Adam Weinstein BA in Accounting Working at Deloitte & Touche This summer I will study at Mayanot Institute in Israel. As I sit here to write my thoughts on how Chabad has influenced my life, I search through the distant past of four years ago, when coming to Binghamton University was just another step r in my life's journey. I think about what Judaism meant to me at that time and what it means to me now. They say that in college one is able to adequately gain insight into oneself; in my case that would be an understatement. At my entrance to school, a Friday night dinner was sitting around the television watching a movie eating pizza and a Saturday was a day for various errands. Today, I view Shabbat as an entirely different experience. I was enlightened from the first time I stepped foot at Chabad, my first semester freshman year. I was overwhelmed at the amount of people and the knowledge that they all seemed to have but, I did not possess. I always had a burning sensation to explore my Judaism, but the match was not ignited until I began to spend some of my Shabbat's at Chabad. Through their warm, generous and openness to those Jewish students that were not necessarily from observant homes, I began to feel a sense of community and pride in who I was and where I came from. The Rabbi has been extremely munificent in his time teaching me this past semester so that I may gain greater insight to the endless sea of knowledge of our religion. Now lets move back to the present, a mere four years later, I have transformed into someone who holds religion as one of the most important things in life and I truly treasure what the Chabad House helped to give me, something I will never forget and will always be grateful for.