There are several classifications of off the derech- there are those that are just plain old off the derech and then there are those that are under cover off the derech, there are two separate classes of under cover off the derech. There are those that have gone off the derech but don’t actually tell people they are off the derech- these folks are commonly known as orthoprax, which is someone who wishes to stay within the community even though they are not religious at all. The other type is what this post is about these are the folks that went off the derech but don’t tell orthodox people they meet that they used to be orthodox.
One of my road trip partners was an ex chabadnick, anyone who’s been on a road trip with me knows that I don’t like to pay to sleep, unless it’s a donation form to chabad in the middle of nowhere. This kid would rarely say he was a chabadnick even when we were staying at a chabad house. He just didn’t want to deal with the “crap” that comes with being an ex-chabadnick.
I have met many people in my day who are under cover off the derech, they simply don’t tell orthodox people that they used to be orthodox. Its quite funny to meet some kid and translate terminology or events (such as shul to temple) over to the type that secular Jews understand only to be told that the person understands perfectly.
I was on time sitting in the kosher kitchen of a certain college campus and this kid was eating with me and my buddy and we were having some argument and this kid whipped out some fancy pshat or something that had us both shocked that he was ever orthodox.
I have met people who lok like ex-yeshiva guys and guys who have shed off all their frum looking traits. I met a kid who worked on looking more secular so he would never have to deal with the dreaded question “where did you go to yeshiva?” at the dreaded time.
Sometimes I meet folks who are off the derech and like the shock value of chiming in on conversations that are above their seemingly “new to Judaism” selves. Its funny when you take regular kollel type fellows and suddenly the jeans and t-shirt wearing guy without a yarmulke listening to their kiruv is playing Jewish geography with them because they mentioned they went to Peekskill or something.
Are you under cover off the derech?
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{ 45 comments… read them below or add one }
OTD is a relative term. I still love Judaism but am getting too frustrated by the charedim destroying it. To them, I’m beyond OTD…I’m a complete koferet. To others, I’m the frummie.
this stuff is hysterical keep it up
Coolyiddishe- I think I am talking about people who grew up orthodox and are not orthodox at all- that is the generic way to describe OTD.
Thank you Dallas- glad to see some local fans.
The most difficult years are the teenage years. Everyone wants to fit in, but some never do. The emotions are overwhelming.
How does a teenager go to school when she knows that she has no friends? Nothing she does can please her parents, and her siblings blame her for everything.
When someone goes off the derech, it’s sad. Is it preventable?
Opinionated, read the book “Off The Derech” by Faranak Margolese if you want more insight into the OTD “phenomenon”, it’s very insightful. A lot of the frum people I’ve recommended the book to refuse to read it thinking they’ll never have this problem with their children (haha!.) I recommend it for any parent that wishes to keep their children living the lifestyle they espouse, and hey, it certainly can’t hurt!!
As far as I go, I guess my family considers me fairly OTD but a lot of my friends consider me super religious – it’s all about perspective and where they’re coming from.
According to the way I was raised (Lubavitch,) I guess I am OTD though I still keep a fairly traditional Jewish lifestyle and home – heck, I live in Monsey for goodness sake!! The only people I am “under cover” with are people I don’t care to enlighten about my beliefs (or lack of them) anyone who is close to me at all knwos what I’m all about.
I’m OTD and I’ve read the book “Off the Derech” and I have to say the author is quite wrong.
I have never had an emotional problems with orthodoxy. In fact I’m biased /toward/ orthodoxy. However it was a purely intellectual decision to leave. In the author’s mind anyone who leaves must have had an emotional problem as the Torah Is True. The author neglects to talk about the lack of evidence for that claim.
the best definition i’ve heard from off the derech orthodox is that they classify themselves as “a non practicing orthodox”.
I was raised MO on Wednesday nights, every other weekend and during the month of July. Traditional, the rest of the time. Jews – my own adventure. Was it Janis Joplin who said, “It’s all the same f’in’ derech, man!” Definitely not, but I feel like OTD is a little boxes phenomenon in which I can’t participate. My derech’s my derech, and I’m headed in a positive direction. It may not be the same as someone else’s, but I’m doing what I can, where I am, with what I have. For me, that’s what matters. (cheers to other Teddy Roosevelt fans who recognized that one)
Hey, how could I not comment when you even got my name in the title?!
