Not Orthodox: Tova Mirvis

[00:00:00] The views and opinions expressed by A Little Bit Culty are those of the hosts and do not

[00:00:04] necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests,

[00:00:10] bloggers, sponsors, or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any

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[00:00:20] Welcome to A Little Bit Culty, a podcast about what happens when something that seems like a

[00:00:34] great thing at first goes to the dark side and takes you with it. I'm your host, Sarah Edmondson.

[00:00:40] And I'm also your host, Anthony Ames, aka Nippy. Sarah and I met on love in a quote

[00:00:45] self-help organization that turned out to be a mega cult called Nexium. Heard of it?

[00:00:51] We got out of there together and on our way out we helped shut it down.

[00:00:54] Our journey as Nexium whistleblowers was captured in detail on a docu-series called The Vow on HBO

[00:00:59] and also on the front page of a newspaper. New York Times, babe. Right. Have you heard of it?

[00:01:04] Each week on A Little Bit Culty we talk with other former cult members and whistleblowers

[00:01:09] plus experts in things like cultic abuse and coercive control. We also turn the mic over

[00:01:14] to advocates and clinicians with wisdom to share on recovering from everything from MLMs

[00:01:19] and toxic religion to bad romances with raging narcissists.

[00:01:22] There's always something to learn about the cultiverse. Be sure to subscribe to A Little

[00:01:27] Bit Culty so you don't miss an episode. Find us on Instagram and at ALittleBitCulty.com.

[00:01:48] Well, well, well, Ms. Edmondson. Look what we have here. Look at what we have here.

[00:01:53] It's been a good week. It has. It has been a good week. We've had some fun.

[00:01:57] Had our nine-year anniversary. We got to see Whitney Cummings,

[00:02:01] backstage. Live in person. Oh, wow. What a great show and also,

[00:02:07] you know, almost coming up on three years that we met on the social media after The Vow came

[00:02:12] out and we've been social media friends. And to be real. No, it'd be two. That was October

[00:02:17] of 20 right after he got sentenced. I can do math. So it's almost two years. Basic math.

[00:02:23] So whatever mind, in almost two years, The Vow will have come out. In answer to some of your

[00:02:27] questions, no, we do not know when season two is coming out hopefully soon.

[00:02:33] They will not tell us, but we do know that we're not in it that much, which I'm kind of happy

[00:02:37] about to be honest with you. Aren't you? I mean, I don't need to be in it. There's so

[00:02:41] much more to the story and the inner circle stuff and the follow up with the trial.

[00:02:46] That's nothing really to do with us. We can't help you there.

[00:02:48] Can't help you there. We can't help you there. Yeah, that's not our story.

[00:02:51] As soon as we know and are allowed to share, I promise you our audience will be the third to

[00:02:56] know. I'll probably tell my parents. Who knows, man? Anyway, guys, we've had lots of fun since

[00:03:01] the Ask Man Anything last week. Again, thank you for your questions. We'll do another one

[00:03:05] of those soon. Thank you also to everyone who's been donating and following us on TikTok.

[00:03:10] I still only have one personal video posted, but just give me some time.

[00:03:14] But also many of you have asked how else you can support and truly reviews. There's

[00:03:19] been some really beautiful reviews, some kind of funny, terrible reviews.

[00:03:24] Like, you know, I'm all about the insults. Who's the one who said that you're asleep at

[00:03:28] the wheel or something? Have they called you nipple? No, they said, yeah, drop the nipple.

[00:03:33] He sounds like he's half asleep. I love that. So keep those reviews going.

[00:03:41] Not like that. Oh, by the way, just because my name is Nippy and you came up with nipple,

[00:03:47] it's not original. It's not at all. You've been hearing that since grade.

[00:03:51] Fifth grade, fifth grade, it's fifth grade humor. Pretty sure you can do better.

[00:03:54] That was not a natural segue, but I'll let you segue into our guest intro.

[00:03:58] I cannot think of a segue into this other than to say... Okay, then I'll do it.

[00:04:02] Okay. Well, only to say that our guests that we're excited about.

[00:04:06] Yeah, of course. She's great and she's got a mind on her.

[00:04:09] Yeah. And she's so articulate. Super smart, articulates it in,

[00:04:13] I think, more compassionate ways than I've heard. So enjoy.

[00:04:16] I'm going to preface it by saying that this is an interview with someone who left the modern

[00:04:22] Orthodox community, Orthodox Judaism. And just to preface to say, this episode is not so much,

[00:04:28] like what are the culty aspects of that particular community in Judaism? It's more

[00:04:33] about leaving. And for those who aren't super well-versed in the different communities,

[00:04:38] there's such a diverse range in the whole spectrum from extreme left to right. And

[00:04:43] there's modern Orthodoxy, and there's secular Judaism, reformed Judaism,

[00:04:48] and people who consider themselves culturally Jewish like myself. And then there's Hasidic,

[00:04:54] and right-wing very extreme groups, and everything in between. So this is just about one particular

[00:05:00] community. The same thing that happens in our political spectrum happens in the

[00:05:04] religion spectrum. You just have extremes of each.

[00:05:07] Yeah, same with Christianity too, right? Yeah.

