Longer Intro
Some may call me your run-of-the-mill Orthodox girl. Minutiae have always been a way of life for me, and once I got old enough to be curious about the volumes on the far left corner of my father’s book shelves, I saw T’’M as just another set of laws to add to the list, along with waiting six hours between eating meat and dairy and not ripping toilet paper on Shabbos. Little did I know that T’’M would single-handedly become the most challenging and most rewarding aspect of my religious observance.
When I got engaged five years ago, I did what any girl with my upbringing does and looked for a “kallah class”. Hours were spent among my friends debating the relative merits of the various options: One-on-one with a Rebbetzin? You get personal attention. A large class? Somebody is bound to ask the embarrassing questions you would rather not ask. Perhaps the kallah teacher who does individual lessons but allows you to bring friends is the best choice?
In the end I found myself in a room with 20 other girls just like me and for twelve weeks the teacher told us the most intimate details of her married life. I was only nineteen, and for the first time I felt like an adult. T’’M almost seemed fun.
And then I got married.