On a serious note, I am NOT undercover. I am a open, practicing, devout Jew. How dare anyone even think otherwise?
kidding, duh
I am your typical undercover OTD type of girl, but not your stereotypical type that goes off the deep end strung out on drugs, runs away from home, or got any other dysfunctional reason to go OTD. I am taking it slow i.e. I do what I want and live by my own rules. (Yes I still got morals way more then some sick frummies)
I simply despise acting like a robotic subhuman, guess what I got my own mind & soul to live by.
( Wish I had an “OTD” BFF that can guide me so it doesnt feel so scary, my frum friends from grade school sadly don’t interest me at all.)
Hi, ex-Satmar girl.
I’m not Jewish, but I have lived in an orthodox neighborhood and the frum types totally fascinate me. I’m particularly interested in those who choose to leave it. Do you live in the NYC area? I’d love to hang out with you. I don’t want to publicly leave my email address on here, but you should get my email from the blogger and email me.
ex-satmar girl:
check out my blog or email me if you want. offthed@gmail.com
Ex Satmar Girl – check out footsteps.org
footstepsorg.org is the correct site.
I never have those conversations, but then again, I don’t really meet any orthodox jews anymore (where would I? it’s not like I go to shul or any jewish events, and outside of NY, there’s just not a lot of orthodox people to come across in day to day life).
Ex satmer girl- most “off the derech” people I know are NOT like those stereotypes. In fact the only people I know who are like that are people who leave judaism for a short messed up period of time, and always go back afterwards.
you can come visit my abandoning eden blog, if you ever want to talk about stuff.
Abandoning Eden: I agree with you.
Those steretypes are just to scare kids from going OTD. They’re mostly B.S.
Thank you guys for your support. I will check it all out.
FS -way to go dude , steering sheltered satmar girls to the dark side
ESG- welcome to the dark side btw
Ex Satmar girl – you can be “OTD” and still remain observant in your own way. Like s(b) said, you can have your own derech. Just keep in mind that it will change your relationship with your parents which could be good or bad (it will really depend upon them).
There are a lot of opportunities out there … just let yourself explore and you will find your derech.
Good luck.
That’s the thing about derech (path, not respect) — who truly walks in anyone else’s shoes? No one. So who’s off, if they’re moving forward, one foot in front of the other? Everyone’s relationship (or even lack thereof) with Hashem is unique. Same goes for relationship with religion. Someone’s bagels and lox may be someone else’s blatt gemorah. Is either one a bad person? That’s not for us to say. Those who believe in Hashem will work out how they lived their life with them in whatever version of the afterlife in which they believe. Those who don’t, won’t, and that’s okay. As long as people aren’t telling each other they’re bad for believing differently, I see no harm.
There are different ways to respond to differences in people’s spiritual practices and lifestyles. “That’s not my cup of tea,” is one way to handle such situations (rather than calling someone an apikoras or a misnagid or a heretic or whatever). How we respond to people whose lives are outside our own spiritual comfort zones may say something about us. (or maybe not)
Me, I’d rather leave doors open than shut them. I’ve felt alienated from orthodoxy more times than I care to recall. I can take my hacky sack and leave, or I can find another spot on the playground on which to play where I won’t be bothered by people who can’t handle it if I want to hack with my hands instead of my feet. (I realize metaphors may not be understood. If that was too abstract, please let me know.) I handle it by finding a spot on the Judaic playground where I can use my hands. If people who like to use their feet want to make a circle and play with me, they’re welcome, but I don’t usually play if the folks in the circle are hung up on using feet, rather than keeping the ball in the air. In the end, it’s all about keeping the hacky sack in the air. Hands, feet, head, legs, arms used to keep it up? It’s all good, to me.
(s)b, as usual, well said.
(s)b if you use your hands you can play with me
(Sorry)…………on another note not that the metaphor was too abstract its more like overkill-we get it -youre unique
hooray
i’m not unique. If leaving one’s spiritual door open for folks, regardless of whether or not they believe or observe the way I do. is unique, i’m glad I don’t live where you do. thanks for the humor.
