I felt so alone. There was no one who respected my faith or understood what it meant to be a Jew. I began to long for the chance to live a Jewish life, a life dedicated to higher values, and soon my bookshelves were filled with dog-eared books about Judaism. I was drawn to chassidus, in particular to the idea that every mitzvah we perform is part of an ongoing dialogue with the Divine. The army is grounded in the here and now: maps of territory are on my computer screen, there are store rooms of supplies, we have tight schedules — everything’s concrete. To understand that the physical mitzvos, done in the here and now, connect me with Hashem was intensely meaningful.

Every Friday evening, I’d go to the shul in town and light the Shabbos candles there. I did it on behalf of the community. I was the only person who knew the brachah.

I started going to Chabad regularly, and one evening, asked the rabbi, “Should I put in a request to wear skirts, instead of the regular army pants?” The army had a dress skirt, which we wore on special occasions. To wear it all the time would be quite a statement. The rabbi thought for a minute and then said, “Work on observing Shabbat first.”

He grounded me. I started to think about how I could take small steps toward practical observance — almost insurmountably difficult on base. The home I would one day build would be completely observant, I decided.

While my college friends spent their evenings clubbing and drinking, I scrolled through Jewish dating sites to find a life partner. I read through profiles, looking for someone from a similar background. But then I thought some more.

If I got someone like me, who wasn’t fully observant but was interested in learning more, what if he learnt more and decided that Judaism wasn’t for him? What if he changed his mind somewhere along the path? I nudged my mouse to the preferences box and with a swift click changed who I was looking for. A fully Torah observant guy, who had grown up that way.

Hmmm. It didn’t take long for me to discover that most frum guys don’t want an irreligious girl — even if she really wants to be religious. Even if she spends her spare time studying Rav Hirsch and Rebbi Nachman.

I sighed, logged off, and got busy with life. I was working in Intelligence, and the work is intellectually consuming. When you throw yourself into it, there can be little left for anything else.

A few months later, I realized that the lottery slogan — If you don’t play, you can’t win — might just apply to my dating life. I logged back on. This time, I found a guy who seemed compatible. We talked on and off for a few months, but it didn’t go anywhere.

Log off.

A month later, I was messing around on the computer when I logged on to the dating site again. There was a message by my profile: If you’re interested in talking, give me a call.

I didn’t notice that the message had been sent a year before.

I gave the guy a call. “Hey, it’s Rochel, I saw your message.”

Ha. He lived in a different time zone and it was midnight where he was. “I’m not sure who you are, but it’s midnight over here, and I’m just heading back from my brother’s vort,” he told me. “Could we talk another time?”

I called him the next day.

We talked for a long time. He told me about his background. He had 16 siblings. Sixteen! I had one sister. He came from Boro Park. I had been in Boro Park once, shopping with my mom. I had stared at the cute little boys with their long, swinging sidecurls.

In a movie we had once watched, there’d been a character who was a Chassidic rabbi and when we left the darkened theater, I’d told my mom dreamily, Oh, I want to marry a rabbi’s son. This guy wasn’t just a rabbi’s son, he was the son of a Chassidic rebbe! He had married as a teen, in the usual way, had a daughter, and then gotten divorced. He’d been single for years, working, finding himself, figuring out what he wanted, then looking for someone to share his life with him. He’d had a few beshows, and at one point, came close to marrying.

Now, he was looking for someone more open-minded and decided to explore the frum dating websites — not before a trip to the kever of Yonasan ben Uziel in Amukah, where he had davened that he find his bashert as soon as his brother got married. Pretty wild that I had called him as he was heading home from his brother’s vort…

We talked almost every day for a few months, and I requested a transfer to an army base in Denver. The position was for a five-day week, which meant that I could spend Shabbos with families in the community. And there was kosher food there. My observance was moving out of the realm of my heart, into the practical arena.

We met in person just before Pesach. The first time, it was just the two of us. For our second date I was invited to meet all his married sisters. To say I was intimidated is like calling Basic Training a workout — but they were incredibly warm and accepting. They were just so excited that their brother had found someone he wanted to marry. I’m not entirely sure how his parents felt — we only met after we got engaged.

