Rounders1998

Petrovsky:
For generations, men of my family have been rabbis in Israel; before that, in Europe. It was to be my calling. I was quite a prodigy, the pride of my yeshiva. The elders said I had a forty-year-old's understanding of the Midrash by the time I was twelve. But by the time I was thirteen, I knew I could never be a rabbi.

Mike:
Why not?

Petrovsky:
Because, for all I understood of the Talmud, I never saw God there.

Mike:
You couldn't lie to yourself.

Petrovsky:
I tried. I tried like crazy. I mean, people were counting on me.

Mike:
But yours is a respectable profession.

Petrovsky:
Not to my family. My parents were destroyed, devastated by my decision. My father sent me away, to New York, to live with distant cousins. Eventually, I found my place, my life's work.

Mike:
What then?

Petrovsky:
Well, I immersed myself fully, I studied the minutiae, I learned everything I could about the law. I mean, I felt deeply inside that it was what I was born to do.

Mike:
And did your parents get over it?

Petrovsky:
No. I always hoped that I would find some way to change their minds, but they were inconsolable. My father never spoke to me again.

Mike:
If you had to do it all over again, would you make the same choices?

Petrovsky:
What choice? The last thing I took away from the yeshiva is this: We can't run from who we are. Our destiny chooses us.