[00:05:09] Yeah, so our guest today, Tova Mervis is the author of three novels, Visible City, Outside

[00:05:14] World, and Ladies' Auxiliary, which was a national bestseller. Her essays have appeared in various

[00:05:18] anthologies and newspapers, including The New York Times Book Review, The Boston Globe Magazine,

[00:05:23] Commentary, Good Housekeeping, and Poets and Writers. And her fiction has been broadcast on NPR.

[00:05:28] Interfiction, Tova frequently depicts characters who are living in Orthodox Jewish communities

[00:05:33] and struggling with their faith. But in 2017, she turned the page from fiction to memoir,

[00:05:39] publishing The Book of Separation, which is a searing look at her divorce,

[00:05:42] her exit from the Orthodox community, and her experience navigating single motherhood.

[00:05:46] She joined us to talk about The Book of Separation, her latest book,

[00:05:50] and her spiritual journey. We love this book. Highly recommend it.

[00:05:53] Enjoy our conversation with Tova Mervis. Tova, it's so good to see your face and to meet

[00:06:11] you finally. It's great to be here. It's such a pleasure to talk to you.

[00:06:15] Nice to meet you, Tova.

[00:06:16] Hello. Just right off the top, I have to say that I just loved your book. I was also very

[00:06:22] nippy-kin-a-tass. I was like a puddle of tears on the floor a few minutes ago,

[00:06:25] just so emotional about your journey and what you've gone through and your willingness to

[00:06:30] share that with people, even with the backdrop of this very... And this is just my own

[00:06:35] projection, but rigid and extreme religion that you grew up in. How scary that must be.

[00:06:42] I'm guessing to put yourself out there and such a real vulnerable and counter to that whole

[00:06:47] backdrop with your family still so immersed. So yeah, I have a great respect for what you've

[00:06:51] done. And I'm wondering if you wouldn't mind for our audience share with us a little bit about

[00:06:56] what that backdrop was for you. And also just wanted to say for the purpose of this podcast,

[00:07:01] I am less inclined to focus on the nitty-gritty of ultra-Orthodox Judaism

[00:07:07] and what was problematic about it. Although I do want to talk about that, but my goal for this

[00:07:12] podcast would be to use your journey as a template for anyone questioning and getting out of anything

[00:07:18] and healing from anything because I think you're so articulate about how to do that.

[00:07:22] Thank you.

[00:07:22] Just throwing that out there.

[00:07:23] And you know what I love, sorry about your book and what I love about so many memoirs that

[00:07:27] tell the story of leaving a world or leaving a family or leaving...

[00:07:32] Leaving anything is that the particulars vary so much. We have different lives, we're part of,

[00:07:37] we leave different things for different reasons. But memoir writing is really about this idea

[00:07:43] that in each of our very particular experiences, there are these universal truths. So my world

[00:07:49] doesn't have to match up to your world. I don't have to say, oh, this is the same or different.

[00:07:52] But what is so in common between them is the sense that leaving something and leaving behind

[00:07:58] the person you imagine yourself to be or the community you create for yourself and the identity

[00:08:04] that creates, it's so enormously painful to leave something even when you need to leave it

[00:08:09] or you want to leave it for so many reasons. And that sense of crafting a separation from a part

[00:08:15] of your own self really requires this recreating of who you are. And I think so much about the

[00:08:20] idea of separation. I'm terrible with book titles. Every book I've written,

[00:08:24] the title is always a final thing at that very last second where I'm like,

[00:08:28] why don't we call it No Title by Tova Mervis? But this book, I knew from the very start that

[00:08:33] it had to be called The Book of Separation because I felt like it's about the multiple

[00:08:38] kinds of separations we make. And for me as a writer, I wrote two novels about the Orthodox

[00:08:43] Jewish world that I was part of. I wrote a third novel and I love writing fiction because

[00:08:48] you get to make up worlds and you get to imagine your way into other people's lives

[00:08:53] and really to ask the question of what does it feel like to be someone else? What does it feel

[00:08:57] like not to be me but to be someone else? But with writing this book, I knew that I couldn't

[00:09:02] fictionalize this experience. I knew that it had to be a book about what does it mean

[00:09:07] to really lay claim to your own story to say that this is my own questions and my own struggles

[00:09:13] and my own choice to become someone different than who I was supposed to be. And as you

[00:09:19] said, like writing memoir, I'm sure you know this from your book and the podcast. You know,

[00:09:23] anytime you put out your honest true story, it's so scary. It makes you incredibly vulnerable.

[00:09:30] For me, writing the memoir really started with an essay I wrote. I wrote an essay about my

[00:09:35] Orthodox Jewish divorce ceremony in which I came to realize I was leaving not just a marriage

[00:09:41] but the religious world that had shaped me. And I ended up sending it to the New York

[00:09:46] Times on something of a crazy moment of like, oh, that'll be fine. You know, they're sure they

[00:09:50] won't take it but harm could come and mailing it, you know, emailing it to them. And they wrote back

[00:09:54] saying they wanted to publish it. And I was terrified because you make yourself so vulnerable

[00:09:59] when you put your story out in the world. And when that essay did come out, I was shocked.

[00:10:04] I got hundreds and hundreds of emails from people of all religious worlds and all

[00:10:09] backgrounds who had left something people wrote about divorce and about leaving families

[00:10:13] and leaving Mormonism and Catholicism, just really any religious world that you could name.

