stopped participating

AnonymousMay 17, 2019 at 3:53 AM

I converted to Judaism and joined a Baal Tshuva yeshiva in Jerusalem, similar to your son. I don't know what to say. It's f'd. Living at a yeshiva is an ideological pressure cooker. Most people cave in to social pressure and participate fully. Since I started out as non-Jewish, I think I had an added defense. Eventually I couldn't take the conformity anymore and stopped participating.

Of course, that was after giving 4-5 years of my life to Orthodox Judaism.

And after ostracizing myself from my family (like your son did) and all of my peers.

It is a cult, but it always has been.

You are a branch of a larger tree, and that whole thing is a cult.

The people speaking out against the entire tree are branded racists and untouchable.

Hypocracy all the way down... =\

The judgement you felt from him, others feel from the entire Jewish community.

It's a fractal.

I've spent years thinking about it, and I don't know what wisdom I've attained.

At the end of the day... today... I try to focus on my smallest circle of influence. I try not to polllute the environment. Try to minimize carbon emissions. Try to be kind.

Humans, huh? Uncertainty, vulnerability, awkwardness...

I just hope our species survives what we're doing to the Mother Earht (and Wall Street seems to be in the driver's seat).

Jewish Outreach: What Your Rabbi Isn't Telling You: Guest Post: A Concerned Jewish Mother Speaks Out About Kiruv (stopkiruvnow.blogspot.com)

Comments

Machon Shlomo: Deceptive Recruiting and Isolation

"Machon Shlomo was founded in 1982 with a small student body and a small staff, in an apartment building that stood at the entrance to a fledgling Jerusalem neighborhood called Har Nof. At the time, the community consisted of a dozen newly finished buildings perched atop a mountainside, flanked on either side by forest and miles of undeveloped land. The only road to the main city was a dirt path. It was this unassuming location, far from the bustle of the city and the distractions of tourism, that the yeshiva’s founder, ...., hand-picked as the site where motivated students could build themselves to achieve greatness." Those words are from the Machon Shlomo website. They are an attempt to glamorize what was an unhealthy situation. Har Nof is a normal community now. Back then it was a construction site. There was no bookstore, pizza shop, or falafel store. In Israel, that means it was not an actual neighborhood. We had few neighbors and had no simchas to attend, no bar mitzva...

Cult tactics in Orthodox Outreach: An Analysis of Meor

People don't join cults knowingly. They get lured via deceptive recruiting, and Meor, the Orthodox Jewish outreach group, seems to engage in fair measure of that. This alone doesn’t make Meor a cult, but it’s a start. Look at their website. Looks like Reform Judaism to me. What do you see there? Photos of groups of attractive young men and women in various modes of college style attire (tank tops, t-shirts, shorts), all mixed together, in many cases right up against each other, arm in arm. Looks like a good place to pick up a chick or to meet a guy. It starts right on the home page. It’s the first thing you see there. Then there’s the programs page: Then the campuses page: You’d think you are landing on the JDate dating website or Club Med. Here’s a photo from the Meor of Maryland website: And Meor of Boston: And the Rutgers Learning Network, aka Meor at Rutgers in New Jersey: Yet, in the Orthodox world, males and females are kept largely separate. They sit sep...

Are You In a BT Yeshiva?

Ba'al Tshuvas Anonymous: Are You In a BT Yeshiva? (offthederech.blogspot.com) WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 02, 2005 Are You In a BT Yeshiva? Mis-nagid suggested I link to this post http://serandez.blogspot.com/2005/11/creating-monster.html#c113092202931161650 . I want to respond to your sincere concern as to whether this blog will do any good, or better- more good than harm.My plan is to make something that saves a lot of potential BT's a lot of strife. To make it personal, I am glad I became a BT. It opened me to new sensitivities I am certain I would never have. It got me sooo much closer to my whole family, nuclear and others. On the other hand, the true harm came in my being cajoled and pushed into levels of observance. Why the rush? Why indeed. There are only so many kiruv rabbi's out there and a lot of prospects and not too much money. I think they want to push and get on to the next one.BT yeshivas provide the perfect solution- the rabbi's just give you cholent and ku...

Orthodox Jewish Outreach

Search This Blog