I've heard a lot about “the derech” or “the path” of Torah since I started becoming religious five years ago. Recently I came to a startling realization – this “derech” of Torah, which usually stands to mean keeping “Torah & mitzvot” (quotations because exactly what that means is also a discussion). “Torah & mitzvot” usually means the religious Orthodox lifestyle, with its three pillars – Shabbat, Kashrut, and Taharas Mishpachah (the laws of family purity). Things like praying on a regular basis, tzniut (modest dress and behavior) and learning Torah on a regular basis, and everything else, can get thrown in here as well.
There’s just one teensy tinsy problem. These things are all external. You could keep all these things and it doesn’t say one thing about you – you could be “on the derech” and yet be G-d forbid an abuser, a molester, or any other number of things. Is someone who commits adultery on the path of Torah because he wears a black hat and doesn’t drive on Shabbat? And yet I see this type of thinking everywhere. Something is desperately wrong! The community that should be a model of G-dliness and holiness in the world is a place I am running from because it so backwards & corrupt. And I am dangerous because I hold myself to a moral calling and refuse to forgive injustice because Rabbis are considered to be above the law since “we have to trust in our leaders and give them the benefit of the doubt.” Where did it all go wrong, and if this isn’t Torah, how do I know what is?
Then I remembered a story in the Talmud about Rabbi Hillel. A man came to Hillel and asked – teach me the Torah on one foot. Hillel answered: that which is hateful to you do not do to your brother, the rest is commentary – now go and learn. THIS is my basis for Torah. Anything and anyone that does not answer to this statement, and its counterpart positive statement of “love your brother as yourself” IS NOT TORAH. I will not associate with a self-aggrandizing community that poses itself as the end-all-and-be-all of Judaism and does not follow this most basic precept.
Please note that Hillel did not cite anything external and none of the pillars I described earlier. I still believe these things are important, in my mind they are commandments by G-d and to be treated as such. But they must answer to fundamentals. People who live by outward commandments and not by the former statement are, in my mind, not on the path of Torah. I don’t care what title they have and how much Gemara they’ve learned or how tzniut they dress. My question to them is: I see that you LEARN Torah. But do you LIVE Torah? And not just the OUTSIDE of Torah, but the INSIDE as well?
I don’t know how this will all end up, but I certainly know that I will not be in any way involved in or associate with a community that is staging the greatest Chillul Hashem (desecration of G-d’s name, of Torah, of everything holy) that my Polyanna mind can conceive of. And this is not just one group of people in one area – they are using popular Orthodox ideas as their backing, and using those ideas successfully. This shows me very clearly that the issue is not one group of people, but an entire system of thought that has at its root true concepts, but mixed in are elements of falsehood that allow for and create the situation I am now facing.
It is also tremendously ironic to me that many people, perhaps even you, are wondering whether or not I’ll end up “off the derech” in the traditional sense of the word. The funny thing is I think I've been off it, and I'm once more searching for it. This is not a rebellion against G-d and Torah, but a search for it. And my credo comes from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged – "Accept the fact that...your mind is fallible, but becoming mindless will not make you infallible...that an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error...any knowledge man acquires is through his own will & effort, and that is his distinction in the universe...learn to distinguish the difference between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality-make every allowance for errors of knowledge, do not forgive any breach of morality." Thanks, Ayn, for reminding me that no credo, no religion, nothing can ever own my mind or tell me to submit to the “daas Torah” of others because my mind is too little and too subjective to comprehend it. Of course I’ll still be the inquisitive person, asking questions and seeking advice, that I've always been. But I own my mind, I make my own decisions, and I will not allow anyone’s reality to impose upon my own, I will not bend what I know to be true to others who tell me it’s not.
P.S. This may sound even more amazing than the last few paragraphs. I plan on moving, I am not sure where to yet, because I have discovered that there are people, a significant number of them, who are out to convince me that what I witnessed and experienced with my own eyes, ears, and body is a lie. That I heard every word wrong, that I misunderstood every aspect of entire conversations. That the previous attempts to alter my understanding of reality did not happen that way either. And that if I have the audacity to continue to speak the truth, with mounds of evidence behind me, to those who need to know reality in order to be protected from it – that my reputation will be destroyed because I cannot be allowed to continue to spread – you got it – a warped version of reality. And of course that’s not a threat or an ultimatum designed to shut me up, it wasn’t meant to be taken that way, it’s just that we have to protect ourselves you see, it really isn’t wrong, it just feels that way… Somehow these guys missed that the more you bang against my sense of right & justice, the more energy I’ll have to do absolutely everything in my power to stop it. No, I won't cower because I'm dealing with cowards who have to use force & fear & lies in order to rule, since they own nothing else. The kicker – this is the result of an “investigation” into my claims. Oh yes, people are actually buying that I was stalked, harassed, and inquired about because they wanted to “protect me.” Now if that’s not brainwashing, I don’t know what is. And of course destroying my reputation will have to include defamation, I have done nothing wrong except to do what I felt was right when no one else would…I think speaking out & taking action against injustice when others keep silent is a tremendous part of being Jewish…And you say these people are on the derech, while I am going off it…
"Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong."
- Francisco d'Anconia, Atlas Shrugge
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