Reply To: Perspective From OTD

[To the Moderators: Was this post deleted or lost? I can’t tell if it ever actually posted. I am new to the site, and I am not trying to violate your rules – I would appreciate a little understanding.]

Zahavasdad, thank you for your comment.

You said: “Everyone wants to stop OTD, Everyone is coming up with ideas on why OTD occurs and now someone comes on and tells you why they went OTD people attacked the messenger. OTD will continue to occur as long as the messenger is attacked instead of the message.”

I understand the resistance to wanting to hear feedback from OTD people/formerly frum/whatever you want to call people like me. The Orthodox world is attacked from every angle. People have a lot of pride in their communities and are resistant to criticism as well as naturally suspicious of someone they see as a traitor.

You can believe this or not, but I am sharing my viewpoints out of affection for the frum world. I live and work primarily in the non frum, non Jewish world now and it is a very cold and cutthroat place. In the frum world, people are largely kind and look out for each other. So much so that it’s a cliche in New York that non Jewish people keep a kippa in their glovebox in case their car breaks down so they can put it on and a frum Jew will pull over and help them.

Please think of my comments the way a company would think of an employee exit interview – valuable feedback taken with a grain of salt due to possible biases – that may genuinely help their organization improve in the long run.

When I started reading articles and books about the “OTD phenomenon” it amazed me and disappointed me to see that the majority of the blame was put on OTD people. That we must be emotionally or psychologically damaged. To admit otherwise would be to admit that there may be something about the frum community that is less than perfect.

Let me posit this: If your religiosity is dependent on the idea that everything about the frum community is perfect, then how strong can your faith possibly be? The true and the good can withstand criticism.