Gifts of a Stranger
A Convert's Round-the-World Travels and Spiritual Journeys
By Ahuvah Gray

The Returning of a Lost Object: Shira’s Story

It felt wonderful to be walking again in the halls of Neve, not a beginning student with so much to learn, but actually one with her own lesson to teach. I walked to the library/beis midrash, amazed that the hallways were buzzing just like the days when I was a student there. My heart leaped with joy and enthusiasm as the room began to fill up. Some of the faces looked familiar. I would be speaking in front of my own teachers, including Rabbi Brown, Rebbetzin Rothman, and Rebbetzin Heller!

I was filled with excitement. I had been trained in the art of studying an audience by scanning the faces to ascertain their reactions, and I relaxed immediately when I saw that the girls were fascinated by my story, warm and receptive to my message. The fact that I had studied in that very room for a year brought speaker and audience together in an unusual bond.

Throughout the lecture my attention was constantly drawn to the face of a beautiful girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. Where had I seen her before? I couldn’t place her. Suddenly, as I spoke, her eyes filled with tears. Even while everyone else was laughing, she continued to cry.

During the question-and-answer session, my eyes kept returning to the girl with the lovely, tear-stained face.

The lecture ended, and I was immediately surrounded by girls seeking autographed copies of my book. I looked through the crowd, trying to spot that familiar, tear-stained face.

The hubbub of questions and signings continued. I was nearly out of books.

Suddenly I heard a familiar voice speaking softly with a South African accent. “Excuse me, Ahuvah, do you remember me?”

Before I raised my head, I knew it was a South African girl I had spoken to a year before - finally I could place the teary young woman. When I saw how she was dressed I couldn’t believe it. She could pass the scrutiny of any rebbetzin - a far cry from her appearance a year before.

“What happened to you?”

“Ahuvah, I have to tell you, my life was transformed by your story. After you spoke, I went directly to my room to look up all those verses of Tehillim that you quoted, first in English and then in Hebrew. How much more meaningful they seemed after I heard you describe how your grandmother taught you the twenty-third psalm at four years old! I knew I had to find the God that you talked about.”

I couldn’t believe what my ears were hearing. By now I was almost in tears, but the other girls were getting impatient. Before she left, I told her that I had been invited to speak in South Africa. She invited me to stay with her parents.

“I would love to meet your parents. I know they were praying for you and they must be wonderful people.”

Once again we exchanged e-mail addresses and she gave me her mobile telephone number. The girl’s eyes were bright now, not with tears but with excitement. I felt the depth of her emotion, but the crowd around us made it impossible for her to say more. She disappeared into the throng, and I went on with the book signing.

While I was signing I remembered that I had forgotten to give her an autographed copy of my book - and that I didn’t even know her name. I was determined, nevertheless, to go and find her when I finished.

A few minutes later, the last girl took a book, thanked me with a smile, and left the room. I had one book left after the book signing. Surely I would find this girl again to give it to her?

At the moment that I thought of her, she suddenly reappeared.

“Thank God, you’re back,” I exclaimed. “Before you disappear again - please tell me your name!”

“Shira Taylor,” she replied.

“Please, please, won’t you accept this copy of my book?” Shira hesitated, wanting to pay, but I insisted that she take it as a gift.

Why did it mean so much to me that I should get to know this girl, that I should know that she would read my story? Why did I insist that she accept my words as a gift?

Perhaps the answer is that somehow this young girl with the crying eyes had at that moment given me a gift of her own.

Many years before, when I was a minister, I was asked each year to fill out a questionnaire stating my goals for the coming year. Each time, I wrote the same words: “My ministry calls me to work with the Jewish people.”

Once I started my travel agency specializing in group movements to Israel, I thought I had fulfilled that dream. But intuitively I knew that somewhere in the distant future I was destined for a more meaningful connection to the Jews, something new that would ignite my soul, and that something hadn’t happened yet.

It hadn’t happened yet, that is, until I met Shira Taylor.

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