Post high school there was no other option for me but to attend a beis medrash yeshiva in Israel. My friends had known for years where they wanted to go. For me, as graduation approached and people asked where I was going, I always answered "I'm still deciding" but in reality I would not allow myself to think about it. Sure, I met with the Roshei Yeshiva who came to town. They tried to convince me, I mumbled a non commitment and repressed processing their information.
Eventually a series of events occurred. These events had a major impact on my life that is still evident today. A week before graduation a Rosh Yeshiva came to town announcing the opening of his new yeshiva; it was to be deliberately small, with a large ration if rebbeim to students. There was to be almost no pressure in the first year and if anyone chose to stay for a second year then there would be more rules. This yeshiva was the first one to appeal to me, for completely the wrong reasons - "no pressure" was all I could hear. I made up my mind and focused on graduating and everything that went along with that.
Just after graduating my family, for the first time, held a large family reunion, it had never been done before and hasn't happened since. At the reunion every relative naturally asked me what my plans were. I was happy to let everyone know that I had plans! I'm not sure exactly what transpired but I know that one relative "warned" my parents about the yeshiva, especially as it had not yet opened. The relative had dealt with the rosh yeshiva before and they disliked each other. I was told this after the event, but still decided that i had made the right decision.
Two weeks later parts of the family gathered together again, at the funeral of the relative who had issued the dire warning about the yeshiva. Many times over the shiva week I was reminded of the relatives warning, how could I even consider going to that yeshva?! It was now a few weeks away from zman starting and one thing was for sure, I was not going to be going to the yeshiva I had chosen.
The next couple of weeks went by quickly. It just so happened that another relative knew of a rosh yeshiva of one of the most prestigious yeshivas who would be visiting for a simcha. I received an hours warning to be whisked to a stranger's dining room, with my parrents sitting next to me, being interviewed by the "rosh yeshiva". The questions asked? Yichus, contacts, protetzkia and how my father earned his living. Oh, and I was asked a random question about gemara that I stammered through.
A day later my father received the call that I was incredibly lucky to be offered a place. The nachas this gave my parents! Of all my family I was the only child to be able to get into such a marvelous yeshiva. The news was broadcast throughout our neighborhood. And I felt like utter crap.
The feeling didn't pass.
I know that this blog talk about my lack of, or search for, faith but in many situations I close my eyes and pray to g-d. It's usually a conversation that goes "Look, I know I don't do anything at all for you, I don't daven but at the same time I rarely ask anything of you. If it really is true that I really am special to you and your chosen child, please please please can x, y or z happen." Sounds ridiculous and childish but believe it or not I still recite a similar prayer these days. In fact, on Friday I was stuck in crazy traffic and recited the prayer to get home in time for shabbos. While sitting in the traffic I had time to reflect on how insane my prayer was in light of this blog, in light of the fact that I struggle to believe in Him, in prayer, or in Shabbos! (this weird cycle I am caught in!)
Anyway, I recited a similar such prayer on the long plane journey to Israel. I prayed for the plane to crash, or at least for me to have some freakish heart attack and not make it to Israel. I sound like a drama queen when I write that, but I prayed my heart out. And when we landed safely at Ben Gurion, I knew that if He did exist, He hated me, and that my upcoming year was my punishment. And boy was I right.
Fast forward a few weeks and I was unable to leave my bed, day or night, except to use the bathroom, occasionally, and eat, even less occasionally. I stopped communicating with people. It's interesting to me now as I reflect on this period (which I have since discovered, through my personal therapy, was a nervous breakdown and severe depression) that although in my entire life I haven;t gone a day without talking or interacting with someone (I have never taken myself away to a hotel and locked myself away for days on end just to be alone for example), these few months of depression were a period of my life where I was coasting through, and it didn't matter to me each day if I woke up or not. I wasn't suicidal, I didn't plan my death; i just had no wish or desire to be alive.
And I had concrete proof that a) either there was no g-d , or b) He certainly did exist but I was not in the inner circle and He did in fact hate me. Neither of these was a comfortable position for me to take.
When my parents saw me a few months later, emaciated, depressed and miserable they kindly agreed for me to leave that yeshiva and attend my first choice yeshiva. I could say now "if only I had that chance in the first place", but as I've said, my choosing that yeshiva was about how little I had to do. Therefore, my time in Israel was nothing more than a waste of time. And the clearest indication to me that I did not fit in to the frum world where Torah learning went hand in hand with mitzvah observance which led to emunah.
It was when I returned from Israel that I had the conversation with myself about keeping up the appearances of being frum but in my heart I had the knowledge that I am the outsider.
I have read on other blogs of other people's struggles with being outwardly frum but in themselves feeling nothing and that is comforting.
For me, I have a (very) basic faith and belief in h-shem. That belief leads me to writing His name with a dash, of saying bli ayin hora when I speak (i say it a lot!) and lots of other archaic things that I absolutely don't believe in.
I have been living this way so long anything else - treif food, mechalel shabbos etc. -is too alien to me.
Am I living this life out of convenience or due to some kind of faith?
15 comments:
I have been a strong believer for a very long time, that education (or lack of it, aka a bad educational experience) can ruin someone for life. Not necessarily in their entire personal of professional life, but in some aspect of it. When are we going to learn that teaching young children/adults is a tremendous responsibility. The big issue we have in the 'frum' world, is that we have a large percentage of teachers who are working in the profession for the job, and NOT because they want to be a teacher. That rubs off on children, and came have detrimental effects for generations to come. We need to go back to basics, where the teachers are committed to the cause, embedding love of Hashem, the Torah & Mitzvos into their charges.