[00:10:19] And I came to this realization really as a writer that when you make yourself vulnerable,

[00:10:24] when you are willing to put that private painful story out into the public eye,

[00:10:29] it enables other people to share their stories and to tell them. And that sense of, yes,

[00:10:34] it's totally different. My world is so different from yours. But I too feel this. I also have

[00:10:39] had this kind of experience. Well, it's the nature of the pursuit of truth. And

[00:10:45] Sarah and I had some mentors like with Mike Reiner and Leah Remini, we kind of followed their model.

[00:10:50] And that's one of the most impressive things. And you touched on it earlier about the pursuit

[00:10:54] of truth in your situation in particular, you know, Sarah and I were talking about it.

[00:10:58] It's like, how did you know like you grow up in it? You don't really have context per se

[00:11:04] for anything else. Speak about how that, you know, when religions offer a truth or the pursuit

[00:11:10] of truth and you think it's your truth, how do you know that it's not? And what's that process

[00:11:15] like for you? I grew up in a modern Orthodox Jewish community in Memphis, Tennessee. Memphis

[00:11:19] is not really what people think of us like a stronghold of Orthodox Judaism. But I have no idea

[00:11:24] that community even existed. Most people do not. I'm a sixth generation Memphian. So, you

[00:11:28] know, my family has been there for a long time and there is an Orthodox community there.

[00:11:32] And we're part of a modern Orthodox community, which means that, you know, there's a wide range

[00:11:37] of practices within Judaism that really run the gamut. And even within Orthodox Judaism,

[00:11:41] one branch of Judaism, there's a wide range of practice. And so we were, you know, just as a

[00:11:46] large generalization, modern Orthodoxy differs from ultra Orthodoxy in terms of its relationship

[00:11:51] to the outside world, how closed off it is from secular society, secular education and

[00:11:57] secular cultures. So modern Orthodoxy kind of has as its idea that you can belong to the secular world,

[00:12:03] you go to college, watch TV, go to movies, but yet still hold onto strict religious belief and somehow

[00:12:09] you synthesize these two ideals. And sometimes they contradict and sometimes they don't, but you

[00:12:14] somehow work them into some seemingly cohesive whole. And so I grew up in a very small world.

[00:12:20] I went to a very small Jewish school in Memphis where there were 10 kids in my class, 10,

[00:12:26] 15 kids over the years. And really my entire world was the Orthodox community. It was everyone I knew,

[00:12:31] my entire family more or less was Orthodox. And I think like any child born into any world,

[00:12:37] you assume that is the world. That was the boundaries of my world was this community and

[00:12:42] my family. And I felt very much this sense of very much an awareness that to follow the rules

[00:12:49] was to be good. And that to be good was to be loved, that in order to be inside this

[00:12:54] world, this is what you did. This is just what the world looked like. And certainly as a child,

[00:12:59] I just accepted the world as it was. I was trained very well to be a good girl. I was never a rebel.

[00:13:05] I was a rule follower. I wanted to please and wanted to belong into the world that I was born

[00:13:11] in. I have a loving family. I'm very close to them. I had no sense that I wanted to be

[00:13:15] anything other than the person I was being raised to be. In high school, I did chafe a little,

[00:13:20] but I was too timid to actually do anything about it except think inside my head and be annoyed.

[00:13:25] But there's a lot of focus on dress codes and the role of girls and role of women and what girls

[00:13:30] can do and can't do as opposed to boys in terms of ritual participation. My skirt length seemed

[00:13:35] to be the beyond and all of my religious belonging, whether my skirt was an inch below my

[00:13:40] knee or above my knee. And we used to wear skirts that we could pull up or down depending

[00:13:45] on who's looking. But most of all, I had that sense that this is what it meant to be a good girl,

[00:13:51] that to follow the rules, to stay inside this world really at all costs. And I knew about

[00:13:56] people who were no longer Orthodox. I had a second cousin who wasn't Orthodox. I was sort of like,

[00:14:01] oh, we don't talk about her exactly. She was sort of there, but I don't think I maybe knew

[00:14:08] who she was. But it was just the sense that you were other. You were far outside the

[00:14:12] confines of that world. And I guess the real test case for that community comes with college,

[00:14:18] where many kids go to Orthodox colleges, but a large number go to secular colleges as well,

[00:14:24] which is what I did. But there was so much the sense that, hold on to what you have,

[00:14:30] don't lose your belief, don't be led astray, don't go off the path. The term for someone like me

[00:14:35] is you're off the dera, which means in English, off the path. There's a path,

[00:14:39] there's one path. And if you step off of it, you get lost. And just that feeling that to think

[00:14:44] differently or to want something else or to question a belief and ultimately to reject a belief system

[00:14:50] was to find yourself outside that world, to be lost.

[00:14:53] Just to backtrack for a second, as you probably know from our pod now that we ask,

[00:14:57] how did people get in? Right. A lot of our guests are joining something in life,

[00:15:02] like we joined NXM as young adults, but you were born into it. So then the question

[00:15:06] that I'd love to know is when your grandmother who decided to become Orthodox from remembering

[00:15:12] correctly. And I'm curious about this also because as you know, I was raised what I called

[00:15:16] half and half, which obviously wasn't a real thing for an Orthodox person. My mom is-

[00:15:21] Was Jewish.

