The Hopelessness Of “Frumkeit”

What’s left to say that hasn’t been said?

Another person leaving frumkeit. Who cares? It’s just another story.

But wait, I could say. My story is different! I’m a baal teshuva. I’m not leaving the religion, just the community.

But even I don’t want to read that story anymore. We’ve heard it in so many ways from so many people.

I care because, I guess, the stories weren’t really true to me until they were my own.

So many of my stories are like that, and it gives me no joy to realize that. To realize that the only reason I ever started caring about politics was when I understood authoritarianism was coming to the United States, and thus felt personally threatened by it.

It took that to make me start to care about racism and to dig further into my own biases. Until then, I had been the guy who thought he was above politics, who referred to things he thought were “divisive” as a both-sides issue, one that required that we reach into some high spiritual place to overcome.

Of course, I had very few actual ideas for how this would happen, and it conflicted with the whole reason I became religious in the first place: the belief that religion is not a tool to escape into the clouds but to do good work down here, with the power of the clouds raining down upon us.

So, I was naive. I think that’s probably the word for it. Sheltered from the consequences of my opinions. Useful to the people who wanted writers to express this for them. Arrogant for thinking I had an answer to things that leaders like Martin Luther King and the million other political activists who actually have made change had.

I think this is sadly normal, and if anything, I am grateful that being a writer has put me in a position where I had to face these preconceptions more honestly and more openly than others. It’s one thing to meditate on such things, it’s another to have to put your writing into the world and let people tear it apart as you watch.

It took me a while, but I slowly started to see that some of those people tearing me apart were correct. Sometimes, the angriest ones were the most correct (a preconception that itself had to be shattered, as I was also a “civility is more important than anything” person).

All of these revelations, I think, are applicable to where I am today with frumkeit. I didn’t care about the million stories because the million stories weren’t mine. But now they are. And now I care.

Like my past ignorance about politics, my own issues with the frum world only mattered to me when they affected me. And, in so many ways, the reasons I didn’t listen to those who spoke up about them before I was smacked over the head with the issues they brought up were the same reasons I ignored politics: I was naive, and new to the communal dynamics, excited about the new home I had found. I was sheltered by my time in a yeshiva in which I was introduced to the passion but protected from communal dynamics. I was arrogant for thinking that someone with no time in a community could somehow speak for it, and that the many people who grew up in it and warned about its issues were just angry and bitter.

Well, today I am angry and bitter. Or… I’m working through my anger and bitterness. That’s just what happens when you see the issues up close. Things like the way abusers are propped up, racism is rampant, and critics treated like enemies.

(Generally, I like to link to stories that back up these accusations. I’m not doing that this time because I’m convinced that the people who know these issues exist don’t need links, and those who are blind to them have either stopped reading or can’t be convinced with a few links).

Today, I am friends with many of the same people who were angry at me for my days of standing up for the frum world. I have watched them get pushed further out of any mainstream discussion around the issues in their former communities. I have seen others silenced. I have seen very few, if any, survive within their communities, and only then if they learn to quiet themselves; to behave.

I am not good at behaving. Which would probably explain why I have decided, finally, to leave.

But I am realizing now, as I leave, that the leaving is secondary.

What bothers me, and what deep down in my soul I know connects to the essence of the real problems we face, is that it took me being affected personally to care.

It makes me realize that it takes a special person to be able to see past themselves. To be able to see a problem that is not yours and to then own it completely, and to see your own place in it… that’s not something many people do unless they’re forced to.

There are, unfortunately, very few people who face up to the deep societal issues that they are part of, that they contribute to. Many people don’t think they’re racist: many of those same people won’t actively work to think how they may be holding up racism in their day to day lives, or how they should be working actively to remove racism from society. That’s because it doesn’t affect them.

Same with frum society: almost all frum people are good people, just like almost all people are good people. That doesn’t change the fact that the communities, especially the far right Haredi communities, spit out a shocking amount of nonconformists, queer people, atheists, activists, whistleblowers, abuse victims, gett-denied women, and people of color. And those that aren’t spit out are shut down and quieted. And all that also doesn’t change the fact that the people within these communities will not do much to stand up against it even if they recognize how systemic and deep these issues are. And even that realization is rare.

So what are we left with? A world in which countless people suffer, be they in a white-supremacy-in-denial society or a cult-in-denial society, and where the vast majority who speak up and take a stand are those who are personally affected by those issues.

It is no wonder, then, that activists have chosen nonviolent (and violent) resistance as a course of action: the theory is that the only way to wake sheltered people up to injustice is to make it impossible for them to ignore it. In other words, systemic racism does affect people who have to deal with protests, societal unrest, statue desecration, and more. They may react negatively, but at least they are finally affected by something that affects some people every day for their entire lives.

The problem with that approach in the frum world, however, is that it has the ability to deport its troublemakers at a much faster clip than a country like the United States. Cause too much disruption, as protestors do, and you’ll simply be labeled an outside agitator and ostracized. Or you’ll be embraced with the caveat that you must learn to behave yourself. Or you’ll learn to moderate your stance, to be careful with who and how you speak. Or you’ll shut up.

And, inversely, its creative outside-the-box thinkers have a far easier time emigrating from their society. If you don’t accept any of the above options, you’ll choose to leave of your own accord. And most simply choose that, whether they try the above options or not.

Either way, the point is that when you engage in trying to change the frum community, you are almost by definition helping to prop it up. You, ultimately, have to cede control to those in power. There will be no frum revolution from within because those from within who want change either leave or learn to behave. There is no hope from within.

So, I’m leaving. Not Judaism. Frumkeit. There is no hope in frumkeit, just dashed dreams and imaginary solutions.

And maybe just as important: there can be no hope in frumkeit partly because frumkeit itself is an illusion. I am still an orthodox Jew. I still believe in and practice halacha. I daven, I study Torah. And in that way, I am no different than the many people who have left frumkeit: we are not leaving Torah or Hashem or mitzvahs. Rather, we are leaving the illusion that all those things don’t mean anything unless you adhere to and take part in a culture that has claimed itself as the only true avenue towards true Jewish identity. What an absolute lie, and the fact that it is so strictly adhered to, so carefully policed, shows just how illusory it is.

In fact, it would seem that to be part of frum culture, one must consciously or subconsciously accept that adherence to the culture matters above all. Is abuse endemic in your society? Doesn’t matter: your job is to defend the society. Are people dying inside because they can’t express their true selves or tap into their inner uniqueness? Doesn’t matter: your job is to fit in, because the society is more important than you being the best Jew you can be. Are you miserable, alone, tired? Doesn’t matter: your job is to find out how to manage that from within, because staying is an act of holiness, even though there is no mitzvah to stay in a community.

So, we are leaving. Not just me, but the many others, as I have mentioned. We are realizing the illusion, and choosing to tap into a deeper reality.

In a way, I think that is the hope. We can’t change from within. But we can create alternatives. We can build up the places already creating alternatives. We can bring the parts of frumkeit that are beautiful and holy into existing institutions that are dying for them. We can create exit points for those who have come to the same conclusion.

In the end, it may only be an exodus that will change things. If they can’t change, fine. We will leave. And we will build better things.

We can’t vote in that society. But we can vote with our feet. There is no mitzvah to stay frum. And considering the many sins one has to accept in order to stick with it, it may be a sin to stay.

So we can stay Jewish while leaving frumkeit. And if enough of us do, maybe something will finally change.