On my side, he met my grandparents, who spoke to him in Yiddish and soon discovered that they originated from the same shtetl as his grandparents — though they had moved in different circles. They loved him. I thought my parents would freak out, but they were just happy that I’d found a nice Jewish boy to marry.

I was soon initiated into the nuances of religious life. Just after our engagement, we decided to spend an afternoon looking at wedding halls. My little dog had accompanied me from base, and the initial plan was to keep him at my husband’s apartment while we went out. That didn’t work out, so we just took him along. I soon discovered that the streets of Boro Park aren’t the best place to bring a cute dog. Every time he yapped, women gasped and little kids with those sidecurls I loved either ran away from us or towards the dog — and were then yanked away by their mothers.

But I also discovered some amazing features of Jewish life. Shells, for one. I’d been buying dresses with little shrugs to go on top and trying to pin the neckline into place. Add a shell to the outfit and all my problems were solved. And the gemachim, where you can rent tzniyusdig gowns! Wow. My sisters-in-law took me shopping for tichels. As we were living out of town, I had the freedom to find a dress code that I was comfortable with — none of the only-black or gray that was all around us. That helped me with the clothing adjustment.

We got married soon after our engagement. I prepared my parents for the wedding and they loved it. My husband became my teacher and as I love to learn, it was a beautiful added dimension to our marriage. He would constantly share what he was learning and we both investigated and discussed the meanings behind the different mitzvos. It gave our lives a shared sense of purpose.

One day, I opened up a book about keeping Shabbos and felt a moment of discouragement. There were so many laws I’d never heard of! Sure, I knew not to turn on a light or cook or rip a piece of fabric. But not to peel a carrot with a peeler? I had no idea. I comforted myself that I was doing the best I could, and that no one climbs Everest in a day. Hashem knew my background, and that I was doing the best I can.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I had a compelling enough reason to leave the army. America was sending Intel workers to Afghanistan and Iraq — it was time to get out. My husband and I moved to Baltimore, and I went back to school and got a degree in education. I started working in a local day school, where I was very happy.

As time passed, I realized that it wasn’t halachah that was hard for me to live with, but cultural norms. When I walked into the teachers’ room and the male teachers didn’t greet me with a simple good morning, I was offended. The omission seemed rude. I soon learned that in their world, greeting a woman was simply not done. Suspend judgment, quickly became my inner rule.

Closer to home, I learned that although my husband was very different from his family, there were certain things he took for granted. Some biggies, and some things that, looking back, are laughable they’re so unimportant. Like when our son was born, and we discussed the bris menu. Would we be serving kugel and schnitzel or bagels and lox? My parents were shocked at the thought of an oily, meaty meal. My husband felt like bagels and lox would downgrade the simchah. That time, logistics won: my husband’s family is huge, my family is small, majority in favor of fleishigs.

There are also the niggling things, like when we visit my in-laws and a man walks into the living room, and all the women are hustled into the kitchen. That kind of thing bothers me.

The hardest thing for me to understand is shidduchim. My step-daughter married an Israeli and I was in shock — how could she commit to spending her life with him after just a couple of meetings? How in the world do you know that they’re compatible?

But I see that for the most part, they have happy marriages. They manage to work it out.

When we’re making big decisions, the differences can be tough. A few years ago, we decided to make Aliyah. The move, choosing a neighborhood — we did it all with the help of sympathetic rabbis. With our differing backgrounds, there’s potential for a cultural collision of nuclear proportions. When we have a disagreement, I have to make a decision: I can post it online and vent and receive endless advice and end up with a severely fractured marriage. Or I can try and keep things in perspective, know that I have a husband I love and that we have four beautiful children and that you have to work without giving up. And the world doesn’t come crashing down just because you don’t get your way.

I had relatives who didn’t have the best of marriages. But it was a marriage. Solid. A home. I spent a lot of time in their home and realized early on that not everything looks like a fairytale and that a marriage has room for imperfections.

We’ve been married for ten years now. We’ve been through ups and downs. But throughout it all, that feeling of purposefulness has remained. And not just purposefulness, but joy.

Together, we’re logged in to life.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 530)