[00:15:21] Yes, exactly.

[00:15:23] My mom being secular Jewish and my dad being ex Anglican Atheist celebrating Christmas,

[00:15:30] I had this sort of mishmash of things. But I'm looking at your world that you were in

[00:15:34] and I'm wondering when your grandmother chose that, what was your family vision in terms of

[00:15:38] like what was the goal? What was being promised? Like if you follow these rules and you do X,

[00:15:43] Y, and Z, what do you get? And what's the promise of those choices?

[00:15:47] I think there's like the pull that so many religious communities of all kinds offer

[00:15:52] this feeling. I think most of all of belonging. I think community lies at the heart of so much.

[00:15:57] And I think just thinking about so many things you've talked about in your own

[00:16:00] experience is that urge to belong to something, to feel this connection. I think it's one of the

[00:16:05] most basic human urges to feel connected to a whole and to feel I think also a sense of certainty

[00:16:12] about the world, to feel like the world is a complicated, terrifying, really hard place.

[00:16:17] But if I situate myself inside this world that I get to hold truth in my hands. I mean,

[00:16:23] what an amazing idea, right? I get to have the truth and I get to be good and I get to

[00:16:29] do what God wants me to do. I mean, it's I'm being told do this thing and then you are good.

[00:16:35] I mean, it's appealing. I feel even now I feel the tug. I don't believe it, but I feel the tug that

[00:16:41] sense that the world becomes manageable and ordered. It becomes explainable. You have a system

[00:16:47] for understanding the horrors around us. And so both of my grandmothers were part of,

[00:16:53] I guess, traditional Jewish families. They both became orthodox really to get married.

[00:16:56] It's funny how much the stories parallel each other. Very different contexts between both of them,

[00:17:00] but they both married someone who was orthodox. Especially with my grandmother who died when I

[00:17:04] was 15. I would love to have a conversation with her now as an adult to understand her own mindset.

[00:17:10] But I think it was a very different world. My one grandmother was 18, my other grandmother was

[00:17:14] close to 30, which was very old to be unmarried. And that sense that this was a world being

[00:17:19] handed to them. I don't think that they, as far as I know, I don't think they struggled with

[00:17:24] what it meant to be part of that world. I wish I knew, I wish I knew more about that.

[00:17:27] My novelist mind wants to create stories and imagine it.

[00:17:32] Maybe another book there. One day. Yeah. This is the world. And we'll go back to some of that.

[00:17:37] Obviously, we're going to tell our listeners that this is an incredible book to read. And

[00:17:41] I think everyone will find it useful and emotional and healing. I also love how you,

[00:17:45] as you were laying out your journey with this choice to leave, to separate,

[00:17:50] that you also woven the sort of the meaning behind a lot of the Jewish traditions and rituals

[00:17:56] and holidays to the point where I learned, I learned more about what the meaning was behind

[00:18:01] certain symbolic things that I think many people know about, but don't know why we,

[00:18:05] you know, smash the glass when people getting married or circle the

[00:18:08] chapa at a wedding ceremony seven times. Like what's the meaning behind that,

[00:18:11] which I found really meaningful. And I also loved how you led us through your slow

[00:18:16] wake up. And that's one of our questions always is like, what, we wouldn't necessarily call them

[00:18:20] red flags in this case, but what were the moments and I think there's some that started in childhood

[00:18:25] where you're like, that doesn't actually resonate for me. And you start to question things at

[00:18:30] quite a young age. Can you take us back to some of those moments in the book or life, your life?

[00:18:35] I know it's funny. I'm like, wait, that's me.

[00:18:39] I guess I don't think about as waking up. I think about it as starting to listen

[00:18:43] to listen to my own inner feeling of doubt. And, you know, when I look back at being in high school,

[00:18:48] it was that quiet little voice that said, really, do I really think this? Do I really believe it?

[00:18:55] And maybe it was the person in me who would learn about dress code and how important it was for me

[00:19:00] to dress a certain way and about modesty and about accepting that girls could not play a

[00:19:06] public role in synagogue life or being told that girls were exempt from many of the commandments

[00:19:11] because girls were naturally more holy. We were closer to God. There were a series of apologetics

[00:19:16] that we were told. And I remember so clearly sitting in these classrooms trying to pull that

[00:19:21] jeans skirt just a tiny bit lower so it wouldn't get in trouble and just thinking,

[00:19:25] I don't think that makes sense. I mean, that doesn't ring true to me in that deep,

[00:19:30] satisfying way. But yet at the same time, having to do the sort of internal mental gymnastics

[00:19:37] to make it make sense, because I knew there was the equation. It couldn't be sexist. It couldn't be.

[00:19:43] It seemed like it was. So what could I do to it so that it wasn't and that feeling would come up a

[00:19:50] lot, that feeling of needing to make something be okay? Because if it wasn't okay, what did

[00:19:56] that mean for me? What did it mean to feel that I lived my whole life based on something

[00:20:03] that didn't really believe it was true? I mean, that felt like a terrifying situation to find myself

[00:20:09] in. As I went to college, I went to Columbia where I could have been anyone or studied anything. But

[00:20:14] I was so focused in college on not learning anything or experiencing anything or exposing

[00:20:22] myself to anything that might have challenged what I already believed. I did not go to college

[00:20:28] to open my mind. I didn't want to become someone new. I knew that I had to stay who I was. It was

[00:20:34] the prospect of being someone who left the path. It felt like you fell off the end of the world,

[00:20:39] like you disappeared, like you would be meaningless and lost. I remember thinking,

[00:20:44] if I stopped being Orthodox, how would I ever get married? No one else in the world could get

[00:20:48] married, it seemed to me. Only if you were part of this community could I get married.

