Pediatrician or not, I needed the reassurance that only another doctor — an objective professional, who wasn’t a frantic mother — could offer. I could provide that reassurance to my own patients, but to myself, my medical knowledge was of no use. This, to me, was yet another indication of how powerless I was as a human being.

Another lesson I absorbed from my patients — one that I did not learn in medical school — was that a person is really more soul than body. What’s important isn’t how long people live but how they spend their life and whether they recognize the primacy of the spiritual over the physical.

As the years went on, I came to realize that belief in G-d is not really a choice, because a world as complex and profound as the one we live in could not possibly exist without a guiding force leading it to some purpose. Unlike my progressive friends who scoffed at the notion of an omnipotent G-d and felt empowered by their own freedom from divinely imposed restriction, I felt that submitting yourself to G-d’s will makes you stronger.

And so, it was my work as a doctor in Brazil, together with my experiences as a wife and mother, that sparked a spiritual journey within me, albeit one that had nothing to do with Judaism. I had no exposure to Judaism then; all the Jewish people I knew were nonbelievers.

Brazil, at the time, was governed by a military dictatorship and was hardly an ideal place to live and raise a family. Violence and poverty were rampant, and many people we knew had been jailed, tortured, and even killed. We could never allow our children to play outside.

In the 1980s, when Barry and I were in our 40s, we moved to Boston for a year so he could complete his PhD in computers and information systems. I spent the year doing further research about cystic fibrosis.

When we arrived in Boston, I visited several daycare centers with my three-year-old daughter, trying to find the one we would feel most comfortable with. One day, when we went to see a Jewish daycare, my daughter announced, “This is the one I want to go to!”

Through sending my daughter to the Jewish daycare, I got to know quite a few Jewish people — many more than I knew in Brazil — and slowly, I started remembering some of the Jewish things I had learned from my grandfather as a child. Although he was not Orthodox, my grandfather did observe Jewish holidays and rituals, and seeing my daughter’s Jewish-themed crafts sparked fond memories of my grandfather, spurring me to take my family to a Pesach Seder at a friend’s house.

After my husband completed his studies in Boston, we decided to move to Toronto rather than return to Brazil. This move, while blessed in terms of the increased sense of security it provided, posed many challenges. Although I spoke English, it was not my first language, and I found myself feeling very green as a new immigrant. My medical license was not valid in Canada, and in order to work as a doctor, I was required to complete another residency — something I was not prepared to do at that stage in life.

When we first arrived in Canada, we enrolled our kids in a private Jewish school, but the tuition proved to be unaffordable, so we switched them to public school. They attended Sunday school at a Reform temple, where they learned some Hebrew and a smattering of Jewish cultural practices.

Not one to sit idle, I volunteered at a local shelter for battered women. One day, when I was at the shelter, a woman on staff mentioned casually that her cousin, a geneticist working in a cancer hospital, was looking for an assistant to help with a study of cancers prevalent among Ashkenazim. I immediately expressed interest, and she put me in touch with her cousin.

“If you get me 300 Ashkenazi women for my study and take down their family medical history, I will hire you as my assistant,” he told me.

I got the study subjects — and the job.

After helping with that study, I began working in the cancer hospital as a clinical researcher, a field I loved. With time, I noticed that people who were religious handled the challenge of cancer a lot better than those who were not. Interestingly, illness seemed to bring these people closer to G-d rather than alienate them from Him. Instead of demanding to know why G-d had done this to them, they drew comfort from the knowledge that they were in His hands and not alone. Acutely aware of their own mortality, they turned to G-d in prayer and surrendered themselves to His judgment. Their faith imbued them with an optimism that was not present among the nonreligious, and their optimistic attitude boosted their chances of recovery considerably.

When a patient from a religious family died, the grieving process of their loved ones was far healthier than that of the nonreligious families I worked with.