Hmmm now I cant figure out if you realized I was kidding-in any event ,being open minded is kinda unique in lkwd -not gonna lie
Hesh you attract an interesting set of readers.
May we immediately be zoche to the day when tov and ra are no longer mixed.
Anon that is the whole joy of blogging- giving a venue for all different people to discuss and joke with each other- once in a blue moon I get a critic.
I wonder how many people are undercover off the derech in that they live an exterior life of frumkeit but inside they could care less about halacha?
I find myself too emeshed in the frum community (frum wife, kids, etc) to walk away from it all, but I have absolutely no belief. I guess I am ‘undercover off the derech’ since I eat what I want, break the Sabbath (discreetly) and generally just don’t follow halacha, while still maintaining the outward patina of a frum guy.
How many others are out there? I suspect my experience is not unique at all.
Moishe – it seems like you are the typical UOTD. Sadly, you are not the only one.
Many times / places in life I have been considered OTD & Ultra frum – it just depends on whose perspective. I was brought up frum, am modern and try to be religious as I can – I dont like to describe myself as frum as nowadays it connotes a faker.
Moishe the term commonly used is orthoprax- I understand why people do this but I don’t like it because its the king of dishonesty. I like being real but then again I can totally feel you on it.
I have thought so much about Orthopraxy (without knowing it had a name) and I’m not convinced that it is dishonest at all. To be sure, it would be disingenuous of me to admonish my kids for doing something that I then go and do myself, but I don’t do that. I send them to yeshiva because the background and education about their history and culture is unparalleled by any other school that I’ve seen.
…and to make a long story short, I never had the opportunity to make up my mind on the course of life I wanted to take. I was a good kid, went with the flow, dated the type of girls that my parents approved of, met one, fell in love, and the rest is history. It’s neither her fault nor my own that when I finally had the opportunity to think for myself, my point of view changed significantly. It’s simply a matter of happenstance and we make the best of what life throws at us.
Would I trade my wife and kids (the likely result of me doing aveiros in public) for the sake of ‘honesty’ so that it satisfies the negative connotations of Orthopraxy? Of course not, that’s absurd. So ultimately, to whom am I being dishonest?
It’s a difficult topic.
Moishe, I’ve heard this type of story time and time again – as far as dishonesty goes, I guess you’re not living in a way that is true to yourself, but if it’s worth the sacrifice to you then more power to you (as long as you don’t take a holier than thou attitude to those who are outwardly OTD.)
You’re right, it is a very difficult topic, there are many facets to it and there are no clear cut answers or solutions. I wish you a lot of luck – your situation is not easy.
ChanieF, why not true to myself? Just the opposite… if I tried to go through life pretending that an invisible Lord was writing down my good deeds and bad deeds in a great big book in the sky, that would be dishonest because I don’t believe it.
If I conducted my life according to a set of rules that were based on the ordered civilization of a desert tribe thousands of years ago, in order to keep myself from going to the ‘hell’ that I also don’t believe in, that would be dishonest.
But if I live a life of kindness and good deeds, and it doesn’t include strapping leather boxes on my arm and head…if I think for myself, instead of taking for granted that what I was taught when I was six is ‘emes’… where is the dishonesty?
Moishe, did I misunderstand you? I thought that you said that you are outwardly living the live of a frum man. If you are following halacha for the most part, then you are living as IF to please the invisible man in the sky, even though you don’t believe – and in that way are not being true to yourself (though I hate to call it dishonesty, you’re not lying to yourself, you know what you believe, you’re just keeping your beliefs or lack of them to yourself.)
There is definitely something to be said for living a life of goodness and morality, both of which don’t rely on living a particularly religious life. It’s not easy to live one way and believe another, which is why I was wishing you luck.
Moishe, Amen! Some days I feel like I am the only one who feels this way, and some days it seems that whomever i get into a true and honest conversation, they admit it that they are UOTD’s, so who knows.