[00:20:52] And that exerted an enormous influence on me not to be lost, to stay who I was.

[00:20:57] But those voices were there. I think when you're pushing so hard against being exposed to something,

[00:21:03] you know there's something you don't want to know. I think our minds have a way of kind of poking

[00:21:08] us or prodding us and saying like, there's something here you don't want to think about

[00:21:12] or don't want to look about. And I solved the problem by getting married very young. I got

[00:21:17] engaged in the middle of my senior year in college to my first boyfriend who we had dated for 12

[00:21:22] weeks. And you know it just seemed like what could go wrong? You know I was doing what I was

[00:21:27] supposed to do. I was a good girl. I found the boy who was just like me. Our parents knew each

[00:21:32] other from years back and we had the same friends and the same values and community.

[00:21:37] And before I had known him for a year, we were married. And it just seemed like that was a way

[00:21:42] to quiet the part of me that was chafing. That part of me that wondered if I was as good

[00:21:48] of a girl as I pretended to be. I knew that I wanted to be a writer and so much, I think of being

[00:21:54] a fiction writer, any kind of writer is pushing at those parts that you're not supposed to look at.

[00:22:00] You know as a fiction writer I know, oh you never look away at the part you're hiding from. That's

[00:22:04] when you go in. And I think that my religious self could not do that. And so it just

[00:22:10] lost some lots of these moments of not wanting to look, not wanting to hear that doubt

[00:22:17] and continuing to sort of look just away from it. Just sort of keep my eyes averted. Don't read

[00:22:21] books that would threaten me. Books, even books about Jewish feminism. I was like, don't go there.

[00:22:26] That's too threatening. Don't look at that. You know, I don't want to have to rethink anything

[00:22:30] because when your whole life is stacked on top of one belief and you're threatening to pull out

[00:22:36] that bedrock belief, I think I knew on some level that it would all fall apart if I were

[00:22:42] to look and to really examine my own lack of belief.

[00:22:46] Was there anyone to confide in? You know, I had friends, I talked to about it. I had friends,

[00:22:51] when I was older, I had a very close friend who's also a writer, who's Jewish but not Orthodox,

[00:22:55] and I would talk to her about it. I feel like mostly I wrote about it. My first two novels,

[00:23:00] when I read them now, I feel like, oh my god, these are all about, like what did I think?

[00:23:04] Like what did I think I was dealing with? They're all about religious doubt, about

[00:23:09] the complications of belonging to a community. They're about individuality and how that gets

[00:23:15] stifled in communal living. They are about what happens to the person who quietly doubts but doesn't

[00:23:20] talk about it. I mean, it's just splayed all over the page, but it was always under the

[00:23:25] guise of fiction. You know, fiction is a great place to hide if you don't want it to be you.

[00:23:30] And so I talked about it that way, I guess. I think I talked about it on the page more

[00:23:34] than anything else under the guise of writing about characters.

[00:23:37] Did you find a passage that kind of exemplifies that doubt?

[00:23:41] Sure.

[00:23:41] And while you're pulling it out, I'll just tell our listeners that I feel like the thing that

[00:23:45] Tova did the best, at least for me as a reader, was to put on paper or in my case, audible,

[00:23:51] just the inner conflict. Like I feel like in a way that I wasn't able to in my book,

[00:23:57] partly because I think I was still processing and still in trauma, but I just, I don't have

[00:24:00] the writing background that you did other than like creative writing in grade 10. Like I didn't

[00:24:04] have the actual training and I feel like you so eloquently expressed through metaphors and imagery

[00:24:11] like what it feels like to be doubting into question. And so I just like, so grateful for it

[00:24:16] as a ex-member of something else who left.

[00:24:20] I mean, some ways the book is very internal. I mean, there's some action plot was never

[00:24:24] like my strong point. Yeah, I spent so much time ruminating of like, could I leave? Could

[00:24:28] I leave? And at some point I was like, okay, it's time to do something about all this internal

[00:24:32] thinking. Yeah, well, I loved the internal thinking. The casualty is your conscience if you don't go

[00:24:38] towards your truth. I find one of the things I see in your story is that your conscience wins.

[00:24:45] In all our interviews that we've had similar scenarios of someone who's grown up in it,

[00:24:49] the most interesting thing to me far none, all this is how the people,

[00:24:53] and that's the human dynamic of all these things is how you and many others that we've interviewed

[00:24:58] have this conscience that grows and they can't ignore it. It's so impressive. Yes. And the casualty

[00:25:04] is you if you don't do it in a lot of ways. Right. I mean, I remember feeling like I could

[00:25:09] belong to the community. I could be part of this world, but I was estranged for myself then

[00:25:14] or that feeling of having this, I feel like I had this like secret second self like this

[00:25:19] little part of me inside that was always like, really, really? I don't think this at all like

[00:25:23] this inner voice that was there, but it's a hard way to live an entire life.

