I was born and raised in Crosby, Minnesota, far from Jewish infrastructure. When I was a child, I had a glimpse of the traditional Judaism of my paternal grandparents, but apart from celebrating Pesach and Chanukah instead of Easter and Christmas, we were thoroughly assimilated. Why did my father’s family remain in Crosby after most of the Jews had left? When we emptied my parents’ home I found in a box with multiple copies of prayer books, a Hebrew-Yiddish TaNaKh, three tiny tallitot katanot and five sets of tefillin, one in a bag embroidered with my father’s initials. What compelled me to weave that broken thread back into the Jewish tapestry? And why did I take so long and like Parsifal, wander so far off the path? Why Wagner? From my childhood, Wagner had been my parallel universe, and I was blessed to inhabit it as an opera singer. Did the deeper significance of those archetypical characters help assuage an unrecognized spiritual longing? When I moved to Germany in 1971, Jewish life there was still tenuous, and with a Gentile husband and our theater lifestyle it was easy to remain distant. But as my life changed, I felt a profound urge to join the Jewish world. In 2001, I found the Egalitarian Minyan in Frankfurt, where our colleague Daniel Kempin was Worship Leader. He generously gave me the room I needed to take my first steps on what, to my astonishment, would become a new career. One thing led to another, and in 2006 I began my journey with Aleph Alliance for Jewish Renewal, receiving semicha in January 2014. I am still amazed and deeply grateful to have built this unlikely bridge between Walhalla and Ohalah, Association of Rabbis, Cantors and Rabbinic Pastors for Jewish Renewal!