I had a very weird experience this past week. A very good friend of mine, his kid has Cancer. He asked me to say a Kapital Tehilim for the kid every day. He asked me a few times and i laughed at him. (He kinda knows that I am UOTD) Yesterday I saw him with the kid, and i tried making small talk with him about the plight of his kid, and he asked me “Zugst a kapital far ehm?” (” you say a Chapter of Psalms for his sake”) And I smiled and said “I should first say one for myself.”
I went home and felt like sh**. So i text him that I will start saying one every day. Why? is it guilt? Do i believe? When i Daven every day, i have zero Kavana. ZERO!!! I just dont believe, I just dont. Does this sapposit GOD want non-believers to say Tehillim? Does the saying “hamispalel b’ad chaverah hu ne’ena tchila” (“if one prays for his friends plight, his own will be answered first”) apply to non-believers too?
Oh so many questions.
P.S. Good idea avoiding the Mumbai crisis. It just reignites the whole HOW and WHY question. And for your good old Ma’aminim, there is no need for them to have more questions in their head.
I don’t tell my children how deeply cynical I’ve become. I still observe pretty much the same way as in the past but I know longer buy the street proclamations, “mussar azharas” latest chumras or even past ones. American Gedolim? That would be a good idea someday.
Fascinating stuff. I’m sort of navigating in from the other direction. I’ve recently come to wearing a kippah, keeping shabbat, and keeping kosher (though my kashrut outside the house is rather more liberal than some others’).
But this is all coming about without necessarily involving belief. For me, it’s more about the practical necessity of shabbat, the relative discipline of kashrut, and the visual identification with community of the kippah. Perhaps my derech is more analogous to Buddhist practice than to anything involving questions of the existence of G!d or the validity of halacha. But that’s my derech and I’m sticking to it… more or less… at least for the moment.
Moishe, can I ask you a question?
What would you want your kids to be? Orthodox? UOTD? Orthoprox? Frummie?
Many a time I find myself wondering whether UOTD and OTD that still sent their kids to “frummie” schools want their kids to believe in GOD or not. You say you want your kids to know about their culture, do you want them to be naive and stay in the stream, or do you want them to come out of the aron kodesh (closet) and go OTD or UOTD? and would you intervene to lead them in that direction or will you let them explore for themselves and lead a life the way they want to?
Just wondering, not judging.
Can you please explain your position on gods existence?
Let me quote you;
“I just dont believe, I just dont. Does this sapposit GOD want non-believers to say Tehillim? Does the saying “hamispalel b’ad chaverah hu ne’ena tchila” (”if one prays for his friends plight, his own will be answered first”) apply to non-believers too?”
So let me get it straight, you don’t believe in god, but want to know if he gets upset if you daven without kavana, and if kol hamispalel baad chaveiro… applies to non believers.
So do you, or don’t you, believe in god?
Can you please explain your position on gods existence?
Let me quote you;
“I just dont believe, I just dont. Does this sapposit GOD want non-believers to say Tehillim? Does the saying “hamispalel b’ad chaverah hu ne’ena tchila” (”if one prays for his friends plight, his own will be answered first”) apply to non-believers too?”
So let me get it straight, you don’t believe in god, but want to know if he gets upset if you daven without kavana, and if kol hamispalel baad chaveiro… applies to non believers.
So do you, or don’t you, believe in god?
You remind me of what a girl once told me, she doesn’t believe in god cuz she hates him…
DISCLAIMER! IF YOU ARE NOT EXPOSED TO APIKORSIS, YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO READ THE FOLLOWING COMMENT!
The truth be told, I do believe that there is/was a creator who created all this, and set this whole thing in motion.
If he still controls it on a daily basis??? Some days I hope not: I hope there isn’t a being who wants and directs that six million, of the most oppressed people on the globe, to be systematically eliminated from the this planet; I hope that that its not his direction, allowance, or wants, that a gunman should stand up in a Yeshiava, and gun down a bunch of buchirim leaning HIS Torah; I hope that there isn’t an entity that condones the massacre in Mumbai.
