Why I Left Orthodox Judaism

I left mainstream Judaism for the first time when I was 14 years old for good reason. I was used and abused for being Jewish and mouthing off about it in public school and the rabbinic establishment afterwards ignored me. In addition, my paternal grandparents got divorced over religious differences, as did I back in 1991.

My father kept telling me to forget about being so vocal about Judaism as I didn't really know what it was really all about. He wanted me to just study in school and get good grades. After I would finish school he wanted me to go out and get a good job.

The problem is that I perceived that just as my dad had problems at work with his coworkers I believed that I too would have the same problems. And years later, when I was employed as a computer programmer by several companies that is exactly what happened.

I have found Judaism to be an overly demanding religion, which offers me little in return, and I went back to Christianity after a long absence of over 25 years. Christianity is a more appealing religion to me due to the fact that it's less demanding on me and the Christians take to me more than the Jewish community does.

Christianity is also an inclusive religion that allows for many cultures to join it and have equal footing in spirituality. This is in contrast with Judaism, which is ethnocentric and has the Jewish people as the purveyors of truth.

I am a firm believer in the teachings of Jesus Christ. The teachings of rabbinic Judaism are not the path that I follow. I find Judaism to be pedantic. Judaism is overly concerned with picayune, petty details that I simply cannot abide.

Over 30 years ago, I became a Christian for the fist time. I had a very full life in that church, which unfortunately developed a spiritual problem. The main pastor, Jack Hickman, came out with this story that he was really of Jewish origin, specifically, Sephardic origin (Jewish origin from either Arabic or Spanish heritage). It came out later that he was not telling the truth.

Hickman took on the name Yaakov Abensur, after the Abensur family of Jewish Kabbalists ("Jewish mystics") of Spanish origin. He then transformed the church and soon, a Lutheran church became a Messianic congregation.

We started to keep kosher, and the Sabbath as well as the Jewish laws of Taharat Mishpacha or the laws of "Family Purity." The latter include the laws of negiyah or regulations that preclude adults of the opposite sex from touching each other and niddah which maintains that a woman is off limits to her husband during her time of month.

I went to no less than five church function a week including Friday night Sabbath dinners, Saturday services, Sunday services, a Wednesday Bible study, and a Thursday night coffee house. I also had frequent get togethers with my friends and my prayer partner was a genius with an IQ of 180.

I had a whole life built up. I had friends, girl friends and when I couldn't live at my parent's home anymore my elder in the church arranged for me to live with a household of single men. I was taken care of very well for a while.

I found a job and worked for one and a half years before the house broke up. It was very hard. I had to bicycle ride 5 and ½ miles to work every day and I really was in bad shape.

During the time that we were a Messianic congregation, we started to learn classical Jewish materials including the Talmud. We also started attending Jewish cultural events like going to the concerts of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, the Jewish troubadour and some people got involved with Chabad Lubavitch.

My father was concerned for my welfare in this church. My uncle, his brother, was a fan of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Rabbi Schneerson assigned Rabbi Shea Hecht to my case in order to try to get me out of what was now a full-blown cult.

I resisted leaving because I had a correct gut instinct that Chabad Lubavitch, Schneerson's organization, was a problem And I was right about that.
Also, Rabbi Shea Hecht had me go to a meeting for potential Chabadniks and he asked me if I made any friends. No one even paid any attention to me as opposed to how I am treated in the Christian world.

It came out that Chabad had the belief that the Lubavitcher Rebbe was the "most likely candidate for messiah in potential" in his generation. Their belief revolved around the idea that he was considered to have the "most concern for the general welfare of the Jewish people."

I will give him some credit. When my dad went to a number of organizations for help in getting me out of Ben Yishai, only the Chabad group and Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach were big enough to get involved.

And that's because I think that both of them were the reasons for all the problems I had because they were the pioneers in the Baal Teshuvah movement, they worked together years ago and I went to a Chabad after school program when I was very young. From what I can tell, so did my mom based on her having a pamphlet about Chanukah that was published by Chabad.

I was in a car with a Chabadnik once who giggled and said, "We think he's on a very high level." Of course, I knew what he meant by this. This was before it came out in public about his messianic pretensions.

But what made me leave Hickman's Ben Yishai group was the fact that Hickman stole a speech that the Lubavitcher Rebbe gave. He stood unmasked as a fraud in my sight.

