Baalei teshuvah speak candidly about what they left behind and the obstacles they overcame as they acclimated to frum life

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ecoming a baal teshuvah (BT) might be compared to immigrating to a foreign country, where “immigration” is typically a long, arduous process. “New immigrants” suffer a mighty wallop to the ego. They’re tongue-tied in their new language and bewildered by the system. The newbie BT finds herself well behind the four-year-olds when it comes to knowing the basics of hilchos Shabbos, unable to sing a single Uncle Moishy tune or Avraham Fried niggun.

But Torah is emes, and once people get a taste of it, most don’t want to give it up. The joy of having a connection to Hashem, learning Torah, and becoming part of a Jewish community keep them plowing forward, despite the difficulties.

Nobody’s Perfect

Baalei teshuvah are often idealists by nature, and when they discover religion, they sometimes put unnecessary pressure on themselves to get it right all the time.

“We advise people, ‘It won’t be easy,’ ” says Rabbi Moshe Fingerer, the director of the BJX (Brooklyn Jewish Xperience) kiruv center. “When you’ve eaten treif food and done whatever you wanted on Saturdays your entire life, it’s a huge change. But we encourage baby steps. If you try to move forward too fast, it won’t stick. A slow metamorphosis works better.”

Rabbi Fingerer reassures his new recruits that everyone, even frum-from-birth Jews (FFBs) who have absorbed halachah since childhood, should consider themselves a work in progress. “Only the Beis Hamikdash possessed perfection,” he tells them. “The rest of us just do our best.”

Among married couples, tensions sometimes arise when one spouse is impatient to progress faster than the other. When Binah, a baalas teshuvah from Boston, got married, she agreed to cover her hair on Shabbos, but wasn’t sure she was ready to do it full-time. In the end, she began covering her hair during the week, too. But her husband, who had enrolled in a kollel, was very anxious that she do it perfectly, and was appalled that she would allow a few strands of hair to peek out from her tichel. “He’d make these embarrassing gestures when we were out in public to tell me some hair was sticking out,” Binah recalls with a laugh. “I hated being pushed! Eventually I went along with him and became stricter, but I didn’t appreciate him not understanding I needed to grow at my own pace.” Couples may likewise clash over taking on chumras like chalav Yisrael, or getting Pesach observance right.

Couples may also struggle with striking the right note in their parenting. Rabbi Avraham Yechiel Hirschman, the rav of Pico Bais Medrash, a shul and community comprised mostly of baalei teshuvah, says, “Most of these people come from homes where they experienced good parenting. Just because they’re now frum doesn’t mean they have to throw away everything they learned from their parents.