If you’re a BT who got/is currently getting slapped in the face by the reality of living in (or even visiting) a charedi community, including but not limited to Crown Heights, these are my insights, learned in the school of hard knocks.
I’ll understand if you don’t read this piece. I didn’t want to write it.
I didn’t bring it up with him directly, but I spoke to others about my concerns about his beard. The lack thereof. I was afraid that it meant that he accepted the army’s dress standards over our religious ones, allowing a foreign body to dictate his religious choices. My point of reference for that was my having given up playing music on Shabbos, despite that being antithetical to the standards of practicing and performing in the music world. Did that therefore mean that we didn’t share some important values, ones that would affect our relationship in the long term?
This happened several years ago, in several places that probably don’t exist anymore, and I’m doubting anyone in the story...
The truth is shining real bright right before our eyes. None of us are free, If one of us is chained, None of us are free.
I will always pick this philosophy that I have to tread lightly on or it will crack like yachatz.
I cannot lie down on it, lean left on it, like a soft pillow and find comfort in it like fresh bread.
On this night, Pesach became mine.
I stomped around my apartment for quite awhile recently, saying the bad “f” swear word out loud
On realizing that I wasn't just traumatized by my community. I was reliving it.