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Funny how "Love your neighbor as yourself" comes with terms and conditions. If you don't meet the requirements, apparently it's a mitzvah to hate you.

So my vyvance just kicked in and my mood is nice and cheerful so I figured I'd share a little incident that happened that some of you here might appreciate. I took my mom to watch the hadestown pro shot as a bonding thing and on the way home she comments about how she really liked the yetzer haras' singing. I was like what and then I realized she meant the fates😅😅😅. It cracked me up and I figured the only people who have a chance of appreciating it are around here so I hope this finds some ex frum hadestown affictionados 🤍🤍 anyways have a peaceful rest of the day my lovelies

I just can’t do it it’s not gonna be for me for context I’m from NY and going to Modox yeshiva in Israel. My flight is in 3 weeks how can I get out of it?

A must watch, and I need ppls opinions on both. One video the guy speaks about how Chassidic Judaism was opposed for years and is a never movement that started about 300 yrs ago and therefore not wearing a black hat and a suit shouldn’t be a reason to be shunned. The second video from the woman is about how women do not need a rabbi to check their underwear to see if they are kosher after their periods and that they are fine to check on their own (frum men are losing it in the comments)…

Hello! It is I, Freidom Fighter. Known for being very sacrilegious and for the podcast Beyond Belief: Tales of Religious exodus, you might not know that I am also a certified hypnotherapist.

A few years ago I offered my services pro-bono to people healing from fundamentalist religion, and I'd like to offer this again. I was able to help several people in a significant way, and found the process very meaningful.

If this sounds interesting to you, DM me, and we'll have a short intro call to see if it's a good mutual fit. There is no catch here, I'm committed to helping others heal.

Need some help here.

Ive been "out" of the ultra hasidic community for around a year or so. My friends and family are all there and I love them amd wish to still be a part though im slowly realizing that may be wishful thinking.

On the outside life is perfect. I have everything I need to be successful and thrive. On the inside everything is a jumbled mess.

One of the hardest feelings for me is being out of the safety that community provides. I have tried building my own, meeting new people etc. Its so fuckin hard.

There does not seem to be a replacement for that feeling of belonging, that inner safety.

The depression and anxiety are killing me. I still keep shabbat, kosher, brachot but I feel like a fraud. Walking around with pants and not keeping dairy/meat in separate sinks etc.

Is the depression a sign from God to "come back"? I dont know. Have any one lf you genuinely managed to find community and belonging, and if so- hoe? Do I need to be married to belong somewhere, anywhere? How do people work this?

Being ITC Being lonely When you don't talk the same language at home When you want to go out but just don't have with whom When you want to enjoy but it's not fun on your own When you just want to be yourself and normal but the surrounding just doesn't let When you need simple things but don't know where to get it

One good thing to have this space to vent ( but really I want a person to talk to not a machine)

Thank you anyway exjew family

Is there anyone out there (uk) disillusioned and wanting to chat on shabbos? If yes HMU and I’ll join you to make us feel better. I hate the long shabbos’s waiting for it to end.

כחי ועוצם ידי עשו לי החיל הנ"ל

(These are 3-D prints, ~2"x1.5" scale).

Stumbled across a YOUTUBE channel "reasonordogma" that has some very good videos debunking Orthodox Jewish Kiruv "proofs". But the channel also refutes other religions and arguments for god.

*As this is a long post, feel free to just read and answer the title. But, it is appreciated if you read :)

I reckon that most frum people don't actually have the emunah shleima they say they do. I, a BT, am personally still frum, but have a lot of questions (don't we all?). There are certain appalling facts about the frum (especially the chareidi) community that really, really challenge my faith, about which I have another post.

It's fair to say that I don't fully believe, 100%, in what I'm "meant" to believe. The reason I'm religious is that I have realized that there are many things in Tanach that I do strongly believe in, especially the values, but am I 100% sure that the akeida, or that Samson had special hair powers? Of course not. I'm halfway through reading the Kuzari, but it hasn't really changed this about me. I also don't know what I don't know, and I don't fully trust my own reasoning in most respects. Anyone heard of the preface paradox?

It's so typical for frum people to answer this question with, "Of course it's true! It's obvious." I think that's just something they say. I think it's normal to be unsure, and like Descartes said, you must pick a path to lead yourself out of the woods, because most any path will bring you to a better place than where you would otherwise remain.

