Choose: Exploring What's Possible

Tova Mirvis, the author of A Book of Separation: A Memoir, made the choice to both divorce and to leave her orthodox faith and her community. Raised in an orthodox Jewish community in Memphis, Tennessee she grew up feeling like there was a set path for her; one that her family was part of and one that was always expected would be her own. She knew from a young age that to stay inside a religious community meant she’d always have this sense of community and identity of who she was supposed to be in the world. Trying very hard to be that person, she married at a young age, had children, and was part of a very religious community where every choice was mapped out for her. Yet, she had a quiet whisper of doubt for many years — Is this what you really believe? Is this who you really are? Afraid of what might happen if she let herself answer those hard questions, and how she’d change, she didn’t. Until she did. She experienced a growing awareness that who she was on the outside didn’t match who she was on the insid