[00:25:27] When you're in say in the community, do you diagnose the people that are still in the

[00:25:33] community as in and not in touch with their conscience or do you see that they really

[00:25:38] believe the tenants? It's consistent. And do you see yourself as more aware than them?

[00:25:43] I think there are people who deeply believe like this question of how do we reconcile the

[00:25:47] fact that some people believe things that I find unbelievable and other people look at me

[00:25:52] and think, how could she not believe in this thing that is so obviously, so clearly true?

[00:25:56] I think some people really, truly genuinely believe. And I think that there are a lot of

[00:26:00] people like me who occupied that middle position I occupied in for a long time,

[00:26:05] who gain benefit from belonging to a community, who gain a sense of tradition, family,

[00:26:10] ritual, who maybe like they don't believe all of it, but like they like it or

[00:26:14] they believe enough of it or that there's lots of degree. I used to have this

[00:26:18] fascination and this is like my novel aside, I would entertain myself during the hours I

[00:26:22] would sit in a gag every Saturday being like, I wonder if they really believe it?

[00:26:26] What are they really trying to imagine my way into what people are really thinking?

[00:26:30] Because it's not something you talk about that so much of orthodox Judaism is about

[00:26:33] practice and about action. And so you dress a certain way and you observe the Sabbath

[00:26:38] and you keep strict kosher and you keep the holidays. And so it's very busy.

[00:26:42] I mean, there's a lot to do all the time. And so these questions of belief seem less

[00:26:47] important than they do in other religions. I was one of the fascinating things I learned

[00:26:51] and the connections I've made with people who have left other religious worlds.

[00:26:54] What I believe like that wasn't the crucial thing, was what I did.

[00:26:57] There was so much to do. Like I was thinking about like just you preparing for Shabbat and

[00:27:01] all the things you had to do just to get ready to follow all the rules.

[00:27:04] I was like, that's exhausting. I don't know how anyone can do that.

[00:27:07] Like you supposed to have a job and do all that stuff? Like it's a lot.

[00:27:11] A lot of high performers. I was a high performer.

[00:27:13] Same with the Mormons, you know, the same thing.

[00:27:15] I feel like the former Mormons are my people. I really feel, I know you had John Dillonan

[00:27:20] who I love. I was on his podcast soon after we came out.

[00:27:24] We watched it.

[00:27:24] I did you?

[00:27:25] It was really, it was just fascinating for me that sense that I really had this feeling

[00:27:30] of like, you know, the vast differences in our world, but I've never had that

[00:27:33] feeling so closely of, oh, we have all the same problems. So we've gone through the

[00:27:37] same thing so fully. And I really, I ended up doing an event with John in Salt Lake City.

[00:27:42] And there were like 200 former Mormons in this church. And I just felt like I have found my

[00:27:47] people. Like finally, like this is where I belong among these people.

[00:27:50] I'm not trying to one-up you, but he had us in Salt Lake with 1500.

[00:27:55] Oh my God.

[00:27:58] It was the best. And so many people said they woke up because of watching the vow.

[00:28:03] Like they were just watching the next docuseries or someone recommended it.

[00:28:06] And they were like, oh my God, I need to get out of this.

[00:28:08] Or it helped them process what had happened.

[00:28:10] It was really wild. I see the connections now that we've done the Mormon deep dive.

[00:28:15] It's really uncanny.

[00:28:16] Yeah. It was for me that experience. And I noticed, started noticing early on that

[00:28:20] most of the emails I got were from people who had left Mormonism.

[00:28:23] And it was just this feeling that like, there was so much similarity because

[00:28:28] it wasn't, you know, I feel like leaving a religious world that has so many actions.

[00:28:31] It's not like I was going to like a Passover Seder once a year and doing a few other things.

[00:28:36] I mean, it was my everything. It was my community, my family, my deepest sense of who I was.

[00:28:41] And I feel like that was what was so shared with the Mormon people who had left Mormonism,

[00:28:45] the feeling that your own identity is somehow taken away from you and you have to recreate that.

[00:28:50] That for me has been, I think, one of the nicest parts of having

[00:28:53] putting this book out in the world. It's just this sense of such a feeling of connection

[00:28:58] and such a reminder that there's so many similarities in these experiences.

[00:29:02] Absolutely. And the other similarity I see there is when people do start to question,

[00:29:07] it's so easy to shut it down because leaving means it's just leaving everything.

[00:29:10] Right. Like you're literally leaving your community or source of income.

[00:29:14] And are you familiar with this term, Pimo?

[00:29:16] Physically in and mentally out.

[00:29:18] Oh, that's interesting.

[00:29:19] Yeah. So a lot of people are talking about that now also with Jehovah's Witnesses

[00:29:23] and other similar structures of religious organizations or communities is that they're

[00:29:27] out. They're like, okay, I don't believe this anymore, but they can't actually

[00:29:30] leave yet because it's their job or their family or whatever. And they're trying to

[00:29:34] figure out how to not be shunned or disfellowshipped or cut off, which is always like one of the

[00:29:38] sort of trademarks of cultish behavior is like what happens when you leave? Can you leave?

[00:29:43] You have equity.

[00:29:44] Right. I mean in orthodoxy, there's a term called orthoprax. People will say that they

[00:29:49] practice an orthodox lifestyle, but it always leaves the question of belief.