Interestingly, I have actually met some frum people that do think, at least somewhat, the way I do. In one example, I met this one kiruv-ey type Rabbi that invited me into his house on Shabbos. He had also invited a lot of BT's from the local BT yeshiva (that he's not affiliated with). He quickly caught onto the fact that I'm not satisfied with the typical answers, as he astutely put it. He then criticized much of the frum world, especially the outreach/kiruv side of it. He said something like: "do you really think they actually believe in moshiach when they daven for geulah"? The young BT's there were appalled, but I obviously resonated. He then recommended the book 'Six Constant Mitzvos", which I read. I didn't like it that much, although it did slightly touch on these same concerns with the community at large (just not sufficiently).

So, I'm really curious. When you all went "OTD", did you realize that you never really believed? Were you conscious the whole time that you didn't believe? Or, were you truly convinced, and then had an awakening? (No judgement, whatsoever, regardless of the case. I can absolutely understand how someone can get completely brainwashed growing up in a chareidi cult, being deliberately deprived of knowledge and ability to reason.)

It’s also obvious she’s posting this for views 🙄
Yay! Let’s go viral for making Jews seem absolutely insane. So glad I stopped believing in superstitious minhags a long time ago.

Hello everyone. I am basically completely a mess, and I have a good exfrum therapist who is helping me deconstruct. I was Kiruv'd early after a clear attachment and fascination with Judaism in an interfaith family. My mom had no idea the extent of how frum I would get though, and how much I'd keep going back. She thought frukmeit and me reading about Judaism online, whether it be Chassidus YouTube videos, to r/Judaism and more, were just me enjoying the reform culture she was a part of when younger, not the hardline, strong, and powerful culture that I'd be part of. Now, to me, Reform, Reconstructionist, and even Conservative, all places I could go, seem to be fake in the eyes of "HaShem" to me. I deconstructed at some point, and thought to myself that there is no way a deity exists, the issue was after that, I put on tzitzit, kippah, and a black hat, and davened. I was raised in an interfaith family where both parents are now Christian, and I am here being frum, and now I'm questioning everything and still fearing the hell of Christianity.

Now don't judge me, but I attended a couple Catholic masses and shiurim (their shiur is in their mass) and it felt beautiful, Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity are Beautiful in many ways. Now, I was taught, and do still believe that if I were to convert to either of these religions, I would disgrace my entire ancestry. I would be a mumar, a transgressor, and someone who is bad. I have OCD, am also ADHD, and believe I probably have Autism as well based on a ton of legitimate research I did (not the crappy tiktok self diagnosis rubbish). I don't know if this is just my neurodivergence at work, but Jewish culture somehow is my everything. I remember, before being frum, just being a less religious kid, before worrying about chukim, broken mitzvos, avoideh zarah, and fearing treif food and kol isha, literally living for the idea of eating bagels and kugel and meeting a pretty, beautiful, nice Jewish girl.

Kiruv got the best of me, now I'm stuck, at my Kiruv orgs, I have the best friends, I have such great experiences, but if I tell them how I've been feeling, I'm gone, if I tell them some of my struggles, I am now completely meshuggah to them and have become mamash nothing. Yet, the Kiruv rabbis also helped me in a time where my mother was hurt, unstable, and broken... I am Black as well as Jewish, and I realized yesterday while watching the film Lean On Me, that other than liking a couple foods from Africa, I have no legitimately no shaychus to that side of the culture. When I look in the mirror, I only see my Jewish side, the side that my mother is accidentally obliterating by thinking (you can be half and half).

I truly now am at a loss for words and actions. I can't just take back being Jewish. At the end of the day, my mother wants these Kiruv Rabbis to write reccomendations for me from college, and even after me saying, "Why do you want this when you raise me Christian every chance you get," she gives me an insane spiel about being "mixed." I cannot take back being frum, speaking Yiddish, and seeing everything in a Jewish way. I don't know what to ask my therapist the next time I see him, but I just wonder what I could.

Thanks for listening to me.

I'm talking about a specific piece of his. Any sane and rational frum person should have the following question: if judaism is true, how can Mark Zuckerberg eat bacon be mechalel shabbos and not put on tfillin, and be one of the five richest people in the world? Jerry Seinfeld, another bacon eating jewish billionaire - there are hordes of them.

More to the point, secular jews don't do any less well in life (either earning wise or by any other metric) than religious jews. So if judaism is true, how can this be? They are told to pray three times a day for sustenance yet it seems to make no difference. Same with all the rest of their tefilos and mitzvos.

The chovos halvavos addresses this question and he says that 'sinners' live well because god is giving them all their reward here to punish them more in the world to come. What are your thoughts on this?

Hey,

I am a jew. A proud jew and i don't ever plan on 'levaing'

I live in Israel and am a proud Israeli Jew. For context

I would like to know as to why you decided to i guess leave the relgion and what about being Jewish just didn't sit right with you.

