Indeed, the basic idea of “minding your own business” had never been heard of in this place, she often fumed, or if it had, been roundly rejected by popular demand. Every hour of every day, she lived among people where every stranger felt it not only their right but their duty to examine you head to toe and pass judgment on your adherence to community modesty standards. A place where people looked shamelessly into your shopping cart to check out your faithfulness to kashrut stringencies (according to their own very particular biases), as well as your extravagances or thriftiness. A place where neighbors thought nothing of looking into the windows of your home when they could or listening shamelessly through the walls to discover how often and how severely you disciplined—or failed to discipline—your children or argued with your husband, not to mention what kind of music you listened to and at what volume. There was absolutely no privacy.

She remembered that distant and none-too-friendly conversation with her mother at the beginning of her journey from secular to religious life. “It’s not a cult, Mom,” she had superciliously assured her. But now, she was not so sure.

She sat up, agitated, even frightened. All people who make radical changes to their lives must go through this, she told herself. It was normal to compare your new life to your old life and to feel certain things were missing. But it had never happened to her until now.

What was the trigger? That business with the music, the neighbors complaining? Or was it something deeper and more profound: Her failure to get pregnant, her inability to share some of her deepest thoughts with her husband? Was it her marriage itself?

She thought about her Yaakov, her kind, handsome husband. While he was as loving and considerate as ever, he, too, had changed. He was a different man since he’d started working full-time, leaving behind his beloved kollel and his study partner, Meir. Often, he seemed weighted down, joyless.

Like every other woman in the history of mankind married to an unhappy man, her first thought was: What have I done wrong? But aside from dancing around the living room, she really couldn’t think of anything. On the contrary, she’d bent over backward to be supportive of everything he wanted to do, even at considerable inconvenience and heartache. For example, she’d accepted without protest the considerable amount of time he was spending in evening and weekend Talmud study groups at the expense of their time together. But that wasn’t to say she didn’t resent it.