It was excruciating. Sure, I was thrilled I could wear miniskirts and short sleeves. But I also discovered that miniskirts can’t actually heal a broken heart; they just don’t wield that level of sarto- rial power. In so many ways, I wanted to be part of the Jew- ish community, but I no longer felt like I had a place within it. Many years went by. I wasn’t actively doing anything particularly Jewish, oth- er than working at Jewish nonprofits, because what else was I going to do with that incredibly pragmatic degree? At the local Federation, I was burned out and miserable. And the behaviour I witnessed there reinforced my belief that I had no more value to the Jewish community. I was taken off of projects I built and loved because I wasn’t “con- nected” enough, had not attended the right exclusive Jew- ish programs, did not have a recogniz- able family name.
the idea from Bamidbar Rabbah that the Torah has seventy faces — that there are countless doorways into, lenses on, paths of perceiving, and ways of understanding, connect- ing to, and interpreting Jewishness. I felt that a lapse in my observance or faith would be a slap in the face of the Jewish people, of my ancestors, of my family. That would never be me, I said to myself. I wasn’t going to be the weak link, the break in the chain from Sinai to now. So in college, I majored in Judaic studies. This wasn’t ex- actly a pragmatic thing to do, but it does demonstrate how deeply invested in and obsessed with Jewishness I was. And yet, I began to feel the first real discord, a sense of alienation, enter my heart. Particularly, I’ll readily admit, I struggled with how I saw women being treated in some Or- thodox communities. When I learned about agunot, Jew-
ish women unable to be free of a mar- riage because their husbands refused to grant them religious divorces, I was stunned. This was not the Judaism I had thought I understood. The misog- yny was so glaring that it could not be rationalized. I want to stress at this point: I am referring only to my personal experi- ences and observations. I am not the Lo- rax of all formerly Orthodox, Chassidic- adjacent women. I speak only for my- self and how I discovered I did not actually fit, I did not actually belong, perfectly within that specific paradigm of Judaism. My junior year of college was a deep- ly traumatic one for several reasons, including the passing of my beloved fa- ther. The upshot was that even though I never would have predicted this could
However, that place did give me one thing I will always be grateful for: a lunch and learn. I often joke that it was perhaps the one time in human history that a lunch and learn actually changed someone’s life. I know this because the life that got changed so dramatically was my own. And the ripple effects from that moment changed other lives, too. The speaker was Rabbi Lord Jona- than Sacks, of blessed memory. A philosopher, leading Jewish think- er, and chief rabbi of the UK, he was an incredibly powerful communicator of Jewish ideas; he spoke about some- thing called daf yomi , the practice of learning the entire Babylonian Talmud — this massive, vital, multi-vocal text of the Jewish people — at the rate of
THROUGH MUCH OF MY CHILDHOOD, I WAS UNDER THE MISTAKEN IMPRESSION THAT THERE WAS ONLY ONE WAY TO BE A “GOOD JEW,” AND THAT’S WHAT I WAS STRIVING FOR.
one double-sided folio page per day. Rabbi Sacks described daf yomi as a beautiful way to connect with fellow Jews the whole world over. We may speak different languages, and live completely different lives from each other. But in this learning, we would meet together in the pages of Talmud, every day. For a cycle of seven and a half years. His words were a spark, a catalyst. I could do this. I wanted to do this — to set my feet on this path of learn- ing. Perhaps learning Talmud was my way back to a Jewish identity, or maybe a way forward to a new one. One that was right for me, that I could fully embody. I began my learning with my fellow daf yomi partici- pants on January 5, 2020. It was an act of rededication to us, to the Jewish people — that was the joy part. But, because of the eternal Jewish oy-joy dichotomy, I was determined that it be something else, too. During Hanukkah just a short time prior, there had been a series of horrific antisemitic attacks in New York and New Jersey, including a machete assault against Jews lighting the hanukkiah. How deeply I wish I could say things have improved since then, but we
happen — to me of all people, who had such a strong belief in God, such a strong Jewish identity, such a strong com- mitment to being part of the Jewish community—one day I realized that the feeling of God was gone from me. I could not find that Presence in my heart anymore. It was devas- tating. It was terrifying. I felt lost, adrift, and afraid. Despite what some might believe, you cannot force that faith to come back. You can’t put the divine metaphorical toothpaste back in the tube. Like Naomi in her grief in the Book of Ruth, what remained to me was bitterness toward the God I thought I knew. Because of this spiritual crisis that had ambushed me, I was convinced that I had to completely sever myself from my Jewishness to avoid being a disingenuous hypocrite. Dear reader, in my mind’s eye I can see your eyebrow lift. You might be thinking that my response was rather ex- treme. I was taking self-exile too far. And you would not be wrong in your assessment. But I was young, and fool- ish, and had so thoroughly internalized the guidelines I had been taught on what is or is not acceptable Judaism. So I ex- tracted myself from Judaism entirely.
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