On a Different Derech

[onionsoupmix]

Here's an interesting interview that starts off sounding like your typical off-the-derech story.

Girl grows up in an insular Chassidic environment, is married off at age 17 and has 3 kids by the age of 23. She then divorces her husband, leaves her community and starts working on degrees and careers.

But that's where the the typical off-the-derech

Comments

avraham

[anonymous]

i have thought long and hard about rabbis. Since i experienced great inspiration at the Mir and later in Israel. I believe that gemara learning is a true path to devekut and enlightenment, Yet later when i saw the great evils that you have seen and experienced at the hands of orthodox rabbi monsters i have had to rethink my position a bit.
I still think theta Torah and Talmud is a true path to enlightenment and people that teach Talmud I think are doing a good thing. However the position of rabbi as shul rabbis is a position that should be abolished. It is like the bully in the 6th grade that used to make younger kids crawl through the mud just because he could and he enjoyed watching.the next year the 7th grade kids beat the living daylights out of him. If only Jews would be as smart a bunch of thirteen year old. We see rabbis abusing others. and all we do is blog about it. It is time to send a clear message--one that they cant ignore.
I for one am tired of all their rationalizations and excuses and blaming the victims.

[anonymous]

She is an open lesbian

One cannot be Hassidic and be a Lesbian.

I can only imagine the relationship she has with her family, its one thing to be OTD, and quote another to be OTD and a Lesbian.

She can believe in God , but obviously her sexual orientation is not compatible with hassidism

[onionsoupmix]

Interesting, I guess.

But to me, regardless of her orientation, I would think that breaking with your family and everything that you have known for 23 years would be completely incompatible with still cherishing the ideas they hold to be important- Hashem, spiritual beliefs, ceremonies, etc, etc.

[twostepsfwd]

maybe being honest with yourself and your family and not living a lie that hurts your neshama and your children and everyone around you can actually renew one's sense in faith. especially if one grew up with rigid religion but no actual spirituality, as is the case of many of the people i know from hassidish and hareidi backgrounds. chani is involved in renewal judaism - very touchy feely, new agey, celebratory, spiritual, "neo-hassidism". not my spiritual path whatsoever and most people in that world (though not all) aren't halachically observant in any way, but i can see how someone would want the dancing and singing and ritual and celebration and spiritaul teaching of Hasidism but in a different environment with less judgment, less legalism, less patriarchy. i'm not defending it halachically, but i can see how it could be appealing.

All or Nothing

[shevh]

I feel like this comes up a lot. Are you angry/frustrated with JUDAISM? Or with ORTHODOXY/CHABAD? Do you not believe in God or do you not believe in the shtus of frum communities? Or is the shtus leading you to not believe in God?

You know my story but it's similar-- I got annoyed/disillusioned with a lot of Orthodoxy. Now I've found a place and way of life that is still very observant, but without the crap. And it reminds me every day/Shabbat why I love being Jewish in the first place.

Re: All or Nothing

[oneironstring]

Tell us more. I need to find a place like that. One question remains, though: what to do with my zealous husband?

Re: All or Nothing

[onionsoupmix]

To me Judaism is still synonymous with ORTHODOXY. So that's maybe why this story is so interesting to me.

[anonymous]

You need to read more information about her life, you can google her name and find out why

It will become aparant why she left the Haredi community.

She still lives an orthodox lifestyle , although I am at a loss how she gets away with it

[onionsoupmix]

http://www.forward.com/articles/113747/

Why are you weirded out?

[anonymous]

Is it the idea of actually finding someone who seems to have managed to integrate a new approach to spirituality into a post-Chassidic life

Re: Why are you weirded out?

[onionsoupmix]

You know that I think that one of the last but strongest remnants of you Chassidic Orthodoxy is this notion that it really represented the truest, most authentic form of Judaism, and that any deviation is therefore illegitimate. Are you reacting because she's challenging this final belief?

Yes and also because she is challenging it in such a peaceful serene way.

Re: Why are you weirded out?

[onionsoupmix]

She is from Jewish Renewal

Re: Why are you weirded out?

[anonymous]

That makes total sense.

I heard the founder of Jewish Renewal speak almost 20 years ago, and it was literally mind-blowing - a total paradigm shift from almost everything else I had heard in the Jewish world.

It's really hard to describe - you had to see this guy in action. He basically took the incredible spiritual energy of Hassidism (he's a former Chabad shaliach), but removed everything narrow or insular or dogmatic. Instead of endless debate and bickering between movements, there's a respect for the idea that everyone is one a spiritual path searching for G-d. I remember him talking about how people can become spiritually "blocked" on a certain path (for example, by traumatic events like the Holocaust) and then turn to other paths that aren't associated with that pain (like Eastern religions).

Did you ever manage to read The Jewish Catalog series? It basically put Jewish Renewal ideas into the Jewish mainstream in the 1970s. Find an old copy to get a better sense of it.

JRKmommy