#yeshiva — Public Fediverse posts

"When I tell people I’m a nonobservant #Orthodox #Jew, there is usually a small pause, followed by a look that says: Pick one. I understand it. The phrase sounds like a hedge, or like someone claiming a title he hasn’t earned. But I don’t think it’s a contradiction.

It helps to start with where this came from, because it didn’t come from childhood. Until a few years ago, I wasn’t curious about any of it. I was #secular and, on some subjects, actively hostile to religion. What changed was #Oct7, 2023, and then a semester when I was honored to be associated with #Yeshiva University. I came away wanting to know more than I did, and I’ve been picking at that ever since.

I should be clear about the scale of it: I am not a learned man in the #Jewish sense of that word. If you quoted a passage at me, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t recognize it. What I do is modest and improvised."

https://jewishjournal.com/judaism/390840/can-one-be-a-non-observant-orthodox-jew/