“Surprise!” I shouted as my fiancée walked in the door.

“I made latkes!” I announce. Since it is nowhere near Channukah, and I spent hours peeling and pureeing potatoes, I figured Brett would be thrilled –and he was… until he walked into the kitchen.

“Where are the potato shreds?” He asked.

“Shreds?” I asked

“My mom’s latkes look more like hash browns,” he said.

“Hash browns!” I shrieked.

“No way! You have to puree the potatoes!” At this moment, I realized something: I was in an inter-faith relationship.

But here’s the catch: both my fiancée and I are Jewish. Of course, differing latke preferences are hardly symptomatic of some great spiritual divide. However, they made me realize that small cultural and spiritual differences can amount to two traditions so unique they are almost like entirely different religions. I don’t mean to say that Brett and I differ deeply on most Jewish issues — in fact, I think we are more similar than respect. He and I practiced Judaism very similarly before we even met. We both love conservative egalitarian Friday night services, but would rather spend our Saturday mornings at the farmer’s market than at the synagogue. We both kinda-sorta observe Shabbat, and don’t keep kosher, yet avoid eating pork. We are the last people to leave the oneg. And yet, getting engaged to someone of my own faith has taught me that marriage is, in a way, inter-faith.

When Brett and I were dating, all the little differences in our Jewish practices, whether religious or cultural, seemed negligible. Apparently him putting a ring on my finger activated some hitherto undiscovered biological imperative; every time we encounter even a minor difference in tradition, this new voice in my head shouts “What about the children?!?!” Do I really want my future children growing up with (yuck) potato shreds in their latkes? How can we possibly observe Shabbat as a family when I don’t believe in making any plans, but he wants to plan every moment of our weekend schedule from sundown to sundown? Suddenly our faiths could not seem more different.

I love my Jewish fiancée dearly, and I’m glad to be in an intra-faith relationship. Brett and I share all of our most important core values. I know that our future children will grow up immersed in Jewish faith and culture. But whose version of Judaism will grow up in? I think this will be one of the first challenges of our marriage: how to build a Judaism that is ours — not only his or mine.

In a way, we will both have to embrace a new faith, a new culture. The fact that our backgrounds are similar does not exempt us from having to adapt, change, and compromise. I hope that as we discover new customs we will renew the old ones which we value but sometimes take for granted. I hope that we will learn new things about each other and ourselves. Above all, I believe that this journey will make us stronger as Jews, as a couple, and, one day, as an inter-intra-faith family.