All Who Go Do Not Return

sourstix

Sun, Apr 19 2015, 2:10 pm

[quote="Maya"]It's not a false dichotomy.Charedi is not Chassidish. Being Charedi does not mean that you have anything in common with people from the Chassidish communities of New Square or Satmar or similar. People who use their critical thinking skills can't have success in the communities I mentioned, because the culture of those demands absolute deference to authority with no room for personal decision making or individuality. This is the exact reason why both my husband and I have had difficulty in the community from the time we were kids.[/quote]

I really dont want to poke at you. I will just state something in the area of authority. I have a brother a big talmid chochom. my parents are one chasidus and my brother chose a diff one(happens to be where my mother comes from) so it wasnt strange in the family. my father when he found out about it was very upset, but my father came around he never disowned him just painfully said I didnt send you to that yeshiva to change chasidus - but where the heart goes you go. that was it. today he is my fathers pride. he gives my parents more respect then almost anyone I know. really. hes super duper special. bh my father had common sense and didnt go far with it. so there isnt room but one has to use common sense. and one has to have convictions and and the courage to do whats right and a loads of siyata dishmaya. for those that disown and put their child down. that can happen in the crisitan community as well. I have heard interviews of children trying to go diff ways and parents acted in similar unaccepting ways.

amother

Khaki

Thu, May 14 2015, 11:06 pm

Almost done reading it. Throughout I get a sense of deep sadness--whether his or mine, I'm not sure. He doesn't write with the scathing voice of "Unorthodox", the author of which seems to cackle with malicious glee as she holds her former community up to ridicule and positively revels in her sinfulness. OTOH he writes about certain things that should have been left in his personal journal and not included in a book intended for public consumption. Details of the wedding night, for example. Yes, it was difficult, traumatic, even, and if he had been describing his initiation with some anonymous girl in the back seat of a car or a professional in the red-light district, fine. But he's talking about his WIFE (now ex), mother of his children, (who might some day, unlikely though it seems, get their hands on the book) and writing under his real name. Could he have written anything more inappropriate or more calculated to humiliate an innocent woman whose only sin was to be part of a society he rejected? He lost my sympathy card right there.

Those who say "you can't go by him, he's not a typical Chossid" or "you can't go by her, her family was always 'different', well, yeah, that's kind of the point. "Typical" Chassidim stay in the fold. The ones who leave are the square pegs who don't fit into the round holes of their communities. Duh.

And, since Deen may be reading this, by "different" I mean "different" in any way, which includes different by virtue of having a questioning mind or an insatiable desire to paint flowers as well as different by virtue of being gay or the child of gerim or having no talent for Talmud study.

zaq

Thu, May 14 2015, 11:56 pm

Something that I'm gathering from reading Deen's book as well as other works by OTD former chassidim is that the black-and-white absolutism is a major contributing factor to these people's defection. There are no shades of gray and no quarter given to other points of view. Wearing the "wrong" hat or glasses or attending the "wrong" shul is tantamount to eating tref. With an attitude like that, why wouldn't anyone who seeks something different go completely frei? If talking to a boy makes you a slut, why not go all the way? If eating a chocolate bar with the hechsher of the rabbi down the road a piece makes you tref, why not eat at McDonald's? May as well hang for a sheep as for a lamb.

There may be a valuable parenting lesson to be learned from this.

happybeingamom

Fri, May 15 2015, 9:46 am

amother wrote:

I had the same feeling from the book and even more about the wife. I really feel for her, my impression was he really did not listen at all to what she wanted. He did whatever he wanted whether she liked it or not. She just kept on accommodating him until the point of no return. So I was not surprised that after some time after the divorce she turned against him. I just keep thinking that going through her mind was her thought I kept giving in and giving in but it was never enough.

He was a husband who had no respect for his wife. Now reading his life story, I don't get the impression that he saw how to relate to a wife. His father died when he was young, he lived in dorms most of his life and due to the extreme gender separation he would not have seen how other couples interact.

