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| Ex-Chasid Shulem Deen: All who go do not return |
What the return to a semblance of normalcy will look like in the near term is anybody’s guess. Equally unclear is what the world will look like even if we overcome this pandemic with effective treatments and vaccines. Businesses that once were - may not be anymore. Familiar businesses may not be able to recover and reopen. Old habits and interests might be replaced by new ones that have resulted from staying home for so long.
On that score there is hope in the news today. There has been promising results in treating COVID patients. It appears that Remdesivir, a drug used to successfully treat Ebola has shown promise in treating patients infected with the coronavirus.
There is also some encouraging news about vaccine development. Oxford university is already undergoing human testing with a vaccine they have developed. They say it may be ready for use by September.
These developments are game changers. The President’s Operation Warp Speed project is tasked with drastically reducing the time needed to develop a coronavirus vaccine. His goal is to make enough for most Americans by year’s end.
This is all good news. In the meantime, as indicated by my opening statement, life goes on. Many of the same issues that existed before the pandemic still exist now.
One of which caught my attention by way of a Facebook group to which I belong that connects observant Jews with formerly observant Jews that have gone OTD. A recent post from a non believer from the Charedi world laments the fact that he no longer believes - and is therefore stifled by being in the closet about it. Here is (a sanitized version of) how this fellow puts it:
Sometimes I am so tired of the double life; it is crushing. In those moments, I fantasize about saying, (OK), you win, I'll be frum." My life is one big lie anyway. Maybe I can forget about truth and re-insert my brain into the frum injection mold. Perhaps I'll become some tired rebbe somewhere, respinning this time in my life into an inspirational kiruv story I can use to wow 10th graders. (Trust me, I tasted a life of hefker, it is all sizzle no steak.)
My co-workers, neighbors, old chavrusos, all consider me a slightly atypical Ben Torah. I hate the act.
It is not easy raising my kids frum. I do not like it when they are bored out of their brains on a rainy shabbos, and I have to stop them from coloring. Or when I cannot let them watch the Lion King because their schools will never let goyishe movies—or being worried that they will become old enough to question why I never seem to be wearing tzitzis - forcing me to don an idiotic uncomfortable piece of clothing that I hate.
What is going to happen when they get older, and I will really need to start indoctrinating them into a belief system that I so passionately reject? The entire stability of my family depends on me maintaining my frum act.
My wife will not stay married to an open heretic. Even if she will, my living authentically will destroy her - and almost certainly confuse and hurt the kids. For numerous reasons, financial and otherwise, we are stuck raising our family in the bastion of yeshivish orthodoxy. I am trapped. Quarantine doesn't help.
There is more. But I think this suffices in showing the trauma a closet nonbeliever experiences daily living a lie in a religious world. Especially one as stringent as a Charedi one.
I have some real empathy for this fellow. Although the abusive treatment he got from his Roshei Yeshiva he later mentions might help understand what precipitated going OTD (or not) this post isn’t about that. It is about wondering how people like this cope with this particular type of daily trauma. And what can be done to alleviate his pain. (I also wonder how many closet non believers there are in the Charedi world. On that last point it is probably impossible to know since they all behave the way the rest of their community does.)
I have discussed this issue before. But every time it comes up, it makes me wonder what can be done to help such individuals. As well as their families. What advice should be given to people like?
If one is an observant Jew, it would be wrong to simply say come out of the closet; stop your outward observance and be true to yourself. Religious Jews cannot be telling people to stop being observant.
On the other hand, how can anyone even suggest living a lie and staying outwardly observant? How much value does such ‘observance’ have anyway, if it isn’t real?
Even if I were to suggest that he stop living a lie, it must be extremely difficult to stop being observant and abandon the only world you’ve ever known. And to start a new life among people you don’t know or know anything about. Making it impossibly difficult to navigate.
What is such a person to do? I have no real advice to offer. For a believer like me there is the conundrum of wanting every Jew be observant for their own spiritual welfare. But at the same living a lie is no way to live.
What would be the best course of action for closet non believers who are struggling with these issues? I honestly don’t know. But not knowing has never stopped me before from speculating. So let me give it a shot.
I guess my off the cuff non professional advice would be to say the following. ‘Don’t rock the boat.’ As difficult as it is to live a lie at least it is a lie that you are used to living. By continuing along these lines you will be able to maintain your friends, your family and a lifestyle that you are used to. To leave all of that behind, and enter the world of the unknown has to be one of the most traumatic things I can imagine anyone doing.
Losing one’s wife and children (which often happens in cases like this) is a pretty hard thing to overcome emotionally. The disapproval of your parents, siblings, and friends isn’t easy to bear either. Even if living your life more honestly is a more personally satisfying way to live, it will still be a massive change to go from an observant lifestyle to one of complete non observance.
Change is hard under any circumstances. Especially one of this magnitude.
This is obviously not an easy choice. But once you decide to leave, coming back is almost impossible. Making any possible future regrets futile.
Just some of my random thoughts as I sit in my home waiting to be freed from my own closet of self isolation.