Gene,

I thought you might want to tell Harvey what the letter from Nancy’s biking friend meant to me.

This young woman, Nancy, is someone I feel I know a little bit from her friend’s letter. I marvel at someone who could combine two worlds and two sets of values with such apparent ease and joy. It could not have been easy for her to choose to live so thoroughly in the “modern” world, where she could revel in the host of choices available to her and to find a way to infuse that life with her religious background and her love of Judaism. So many Jews are more in love with Jewishness than with Judaism. And I would have to include myself in that category. But Nancy seemed to have loved G-d and the faith of her family and forebears and to have loved being able to share it with her friends. I think G-d must have smiled on her, enjoying the way she lived as a Jew in the world of Mammon. If we have been instructed with joy to celebrate the love of G-d, I had this image of Nancy biking with joy and I’ll bet she danced with joy too. I hope that her family can find peace in their memories of such a vibrant daughter.

Thank you for providing me with this glimpse of the life of such a vibrant woman.

Love,
Theodora McKee