Many people laugh and joke when they hear I am looking to get married soon. My response to them is simply, why not? From generation to generation the Jewish people have been marrying from an early age. in fact, there are all sorts of midrashim that talk about our patriarchs and matriarchs, including one that says Yitzchak and Rivkah were just adolescent. People respond by saying that nowadays people aren’t ready to get married. But I have dedicated my entire teenage life to reverting the norm to what it was before the start of the 21st century, whether trying to make Judaism look cool, or renewing society’s values from YOLO and everything that comes with it to doing the best that you can because we don’t know how much time we have left.

To me, the term YOLO – “you only live once” — isn’t just a silly idiom dumb teenagers use, but also the antithesis of who I am and my entire philosophy. I look at my life as only a speck in a broad course of a vast and fantastic Jewish history, whether it’s the exile, the redemption, the ups, or the downs. So with this mentality, naturally a question comes up. Where is my place in such this fantastic and vast story?

After long introspection, and a slight love and yearning for children, and taking into account my non-religious childhood and background, there has been nothing I have wanted more than to make things right by my children. This concept manifests itsellf in my head more and more through the numerous amounts of time it’s alluded to in the Torah, the Mishnah, Gemara, Rishonim, and Acharonim, as well as what I experience in my work with Bnei Akiva and NCSY, where I teach kids and teens the beauty and love of Judaism.

So here’s my plan. I really want children, to bask in the glory of the mitzvah of chinuch, or teaching your children. So if I can get engaged by the end of senior year (nine months from November), then married two months later, hopefully then conceive (the night of or…) within the first month, then nine months later I can sit and enjoy my dream sunshine of my life, my family.

It may or may not be true that you only live once. But I only have one life and I want to start living it now!