand him. Even when he does open his mouth I barely understand his accent.”

“There’s no question that this is right for you Debbie ” the rebbetzin assured me. “He has a great head for learning and he has good middos. That’s all that matters in a shidduch.”

Upon meeting Uri my parents — who had been pretty accepting of my religious awakening — expressed their disbelief that this was the man I wanted to marry. “You realize that his mentality is worlds apart from yours ” they told me. “You two have nothing in common.” But I discounted their reservations the same way I had discounted their secular lifestyle.

Still when Uri proposed and I said yes I felt dizzy and faint. What did I just do? I screamed inwardly. I can hardly understand a word he says! And I don’t even know him!