Society’s not-to-be-questioned oughts can be imprisoning. Think of: “Baby making is the proper place of young ladies.”
Parental expectations can be imprisoning. “We sacrificed everything for you to attend college, and you are refusing to go?”
Religion can be imprisoning. “Make your life as your pious elders tell you.” Deborah Feldman tells of her struggle with herself while growing up to break free of her Hasidic roots:
For a while I thought I could un-Jew myself. Then I realized that being Jewish is not in the ritual or the action. It is in one’s history. I am proud of being Jewish, because I think that’s where my indomitable spirit comes from, passed down from ancestors who burned in fires of persecution because of their blood, their faith. I am Jewish; I am invincible. I feel this more than I ever did, like I have come home into myself, and God is no longer a prescription for paradise but an ally in my heart.
Here in this city so far from my home, I realize that the day has come. It is this morning, drinking sweet chicory coffee on a balcony overlooking the lonely efforts of street cleaners hosing down the debris of the previous night’s revelries. Was it not for this that I left? This freedom, to be so completely released from ties that I could go anywhere, be anyone, do anything? Finally, it comes, the certainty I have been waiting for. It knocks at my door bearing café au lait in a silver pot, saying, “You’ve made it.” This is why I did it.
For those of you who shove words like sinner and heretic in my face, the ones who ask, “How dare you?” let me just say, I dare because I am free. I own myself, and so I have full power to make decisions that concern me. And if you want that too, that’s okay, because that’s something we all deserve. Even if they tell you different.
(Quoted from page 252 of Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots, by Deborah Feldman. Simon & Schuster, 2012.)
For a brief biography of Deborah Feldman, click here. For images of or relating to Deborah Feldman, click here.
Parental expectations can be imprisoning. “We sacrificed everything for you to attend college, and you are refusing to go?”
Religion can be imprisoning. “Make your life as your pious elders tell you.” Deborah Feldman tells of her struggle with herself while growing up to break free of her Hasidic roots:
For a while I thought I could un-Jew myself. Then I realized that being Jewish is not in the ritual or the action. It is in one’s history. I am proud of being Jewish, because I think that’s where my indomitable spirit comes from, passed down from ancestors who burned in fires of persecution because of their blood, their faith. I am Jewish; I am invincible. I feel this more than I ever did, like I have come home into myself, and God is no longer a prescription for paradise but an ally in my heart.
Here in this city so far from my home, I realize that the day has come. It is this morning, drinking sweet chicory coffee on a balcony overlooking the lonely efforts of street cleaners hosing down the debris of the previous night’s revelries. Was it not for this that I left? This freedom, to be so completely released from ties that I could go anywhere, be anyone, do anything? Finally, it comes, the certainty I have been waiting for. It knocks at my door bearing café au lait in a silver pot, saying, “You’ve made it.” This is why I did it.
For those of you who shove words like sinner and heretic in my face, the ones who ask, “How dare you?” let me just say, I dare because I am free. I own myself, and so I have full power to make decisions that concern me. And if you want that too, that’s okay, because that’s something we all deserve. Even if they tell you different.
(Quoted from page 252 of Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots, by Deborah Feldman. Simon & Schuster, 2012.)
For a brief biography of Deborah Feldman, click here. For images of or relating to Deborah Feldman, click here.
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