At the end of the book my heart went out to his ex wife and for him because he did not know how to treat a wife he ended up losing his family.

debsey

Fri, May 15 2015, 10:39 am

zaq wrote:

I had the same thought. Also, if all "sins" are equal, then a kid might feel toxic guilt for doing something minor, like looking at the "wrong" ad on the subway, and the logic might be "I'm already such a rasha, I can't be redeemed, so there's no hope for me, why try?" it is a very valuable lesson for parents - don't make them feel irredeemable. They might take you seriously.

sneakermom

Fri, May 15 2015, 11:58 am

Maya wrote:

This "excuse" of all sins being equal is very popular among people trying to explain why someone would go from extreme to OTD on one step, but I don't buy it.
I mean, how stupid do you have to be to think that eating a lesser hechsher is the same as eating at McDonalds?

It's psychological. If you are beaten for for bringing wise potato chips to school or embarrassed in public for wearing a yarmulka with four panels instead of five then the whole religion feels so oppressive and hypocritical. And a person might feel pressed to throw the whole thing off.

Maya

Fri, May 15 2015, 12:12 pm

sneakermom wrote:

You're saying something different than what's being argued here.
You're talking about the religion becoming oppressive and people not wanting any part of it because of the association of humiliation, etc.

The phenomenon being discussed here is, for example, someone thinking that if I'm wearing a 4-part yarmulka and it is considered bad in my community, then I may as well not wear any yarmulka at all. And for that, you have to be a really stupid human being. In my opinion, of course.

I know enough ex-Chassidim and I have never heard this reasoning before, but maybe I just don't get around enough?

happybeingamom

Fri, May 15 2015, 12:12 pm

Maya wrote:

I know people from extreme charedi homes not chasidish and these kids felt this way. When parents disparage and mock other orthodox groups to such an extreme the kids will view eating a so called lesser hechsher the same as pork.

It is very sad but I have seen it.

Amarante

Fri, May 15 2015, 12:38 pm

FWIW, my sense of Deen was that it was an extremely gradual change in his though processes and wasn't at all black or white.

Although I don't think it was covered in the book, I believe in interviews, he addressed the issue of why he didn't become a member of a less extreme form of Judaism - that of course no one could be expected to believe in the New Square practices - this said by RW Orthodox not secular or Reform Jews. But his explanation was that it was impossible for him to accept any "authority" given his disillusionment with the New Square brand of ultra-authoritarian which he rejected both spiritually and emotionally.

At least, IMO, he desperately tried to hold on to his faith for many years and went searching to find a reason to keep believing. I can't remember his friend's name but the relationship he described indicated how much he sought to find someone who could help him with his doubts.

Of course one can't know what would happen if things had been different. Would he have felt quite as stifled in a community in which he was allowed to engage more with the modern world and therefore even if he still had "questions" regarding faith, the religious life would not have felt like such an impossible fit.

marina

Fri, May 15 2015, 1:49 pm

amother wrote:

Like I said before- his description of the wedding night is a paragraph long and includes NOTHING salacious or remotely s-xual. He basically just writes that they were clueless but ultimately figure it out like two people trying to help each other assemble a piece of furniture.

marina

Fri, May 15 2015, 1:55 pm

Maya wrote:

It's not a matter of stupid. It's that in many communities, halacha is taken for granted and focused on less, whereas the minhagim are emphasized WAY more. In chabad, for example, our order of the manishtana is different because the minhag goes before the midoraisa halacha specifically to emphasize this point- that minhag is more valuable than halacha.

So yes, if you grow up like that and your communty's scandals and drama revolve around which guy decided to wear jeans or which girl wore her hair down, it's entirely possible to conflate everything into one big mess. And moreover, many people who go OTD - especially younger ones - grow up with little respect for secular laws and when they throw Judaism off, they throw off secular rules too. Which ends up bad.

marina

Fri, May 15 2015, 1:56 pm

Maya wrote:

Also, of course, it's an intellectual process as well as a psychological one. If my community is fixated on crazy minhagim or community rules and I decide that these are worthless, why shouldn't I decide that the rest of it is lies too? That's just a logical thought progression.