Getting Over the Joy of Believing?

A reader writes:

For about three years I was in the baal teshuva world, spending about two of those years in yeshiva. I came to be religious because of "spiritual" experiences, which may have been prompted by unmet emotional needs. When I was in yeshiva, I was told that you could rationally demonstrate (not "prove", sort of) that Judaism is true (and so, I reasoned, that there is a God). After working hard on these pseudoproofs for a while, I became convinced of one. I then believed very strongly that God exists, that He loves me, and that the religion was true.

For some time (days, a week?) after arriving at this conclusion, I felt incredible. More in love than I ever felt about a girl. When they say you should have a passionate love for HaShem, that's what I had. I couldn't sleep - I woke up ecstatic - overjoyed that there's a good, caring God who is looking out for me, helping, etc. One thing I always wanted from a woman was flowers. I've given lots of people flowers, but no one has ever given me flowers. I guess that's just how it is in society. But when I felt this way, I walked the streets and viscerally saw all the flowers as being from HaShem. Not in an intellectual way - it was as emotionally real and believed as if it was from another person. Trees upon trees full of beautiful flowers. I also really love singing. And in this state, I could sing more deeply and passionately, moving the people around me to tears, than I ever have.

About a year after this experience, I left yeshiva and the religious world. I'm still not exactly sure how it happened. I think I realized that I'd come to the religion for emotional reasons, but it really wasn't going to help me with them (in many ways it made my problems worse). That peak experience seemed to be the extent of the love, safety, and acceptance that I was going to get. My doubts about the truth of the religion - scientific issues, immoral behavior of the rabbis, and the whole thing just looking as fake as any other religion, came together. Intellectually it's pretty clear to me now that Judaism is made up and that there is no God.

But I find it hard to let go... at least partly because of the experience that I had of feeling so in love and loved. Even if it was fake, I can't see how I could ever feel that way again. A woman would have to fill a football stadium full of flowers to top that experience. "Maybe one flower from someone real who loves you would be better than a million fake ones," you might say. But I believed that it was real when it happened, so the enormous love felt completely real then. How can I go on in life knowing that I'll never feel that way again? Has anyone else experienced this? How have you moved on?

I never really felt that way to begin with, perhaps because I was born and raised frum. I know that I admired and was drawn to various BTs I knew because I sensed that joy in them, but I never really felt it myself.

I'm not sure what advice I can offer except that I suspect such feelings are always temporary, like the infatuation period early in a human relationship. You don't need to be infatuated with (the idea of) God any more than you have to be infatuated with a human being to be happy. Maybe you can love the universe like you can love a human being after the honeymoon period wears off.

I think most people need to go through some kind of grieving process after they leave religion. Some miss the perceived connection with God, some miss the community, some miss the rituals, and some miss the sense of purpose, but we all have something to grieve.

I suggest psychotherapy for anybody leaving Orthodoxy. It's a traumatic experience even if it's the right decision for you. This is doubly true if you have other emotional/psychological issues.

A Question I'd Like to Hear Orthodox Bloggers Discuss

Your son, a sweet, well-behaved boy, comes to you at age 16 and tells you he does not believe in Orthodox Judaism. He says that while of course he will not violate the laws of shabbat or kashrut in your home, he no longer wants to attend religious schools or participate in davening. He'd like to attend a secular school and start hanging out with non-religious and non-Jewish teens. He doesn't want to wear a kippah any more, either. You can tell that he is speaking from a place of integrity and genuine soul-searching, and you can also tell that his mind is made up.

Do you force him to stick it out in the Orthodox school? Coerce him into continuing to daven as long as he's living in your house? Make him promise to keep kosher and shabbos even outside the house? Forbid him from taking his kippah off at least while any of your friends, family, or neighbors might see? Or do you accept his wishes and support his choices, much as they pain you?

I've never seen an honest discussion about what to do when your kids go off the derech other than discussions about how to get them to stay or utter denial that it's even possible in your family.

It would be great if this became a meme that went through the Orthodox blogging community. I'll start by tagging Ezzie, Chana, DovBear, Orthoprax, and BrooklynWolf. Please tag some others in your replies.

Jewish Philosopher: Don't bother. We know you'd chain your kid to the radiator and try to beat the devil out of him.

