Growing up, I always knew I was a Jew. I felt proud when our people were strong and I was crushed when we were threatened. But I never lit Chanukah candles, and I wasn't bar mitzvahed.

Judaism, I knew, had something to do with monotheism -- a pale, unemotional word which never conveyed much to me. Synagogue interested me for a sense of belonging, but the actual experience was never sufficiently compelling to look inside.

I grew up in New York, studied philosophy at Yale and in 1978 went to Israel for the summer. In Jerusalem for a weekend, I was invited by a friend to visit a yeshiva. "How would you like to meet a Jewish philosopher?" my friend asked. It was a good line, and I accepted. He led me to a world more similar to my imagination of Plato's academy than to any academic environment I'd ever experienced.

In the yeshiva there were no grades, no deadlines -- just a pure and ruthless intellectualism.

At Yale, mealtimes had been dominated by discussions of grades and deadlines and Rhodes applications. In the yeshiva there were no grades, no deadlines. Just a pure and ruthless intellectualism. Is there a God? What makes life meaningful? Can you define love? These were the questions I'd hoped to answer at Yale, and it was a thrilling discovery. I meant to stay the afternoon. I stayed for five years.

There were many times I almost left. I heard ideas that shocked and frightened me. I confronted parts of myself I would have liked to avoid. Few friends or family understood what I was doing, and I felt estranged, alone and far from home.

I stayed because I defined myself as a truth-seeker, and I felt I'd have to change that definition if I left a place where there was insight, simply because the answers I found were new and troubling.

I also learned a great deal that I'd never known about being a Jew. In the pagan concept, we serve the gods, appease their wrath. In Jewish understanding, God wants only our pleasure. "God our Father" wants what a parent wants for his children -- their growth, their happiness, their pleasure.

God created us for pleasure. Pleasure has to be distinguished from another concept, comfort. Comfort is the absence of pain, a warm bath, sleep. Pleasure is energy and excitement. Pleasure is purchased at the price of effort and of pain. There are five classes of pleasure and they differ in their yield of energy.

Wine, sex and lying in the sun are pleasures -- and Judaism endorses their enjoyment. On Shabbat, we put on our best clothes, eat fine food, make love to our wives. Old men should sit in the sun, says the Talmud, to remember the simple feeling of well-being that physical enjoyment brings. The physical pleasures are available for money and many develop their appreciation to a fine art. There are connoisseurs of food and clothing, stereo and cars. They are experts in the enjoyment of physical pleasure.

Love has a much higher yield of pleasure, transcending food, wine and sex. Love surpasses physical pleasure as well in the effort needed to achieve it. Commitment, loyalty and patience are necessary for love. Many are unwilling to pay the price. The rich enjoyment of children can't be had without a stern payment of effort.

There are few connoisseurs of love. Many can't even recognize it. They confuse it with that cheaper product, infatuation. That's the moment on the beach when, with the sun in her hair, she was so beautiful and everything seemed so perfect. Love, by contrast, is the appreciation of another's strength, virtue, beauty. When we see kindness and honesty, the pleasure it yields is love.

There are limitations on the pleasure of love -- you can't live for love, because it's not enough.

There are limitations on the pleasure of love, just as there are limitations on physical pleasure. A husband, wife or lover can't give meaning to life. You can't live for love; it's not enough. Parents anxiously struggling to feel needed by their children when they've grown and gone away; the terrible stress on a romantic relationship when it's called on to give purpose and self-respect; and the crisis of identity we feel when love relationships fail -- these all testify to the fallacy of "living for love."

The experience of "meaning" is a greater pleasure than love. When we feel our lives have a goal and purpose, it gives a sense of deep-rootedness. Meaning yields energy and strength. We long for the ecstasy of committing ourselves in the service of some great mission. We may even risk death; so nourishing is the experience which gives our life ultimate purpose.

A pleasure which surpasses "meaning" is the enjoyment of power and the ability to create. The Talmud directs every person to say "the world was created for me." It is my world to shape and to define. The pleasure of social and political action comes from creating and molding the world. Kindness, too, is an aspect of creativity. When I nurture another to discover and express his potential, I bring meaning out of clay. The pleasure of teaching and of parenting as well derive from this deep and God-like creativity.

Love of God is the top of the pleasure scale. In Jewish understanding, the Almighty created man to enjoy the rich experience of life in its awesome depth of pleasure. Ours is a world with the opportunity to love, to validate with a cause our brief span, and to create in God-like imitation. The appreciation of that great gift is love of God.

To help us achieve these pleasures, the Almighty gave us the Torah -- Torat Chayim, literally, "instructions for living."

We license today the exercise of many professions. In the issues of living, which are infinitely more complex and more important, many receive no education. Who understands clearly the principles on which a stable marriage or a life of happiness are built?

The Torah teaches us crucial definitions and distinctions: the difference between love and infatuation, pleasure and comfort. It's all found in the five classes of pleasure.

As the years pass, my feelings of estrangement and discomfort have faded. I have fallen in love with Israel, with Jerusalem, with the Torah. I'm a rabbi now. Why have I chosen this vocation?

There are many people for whom the experience of synagogue has never compelled them to look inside -- and I want to help them experience falling in love in Judaism.