In addition, it was the truth that Hickman was gay and not a celibate as he earlier claimed and as such he was attracting a whole inner circle of acolytes who he involved in his homosexuality. He called the homosexual sex act, "passing the seed."

Rabbi Carlebach invited me to stay at his follower's settlement in Israel, Moshav Meor Modi'in. But the whole thing got tangled up and I wound up at Yeshivat D'var Yerushalayim in Geula, Jerusalem first. It was very hard.

When in Hickman's cult, ben Yishai, we sang Jewish songs, many of them about Jerusalem. It all seemed so good and wonderful. But when I arrived in Israel, my expectations were dashed.

Israel is hot and I found it to be very uncomfortable in the summer. Furthermore, in the winter we only had space heaters and that was a problem too.

One of my old friends from the 8th Street Shul (I went there from late '97 to late '99) I got into a conversation with someone about how I liked the melodies by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach but I didn't like some of the lyrics. That is true and the words that revolve around Jerusalem were the ones specifically that turned me off based on my experiences and hardships living there.

It was very difficult to live at D'var and for me to learn there, as I didn't speak Hebrew. The dorms were bedbug infested and the place was filthy. Luckily, I only stayed there for about three months. Also, I was moved off the main campus after a while and lived in a better dorm for a short time.

I left D'var to go to Modi'n. Modi'in wasn't easy either. It had a lot of mosquitoes, it was very hot and it had a skin sore infection going around. My body used to open up all over the place and thin, clear, ooze used to seep out.

I was at Modi'in the first time for about four months until I left to go to a kibbutz, which had a crash course in Hebrew, called an ulpan. I was at the kibbutz for about six months and then I went back to Modi'in.

While I was at Modi'in both times, I accompanied Rabbi Carlebach many times in concert and player with him in all the big concert halls in Israel. Binyanei Ha'uma, Beit Ha'am, the Jerusalem Amphitheatre, Dan Carmel, Dan Caesarea, etc., were among the concert halls we played in.

My uncle complained that I was having the time of my life in Israel running around with Shlomo and that he was jealous of me. I should have told him to take up the guitar himself. He never seemed to grasp the hardships I was up against. It was a classic case of the grass is greener on the other side.

My sister got married in late '79 and I went back to the States to attend her wedding. Then I started retraining for a career. I enrolled in a computer school and later on worked as a computer programmer but I went to college after that. I hated computers.

At this point in time, I went to a local synagogue run by a rabbi that Shlomo introduced me to. I went there for several years. But it really wasn't a happening place and I stopped going. I also never built up my life like I had it built up when I was in Ben Yishai, which my mother said was "the best one you had."

I finished college and got a job as a computer programmer again. I held that job for six years until I was downsized in '94. Then I went to Consolidated Edison for a few months until Shlomo passed away and I went to Israel where I suffered a nervous breakdown.

I went through many things over the years and I felt a lot of animosity for my people. The Jewish world never treated me very well, and I never had a full life like I had in Ben Yishai.

But one of the reasons I left Ben Yishai was due to the cult's getting into doing so many Jewish customs and legalisms. I felt I was in over my head. I left Judaism originally for Christianity and got dragged back into it again anyway.

The year was then 2003 and I moved to my current residence in Avenel, NJ. I joined a local church at the invitation of my former local minister, Pastor Jack Dunlap, of First Presbyterian Church of Avenel. He retired in February 2007.

The congregation has taken to me and I add my knowledge of Jewish laws, Jewish customs and Jewish history in general. People who care about me surround me with love and my treatment team noticed the improvement in my condition.

First Presby is also not a very demanding church for me. I can handle what goes on there.

I am also involved with Fellowship Bible Church in Woodbridge and occasionally go to Faith Fellowship in Sayreville, NJ. So, I am busy about 3 times a week with church functions.

I sought retraining as a freelance writer and am getting a new career together. I really like writing and it gives me a way to vent my feelings. And I write about why I left Judaism. You can also view my website which is a Yahoo group at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exharedimsite

The term haredi means "those in awe of God" in Hebrew. It's a term to denote an Orthodox Jew, especially an Ultra Orthodox Jew.

The whole Jewish scene is very problematic right now and depressing too. I realize that I am still a Jew and my knowledge of the Torah is what makes me useful in the churches I go to. But what I have is best taken outside the Jewish establishment.