My Family Abandoned Me When I Left the Hasidic World, But I Didn’t Abandon Judaism
We started Jew in the City to show the world the beauty in the Orthodox community and the riches of a Torah life. Our positive, meaningful content started attracting people who had seen the underbelly of the frum world. The people who grew up in situations where Torah was used as a weapon instead of the tree of life. They asked us to help them connect to Jewish observance in a positive way.
To answer this call we founded Makom. Our membership is growing at a rate we are trying to keep up with. At the same time, we are committed to providing our members with warm, healthy observant Jewish homes (from a range of Orthodox communities) they can visit and be welcomed in.
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great video but could really do with subtitles for Deaf people and Those with hearing loss.
Please help me understand how Torah can be used as a weapon?
People being told that their not being perfect caused babies to die and people to get cancer. Boys being smacked by rebbes, using Mishlei as evidence that it’s a good thing. Abuse being covered up in the name of Torah. Parents having very strict punishments for kids failure to perform mitzvos perfectly. Couples getting bad information about intimacy before they get married. Not having access to mental health help for fear of ruining shidduchim. I had no idea about any of this before. I had only been exposed to healthy Orthodoxy across the spectrum, but by promoting the good, the people who have gone through the bad came to us for help. So now I am learning and we want to help these people see all that a life of Torah and mitzvos and relationship with Hashem can offer.
You really seem to do a great job promoting orthodoxy.
I am really replying to your website generally (not this specific post, as I haven’t viewed this particular video), specifically whenever you mention Hassidism and people leaving the hassidic world.
The reasons you describe of why people left hassidic life have nothing to do with Hassidism but with dysfunction.
I have lived in various extremely hassidic communities and all these behaviours don’t represent Hassidism and the majority of ultra orthodox families but I have seen at times families using Torah as part of their dysfunction.
What I would like you to be more careful with is not to associate hassidism with these dysfunctional behaviours every time you mention some story of somebody leaving.
How would you like it if I would taint all of MO, Central/Right wing MO or whatever as being unhealthy because of a person leaving it for whatever reason. There are plenty plain orthodox families who have problems or are dysfunctional, it is just better understood that this doesn’t represent the ideology of it.
Some people might leave hassidism because it is just not their fit, fine that is their right no big story. If somebody leaves because of the unhealthy behaviours mentioned above then I think it would be important to explain that this does not represent hassidism but unhealthy behaviour/dysfunction.
I also think you should make more effort to get to know extremely hassidic communities if you keep writing about them. You will on the one hand understand better what motivates certain behaviours and on the other when it is plain dysfunction.
Thanks for your message, Rivka. I very much understand that it is dysfunction and not hasidus that is causing the problem. I try to be careful about the distinction and also show many examples of healthy hasidim. If you search “hasid” on this site you will see all the positive stories we have highlighted through the years.