I was born a Jew. My father was a concentration camp survivor from Vienna, Austria, and my mother is Turkish. I grew up with a rich culture and sensual appreciation for Jewish tradition. But when I was a kid I went to a synagogue that was spiritually bankrupt. The tradition didn't translate to me. It didn't seem to have anything to do with the heart. I would go to shul and although I didn't speak Hebrew, the syllables spoke to me. I knew that I was connecting. I didn't connect socially to the Jewish institutions. I thought being Jewish was nerdy. But I was a little girl and I believed in God, and I needed the context of a spiritual home. The real reason that I needed that was because I'm an abuse survivor. There was so much chaos in my home that I needed a sense of God. If you have a sense internally that there has got to be some meaning to everything, then you are probably a closet God thinker. As a child, my understanding of God helped me with some quality of benevolence which I held on to. It lifted me above and out of the daily confusion. I once heard the psychiatrist Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross say that people who have been seriously ill have a more developed spiritual dimension. I would also say that about people who have experienced emotional abuse.

If you grew up in the 1950s as a Reform Jew, there were few places to manifest your observance. My spiritual path started very young. I found my first Jewish teacher when I turned 19. He was a New York Orthodox rabbi named Yitz Greenberg. He was an authentic Orthodox Jew. There was something about his questions that didn't seem route or formulaic. They seemed to come from a deep place where he was searching.

I've spent that last 30 years studying Torah (the Old Testament). I'm part of the Havurah movement in Judaism, which happened as a result of the Vietnam War. We're a generation of Baby Boomers who revolutionized prayer and community in Judaism. We wanted to make Judaism relevant. The last two years I’ve studied the Book of Exodus. By studying about Moses, I was able to identify all the different parts of myself. Exodus is a classical journey story and I identified with the mythic dimension of Moses. It's my central story.

I observe the Shabbat ritual, and my yoga is part of my daily ritual. I also meditate three to four times a week. I study Jewish texts three times a week. I love studying in a community and sharing ideas. Prayer is a necessity in life. It comes out the depths of me when I feel gratitude and despair.

When I was a child, I thought of God as a beneficent father. Now I have incorporated a more sophisticated perception as God as Energy, which includes the energy of the feminine as well as the masculine.

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