Initially, it was disappointing not to be able to work as a doctor in Canada, but in retrospect, I was able to see that G-d gave me different opportunities and paved the way for me to be exactly where I am, doing this deeply rewarding life-saving work. While I know that everything is ultimately in G-d’s hands, I also know that He entrusts us mortals with the responsibility to do everything we can to ease the plight of those who are suffering. By learning as much as we can about disease, we can bring new treatments and hope to the sick and their families.

About 15 years ago, I was talking to a friend who is a total nonbeliever, and she said something about G-d not existing.

“Are you kidding?” I exclaimed. “I can look up at the sky and talk directly to G-d!”

As those words left my mouth, it dawned on me that I really could talk to G-d. From then on, I began speaking to Him in my own words, asking Him to help me and thanking Him for the wonderful things He did for me. These conversations with G-d made me feel calm and secure in the knowledge that everything happens for a reason, even if we don’t understand what the reason is.

I also had many debates with my friends about the role of women in Judaism. They argued that Judaism views women as inferior, relegating them to a second-tier role in the home, but I disagreed. “In Judaism both the male and female roles are crucial,” I said. “And the traditional role of a woman — keeping a home and raising children — is no less valuable than work a woman does outside the home. If I work as a pediatrician, that doesn’t make me any better than a woman who’s home taking care of her kids.

“Still,” I added, “I don’t think a Jewish woman has to be home cooking all day. But when I do cook, I focus on the spiritual value of what I’m doing.”

Although I was not yet observant, I felt very much in sync with the spirituality, if not the practice, of Judaism. That’s why, when my daughter Tracy went to university to become a nurse, I encouraged her to get involved with Jewish activities on campus. In the process, she met some wonderful religious people and began learning about Judaism, and slowly, she became observant. Some of my friends were appalled when their children followed a similar trajectory in university, but I was delighted. I kept separate dishes for Tracy — now Tamar — so that she could keep kosher in my home, and when we moved to a new house some time later, I took the step of making my kitchen completely kosher.

As Tamar became more observant, I listened eagerly to the insights she shared about Judaism and followed her example in reading Jewish books and attending lectures in the community for beginners. With time, I began keeping Shabbos and holidays and exchanged all my pants for skirts. I also started attending an Orthodox shul.

Taking on Jewish observance was, for me, a gradual and very natural process, not one that I found at all difficult or uncomfortable. I think that’s because by the time I adopted the outward practices of Yiddishkeit, I had already embraced the heart of Yiddishkeit: finding joy and meaning through living with G-d.

At first, Barry wanted no part in this journey, but as I became increasingly observant, he, too, began to learn about Judaism, eventually establishing a daily regimen of Torah study and slowly becoming religious.

All three of our children got married in authentic Jewish ceremonies. After experiencing the beauty of a Jewish wedding, I would often tell Barry wistfully that I wished we had had one, too. When we married off our youngest child, I began to harbor a secret wish: Now it’s my turn.

Two years ago, shortly before our 40th wedding anniversary, Barry underwent heart surgery. The first time I visited him in the ICU after surgery, he asked me to marry him.

Tamar, who had been davening for years that we, and the rest of our family, should grow closer to Hashem, offered to arrange the wedding: invitations, rabbi, caterer, hall, music, photography, and all. She even organized kallah classes for me and helped me shop for a sheitel.

Our wedding was strictly traditional, with an Orthodox rabbi, kosher eidim, a chuppah, and a yichud room. At the same time, it was highly unconventional, what with our children and grandchildren proudly in attendance and my husband handing me a kesubah after 40 years of marriage.

At the wedding, the rabbi teased my new-old husband, “Why did it take you 40 years, Barry?”

“I was wandering in the desert,” he quipped.

Barry was right: We had been wandering in the desert for 40 years, moving from Rio de Janeiro to Boston to Toronto and from total nonobservance to full acceptance of Torah and mitzvos. Yet our travels, like those of the Jews in the desert, were far from aimless. In hindsight, I can see how Hashem was propelling us — slowly, yet inexorably — toward that crowning day when we stood under the chuppah together and resolved to build a bayis ne’eman b’Yisrael.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 752)