I was was watching a video by Justin Sledge on the first treatise of evil in Judaism, called "Treatise on the Left Emanation"
https://www.reddit.com/r/Esotericism/comments/n738qm/exploration_on_the_origins_of_evil_in_early/

That got me thinking: where did the idea of right = good and left = evil come from?

Apparently, it has a long history.
https://www.ancientpages.com/2018/06/29/being-left-handed-was-a-sign-of-evil-until-only-recently/

Hello to all “ex Jews”. I’m not particularly a fan of this term because being Jewish is more than being religious. I didn’t grow up religious but since October 7th, I found that I wanted to dive into religion head on. I have always been interested in Judaism but never felt welcome in the community because I was different. A lot of people can also be closed off. One of my friend growing up is haredi and he is the sweetest guy I know. He has autism and his brother is what you would say is an “ex Jew” but he still loves him, accepts him, and speaks highly of him. I think that maybe I’ve been lucky to meet such good people, but I’ve certainly met my bad share of religious people and have seen how weird the extreme end of the spectrum can be. I’m just asking for advice really on what to avoid and what to be cautious of as I delve into my religious journey. And yes, the Mitzvahs do make me personally happy and I feel like I’m connecting with my ancestors when I do them. I’m not a religiously zealous person but I do believe in Hashem. I am in 0 way trying to engage in Kiruv here but I want to genuinely know what to be cautious of because I don’t want to end up as a religious zealot.

That's it. I'm a coward and ill delude myself untill I'm able to stay because I can't leave.

I stopped being religious at 15 I am now 21 soon turning 22 I thought I would be over it by now but new things always seem to happen that fuels my anger a little more instead of calming it down this mixed with general nihilism because I don’t believe in anything has made me into something I don’t like I catch myself hoping and wishing I’ll on every religious person I see and I know it’s not healthy I should probably just talk to a therapist but they can’t really understand if they weren’t once religious Jews themselves so I’m asking y’all how did you find purpose and shed your anger if any toward the religious community?

I was a regular yeshiva bachur until I got tired of all the bs in od now I just can't integrate and desperately need help

I'm looking for someone who's left the Hasidic community already to chat 1 on 1 for advice

I won't go into the meguilah that has been my life, but tonight I'm just finding it really hard to cope with so much trauma, grief, loss, despair and soul crushing pain. I have been to therapy, counselling, frum and non frum. How to keep going with such unbearable pain? I'm at loss and feel like I'm falling into a black hole, a void that will never end.

Once in yeshiva we were over at a couple's house for Shabbat. after the meal, us bochurim were helping clear the table. I remember putting down a dish on the middle counter of the kitchen, and the wife screamed "No not there!" and I was like "WTF did I just do?" No explanation, even though I wanted to say "Calm down, lady."

but I wonder if it was supposed to be strictly a counter for meat or dairy only? we certainly weren't told in advance. Very strange.

I’ve written here before about my story and this is more a shit-post because sometimes I think about my experience and story and I get sad and mad again, especially around holidays. It’s funny to me that my Chabad and religious friends stopped reaching out once I was engaged to a non-Jew, as I suppose there was no sense in trying. So what seemed like real friendship I guess was kiruv all along, but it reminds me that they also don’t check in for the yahrtzeit of my brother who took his own life. They never even checked on me at all as soon as I was no longer able to be molded to frumkeit. But what makes me angriest is how the death of my brother was handled. We had a fundraiser to raise money for funds to bury my brother in Florida, but we didn’t reach our goal and it was more money than my parents could afford, and my brother wanted cremation. My parents came to peace with it but once frum people who had donated got wind, they went nuts and had an intervention. They told my mourning mother that my brother wouldn’t be able to meet Moshiach. They also said the other donors would need to withdraw their funds they gave if we wanted to go through with it, mind you, my parents had no idea who gave what - this was organized by a family friend as my parents were sickly grieving. It was almost comical. They then went on a massive campaign to raise the funds, which we were grateful for, but the approach was kind of awful toward a reform family who lost their son to mental illness. Finally, I was approached by a Chabad rebbetzin and told that she believes Hashem knows my brother wasn’t in his right mind and that’s how he will judge him for committing the aveira.

3 years later and I haven’t heard from them at all, except for simcha invites but in terms of me finding my own happiness despite this darkness my family endured (it destroyed me), not one person from my BT life sends me any warm regards or checks in, and I stopped too. I think they earned like a million mitzvahs though from stopping my brothers cremation though lol so they’re welcome

You know the deal by now. Feel free to discuss your Shabbat plans or whatever else.

