By Staff Sergeant Benjamin I. Craig, United States Marine Corps
When one hears the term “Ba’al Teshuva,” it can conjure up a thousand different images: everything from a Chabad rabbi with hand tattoos, to a college student lighting Shabbat candles for the first time. To be a Ba’al Teshuva, or “one who returns to G-d,” traditionally means one who came from a secular lifestyle to a more observant one. This path is highly individualistic for each and every Jew. While each person’s path is unique, a United States Marine becoming one on a tiny island in the Pacific is definitely distinctive.
When I first arrived in Okinawa, Japan in the summer of 2020, I was the farthest thing from an observant Jew one could imagine. While I had been raised in a Jewish home, I, like so many young Jewish people today, experienced a version of observance that celebrated Chanukah so I wouldn’t feel left out during Christmas time. I had no knowledge of the beauty of a niggun, the taste of a homemade Shabbos meal, or the sounds of Lecha Dodi reverberating through the halls of a Shul. This was no fault of my family; they simply raised me in the way they thought best. But it resulted in a young man who understood his own community more from Netflix than from his own lived experience.
This, combined with the isolating nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulted in someone far from the familiar who was longing for anything that would bring a reminder of home. At first attempt, when asking a unit Chaplain about a Jewish community on the island, I was met with a laugh and then a quizzical look as he realized, “This is something I should know!” Fast forward multiple weeks and after some digging, he found out there was indeed a community and even a new rabbi. Though I wasn’t sure what to expect at our first meeting, an Orthodox rabbi with a full beard standing in Air Force fatigues certainly was not it! He on the other hand, like any good Chabadnik, was ecstatic to find a lost Jew who was looking for community and connection. After my first Shabbat service, I walked him and his family home. That walk and subsequent conversation became my yeshiva for the next 18 months as I learned the foundations of what it meant to be a Jew, what it meant to put one’s service towards G-d, and the story and understanding of my peoplehood.
For me, Yom Kippur has always been one of my favorite holidays. While it is understandingly meaningful for most people, its moments of deep introspection, repentance, and hope for the future bring out a sense of the communal that I have been unable to replicate anywhere else. As I continued my journey, growing deeper in my emunah, applying Torah to my life, and even considering a trip to Israel (a much larger story that will require its own article), I found myself traveling within Southeast Asia for work. With nowhere to go in a large Asian metropolis, I googled the one phrase that has helped any Jew looking for some assistance: “Chabad near me.” After introducing myself to the community, I became a Shabbat regular meeting the myriads of characters one finds in a tiny community thousands of miles from the nearest kosher deli. I met the traveling students, the American expat who found love, the mysterious Israeli import dealer, and of course the elder bachelor who asked for blessings to get married from everyone he met every chance he got. I learned their stories and heard their tales. And one night, after many l’chaims, I was asked when I, a 26-year-old Ba’al Teshuva, had had my Bar Mitzvah. Somewhat quietly and in a softer tone than I would have liked, I admitted I had never had one. This quiet and mellow response erupted into a commotion that must have woken half the neighborhood, as the two shluchim I was with decided on the spot that the following Shabbos morning it was more vital than ever that I make an Aliyah to the Torah and take up my Bar Mitzvah.
When I got home that night, I reached out to my mother back in the U.S. to learn my given Hebrew name and Hebrew birthdate in preparation for my Aliyah. The next morning, as we read aloud Parsha Bereshit, I was given the honor of walking up to the Torah and welcoming the new year with my Bar Mitzvah. I stood, slightly overwhelmed, as a community of people I had not known only a few months earlier threw candy, sang, and danced for a joy that has carried our people through the darkest and happiest of times. Fast forward to lunch, and the rabbi asked me to stand up, tell the community a story, and make a toast. As I rose and regaled them with the roller coaster of events that brought me to their door, I paused briefly as it felt like a lightbulb exploded above my head. I took a breath, thanked the community, the rabbi, and his family for their hospitality over the past months, and told the community that this day, the day of my Bar Mitzvah, the day I claimed my birthright and became part of Am Israel, was also my 27th Hebrew birthday.
There is a tendency, when one looks back at past experiences, to view them with a sense of certainty that says, “Well, of course it happened that way!” As if to say, only Hashem could have come up with such an incredible chain of events. As many of us look back on the past year, we may face countless emotions. For many of us, this past year ranged between loss not felt in generations and a joy that brought us closer to our communities than we ever thought possible. Whether you started a new business, traveled for the first time, went through a soul-crushing breakup, or made a years’ worth of dents in the Daf Yomi Talmud study cycle, none of us are the same now as when we started the year. Many of our families have lost cherished members or have been blessed to add new ones. But as we look back in retrospect, and look forward in anticipation, it is important to remember that all any of us can do is learn and grow from the chain of events on this roller coaster called life. So, whether you are growing in a Shul in southeast Asia, growing in Boot Camp in Parris Island (Oorah), or on an Air Force base on the other side of the world, know that we are all together. Know that millions of Jews across thousands of communities are coming together to pray, eat, sing, and cherish those traditions that have survived for millennia. But most importantly, know that next year, G-d willing, all of us will reflect on how much we have grown standing together in Jerusalem.
Originally published in the Tishrei 2024/5785 issue of The Jewish American Warrior.
