Leaving Judaism

I was raised devoutly orthodox jewish. Strictly practicing the religion of my ancestors for my childhood and early adulthood. I would diligently follow the laws, and attempt to practice to the best of my ability, after all I wanted to make god happy and be the best Jew I could be. The minutia and detail of the keepers of the law of Moses, was intense and difficult to maintain. And there were questions, and cognitive dissonance. Mounting dissonance as things did not always add up. Yet as a young adult, I plugged the holes of my faith and married and started a family. Essentially cementing myself in the community and committing to the lifestyle, I was all in.

In 2009, I started medical school and for the first time in my life, I was exposed to smart and devout non-jews; Christians, Muslims, Hindus and more. All firm believers in their God’s, laws, rules, customs, and traditions. I was taught that only my version of faith and practice was the true way, the one path, the derech. Yet here were amazing humans, leaders, givers, lovers of god, and not Orthodox Jewish. This created more cognitive dissonance. I began to research and learn about our evolutionary development and came to the conclusion that all religions are man made, all gods are human inventions.

I LOST MY FAITH

Time to share my truth. I tell my wife. She is broken hearted. Crushed. “Is our marriage over”, she asks tearfully as we walk the boardwalk looking out at the vast Atlantic Ocean. I don’t see the connection. No, we are in love, I don’t want divorce. Besides, how is that good for our family, our children?? She thought about it and decided that we need to hide my lack of faith from everyone. The new condition of our marriage, in keeping with our original commitments to self, each other, family and most of all god, we would continue to appear as observant Jews. I call this stage the closet. I was locked in the closet for 5 years. Occasionally, sneaking out and breaking the sacred laws of Judaism in deeply hidden secrecy.

I accepted my fate and learned to live with this strange new situation. On the one hand my mind felt free and able to learn about all kinds of new things. On the other hand I was out outwardly living a religion and a system that no longer suited me. I was also teaching this way of life to my children and that became a very difficult struggle. All of the lying to my children and myself lead to a very negative impact on my psyche. I became cynical and judgmental and lost a lot of love for my birth community. Thankfully, my life in the closet was only temporary and my wife started to peak inside the closet and one day moved in with me inside the closet! Now that we were a group we could work together and plan our exit out of the community. It had to be secret as we knew the family and community would put up a big fight. It’s a big blow to the community to lose three yiddishe neshamas (Jewish souls) to the “evil” public school system. Plus 5 people going OTD at once as a family could be sensational.  

On Hanukkah 2016 our children left orthodox Jewish day school for vacation but we knew it was their last time. We sat our boys down individually and told them of our changes in belief and that they will be going to public school. Naturally they enjoyed the newfound freedoms and took it well. Shortly after the outward appearances of Judaism and practices ceased and we felt free. I was free to be myself. No longer a having to lie to my children, family and friends, and even myself. Able to be free and explore the world without being shackled to a set of traditions that no longer suited me. We took off our head coverings and moved on to live outside the shtetl. We stopped keeping kosher and observing Shabbat. We were off the derech. The path.

OFF THE DERECH