The Reasoning in Faith: Why Did My Friend Leave Religion?

On an ordinary weekday, her old profile image in her email was replaced. In the new picture was her familiar smile, but her hair was uncovered, and the skirt was replaced by pants. If there was any doubt left, her statuses, which used to wade through mundane topics like children's Purim parties and quick cake recipes, suddenly plunged into deep philosophy: religion, if you didn't know, is the opium of the masses. It's true that Karl Marx said this before her, but he never studied with me in first grade, or at all. Twenty-two years of friendship, which had weakened in recent years due to life's circumstances, and I never knew she thought Judaism was racist and the Halacha outdated. After all, she got married in a completely Orthodox wedding - I was there, and at the children's circumcisions. She always seemed like one of us: strict in commandments, memorizing laws. Where did those statuses quoting Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens come from all of a sudden?

So we talked. She said religion doesn't work for her. Bad things happen in the world, so where is Hashem anyway? When I expressed my surprise that only now she was discovering that life isn't a picnic, she explained that her brain was washed, and only now she is starting to wake up. What brought the awakening? Judaism is hard and outdated, she said, its values not trendy or "cool." And who said there's even a next world? Maybe we're just working hard for nothing. 'And even if not,' she concluded, 'I don't understand what it means to delight in the divine presence. What kind of reward is that anyway?' If they promised her a penthouse and a limousine in the afterlife, then maybe there'd be something to talk about.

Later, I met a few more like her. A childhood friend divorced from an indifferent husband, deciding to divorce Hashem along the way. A friend's sister who soared to a new life in the U.S. with her husband - they didn't bother to take Judaism with them. A neighbor who left his children and wife behind and went searching for himself in cliché Tel Aviv life. And these are just the people I personally knew.

Leaving religion is a real phenomenon in the religious and Orthodox community. Not as huge and sweeping as the media would have you think, but it certainly exists on the fringes. Nevertheless, leaving religion is merely the most extreme expression of a much broader phenomenon: being religious out of habit.

The author Elizabeth Gilbert described once how during her stay in Rome, she was surprised to find that people don't choose which football team to support: supporters of Lazio and Roma are born supporters of Lazio and Roma. Their families have belonged to the club's supporters for generations. When they are babies, they are dressed in the sports vest of the right team, and when they grow up, they don't even dream of glancing sideways. 'You can change the house, the car, or the partner,' one explained to her. 'But you can't change your football team.'

For some people, being born religious - or Orthodox - is not much different from being born into a family of Lazio supporters. Someone chose for them which club to support: they have a broad and supportive social framework thanks to this identification, and at least a small part of the identity is marked for you automatically, saving the need for self-definition. There are uniforms they wear as part of this identity, and they always know who is on their side and who is on the other side. However, religion, after all, isn't soccer. Even the most die-hard football fans would find it difficult to attribute cosmic, moral, or spiritual significance to their sports fandom. Similarly, those religious out of habit definitely recognize the benefits of their way of life - they just can't explain to you how it connects to Hashem.

Who Am I Religious For, Really?

It's sad, but there are people who live a religious lifestyle without a trace of thought or spiritual interest. One can pray three times a day - while the thoughts wander far from the one before whom we stand. One can observe Shabbat and feast on newspapers and snacks - and not stop for a moment to try to see beyond the pumpkin seeds, the cholent pot, and the sector news. One can even study Torah and derive an enormous intellectual enjoyment from it, without dreaming for a second to carry out the words of the Ramban's letter: "When you get up from the book, search for what you have learned if there is something you can carry out."

How do I know it's possible? Because all of us sometimes behave like this, or at least those of us who haven't yet climbed to the level of complete righteous people. We all pray the Shemona Esrei sometimes while planning the upcoming trip to Jerusalem in detail. We all sometimes spend Shabbat focusing solely on eating, sleeping, and mediocre magazines. We all sometimes enjoy deep Torah teachings, then behave in a way that has nothing to do with Torah. So what's the difference between those who are inside and those who are outside, in their heart or in their body? What is the advantage of the forgetful, the fallen, and the confused - over those who simply close the door behind them, some quietly some loudly, and openly aspire to other lives?

The difference is Hashem.

