Rabbi Nathan Spector

I was born in San Antonia, Texas. My family were active in the small Jewish community there and in the synagogue, but they were not observant of Torah and mitzvot.

My first experience of Judaism was in Sunday school. The congregation had brought two scribes from New York to repair its sifrai Torah. I was a boy who had never seen a bearded Jew in my life. I sat next to one of them, enchanted and concentrating on what he was doing. He asked me, "What is your name?"

Just looking at him had aroused a Jewish spark in my soul. I answered, "Natan," using my Hebrew name.

"What a nice name," he said. He took the pen, dipped it in ink, and wrote on a piece of parchment my name in the same lettering as used in the Torah. Then he asked me, "And what is your father's name?"

"Abe," I said.

"Avraham. That is also a beautiful name." Then he wrote "ben Avraham" on the parchment and gave it to me.

This was my first Jewish experience, one that I will never forget all my life. My second was when the priest in the military academy in Texas, where my parents had sent me after grade school, decided to teach about the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. I did not know anything about it. Then he said to me, "Why do you know nothing about your beautiful Judaism?"

It was a striking experience that broke some block inside of me.