Hi, I'm 15 and looking for advice. I was always very against the idea of tznius because, to me, it made women into sexual objects. However, I still don't want to specifically draw attention to my body. Not that I would judge anyone, I just wouldn't feel comfortable dressing that way. Pants would be a lot easier, but I'm still living at home and I don't want to hurt my parents that much because for them, it represents a total lack of tznius. I just feel like skirts are way more immodest.

I was wondering what length of skirts is typically considered sexy and stuff, and what would be appropriate for a casual environment. Not sure if others can relate, but I want to wear clothing that would make me blend in with regular people and not attract attention to myself. (I have some form of social anxiety.) Pants would be the best option, but for now I'm still wearing skirts daily.

I just don't have too many friends (from growing up religious), and I really don't have the innate sense of what non-Tznius clothing is appropriate. I'm not too into fashion and would really just like to blend in with everyone else.

Out of tradition (but mostly because I really like it) I wanted hand-baked matza this Pesach. I chose to live in a place with no Charedim, and I have no idea where the stuff comes from anyway, so I had to get some off my local Chabad house...and now they know I exist. The rabbi in charge there just asked me if I live here. I don't in principle have anything against making friends with them, or having shabbat dinner, or whatever it is they do, but I obviously do not share their faith and have no interest in kiruv.

There's a lot I can't explain or tell them. I don't have any good excuse for why I wanted shmura matza. My Hebrew accent is a complete mess of half-remembered modern Ivrit and heavy Yeshivish. I'm trans. I have no Jewish name because I didn't give myself one when transitioning. They may even know my family. There are probably other weird things that could come up that haven't occurred to me. Have I been very stupid? Any suggestions on how to respond as they do their thing?

Context: ive been dating my non jewish bf for a year… my mom knows this , has met him etc.. she went to a chabbad shul and borrowed this book for me 🙄 i never asked for this bs.

So it looks like this is the organization Footsteps recommends you check out if you're not 18 yet. Has anyone here done that? Did it help you in your journey in any way?

I'm in college rn and the semester is coming to an end. I stayed in the college dorms through the fall and spring semesters and I have the option of staying another year in the dorms, or stay home and commute. Dorming another year costs quite a bit and I'm gonna have to take out more loans.

But honestly, its worth it to the point where I don't think I have a choice. No way in hell am gonna spend shabbosim and yomtovim with my UO family (since I still technically live at home). Shabbos to me amounts to just staying in my room the whole day pretending that I'm not breaking malacha (I'm still kinda in the closet about being OTD at least to that extent), and no way in fuck am I gonna be spending holidays doing this for days end while pretending I'm fasting. Staying at home would also mean I won't be able to commute to classes (especially on fridays) and I'm sure as hell not gonna miss classes because some tyrannical bronze age child mutilating fucktards decided so.

Fortunately, my family these days tends to mind their own business when it comes to my religious observance. But again, I'm still kinda in the closet about being "OTD" and the fallout of it is not something I'm interested in dealing with atm.

I'm just pissed off that I'm in this situation, but the alternative would be hell on earth. In fact, one of the reasons I went to college in the first place was aside from being able to get a degree and a job and get the fuck out of anything Jewish; is to be able to have some semblance independence and not have to be festered with the paranoia, anxiety, and ridicule that is Orthodox Judaism.

I'll say that in retrospect these are way funnier but at the time I was genuinely shell-shocked and angry . So when I was around 8 years old I went to my cousins house to play with them, my family stayed to discuss whatever. While they were talking by the sofa we're talking by the stairs and I hear my uncle yelling to my mom about what a dumbass I was since I didn't know the entire mishna by heart at my age while ppl back in the day already knew it. I was pissed but obviously I couldn't show it so I just pretended to ignore it.

The next story is after my bar mitzvah I was talking to someone who took me to side and started asking me if I was seeing naked women while I was praying shema and amida. I was kinda freaked out because this person was supposed to be very religious and that was a very weird thing to ask (also because I grew up very sheltered I didn't even know that you had to have sex to have babies until I was like 15, didn't understand masturbation etc) so I told him no and he asked me again to which I again said no. He then told me it'd happen when I grew up and it's a very hard thing to not think about all the time. Thinking about it now this guy was a missive perv because that's thankfully never been a problem.

What funny family/ friends stories do you have?

I wore pants in public!

I wasn’t planning on it, but I recently bought some pants to wear around my house. They were actually very comfortable, and my body figure looked SO much better than just being covered under a frumpy skirt so I just went out in public like that.

