Eitan Kalmowitz: Un BT

I saw that in some of the promotional material for this event I was described as a Baal Teshuva Tzfati Detroiter and I must say that I completely reject that label Not the second part. There's nothing I can do about that The first part notwithstanding my background I just don't identify as a BT now let me be clear I was a BT was I ever I mean, I tchuked out with the best of them like, initially, nobody taught me how you're supposed to go to the Mikvah so I didn't know what counted as a dunk so I used to climb all the way out up the stairs and go all the way back in for the dunk I also did the thing that every BT does you guys know what I'm talking about? Ok, so I'm going to let you FFBs in on a little secret just between us every single Baal Teshuvah without exception, every single one at some point believes that maybe, maybe, possibly they just might be Moshiach come on, I know there are other BTs here and you know that you did it don't even try to pretend you didn't announce it to the whole world but you thought about it and you started preparing you practiced blowing shofar although I have to admit that I always found the whole Gog Umagog thing very concerning so you could imagine my relief when I started hanging out with Chabad and I found out that the Rebbe is Moshiach I mean, what a burden off my shoulders not to mention the fact that it's a heck of a lot easier to hide a Moshiach flag in your room at your parents house than it is a white donkey let me tell you I know from experience now, little did I know at the time that in certain Chabad Houses you're actually more welcome if you say you're Moshiach but that's another discussion But I had one thing going for me and that's that I was still very young when I got involved in all of this so I decided, I'm going to learn to do things like the pros I'm going to become un-BT you know how people make baby books for their kids and they record all their kids' milestones? like his first word his first step, and that kind of thing I did the same thing with my journey to being a regular FFB Lubavitcher I have in there my first time talking in Tefillin my first time Davening after Chatzos my first time saying Mezonos on an entire pie of pizza my first time speaking Loshon Hara that was a really special one and before you knew it by my second year in Yeshiva I was already pretty normal I started sleeping on the bottom bunk and I learned the proper way to Toivel in the Mikva which of course is, you dunk your head under and then aggressively karate chop the water as many times as you can