[00:29:53] What happens if you don't actually believe in it, but you sort of do the actions and

[00:29:58] keep your communal place or remain that feeling of inside?

[00:30:01] You know, one thing that was interesting with Mormonism was the way conversation I had with

[00:30:04] John was about the way that I no longer part of an orthodox community, but very much feel

[00:30:07] like part of a Jewish world that Mormonism and he felt like he wanted there to be like

[00:30:11] modern Mormonism, like where they're reform Mormonism, the way there's reform Judaism.

[00:30:15] That there's still a place within Judaism for people who don't practice in a strict way.

[00:30:19] And I think that does create a sense of maybe it's like a middle ground place where I can

[00:30:23] still feel a sense of connection to my history and tradition and family and still observe holidays,

[00:30:29] but not with that same rigid focus on rule following and where I don't have to pretend

[00:30:34] to believe something that I don't believe.

[00:30:37] If there was a person here, I don't know if you remember this person. I'm not going to

[00:30:40] say their name, but they were in Nexium and they're orthodox Jews and he would have to

[00:30:46] walk from Brooklyn after class on Friday all the way home, which is we were on

[00:30:51] Midtown 37th and 5th area. And he would talk about the belief and kind of roll his eyes and

[00:30:59] be like, yeah, I got to do it. But he didn't seem all in on it at all and seemed kind of

[00:31:05] judgmental with it and the nature of what the curriculum would do to get him to question it.

[00:31:09] But there seemed to be kind of an indifference to him oftentimes to it. And I think,

[00:31:16] you know, if you're indifferent about one thing, your belief system,

[00:31:19] it can't not affect other things that you do.

[00:31:22] But also like, why do it?

[00:31:23] I mean, for the reasons that we talk about, he has equity and it's his community

[00:31:26] and those sorts of things, but it's a death by a thousand cuts because I think

[00:31:30] you're going through something and I kind of feel like that was going on with me in Nexium.

[00:31:33] There's things I didn't agree with, but I felt like overall good of what we were doing

[00:31:37] until it clearly wasn't was the pivot and it freed me. And I felt free in other areas

[00:31:42] of my life and to your point earlier on is kind of a reimagining yourself and a

[00:31:46] reimagining your goals and reimagining the things that were what are important to you.

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[00:34:40] There's something so destroying about saying, well I'm going to just base my whole life on this thing

[00:34:44] like I don't really believe in it but like I like being invited for Friday night dinner.

[00:34:48] It's subtle.

[00:34:49] You know I don't like it that much you know the Friday dinner is not that great you know

[00:34:53] right because it does something to your own internal authenticity your own feeling that

[00:34:57] you get to speak from your whole self. So many different times certainly when I started writing

[00:35:01] this book I remember asking myself this question of am I allowed to think what I think like am I

[00:35:07] allowed to feel what I feel and it felt like I wanted it such a simple question right I mean the answer

[00:35:12] should be of course you are but it doesn't feel like that. It felt shocking this idea that I was

[00:35:18] allowed to look at something and say like I don't believe that that's not what I believe in and

[00:35:24] I don't want to be that. I can love my family and love people who I'm so connected to but I still

[00:35:31] get to decide what I believe in and I still get to make choices about my own belief with my own

[00:35:37] integrity and my own desire to craft my own life and I don't have to live in that middle space

[00:35:45] because there's been corroding about it.

[00:35:46] It really is. It's the most subtle of corrosion too.

[00:35:49] What do you think gave you the strength to do that where so many people stay in that

[00:35:53] middle space? I always feel like college would have been like the nice exit ramp right like

[00:35:57] before I was married and before I had kids like I felt like even now looking back I was like oh I

[00:36:02] know what if I had just done these few things differently I would have been like one more case

[00:36:07] of see the dangers of secular college to the Tova Mirba story look what happens when you

[00:36:12] go to a college and you study like comparative religion you know and like that would have

[00:36:17] been like the story but I was afraid. I was very very afraid of feeling lost. I did not have

[00:36:25] the confidence. I didn't have the sense that I could stand on my own and getting married I mean

[00:36:31] it just took away the need to know anything else. It just felt like the fantasy of like the young

[00:36:36] married couple was so enshrined and orthodoxy and it was it's so beautiful and like set your

[00:36:42] Friday night dinner table with your wedding china and you have family and you're protected from all

[00:36:47] the problems of the outside and you have this little cocoon bathed in the candlelight and on and

[00:36:53] on and on it's so enormously compelling and I went for it. It just felt like it was an

[00:37:00] insurance policy almost against my own self if that makes sense against what I might do.