Also I want to add that I felt really normal, like a normal woman my age who isn’t a fundamentalist and forced to hide underneath a large cloth going past my knees so the all-loving deity doesn’t throw me into the pits of gehinnom.

It unexpectedly helped me very much to move forward mentally, in a positive way.

Helping someone in need is a great and other maasim tovim good deeds, that’s really the main point anyway. Shalom all have a great day!

You know how they teach that the torah predicted 9/11 as well as everything else in the universe (but also somehow its only after the matter that they 'discover' where it was revealed)?

An experiment to disprove its legitimacy rings a bell but I can't recall. The experiment would essentially be generating mumbo jumbo and then using programs to find similar "patterns" within the mumbo jumbo to show it could be done with any large amounts of text.

If this hasn't been done yet, I feel like it's high time with all the AI tools available lmao imagine feeding all bibles and outputting an analysis score of how much the results deviate from mumbo jumbo 😆😆 ouch💀 I wonder what else could be tackled as well

TW: Childhood Abuse

I hope it's okay to post this here. I'm wondering if others in this community have a similar experience to mine and how do you cope with it. I have been a long time lurker and I wish 25 years ago this community existed. I know there's other subs for my question but I'm looking for experiences from those with a similar background to mine. I will try to keep it short and not go too deep in the actual abuse. (don't want to trigger others) I'm wondering if anyone else here has struggled their entire lives with a Cluster B parent? And how did you learn to cope with it? My mother rejected me from the moment I was born, a child that according to her she wanted so much. I could write a book about all the abuse I suffered at her hands and the long life trauma and issues I deal with because of it, among many other things since I was a baby she made sure she made everyone believe I was this evil thing with adult ulterior motives, she poisoned every family member, sibling, my dad, family friends, teachers you name it since a very early age against me, needless to say I grew up alone and with only a few relationships the ones she couldn't get her claws on. This smear campaign about me continues to this day.

As soon as I could I left and never looked back, I kept low contact for years, then my dad passed away, and her sickness became full out of control as she thought she is fully in control of everything and everyone, I won't even get into what she did to me around his illness and death, she made sure I was not even at the funeral. She has no idea of who I am, doesn't know anything about my life at all, my job, where I live, who I'm married to. I married another OTD, someone raised frum, went to BMG, he found out there was some issues with his mother's orthodox conversion and halachically he is no longer Jewish, when my mother found out I was dating, the only things she had to tell me was "you know he is a goy, right?" "Who would imagine you would end up with a goy!?" that was the first and last time I ever talked to her about my husband. She doesn't know we dated, got engaged, got married and will be celebrating our twenty wedding anniversary this year, a man who is my husband, lover, best friend and the family she never was and took away from me.

I have gone to therapy, learned to deal with her and my sibling who is so enmeshed with her to the point you don't know where one ends and the other begins, with the tools I have learned in therapy over the years, I'm very low contact now and the future wherever that will be I know no contact is coming. Over the years this has caused me more pain and torment than I can describe. I know my mother is a very sick woman, who made my only sibling very sick by proxy as well, but this doesn't make it any easier specially as I get older not to have a mom, I have gone through so many happy and also sad times through out my life, the woman who gave birth to me was not part of any of it, doesn't know any of it.

My grandmother did the same to her, created the exact same family dynamic, but my mother took it even further with her life long abuse towards me. My husband and I decided not to have children, it ends with me.

Thank you for reading and if anyone has any words of comfort or support, I welcome it, due to recent events, the grief of being an emotional orphan my entire life is hurting too much.

Everyone here has had a tough time. Have you ever felt like you wished that life would be better not existing? I've felt that from time to time.

Hey it's been a while I since I've been here lol, maybe some OGs remember me. I've been like moving on with my life and want to get rid of my old tefillin. I could just toss them but I'd really like to make some money off them bec they were very expensive so they have to be worth something. Anyone here have experience selling theirs?

We're a Chasidish family living in a very strict Chasidic community in NY. We are keeping the traditions we like while outwardly pretending to be part of the community like everyone else. Please don't ask why we stay here; it's a complex situation for us. However, we're here for the time being. We are looking for other people like us to connect with, either online or in person. It would also be nice to find families who are in a similar situation. We know there are others out there.

Unorthodox did not resonate with me at all, I found it to be extremely cringey. But I cant speak for its accuracy, because I was not Satmar.

I've often wondered about what good OTD representation would look like, and I sometimes look to exchristian shows for what I'd like to see.

A big thing for me would be seeing more actual struggles with faith. More of an exploration of why a character would stop believing.

Also, maybe make the extra characters more human? Why do so many of these characters act like creepy robots.