I remember my seventh grade English teacher telling us that there would come a time when we would learn how truly stupid Nancy Drew novels were. In complete horror and disbelief I resolved to try this whole expanding my reading horizons thing without even really expecting to ever stop LOVING Nancy Drew.

My first attempt at breaking from Nancy Drew Mysteries, was with a book called My Name is Asher Lev, by Chaim Potok, about a Jewish boy who also paints. Then I read The Promise and The Chosen. And then eventually read every single book by Chaim Potok because I was absolutely fascinated by the Jewish religion and culture. I thought the level of study required to interpret the Torah was incredible. It seemed that just to have a basic understanding, you had to be familiar with several different interpretations of each verse, which I thought was really cool. However, living in Utah, I was never really allowed to gush about just how cool I thought the Jewish religion was.

Well, fast forward to a few weeks ago when I was working out and came face to face with my first honest to goodness Jewish guy from Israel. I was so excited to meet someone who actually had studied the Torah and grew up in a Kabbutz. He was even kind of shy and reserved like all the jewish people I had read about.

Poor Samuel got all 967 conversations that had been filed away in my head under "Jews, I love." Some of these include; "The Restoration of the Ten Tribes," "Triumph of the Will," "Chaim Potok," "yeshivas," "Yentil," and "the Palestinian-Israeli conflict."

Unfortunately, Sam mistook my "I love the Jewish people," for "I love the Jewish person I'm talking to RIGHT THIS MOMENT." And when he turned my line of interrogation back to me by asking, "now, what can Mormons do?" I realized that our little social studies lesson had better come to an end. Which is sad because I really wanted to know if Jewish women have to shave their heads.