On Succos, we gather our crops, reflect on our harvest. In life, we gather our experiences, appreciate what we’ve gained

"Don’t go off the deep end,” warned my feminist aunt, when she heard I was planning to spend a summer at Neve Yerushalayim. It was the mid-1980s, and reports were already trickling in of young people who’d gotten nabbed in Jerusalem and brainwashed by that cult called Torah Judaism.

What my aunt aspired for me was some version of her own life: academic, cosmopolitan, perhaps two well-spaced children. Instead, she now envisioned me reversing 100 years of feminist “progress,” living barefoot and pregnant in some hovel in Meah Shearim.

My family’s fears were somewhat assuaged when I married a professional, not a kollel guy. They could accept our desire to keep a kosher kitchen — hey, a little tradition is nice — and even our Shabbos observance, although my father a”h fretted it would jeopardize my husband’s career advancement.

But other things stuck in everyone’s craw. On the superficial side: Did I really have to always go around with a shmatteh on my head? Did our little boys absolutely need to wear those chassidic-looking peyos and my husband his tzitzit?

On the serious side: Was it really necessary to pay a fortune in yeshivah tuitions? If the boys studied Torah all day, how would they ever support families one day? Why did we keep having kids one after the other when it was so challenging?