Leading a Double Life is a Bad Idea

But what about Jews that are publicly observant but no longer believe? They too are double lifers. I have long been interested in the phenomenon of people that were brought up to be observant and left the fold. (Just as I have been interested in people that were raised secular and became observant.) 

What possessed them to change their lives so radically?  And why do so many of them continue to live observant lives?

Michal Leibowitz has written a fascinating review of a book on the subject by Ayala Fader that deals with some of these questions. 

Leibowitz begins by noting the failure of a Yeshiva Rebbe in trying to prevent students from losing their faith via heretical material they may come into contact with: 

What he ended up doing is telling his students that our belief system cannot withstand the rigors of the onslaught of online heretical challengers. Calling them falsehoods without explaining why is completely ineffective. Leaving many curious minds with the feeling that they have been lied to by their religious teachers. 

Without a way to address that material the results are often tragic (if you consider going OTD tragic – which I do). losing ones faith. That leaves one of two options. Either being open about it and risk losing your family, friends and community - or staying in the closet about it. 

The way that Yeshiva Rebbe dealt with it is a function of the way the internet was been treated by the Charedi world when the issue was first tackled. Which was to try and ban it altogether. At first it was about the ease fo accessing porn. Which it certainly was and still is. But the greater danger was in accessing the intellectual arguments made by atheists and skeptics. The web is flooded with sites like that. 

As noted many times here in the past, banning online access (which is what he Charedi world attempted to do) is a bad idea that mostly has the opposite effect. A ban is almost a guarantee that young people will want to see what all the fuss is about.

It is no longer realistic (or perhaps even impossible) to avoid contact with material like that anyway ever since the advent of smartphones. A ban on smartphones was also attempted by the Charedi world. That doesn’t work any batter than banning the internet does. Smartphones are as ubiquitous in the Charedi world as black hats are. Filters are easily overridden by the curious young who are very adept at doing that. Making it very easy to find heretical answers to questions that were either never dealt with or improperly dealt with by their religious teachers.  Skeptics and atheists challenge the very notion of God’s existence - let alone the legitimacy the Jewish belief system - or any organized religious belief system. There is little if any online presence challenging those challengers.  

If we are going to do anything about it we must recognize that this is where the problem lies.  Our educators need to be educated. It is counterproductive to respond that way that Rebbe did by simply telling their students to avoid it. There needs to a concerted online effort by the Jewish educational system – across the entire spectrum of Orthodoxy to respond to the challenges raised online.

Staying observant for purposes of public consumption while not believing in Judaism anymore - and perhaps not even God is no way to live. The anxiety that generates in the double lifers  is a prescription for depression or worse. Then there  is always the fear of being discovered. Coming out of the closet may end up with losing one’s family and being shunned by the community

None of those options are any good. Which is why something needs to be done and fast. The sooner the better.

Meanwhile the problem seems to  be growing and the options for those that lose their faith are not good. as noted openly losing your faith and publicly dropping observance will come at a price that may by impossible to bear.

But faking it by becoming a double lifer comes at a price too. one that may eventually be impossible to pay.

Performing rituals that are meaningless for the purpose of public consumption may end up being detected as such.  And how does one justify sending children to a religious school if the belief is what is being taught is untrue?

And yet as Leibowitz notes there seems to be a lot of non believers in the closet doing just that. How long with they be able to live a lie until they are discovered? What will be the consequences of that?And will they be able to bear it?