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.
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