Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots

by Deborah Feldman

As far back as I can remember, I have always wanted everything from life, everything it can possibly give me. This desire separates me from people who are willing to settle for less. I cannot even comprehend how people’s desires can be small, their ambitions narrow and limited, when the possibilities are so endless.

You leave when there’s nothing left to stay for; you go where you can be useful, where people accept you.

I’d like to hold her responsible for everything I went through as a result, but I am too wise for that. I know the way of our world, and the way people get swept along in the powerful current of our age-old traditions.

Perhaps in a child, eccentricity is more easily forgiven.

I don’t understand why I can’t be like these other girls, in whom modesty is so ingrained that it runs in their veins. Even their thoughts are still and quiet, I can tell. With me, you can see on my face what I’m thinking. And even if I never speak the thoughts out loud, you can tell that they are forbidden.

It seems to me that in the literature revolving around children, children who are strange and misunderstood like me, at some point something comes along to transform their lives, to transport them to the magic netherworld to which they truly belong. And then they realize that their old life was just a mistake, that they were extraordinary all along and meant for bigger and better things. Secretly, I too am waiting to fall down a hole into Wonderland, or pass through the back of a wardrobe into Narnia. What other possibilities could I consider? Surely I will never be at home in this world.

Will I too one day find that I have a power that has been kept secret from me? Does it lie dormant within me right now?

I have come to accept this convention as a fact of life as well. In the physics of imagination, this is the rule: a child can only accept a just world.

An empty vessel clangs the loudest.

I am convinced that my ability to feel deeply is what makes me extraordinary, and that is my ticket to Wonderland.

Every time a man catches a glimpse of any part of your body that the Torah says should be covered, he is sinning. But worse, you have caused him to sin. It is you who will bear the responsibility of his sin on Judgment Day.”

It is from children that you have the most nachas, the most pride, Zeidy always says, but also the most pain.

Perhaps there are no plagues, only the fickleness of nature. Perhaps there are no consequences, just ugliness. Maybe punishment is something that only comes from people, not from God.

It feels nice to have time to myself again, and enough privacy that I don’t have to be afraid my thoughts are being overheard.

I am hungry for power, but not to lord over others; only to own myself.

Like clockwork, I zone out after five minutes, the teacher’s face a blur, her lips moving but no sound emerging. When the bell rings, it feels like only seconds have passed, seconds in which I have decorated my future castle in luxuriant velvets and oak-paneled libraries, with wardrobes that are all entrances to Narnia-like kingdoms. I lose myself within the opulent labyrinth of my mind.

To think that we are in control is ridiculous,

If you are forced to confront your fears on a daily basis, they disintegrate, like illusions when viewed up close.

The most miraculous happenings are possible when things are still unknown. It is only when all has been decided that the excitement fades.

That phrase, what God wants, infuriated me. There is no desire outside human desire. God was not the one who wanted Mindy to have children.

The Romance Reader, it’s called. It’s about a religious Jewish girl just like us, who wants to read books and wear bathing suits.

For we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won, but exact their dues of work and self-denial, anxiety and discouragement. —From Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery

I feel as if I have no physical refuge. What a curse it is not to feel safe in one’s own body, when everything else is going wrong. My body should be the one thing I can rely on; instead it has become my worst enemy, undermining my every effort.

Anne of Green Gables before placing it in the bag along with Watership Down and Jane Eyre.

Now you’re considered a baby up until the minute you turn eighteen, and then suddenly you’re an adult? Semantics,

I don’t see how I can be anything else, though. It’s the only life I’m allowed to live. Even if I were willing to give it all up, how would I go about finding a life to replace it?

My life is an exercise in secrets, the biggest secret being my true self,

I must look just like everyone else here. Finally, the blessed feeling of anonymity, of belonging; are they not the same? Can anyone see past my nonchalant poise to the nervous joy underneath?

It takes a long time for shame to fade away, but surprisingly, underneath it there is pride.

And although the excitement of trying new things fades with repetition, the excitement of freedom never fails to gratify me. Each time I exercise it, I feel a separate joy that curls through my limbs like syrup. I never want to give up even a fraction of that wonder.

People want to know if I’ve found happiness, but what I’ve found is better: authenticity. I’m finally free to be myself, and that feels good. If anyone ever tries to tell you to be something you’re not, I hope you too can find the courage to speak up in protest.

It takes a decade to build both a new self and a life to go with it, and had somebody told me how hard it would be, I might not have undertaken the challenge at all.

Happiness has a way of playing hide-and-seek when you actively pursue it, but it often surprises you when you least expect it.

your past becomes far more bearable to you when you’ve physically left it behind.