What led you to....?

(Picture courtesy of chabad.org)

Often people ask me, actually all the time and every time: What led you to...?
The question doesn't bother me, but if I had to answer it properly I should probably brush up my writing skill and start the draft of a book.

I think that people expect a one word answer, a short story about how the "revelation" happened, or a shocking moment, a meeting, or maybe a dream?

Gerim are in someways like Baalei Teshuva, I am sure there are "The Moment" stories out there, but there are those who spend part of their life in a restless search for...something they can't even define, a meaning? a truth?
It is a quest, restlessness, confusion and search for a truth that might never be found.

And then Hashgocha pratis comes in the picture...or maybe the time becomes suitable so we can see it.

I personally felt as if I lost a precious gem for such a long time, so long that I forgot how it looks like.

One day I saw someone holding it, and I wanted it, at first I was shy, I wasn't sure if it was mine, I wasn't sure I had the "right" to it, I thought I should maybe forget about it, but I couldn't rest, I wanted it, I couldn't forget about it until it became once again mine, my own...my yidishkeit.

Someone who is born a yid never looses the gem, but might just loose "sight" of it.

I still don't know how come I thought I had the precious gem once before, I am not knowledgeable about gilgulim, but one of the stories that I heard from one of my rabbeim is that Gerim come from those individuals whose nations didn't want Torah, but they themselves wanted it.
HaSHem rewarded these people by letting them become gerim.

In any case, Baruch HaShem.

A freilechen chanuka, may you all be able to "take the light with you" throughout the rest of the year.