ELUL 5 · DAY 5 of 29 · AUGUST 16, 2026

Growing up, I was cast early and cast well: the rabbi’s daughter. The good girl. The one who knew the prayers, who could tell you right from wrong before you’d finished asking. I wore the part like a coat made to fit. I still do, mostly. Put me in front of a room, ask me to inspire, and I will give you every impression of a woman who has it figured out.

But can I tell you a secret? The verses that come easiest to me, that always feel true on my lips, have never been the certain ones. They’re the broken ones. King David got there first: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, God, You will not despise” (Psalm 51:19). The Kotzker Rebbe said it with fewer words: there is nothing so whole as a broken heart.

I believe in commitment. I’m 100% in. But certainty is another matter. I am not the woman who resolved the questions. I am the woman who keeps choosing commitment, morning after morning. My faith isn’t a destination I’ve reached. It’s a relationship. I pray to my Abuelita’s God, which is to say: when my relationship with God falters, my faith in her faith holds me up.

So no, I don’t have it all worked out. What I have is commitment — and a conviction that our broken and mended and broken-again hearts are not the obstacle to a life with God.

They’re the way to it.