Night:

2007, The Peak of My Religious Piety: It’s 11pm on Yom Kippur eve, but I’m not that tired. I reach for a book about rabbis from the Talmud. There’s one about a rabbi who confronts a Roman empress:

Roman empress scoffs: “What does your God do all day?”

Rabbi answers even-temperedly: “God makes matches between man and woman.”

I believe, with a kind of simple faith that’s synonymous with virgins from Laura Ingalls Wilder-esque novels, that God has made my match. I’ll meet him when I’m approximately 20.

But no later than 22. I silently cry. There’s little room at the High Holiday hearth for a female singleton.

I chase any vestige of fear by reciting the whole entire shema prayer and by learning two pages of the Chofetz Chaim’s “Guard Your Tongue.” I gently wrap a blanket over my chin and breathe happily: There. I’m amassing good deeds so that I can soon be a young Jewish bride.

I don’t know yet that I’ll spend the next 8 years as an untouched, un-romanced woman.

2017, The Peak of Newfound Secular Living: It’s 11pm on Rosh Hashanah eve and I’m alone in my apartment. I watched Stephen King’s It a couple of weeks ago. I’ve slept with a light on since because—yes—the thought of a fictional demonic clown is still too terrible to bear in the dark. My roommates will murder me after reading September’s electricity bill. I’m scared of them too.

And are you not scared of God’s wrath? My brain suddenly shrills. His vengeful wrath as he smites you for being so apathetic on His New Year? He’ll punish you and deprive you of love, luck, and—I try to shut it up.

After watching Netflix’s Jerry Before Seinfeld, it finally dials down to a background murmur. Irreverent Jews will always find comfort in one another. Thanks, Jer.

I manage to sleep.

Morning:

2007: Walking to shul on Yom Kippur morning, I cross paths with a dark-eyed, charmingly scruffed yeshiva boy. When you’re a hetero 17 girl surrounded by only women every day, almost all XY chromosomes emanate sexy musk from their pores. I grow excited.

He’s wearing a black hat and his eyes are pinned to the ground. He can’t bear to look at my hands or face—the only parts of my body that are naked. Everything else (from collarbone to toes) is safely tucked away under a long sheath, patiently awaiting God’s blessing.

I avert my eyes from him too. We’re both conscious of this aversion and it’s so beautifully awkward.

2017: It’s Yom Kippur morning and I’ll walk towards a Dunkin Donuts. (Thank God I won’t allow the Day of Judgement to infringe on my iced latte cravings.) Men will trek back from shul. I’ll worry that they’ll smell my crushing pile of sin. They’ll know, through some inexplicable Jew-y antenna of theirs, that I used to be a servant of Hashem. I’ll pull up my yoga pants to expose less belly.

After I pick up that iced latte, the paranoia will fade. They’re too fixated on their growling stomachs to care about your sin, you self-absorbed little girl. Caffeine works wonders in tethering me to reality.

After a latte, I’ll meet my boyfriend and kiss him three times on his cushion-like lips. Make that ten times. No—20. Lawless lovers will always discover peace in one another.

Afternoon:

2007: Religious Jews are advised not to nap on Rosh Hashanah because it can foreshadow a spiritual lassitude or a physical fatigue that may hang upon them for the rest of the year. Sans nap, TV, or phone, my friends and I have stretches of time to fill before another holiday dinner. We decide to stroll on Brooklyn’s Ocean Parkway and schmooze like a couple of bubbies:

Me: “In shul today, almost all the women were wearing Valentino heels and Chanel dresses. Why does shul have to be a fashion show?”

Tali: “It’s loshon hora (gossip) to talk about people like that in your shul! Please stop! It’s Rosh Hashanah!”

Me: “Alright.”

But I hate this. I want my friends and I to be walking copies of an Ok! Magazine: equal parts disgusting and unbridled fun. There’s isn’t any laughter on these days. Always somber. Always serious. I scream internally.

Is this the scream bubble that germinates my inevitable dissent? Perhaps.

2017: This Rosh Hashanah, my boyfriend and I lazily lounge on the couch, our conversation quickly taking the pleasurable shape of gossip. But I soon cut the verbal whippings about neighbors, co-workers, and acquaintances short.

“Why?” he asks.

“Because it’s Rosh Hashanah and the pintele Yid, the ‘little Jew,’ does not die.”

My Bais Yaakov teachers warned me about the pintele Yid: “Even the most filthy, immoral Jew will always contain a spark of God,” they said. Now, I know.

Neilah, the Climax of the High Holidays:

2007: I stand united with my congregation. Yom Kippur is racing to the finish line. The heavenly gates are quickly locking, our fates quickly solidifying. Quivers of desperation ripple through the sick, the anxious, the poor, the lonely. For a moment, my burning tears speak when I cannot. For a moment, I see God eagerly collecting our collapsing bodies into his expansive chest. For a moment, we fit.

2017: It’s the last hour of Yom Kippur, the moment when spiritual listlessness crawls up my skin like a hot rash.

As a distraction, I turn to social media. There’s more news about Kylie Jenner’s pregnancy. And I think: How can I daven to a God that allows the Kardashians to infest the world’s collective newsfeed every minute? I grow increasingly fatalistic. And then nihilistic.