Anon - I really don't think that can be the case with me though. What, EVERY teacher I had EVER was so bad?
I believe it can be just one teacher who can trigger this. Then again, this is just my opinion, and I'd love to hear what others think.
Anon - I'd also love to hear from others about this. I know that I always think fondly of the teacher who introduced me to literature. He truly opened me up to secular subjects, mentored me through quite a few years of study. I recently tried to look him up and discovered he had died and I was devestated. needless to say, none of my rebbe;s had that afect on me (in fact I'd be quite happy to hear that one or two had passed on)
I think we have to learn that every person has specific talents.
And yes, there are girls who are very talented for learning, but are not allowed to do it.
And inversely, there are boys who have other strengths than learning, and still are forced to do it, no matter what.
It is as if you wanted every member of your community to be a Mozart. Of course, if you invest a lot in music education, eventually you will reap the fruits and have good orchestras, good composers, good directors. But it would be needless torture to force every tone-deaf person into music.
That's really easy to understand, no?
salzburg - I wanted every member to be Mozart?? Surely not! I have no interest in the "music" but in order to be part of the society I have to pretend to be.
salzburg - your point is well taken. I agree with everything you say. The "frum" view, though, is that any boy can be a great learner, and if he's not it's because he has some personal character flaw. And if a girl wants to learn, the "frum" view is that she is denying her feminine nature and has been corrupted by outside society. So however cogent your point, you will make no headway arguing it in "frum" society.
tesyaa - you have captured the essence of my life perfectly. There is a flaw in those of us who can't learn. It doesn't help when we're told that the way to correct the flaw is to learn harder!
But tesyaa do you understand the flip side of someone like me not wanting to have gone to a different school instead?
LSF - Having kids who don't fit the mold, I am being extra cautious in making their schooling decisions. Even if that means public school. Choosing public school may be the cautious, careful path for my kids.
lonely frum: I was not referring to you, I was drawing a parallel. What the frum society does with boys resembles a society that would insist that every member becomes a musical genius.
Spending large amounts of money in musical education (as the frum world does for learning torah) would raise the overall level in music, but would make some victims: the tone-deaf members of the society...
I have the impression that you are going to exactely the same ordeal: you happen not to be gifted for the one skill your society demands and this ruins your life and makes you feel an outcast.
I feel that your society has no more right to insist that you become a proficient torah learner than any society has the right to train everybody to be a musician...
Even tough music is beautiful and torah too...
tesyaa - I think it is great that you have been able to provide that for your children who needed it. I'm still debating with myself if that would have been what I wanted. And the more I think of it the answer is no. I was already enough of a freak (in my own mind) by not being able to learn, to leave the yeshiva system would have been the ultimate humiliation..
Am I safe in assuming that you are raising your kids in a modern ortho environment (like I am now but not like how I was raised)
salzburg - I get it now. In essence for someone like me to feel comfortable in the yeshiva system there needs to be a complete overhaul at the way yeshivas look at how they are educating the kids. It can be pretty obvious early on which kids are switched on and which are not and classes coud be built around that.
But that will never happen as we would just get the class of "true" jews and the class of rejects!
But if the yeshivas and 'frum' schools employed professional teachers, along with appropriate professional support staff, they would be able to understand each child's individual gifts, and get them to grow in their special way. Even if they are all grouped into the same class. Instead they try to force a square into a round hole.
LFS, I never got back to your questions. Yes, our lifestyle is modern Orthodox, but our community has become pretty right wing. I take care of myself and my family and I don't worry much about what other people think.
In terms of your own schooling - the way you were raised probably left very little room for deviation when it came to schooling. Yes, you might have been even more of an outsider had you gone to public school or an MO yeshiva. Personally, we tell our kids that we choose the school that's best for their own individual needs at the present time. I think a kid who feels good about himself in school will feel good about himself in general, for the most part.
"But that will never happen as we would just get the class of "true" jews and the class of rejects!"
Well, I don't know...
I am from Yekke-Land and traditional Yekkes used to be very frum (devout), but no great talmidei chachamim.
In a similar way, I do not think that the Stedtl-population in eastern Europe was composed of Talmidey Chachamim only.
As far as I understand, back then, very few chosen people had the opportunity to learn and delve into gemara, all others learned a trade from about Bar mitzwah age on.
So I think, anyway, this problem of being "switched off" and still getting forced through huge amounts of learning is quite a new one.
On the one hand, it is great that people are ready to invest so much, to do so many sacrifices for learning. It certainly was necessary to build up after the shoah and in view of assimilation.
But I feel that we are getting into a situation where every "tone-deaf" person is forced to go to music academy and become a professional musician. In my view, this is a waste of ressources (you know, the cooking talents and language talents and sports talents and creative talents that slumber within all those tone-deaf persons and also within general population).
Perhaps the problem has not yet become too obvious, because chareidi judaism is a small fringe within judaism which is itself a small fringe of general population. So perhaps you might have 10-20% of Judaism devoted entirely to learning (or to music, for that matter). But imagine a land composed only of musicians: no bricklayers, no architects, no road buildres, no gardeners, no cooks no retail sellers, no mechanical engineers, no bakers: it would not be viable, although music certainly is very beautiful, although they certainly would achieve a tremendous level in music.
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