Stop one of those religious out of habit and try to extract from him why he bothers observing commandments. If he has gone this far, the honest answer will be social pressure: he's comfortable in his tribe, after all, and he's willing to maintain certain routines to belong. But even in the better case, where he believes in Hashem, the commandments he keeps with a clear feeling of fulfilling an obligation. Why does he keep commandments? Because Hashem demands it of him. Why does Hashem demand it? He has never thought deeply about it. He is Hashem and can do what he wants, including demanding difficult things from us. And no, this is not a phenomenon newly born in our times: already in Isaiah, you find Hashem's words about the people of that time: "This people draws near me with their mouth and with their lips honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men."

Such religious people don't feel that Judaism as a religion (as opposed to belonging to a religious society) necessarily improves their lives. Try the idea on them that the commandments are meant to give them a better life, not only in the next world but also in this one - and they'll look at you with eyes wide open. Try to tell them that serving Hashem is not meant to please Hashem, who to Him silence is praise and doesn't need us - and they'll wrinkle their forehead. Serving Hashem is meant for us? This supposedly "revolutionary" idea is hard for them to grasp.

Learning to See Hashem's Love

It sounds strange because anyone who has ever studied Judaism knows the Jewish view that the entire world was created for the benefit of humankind, that the people of Israel were chosen to be a treasured people so that it may be good for them here and in the hereafter, and that Hashem's relationship with us is 'an everlasting love.' But these are messages that require a mature soul and clear thinking to internalize them. Many of us get stuck at the stage of a small child with darting eyes, checking if any grown-up noticed him breaking a cup and if his marbles are in danger of confiscation. Try explaining to such a grown-up religious person - long past childhood - that Hashem doesn't care about the cup or the marbles, Hashem cares about him. That Hashem wants him, with all his flaws. That Hashem isn't looking to catch him falling; He is looking to help him get up if he would only ask.

Observing commandments out of habit can last for a long time, but various circumstances can easily collapse it. Great pain, intense temptation, deep disappointment - and the road is short to the decision that life would be easier if we took Hashem out of the equation. It's true, there are people in those same circumstances where the opposite happens to them, and they lean on Hashem more than ever: but these are people who have a real connection with Hashem, who have real confidence in His love for them and His desire to benefit them. People who also sometimes do commandments on automatic, but their hearts haven't distanced from Hashem. Their overall conduct, desire, aspiration - haven't reached the state of 'precept of men taught.'

Those whose hearts have not distanced from Hashem know what the closeness to Hashem is. It is an experience that anyone who has merited it will always remember. We live in an era of hidden face, and therefore even those who have merited it - remember short moments, a still small voice, a feeling that was and slipped away, but left an impression. But to feel Hashem's closeness, one must want it. "Your face, Hashem, I will seek." And why would someone seek the closeness of Hashem if Hashem, as he thinks of Him, doesn't evoke love or a desire to be loved by Him?

My friend doesn't care for the next world, where the reward of the righteous is enjoyment from the divine presence, the ultimate closeness to Hashem. And she doesn't want it because Hashem was always distant to her: keeping an eye from above to see if she stumbles again, marking another black dot, drawing closer the evil judgment. She never remembered to think of Him as the one who brought her into the world and raised her, who gave her family, friends, and work. Who sent her two healthy, sweet children. She was taught that everything comes from Hashem, but she wasn't taught to watch and see just how much Hashem loves her and watches over her. As Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag, author of 'The Ladder,' writes in the book of introductions: " And you should know indeed, that the reason for all this distance, that we are so far from Hashem, and how we are so susceptible to transgress His will, all this is only because of one reason... our lack of understanding in His supervision over His creations."

This lack of understanding, in its extreme expression, is what lies at the root of the phenomenon of people who grew up in a Torah environment but chose to distance themselves from it. Because if there's something Jewish history, filled with suffering, teaches us, it's that no difficulty, no trial, can cause someone truly connected to the Holy One, Blessed Be He, to run away from Him. Such a trial is destined to end in a circular race, returning to the starting point. 'I'll flee from You to You,' as Rabbi Israel Najara described in his poem 'Where Will I Go'. To someone who has once felt Hashem, what other escape could there be?

It's possible to be angry, to hurt, to be disappointed, to sin, to stumble, to forget, to close our eyes...and still remain deeply within the embrace of Judaism, and not truly want to be anywhere else. If only it's possible to talk to Hashem about all this (maybe only tomorrow, maybe in a month, but eventually, we'll reach that conversation), then we have a solid and strong anchor. The storms will struggle to drown us. But those who have never managed to truly know Hashem? Pray for them. Even if today they still sail with everyone, it's just a matter of time before one storm or another carries them far away. Maybe you won't even know they've gone, maybe it will seem they're still here - but their heart, which was never opened to divine love, will be far further than ever.