Dear Dr. Laura,

I read with sadness the news of your cessation of Jewish practice. As a convert myself, I feel more, perhaps, of what is underneath your process. For the record, let me state my own odyssey. A child of the sixties, I became a born again Christian at 16. Eventually, I learned sufficiently to become a licensed minister, with ordination following some years later.

I worked with one of the most prominent mega-churches in Southern California. You mostly likely know of it, but that's not germane here.

My passion for the Bible eventually led me to Israel, where I studied Hebrew in an ulpan. I was hooked. The language, the land, the people, the history, even the conflicts -- all were softly seeping into my soul. I was there as a student and a missionary, seeking quietly to bring Jews to a carefully koshered message that Jesus was the Jewish messiah.

I faced flak for this. I actually won a convert in the first few weeks of my ulpan and the secularist, Zionist, American head of our program expelled me when he got wind of it. He nearly had me deported. I was allowed by the Jewish Agency to enroll in another kibbutz program, on condition that I not speak of my faith.

After completing the program, I returned to the States and worked for a major missionary organization based in Chatsworth. Then I went to grad school in Pasadena to study the teaching of English as a Second Language. The mega-church paid the tuition because they endorsed the objective: to return to Israel, get a job in the school system, and establish myself as a self-supporting missionary.

And I did. For nearly three and a half years, I lived in Israel, mostly in kibbutzim on the northern border. I worked with several missionary groups in a collective effort to "open the blind eyes of the Jewish people to the reality of a personal relationship with God through Jesus." The group I worked with most actually brought in hundreds of zealous missionaries to live in small teams in kibbutzim throughout the country. I was close with those who established Christian radio in South Lebanon, and eventually those who worked with Pat Robertson's venture, Middle East Television, also in Lebanon at that time. And I taught English in the Israeli public school system, seeking to convince Israelis that "real Christians love Jews" and that "believing in Jesus is the most Jewish thing you can do."

By this time, I had mastered a great deal of modern Hebrew, becoming quite fluent. This led to learning biblical Hebrew, with an emphasis on digging into the Hebrew background of the Gospel accounts. That's were the trouble began.

Things I'd learned in English and Greek began to unravel when compared to the Hebrew original. I began asking questions of my more learned colleagues, who generally responded that Satan was filling my mind with doubts, that I was under spiritual attack, that I should stop asking so many questions and just believe. I got lots of interesting responses; however, I also got no definitive answers.

I returned to the States and took up a new position at a mega-church, fleeing to a place that had been a spiritual haven, and taking my gnawing doubts with me. Ironically, the church sent me to "spy" on an anti-missionary rally in Westwood, put together by Rabbi Ben Tzion Kravitz of Jews for Judaism. While there, I heard him and Dr. Rabbi Immanuel Schochet make the case for what had been disturbing me about the Christian missionary passion for converting Jews. I realized how little I really knew of Jews and Judaism and the clear, consistent reasons that Jews have said "thanks but no thanks" -- even to the point of death -- to Christian offers to convert.

I left the rally with disturbing concerns. Two years later, I left the whole church world, feeling deep despair. That's another story. Let's fast forward this to the things which are perhaps relevant to your comments.

Today, I'm an observant Jew, having passed through two conversions, first reform in Irvine and then Orthodox in Los Angeles. Today I live in New York, am married to a woman observant from birth, and am well-integrated into my adopted community. While consulting to a couple of significant Jewish publishing and e-commerce firms, I also lecture frequently across the U.S. and Canada to Jewish audiences on some variation of "a minister's journey to Judaism."

This has given me the chance to be with thousands of Jews from all types of backgrounds, from the frumest Chassidim (Belz, Satmar, Gerrer) to the most liberal and intermarried, such as at the Stephen S. Wise Temple. I've spoken to Holocaust survivors, rabbinical candidates, Hillel groups, Chabad houses, yeshiva and Beis Yaacov students, and even young day school students. (The kids are always the best -- their questions are so blunt, probing, and unsophisticated.) Three years of coast to coast lecturing and listening has yielded a wealth of awareness.

I see patterns throughout the variegated Jewish world which trouble me. There are serious voids in communal life and services, offset by a few pockets of charismatic fervor and caring (such as the Happy Minyan at Beth Jacob in Beverly Hills). There are internecine power struggles between organizations competing for the loyalty and dollars of shrinking donor bases. There's the evolving tension between the emerging ba'al teshuvah movement and the shrinking ranks of the Conservative and Reform. There's a toxic thread of selfishness, pettiness, elitism, and chilled indifference that seems to permeate the fabric of much of North American Judaism. Much. Not all.

And there's the bottom-line feeling that a lot of Jews practice their Judaism on auto-pilot. (A head full of Jewish law does not a happy heart or home make. Where's the simple love of God? Where's the quiet strength of being part of a continuum stretching back 3,300 years? Compared to the ardor of evangelical Christians, Judaism comes off rather provincial, listless, and self-absorbed.)

I've had many discussions on these subjects with Jews across the spectrum, including my beloved brother-in-law in Chicago, who is a well-respected family therapist.

Here's my take on it, dear Dr. Laura. Judaism is suffering from a communal case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The shock waves of Europe are yet with us. Think of all the reacting and acting out behaviors that individuals adopt to compensate for grief, loss, terror, deprivation, torture, forced labor, and forced migration. (Consider that more Vietnam Vets have died from PTSD related behaviors such as alcoholism, drugs, and suicide than the 50,000 that fell in the Asian rice paddies.) Now take that pattern of compensating and apply it to North American Jewry. It gets very messy.

And today, we have to add the angst and agony of what is festering in Israel. That's another long story -- not for now.

