Since I was a child, I have always loved books (and reading). Since I found Hasidism about four and a half years ago and decided to leave academia, a fundamental change has occurred in the kinds of physical books I buy (and read). Of all the physical books (about 450) I've bought in the past four and a half years most concern Chabad Hasidism (about 400).
I live in a relatively small apartment, at least in Israeli terms, so I have a rather limited space for my physical books - I can hold up to about 600 and 900 books in the active and "dead" sections of my personal library in the living room and the bed room respectively.
When I started buying Chabad Hasidic books, my library was already full, so I had to get rid of existing books to make room - I have physically discarded all the volumes of the academic journals I used to subscribe to and left quite a few academic books on languages and linguistics as well as almost all the academic studies of Judaism on the street, hoping they would find new "foster parents".
The most visible change in the past four and a half years has been how more and more books on languages and linguistics have "receded", as it were, from the active to the "dead" section of my library, until I could leave only one shelf (for about 30 books) - in adition to about 100 dictionaries in five languages I still use actively - for what had occupied me professionally for about 30 years since I officially left academia nearly two years ago. These 30 books are practical pedagogical materials for advanced learners of Russian, which means that what is left of my professional occupation with languages and linguistics is the practical study of Russian.
There are four languages I'm truly grateful for having studied - Hebrew, Yiddish, English, and Russian. I use Hebrew and Yiddish for acquiring wisdom, especially in Chabad Hasidism now, English for knowledge and information, and Russian for emotional joy. (And of the other languages I spent many years in learning I find neither interest in nor use for at least two languages - Arabic and Esperanto.)
Russian has been my most beloved language for the past 30 years or so (Hebrew and Yiddish have such an integral part of my life that they are simply beyond love). My "love affair" with Russian started a few years after I started learning it when I was still a PhD student in Hebrew linguistics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
I started to fall in love with Russian paradoxically after I got divorced from a native speaker of Russian. This renewed "love affair" of mine with Russian had nothing to do with nostalgia as I didn't use Russian with her. When I accidentally discovered that I felt such enormous emotional joy in using Russian, whether passively or actively, I resumed my systematic study of what I consider the most beautiful language on this planet.
I still don't understand why I feel such emotional joy in Russian except for its "external" beauty, that is, its sounds. It may сщьу from my emotional attachment to (rich) Russian culture, which I'm reminded of every time I use Russian. And of all the countries I've visited as a tourist I felt most comfortable in Russia, at least in Moscow.
Recently I've found an additional pleasure in my continued study of Russian - reading Chabad Hasidic books in Russian translation (in parallel with their Hebrew or English originals - I have about 50 such Russian translations so far. I'm especially grateful to a unique bookstore in Jerusalem that specializes in Chabad Hasidic books in Russian - Яхад.