A Rosh HaShanah exercise to increase awareness of G-d

A question by the father in my “adopted” family in Israel caught me off guard several years ago.

Over a motzei Shabbat meal in the restaurant of a swanky Jerusalem hotel, at a window-side table, my friend, a U.S.-born baal teshuvah who has served as the rosh kollel of a small haredi yeshiva for several decades, asked me out of the blue, “Do you think you have become more religious?”

I also am baal teshuva, for the majority of my 75 years, but I didn’t know how to answer his question.

First of all, I’m not comfortable with the description of being “religious.” I find it sanctimonious, supercili...