Conversely, my travels have taken me to places where I see great hope, growth, recovery, and earnest reaching out to focus on the tripod of our applied faith: Torah, spirituality, and redemptive acts of kindness.

I've also studied the works of some wise sages who have long advocated the essential connection between the love and service of God and the love and service of people. The late Aryeh Kaplan first grabbed my attention with his seminal, yet simple, text on "Jewish Meditation". I saw for the first time that behind the ritual there is an infusing spirit that is transcendent and transforming, providing a nexus for creed, deed, and need to meet.

But for many today, who has time to quietly nurture a soul dialogue with God? Just get through the morning prayers and "go take on the day"! But these rituals are like the banks of a river, to contain and channel the flow. These rituals are the manner in which my soul elevates the mundane to the sublime. Without a visceral awareness of connectedness to God, however, ritual becomes rote, and rote begins to rot. What good are the restraining banks if there is no aquifer to stimulate the life-giving stream?

Most conversion programs emphasize the measurable, the quantifiable, and the behaviorally observable. Indeed, these are the components of Jewish living for which we must demonstrate mastery. But Dr. Laura, no one ever sat me down and said, "Today we're going to learn how to live in the awe of God, which will motivate you to serve Him from the heart and will keep you distant from compromising choices." No one suggested that I could nurture a love of God which would empower me to make better decisions in business dealings, family interactions, moral dilemmas, or pressures to cop out.

I did discover some wisdom from some of the Breslov literature, in the tradition of the Ba'al Shem Tov, that it is a great mitzvah to be in a constant state of contentment and that the world is just a very narrow bridge, with the main thing being not to fear. Specific steps are given to push past fear and embrace redemptive attitudes and actions which maximize what we can be.

There's hope here -- even though the Etz Chaim, the tree of life, of yesteryear appears to be an unworthy stump today. Tender shoots are branching forth. But it may take another generation or two to see maturation and fruition.

So, Dr. Laura, do we abandon one ravaged by trauma? Do we turn our backs on children of war because the work of restoration is so daunting? What if those children of war grew up and passed aspects of chaos and pathos to their children? Do we reject them because of their inherited dysfunction? That is the state of Judaism today 60 years after the Holocaust.

Dr. Laura, I beg of you to take another look here. I agree that the present state of most Jewish congregations is anything but joyful. And I hear the hunger in your own soul for that "old time religion". You deserve a personal sense of connectedness to God.

You are a healer. You are a fighter. You have given yourself so lovingly to the community -- a community which may be handicapped from understanding what you have to offer. Like a shell-shocked survivor, they may recoil from your extended embrace. But that doesn't mean they don't desperately need it. It doesn't mean they don't need the special insight that only you can provide over time.

Please, judge us not for our weaknesses, our self centeredness, our whining immaturity, our factions and in-fighting, our confusion, our materialism, our shallowness and self-hatred. We need help from within and without. We need you. See us for what we can be.

I end with this: Moses begged his father-in-law, Yitro, to go with them in the desert as part of the community. Moses said to him, "You shall be eyes for us." Eyes for what? They had the pillar of cloud and fire to guide them. Moses was well seasoned in desert terrain. Eyes for what?

The Jewish people had come up out of more than two hundred years of trauma, slavery, suffering, indignity, death, and devastation of peoplehood. They needed the guidance of a free person to make the behavioral transition from slavery. They needed a righteous convert such as Yitro was to help them see beyond their provincial ills, to comprehend a loving God and a fruitful future.

Dr. Laura -- you are Yitro. You are eyes to the Jewish people. And it's not beautiful what you see just now. But you are a visionary. You can perceive a land flowing with milk and honey. You can help infuse hope, tenacity, purpose, and love.

What's missing for you, in my humble opinion, is a fellowship of mutual thought partners who can recharge your batteries. I know several converts who have mirrored concerns similar to yours. The only way they have pushed through was with the empathetic support of other converts. Rabbis and even returnees to the faith don't adequately grasp our peculiar challenges. They may have a good theory -- but, yikes, they display lousy bedside manners.

Before you finalize your disconnect, before it's official and you become the target of millions of well-meaning missionaries (and they really do love you), please weigh this plea from one who's listened to you through the years.

Judaism is in severe pain. But it's not terminal. This is a resilient people that can flourish again, like the flowers of the Negev that blossom after a desert rain.

Your Jewish experience can be "been there, done that". Or it can be "been there, healed that, and -- I'm still here!"

Beloved Dr. Laura. Do it for yourself. But don't do it by yourself. The Jewish nation needs, indeed clamors, for your care. How have you counseled parents to recover their scared and scarred children? This is no different. How will you help God restore His scared and scarred children? You can. But will you?

I will pray that God send you insight and inspiration to sustain you in the challenge. I pray that you will be like Deborah of old, who led her people to great victories over their enemies. It would be such a tragedy if Dr. Laura were to become a faded footnote in the Jewish history of the early 21st century. You are fond of reminding people that they have choices. God sets before us life and death and implores us "u'vacharta b'chayim -- choose life". L'chaim, Dr. Laura. L'chaim.

If a woman were to call you and say, "After ten years of marriage, I find things have gone dry in the last year. I think I'm going to stop being a wife here," we all know how you'd take her to task. We know you'd goad and motivate her to "go do the right thing". Please tell me how this commitment to God and community is any different. (Said with respect and regard.)

By the way, I'm also a broadcaster, doing on a small scale what I'm asking you to do more visibly. I too am eyes to them. It's humbling, scary, and such a sacred trust. But my spiritual life is alive because of it.

Believing for you with complete faith,
Gavriel Aryeh Sanders
New York