Three Strangers Walked Two Miles With Me

What’s the first word you think of when you hear “Judaism”? For me, it’s community.

I grew up religious in a small beach town. Our weekly temple was full of friends and neighbors—until my parents divorced. We lost our friends, stopped keeping kosher, stopped keeping Shabbat.

Then, at 13, I prepared for my Bar Mitzvah with the Chabad rabbi of Mill Basin. I decided: I would be religious, no matter what.

I stayed observant all through public high school. But when senior year started, everything felt off. I moved in with my dad, changed schools, changed states.

I worried—would I make friends? Stay Jewish? Get into college?

Then I went to a CTeen event in Bergen County. I told some teens about wanting to go to temple but not being able to walk that far.

“We’ll walk you,” they said.

Three teens I had just met walked two miles with me in the cold. Even when it started raining, they didn’t stop.

That’s what CTeen is.