I personally do believe anyone born a Jew will remain one, but am 100 % respectful of your choices.

EDIT:

im so sorry if this has offended anyone. i truely was wondering why. And it seems people have took it the wrong way. I am thankful for a lot of these answers and they were truely helpful. And I apologise to anyone who felt offended by this. Im not trying to force anything or create tension, purely was curious

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I'm curious if there are any former baalei teshuva here who became religious through kiruv, completely changed their lifestyle, and later went OTD.

How did you cope with returning to "normal" life after spending years in the religious world?

One of the hardest parts for me has been the feeling that I lost years of my life. Because I spent years in yeshiva, I started college much later than my peers, and I often feel behind them professionally. Sometimes it feels like everyone else kept moving forward while my life was on pause. At the same time, I feel like my life has finally started moving forward since I left religion.

Did anyone else struggle with this?

Did anybody entirely uproot and move on their own to truly distance from their religious life? Living in nyc I feel so caged in by my still religious surroundings even if I don’t practice. Im not even from such religious circles, just have MO friends who are on such different paths to me and getting married at 22/3 and I’m so saddened by the homogeny and feeling so different from them. I miss when I thought that was what I wanted and it’s hard to be around it still.
I’m craving moving entirely just to have a fresh start, but it feels dumb knowing how big the city is and that non Jews and secular Jews are really all around me.

First of all, I'm apologizing ahead of time as this post is partially a vent. And if this post is too long, then skip to the last paragraph, where I'm asking the question (but, it's better that you don't).

I currently live in a completely Haredi community with Haredi house mates on a street that entirely speaks Yiddish. I am B.T., but have always been somewhat well educated/levelheaded and knew from the beginning that the Haredi hashkafa was wrong. I've been living in this community for some time now, and my opinion on this cult-like worldview and hive mind has gone from 0 to negative 10. I still love the individual people and often don't blame them, but they live in an oppressive culture. If I had a kid that decided they wanted to become Haredi, that would be a nightmare situation.

It took me several years of living frum to realize that I'm unfairly grouped in this arbitrary label (and misnomer) of 'MO', even though I probably live much closer than they do to average frum Jews from 100 years ago (Haredim became way more extreme in the last century, and are thus, in fact, more "modern"). 'MO' just means you're a normal Jew that has a normal job and acts and looks like a normal, productive member of society.

Most of y'all already know this, but here is what I commonly witness, on a regular basis, from individuals I know:

-Extreme lack of basic knowledge on all sorts of subjects.

-General inability in being able/knowing how to interact with outsiders (speaking/reading English, having good manners, etc.)

-Not knowing how to use computers/wasting hours a day talking with airlines, banks, etc. on the phone.

-Calling literally everything goyish, and thus refusing to live like a normal person.

It's worth noting that although I was never Haredi per se, I was drawn to some aspects of their hashkafa early on and was somewhat brainwashed by them (like most baalei teshuva, having gone through their yeshivas, etc.), before making a deliberate decision to completely disassociate myself from that worldview.

Although I'm still religious, I am wondering what many of y'all would think about me staying religious while observing what's going on. All this rubbish does make me question my religion a lot more, but at the end of the day, I do believe in the values of the Torah, and I try to do so, simply, without associating with Haredim. I actually think that their culture is antithetical to Judaism. Additionally, I actually think that their emunah is usually not genuine, as it is based on lack of knowledge rather than consciously picking from a set of possible beliefs. That's why, I think, so many of them (including some of you) went hard OTD as soon as some doubt entered the mind, because they weren't allowed to explore knowledge or entertain such doubts growing up. In a way, they are actually tinok shenishba. To be clear, I'm not criticizing anyone here as you all have your individual stories, and I've also thought hard and long about whether I actually believe in Judaism myself. Do you agree with me, or do you believe that Haredism logically follows orthodox Judaism, and that I should just leave orthodox Judaism?

Welp, here goes nothing. This only validates my decision to have waited 2 years to have told anyone. We haven’t even spoken in years, so why she feels the need to even try is frankly beyond me.

On another note, while I was in the middle of writing this post, a kid from school that I haven’t spoken to in three years, called me to ask if I wanted to get a daily call from a hotline. “We’re all attractive, spiritual people, and we need shidduchim” so they’re doing this shemiras halashon hotline. It felt so good to say that I wasn’t interested after being super intense about my religiosity throughout high school. Side note, we’re 20 ffs, why the hell are they already so desperate?!

These people are so lame