Former Orthodox Jew Tries Bacon For The First Time

I'd seen this video before, but never gotten around to posting it. Thanks to an email correspondent known as Baruch Spinoza for bringing it back to my attention.



What a great story. And so typical of Jewish guilt that a grown man with a wife and family still feels compelled to ask Jilette not to use his name so as not to upset his parents. Orthodox parents are either the most fragile people in the world or they've evolved an incredibly manipulative defense mechanism against their kids' leaving Orthodoxy. My money's on the latter.

I wish I had a great story about my first time eating non-kosher. But this is how it was for me:

Sometime in high school, I started eating vegetarian food that wasn't made under the supervision of a rabbi (and was indeed likely "contaminated" by non-kosher utensils and the proximity to non-kosher food.)

I started with salads and graduated to french fries and desserts. Nothing too exciting except for some delicious ice cream brownie sundaes and the ability to frequent and eat at some cool places.

The first time I ever ate non-kosher cheese, I got sick. I was in college, and I went to the Hard Rock Cafe on a second or third date with a conservadox girl. We shared a white pizza, which was delicious. Later that evening, I threw up, a clear sign of either psychosomatic illness, coincidence, or divine retribution.

Either way, non-kosher cheese became a part of my diet with no further issues. Non-kosher pizza became my go-to food when kosher food wasn't convenient and I also was able to partake in a couple of those pretentious yet delicious wine-and-cheese parties.

To this point, I'd branched out mainly out of convenience and so that I could socialize more freely with the sorts of people the rabbis wouldn't have wanted me to socialize with. I'd become somewhat lax in my observance, obviously, but I hadn't yet made a real break with (de facto) Modern Orthodoxy.

It wasn't for a few years that I had my first non-kosher meat. By this point, I had stopped believing in Orthodox Judaism and it was just force of habit that was holding me back. I'd long since stopped keeping shabbos and Subway tuna sandwiches (with cheese) were a fixture in my life.

One Friday night when I had nothing to do (this was after I left the community in spirit but before I'd made many non-Orthodox friends) I went over to the mall to wander around and probably read Richard Dawkins books in the Barnes and Noble. When I got hungry, I went down to the food court and for some reason, I decided this was the night.

I did not believe in God anymore, but the thought of eating non-kosher meat just felt so strange and wrong. I did a complete circuit of the crappy restaurants in the food court trying to make up my mind and then I decided to just get it over with.

There was one of those Chinese places with the aggressive salespeople standing in front with tiny pieces of meat and chicken on toothpicks, trying to suck you in with a free sample. I went straight to the closest one, took what she was offering, verified with her that it was chicken, and took a bite. It tasted like chicken.

Then I was able to sit down to my first really non-kosher meal. Still no pork, no shellfish, and no mixing of milk and meat, but I polished off some General Tso's chicken and some beef with broccoli.

I don't think I've ever had another tuna sub from Subway.

It was probably a year or two after that before I tried shellfish. My non-Orthodox but Jewish girlfriend and I were at the beach and I decided it was time. She hadn never eaten shellfish either, having grown up somewhat traditional and in a land-locked state, so we had to ask the waitress for directions on peeling and eating the steamed shrimp we ordered. It was great, but peeling is a pain in the ass, so I tend to stick to pre-peeled shrimp these days.

Once that milestone was passed, I got to investigate the whole world of shellfish. I love sushi, so I quickly discovered octopus (meh), squid (ok), crab (turns out that's usually fake), and various forms of eggs which could actually be kosher for all I know (love 'em for their texture and saltiness.) I even discovered that eel (not a shellfish, but not kosher) is my favorite kind of sushi. Fried shrimp and calamari became standard appetizers.

Sadly, I can't remember the first time I ate bacon, perhaps the tastiest of non-kosher foods. I do remember sitting down to a big old ham steak (on, I believe, Christmas Eve at some resort) which was weird even after bacon and pork sausages had been added to my diet. To this day, I'm a little skeeved out by ham.

Anyway, that's my non-kosher food story. Not as cool as sitting down with Penn and Teller and having them feed me every non-kosher food at once, but I definitely enjoyed (most of) the process.

Previously: Jewish Atheist's Top Ten Non-Kosher Foods.