On other days, when things are going real bad for me, and it seams that all is lost, no one to turn to, no one can help me, and my animalistic survival instincts kick in, and the need for some hope is needed to go on with life, a sense of purpose, to want to continue through this retched hellhole, and to feel that not is all lost, I DO HOPE there is a god in a control, who has this selfish need of hearing his minions pray, beg, and plead for his help, and if they ask a bunch of times and pat his ego, and make thillim groups, light candles 15 minutes early, don’t talk loshen hara, or whatever good deed you took upon yourself, HE/IT/SHE will have some pity on our plight and alleviate us from our misery.
So when i said “I don’t believe in GOD” I meant to say is that on a daily basis i don’t, meaning i don’t really believe that an almighty god wants us to not eat parmesan cheese on my chicken; needs me to strap stuff around my head and arm on a daily basis; wants us not eat from morning till night for some destruction of a Temple; will be sent to eternal damnation, and need to come back to this world a million times, because i liked to spank the monkey; or wants us not to tie my shoelace in a too complicated knot on the sabbath, etc, etc,.
But when my back is against the wall, this poor 7 YEAR OLD HAS LEUKEMIA!!!! There is nothing I can do. So when I am praying at such a situation, I AM HOPING he does exist, (follow?), so if he does, is he pissed at me for praying for him? Does he want me to pray to him? a person like me?
Oy, i can go on for hours.
Hesh, Sorry for contaminating your blog with such apikorsis.
Someone,
I know this thread is going on a year old, but I wanted to say, as somebody slowly increasing his observance in halacha, that I too do not believe that we do mitzvas for the reasons you describe.
The worldview you describe is very puritanical – that G-d will only be nice to you if you follow certain rules, otherwise you go to hell.
I look at the reason we are here on earth as a stage in one’s soul to grow and develop – and you can’t grow without being challenged (as unpleasant as life’s challenges can be). You can have a good life without Torah/halacha – but that one’s life can be enhanced by observing. Sometimes in ways that are obvious (not lying or stealing), and some that are less obvious (like not wearing garments that mix wool & linen). Rather than being upset that you or I haven’t observed some of the mitzvot that you or I could have, I believe that G-d is happy to see you pray for your friend’s child, as well as for any mitzvah that a person fulfills.
Hesh, you allow such stuff on your site???????
No modration????
WOW, no one had anything bad to say. I guess its a changed world.
Not trying to make this into an Emuna blog but truth be told, I didn’t find your post to be Apikorsos (sorry!). What I did see is alot of hurt feelings and trying to put things in perspective in a way we can understand it.
Your beliefs are based on feelings, not on the logic. If we go according to our feelings, then a lot of things don’t make no sense, why all the suffering? innocent children being killed, evil people having their was, and we keep on asking, why? who do these things happen?
Now, I am not here to lecture you, I’m sure you get all that from your rabbeim in chaider/yeshiva, but if we look into it, logically, we all agree that thee has to be a force, an inhuman force, that created this world.
I would be tempted to believe that that massive force, what ever it may be, did not create the whole universe for it to be able to abandon it and let it run on it’s own. Rather “it” had some intentions when building it, and it doesn’t seem to make sense to me that those intentions were so we will be able to eat our challa and gefilte fish, or cheese covered chicken, for that matter. and so humans and animals alike should be able to kill each other over some disputed land/territory, or for, the 3 main reasons people fight, money, sex and pride.
There has to be something greater, bigger than what we see, otherwise I can’t make any sense out of this world at all.
What comforts my mind, as well as yours, in times of terror, is that we are all part of some bigger picture, what that picture is, is beyond me, but when we will look back, we will see that even the darkest parts of it, where you see nothing but black paint smudged so evenly on the canvas, are also part of what makes up the beautiful sunshine.
So what ever that big force, that we call god, is, I think he does take care of every minute detail that goes on on his world, and that I am best off being on his team, for what ever his plans are for us, because I know the end result is going to be a good one.
This world is, after all, a good place, if we look at it with the right vision, so if the creation is good, I would believe that creator is good as well, for if he would be evil we wouldn’t have all these beautiful things in this world, the sunrise would not be such a breathtaking sight nor would the coast of Costa Rica.
Hesh, I hope you don’t mind me contaminating your blog with these non interesting stuff.