My Story

"...I would contend that the evidence is not weak enough for you to have given it all up. The reason you did is most likely that you never perceived value in the religion in the first place, and hence got mired into skepticism to an irrational degree."

Simply not true. I could tell you my story. I was very religious as a child. I was the little kid who at 10 wanted to fast Tisha B'av and Yom Kippur - and who did it the full day. I was the one in camp when all the other kids were lazying in bed, I would go off to chinuch because I enjoyed it.

I was always a very curious child and would ask my parents all sorts of questions, but as time went on I got less and less satisfying answers. I went delving into the fundamentals of Judaism because, besides for my own curiosity, I wanted to be able to give my kids the best and fullest answers I could for anything they would ask me.

So I began my studies without fear that Judaism had anything to lose. Orthodoxy was obviously right so what had I to fear from seeing things from different sides? But as I studied the more it all fell apart in my hands. I kept looking for rational after rationale to keep it up but it just wasn't working out.

So one night, as I lay in bed, I thought, "Hey, wait, what if God isn't real, the Torah is man-made, and so on" that explains all the problems I've been finding in Judaism. All of them are explained thus.

I didn't really take that to heart for awhile though, I kept looking for ways to prove Judaism's validity, I saw the consequences and refused to have them, I spoke to dozens of religious people and rabbis but none of them had the goods. They all supplied the same tired arguments that I knew were useless.

So I was forced to come to the conclusions I've come to. I didn't want them, I didn't ask for them, but they came just the same.

And even now I don't want to walk away from Judaism. I can't. I'd like to reform it so that it isn't based on fairy tales. I'm proud to be a Jew, but not proud of much of what Orthodox Judaism believes and says. You don't know the endless heartache I go through because something I love is so wrong.

Don't put me in a box.