When we tell the story of our lives, we usually begin with the milestones. We graduated. We married. Our children were born. We moved. We changed careers. We retired. These become the chapter headings of our personal histories, the dates that anchor our memories. They are easy to recall because they stand above the ordinary flow of life.

Yet over the past several months, as I have been revisiting memories from my own childhood and early adulthood, I have begun to wonder whether I have been remembering my own life all wrong. The moments that shaped me most were rarely the milestones. They were what happened between them. I remember changing schools, leaving Colombia for New York, beginning college, becoming a rabbi, getting married, and raising a family. Those events remain vivid. But looking back, I now realize they were only markers along the road. The deeper story was unfolding more quietly. It was found in the encouragement of a teacher who believed in........

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