But cynicism crumples upon itself to expose a little girl mourning a faith that once felt like home. What do you do when you no longer believe, but miss believing?

I sigh and then slip on my headphones; I know, at the very least, that God is unblemished in music. This turns into passionate, fastidious prayer.

Rebecca Mordechai has an MA in English Literature and used to teach teens. But now she writes about her ever-evolving identity and lots of other Jewy things.

Image via Pixabay

The post Ten Years Later: The High Holidays for an Ex-Orthodox Jew appeared first on Jewcy.

Formerly Orthodox singer-songwriter Matisyahu (A.K.A. Matthew Paul Miller) has penned a heartfelt, raw, honest essay for Medium about his religious journey, musical development, and struggle with substance abuse—which started when when he was just 14.

“I found company in Bob Marley and his music,” writes Matisyahu of his high school years. “I was depressed and alone, feeling misunderstood by kids, coaches, teachers and parents, so I retreated into the confines of my room in the attic with weed and music. I began to search. Summer of junior year I went into the wilderness out west and felt the gnawing gaping hole in my chest more vast then ever, and I began to think about God in relation to the void. Am I alone?”

The answer, he decided, was no. God “was with me always like an all-powerful invisible friend.” He became a Phish groupie, experienced homelessness, went into rehab, saw numerous therapists, but still “couldn’t seem to get it right.” Eventually he fell into Orthodox Judaism, got married, committed himself to his music, and became an alt-rock reggae superstar—and darling of the Hasidic-hipsters the world over. But all was not well. Dissatisfied, he chafed against the restrictions the of movement, until he found his guru—”an anti-establishment renegade Russian therapist/original thinker/Chassidic and Kabalistic creative wiz with a heart of gold and no fingers”—and a shul where he could “scream and sing during prayers and not be judged.”

It’s a compelling piece of writing, which neatly ties in with the release of his latest single, “Hard Way,” from his 2014 album Akeda (“binding”)—an allusion to the biblical story of the binding and near-sacrifice of Isaac. Read the rest here.

(Image: Matisyahu performs in Park City, Utah, January 2014. Credit: Jason Kempin/Getty.)

The post Matisyahu Opens Up About Religious Journey, Substance Abuse appeared first on Jewcy.

When someone says Williamsburg the first word that pops into most people’s heads is “hipster”: too-cool-for-school millennials feigning indifference, well thought-out nonchalance expertly uploaded to Instagram. But where north meets south at Broadway Avenue, a whole different world exists. The dress code turns black and white and the streets are filled with ultra-Orthodox Jews; the men distinguished by their side curls, the women by the lines of children who follow after them, some pushing strollers themselves. In this community, the internet and crushing modernity that looms around every corner is perceived as the biggest threat to their pious way of life.

In 2012, the community’s rabbis gathered tens of thousands of followers at Citi Field for an urgent proclamation against the use of the Internet. Outside on the corner of the street, protected by police, stood about 50 people, all former members of the same community, standing up against the rabbinical leaders. They protested that the leaders were not addressing the right problems—instead of directly addressing the darker issues within the community itself, they were blaming the outside world.

This is where the idea for our upcoming Kickstarter-funded feature film ‘The Other Side’ was born. While our movie is a work of fiction, it is largely based on the true stories of people who have left the Satmar Hasidic community in Williamsburg. We took those stories, fictionalized and reimagined them, and created an indie drama about a young Hasidic Jewish man who turns to the outside world for help in exposing a crime being committed within his community. In the process, his family and world are turned upside down and he comes to question all that he has believed in.

We agonized over each word of this story, knowing that exploring the dark subject of sexual abuse in the Orthodox community would encounter resistance—some people might even label project as anti-Semitic. All of us involved in creating the film are Jewish and our goal has always been to make the Jewish community stronger. I grew up as a reform Jew, director Dani Tenenbaum is Israeli, and our other two partners are both former members of the Hasidic community. We understand why the community has been so reluctant to talk about the issue of sexual abuse. But now is the time to speak up and to stop the silence.

In ‘The Other Side’ we will explore the beauty and deviance that coexist in the Hasidic enclave of Williamsburg, and how a thriving hipster community right next door tempts young members away from a life of safety to a life of the unknown. To stay true to the authenticity of the cultures, we will shoot the movie in Yiddish, English, and also some Hebrew.

Since our Kickstarter campaign started, we have received many emails, messages, and comments—from people within the community who are extremely supportive of the project, and also from those who hope that this topic never sees the light of day. We can’t make this movie without the help of the public. We’ve created a short video to introduce you to the project, as well as an interactive video where you can “choose your own adventure” and discover the different worlds of our film.

This is a very dynamic time in the Hasidic community of Brooklyn. New voices are being heard, and the old structure of the community is changing. As the number of people leaving this world grow, the need to explore what this phenomenon really means—on an individual level, and for Judaism as a whole—grows more urgent. It’s a story of clashing cultures and changing perceptions. It’s ‘The Other Side.’

Stacey Maltin is the screenplay writer and producer of ‘The Other Side.’ She has BFA from NYU Tisch with a minor in journalism and has been working professionally in film and theater for over ten years.

The post New Movie ‘The Other Side’ Will Explore Sexual Abuse In Williamsburg’s Hasidic Community appeared first on Jewcy.