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| Zalman Newfield, left, and Naomi Seidman (JTA) |
Why do they leave? There are probably as many answers to that question as there are people that leave.
On Sunday and Monday, New York’s YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is hosting a conference celebrating the OTD contribution to Jewish and general culture. “After Orthodoxy: Cultural Creativity and the Break with Tradition” will feature panels, performances, art and films.
The article contains an interview with Zalman Newfield and Naomi Seidman, two of the organizers of this event who themselves were observant, went OTD, and are both now academics. They have quite an interesting perspective on the OTD community as it exists and how they wish to enhance it.
I happen to know the family of one of these two individuals - both of whom were raised in a religious home and attended religious schools. The siblings of the one I know are completely observant. And yet they all had the same life experiences and the same religious education. They are all intelligent and well educated in both religious and secular studies. And to the best of my knowledge there was no traumatic experience that led that individual astray. Why did one family member leave and the others stay?
Why did one lose faith and he others fastidiously cling to it? How do the religious family members relate to OTD member? Is there respect? Is there disdain? Acceptance? Rejection? And either way, how have their lives been affected by it?
These questions have always perplexed me and they were not answered in this article. Instead it tries to categorize the different types of people that go OTD. While there is probably some truth in what Newfield calls “exiters”: the disconnected, the trapped and the hybrid…’ it fails to recognize what I believe are 3 primary groups:
Those that have left because of unsatisfactory answers to questions of faith and belief
Those that have left because of untreated childhood trauma like sexual abuse
And those who were never inspired by their teachers for a variety of reasons. Including undiagnosed and untreated learning disabilities. Thereby being off put by typical classroom instruction.
In all cases they made life easier for themselves by no longer observing the strictures of religiously forbidden activity. and yet in many cases still do not lead happy lives.
But that still leaves me with one question. How does an individual from a well adjusted family make such dramatic changes in their lives? As happened in the one case I know about here.
As a someone who believes that God gave man - – and Jews in particular - a set of rules to follow with different eternal consequences for those who do and those who don’t. I see going OTD as tragic.
Please do not misunderstand. I am not judging anyone. Nor do I have any intention to make them feel bad about themselves. Just lamenting what I believe to be their negative spiritual reality. And the near impossible task of reaching out to them without being judgmental.
Conferences like this may be beneficial to their mental health. Indeed they may also give them a sense of pride in who they have become in their new OTD identity. As well as informing people in their new environment that they have a lot to offer by dint of their observant past. All of which gives them a sense of validation they might not feel having left the environment in which they were raised.
But that makes it even more difficult to reach out to them. So as happy as I am for the improved mental health that conferences like this may provide, the increased inability to touch their souls because of it, makes me sad.