Rabbi Avi Strausberg was always drawn to Judaism, but didn’t find “her people” and calling as a Jewish educator until a post-college program.
She described Adamah, a residential fellowship in Connecticut, as a turning point in her Jewish life, “in terms of experiencing what it meant to be Jewish in community.”
“Even though I had grown up going to Hebrew school, I was introduced to this world of Torah that I didn’t really know about,” the Chevy Chase resident said.
She said Adamah was the first time she fasted for Tisha B’Av: “I had never really experienced what it meant to fast as a part of a community, to not feel lonely in that.”
The group also harvested vegetables on Friday, then spent the afternoon cooking and preparing for Shabbat together before a communal Kabbalat Shabbat in the retreat center’s living room.
“That experience really drove home for me how important it is that Judaism is something that you can only do in community, and [that] the meaning of what it is to be Jewish is found in community and the people that you surround yourself with,” Strausberg said.
She also realized how little she knew about Judaism despite being raised Jewish in New Jersey, attending Hebrew school and becoming bat mitzvah.
“I was like, ‘I don’t know any of this stuff,’ and so I really wanted to do some serious study,” Strausberg recalled.