[00:37:04] Wow what a line. Oh right and so it took a lot longer for me. I think part of it

[00:37:10] was having kids. I mean when you have kids then it was like up to me to teach them and I'm the one

[00:37:15] who's supposed to teach them things and keep them inside this world and so many memories of sitting

[00:37:21] with one of my kids where they asked me a question about you know with my middle son I was like why

[00:37:26] can't I eat the non-coaster pizza? I was laughing about your Sarmat interview. I was laughing

[00:37:30] about the Sarmat you know how I can't have the pizza. I was like God why is it always

[00:37:33] coming out of pizza? Like you know my son Daniel's saying to me you know why can't I eat it and I know

[00:37:40] with one part of my mouth the answer I'm supposed to give him about tradition and rules and restriction

[00:37:45] and and the other part of my mouth is thinking like eat the goddamn pizza. Like what is this you

[00:37:50] know what am I doing and that that feeling of being so separated inside myself and I think

[00:37:56] there were just enough moments for me it was probably a case of like you know a straw

[00:38:00] breaking the camel's back the feeling of the accumulation and it was right before I turned 40

[00:38:05] I just came upon this feeling that I could not. It almost like wasn't my choice. There were different

[00:38:11] moments when I was supposed to perform a ritual I was supposed to do something I was supposed

[00:38:14] to mostly to say something I was supposed to articulate an orthodox position as a writer and

[00:38:19] so much and I was like uh I cannot like it does not come out of my mouth like the falseness

[00:38:25] that was required I think my whole life I'd been afraid that if I did not adhere it would fall apart

[00:38:31] and maybe you have to get to the point where you're willing for it to fall apart where it's okay

[00:38:36] like yes it will fall apart and that is okay. I didn't realize it was just before you turned 40

[00:38:40] which is also when I left next year it was just before I turned 40 yeah maybe there's something

[00:38:45] about that birthday you know what I mean something I don't know what it means yet but

[00:38:49] I mean I found so many parallels with our journeys and also as a mother to like those

[00:38:54] moments that you were able to share you know the inner I don't have the words like you do but

[00:39:00] you know even with that pizza moment where he said something like will you still love me if I

[00:39:04] cheese or meet pizza and I'm like oh my heart just broke with the like the pain of wanting to

[00:39:11] protect but also guide and love and separate from your story there's also these nuggets of

[00:39:17] the challenges of being a mother that I found really compelling. You know on one hand like

[00:39:21] as parents we raise our kids and things we believe in every group does it every religion

[00:39:25] if non-religion we teach our children what we think but there's always the moment I have older kids

[00:39:31] now recognizing like they get to pick for themselves I can tell them what I think but I

[00:39:36] do not get to choose their lives for them when it's hard as a parent it's hard two kids in

[00:39:41] college right now and my daughter is 14 recognizing that they are becoming themselves and I can

[00:39:46] share with them what I care about I'm never going to attach love to it it can't be like

[00:39:50] you have to have my politics where I don't love you you know I might be annoyed or think how can

[00:39:54] you think that or I can argue with them about something but they are their own independent

[00:39:57] beings who get the right to choose for themselves. I mean it's one of the hard parts about

[00:40:01] parenting and certainly you know when you do come from a very particular world that tension

[00:40:06] between wanting to pass on something and pass on tradition or family or a sense of connection

[00:40:11] to something and yet also wanting to give independence. Yeah someone asked you that during the Mormon

[00:40:16] interview about your two kids and apparently you have one that's orthodox or flirting with it

[00:40:21] and the other one that's totally not says we're a simulation or something. I forget what it was

[00:40:26] but the way you answered that question I'd love for you to expand on that and how you handled

[00:40:31] the beliefs it was very impressive. My book my kids were little kids now I have big kids I have

[00:40:37] a senior in college a freshman in college and a 14 year old and wow my oldest son is orthodox

[00:40:43] and I feel like my job is to support that doesn't mean I have to agree with that or want that believe

[00:40:47] in it but he of his own free will and his own thought has chosen this world that's his family world

[00:40:53] and I do feel like I will do anything I can to ease that for him. It doesn't mean that I

[00:40:57] dishonest with him about what he knows exactly what I believe what I think I feel like my role

[00:41:02] as his mom is to support him in my house our kitchen is strictly kosher and it's sort of the

[00:41:07] irony of life is that I am the kosher police officer now because my husband and his three kids

[00:41:13] all secular Jews and some all I'm the one who's like oh you can't use that pot with that spoon

[00:41:17] and I think I can't believe that I am the one who has to do this but I do it for the sake of family

[00:41:21] I do it so that the kitchen is a place but I always feel like oh you get what you deserve

[00:41:24] to but now you're the one who has to like do this kind of thing. You do it so you can host

[00:41:29] there and people will feel exactly that's so kind. Exactly I do it so that my son this is

[00:41:33] my son's home and I do it so that my parents will come here and eat here and that might

[00:41:37] they feel comfortable but I mean we have taken out in the other room you know it's not

[00:41:41] like everyone is only eating kosher food but I keep the kitchen itself the cooking parts kosher

[00:41:47] because I care about family but it's a complicated straddle on who bends and who doesn't bend and

[00:41:52] who has to give. It's a never ending family fun to you know play this game of figuring it out

[00:41:58] but my middle son is a freshman at Michigan and he is not interested in religion I mean he

[00:42:04] went to a sort of a community Jewish high school that he loved but he's not religious

[00:42:08] in any way and he will become himself he has lots of things he's passionate about he's always been

[00:42:13] like a questioner. He was one who asked me about non kosher pizza and he was asking of course a

[00:42:18] much bigger question than pizza I took him for non kosher pizza at that time felt like a radical

[00:42:23] transgression it felt like I was doing something completely radical and I told him that we only

[00:42:28] could get vegetarian pizza because that was sort of like a misdemeanor it wasn't an all

[00:42:32] and out like felony to get this kind of things I was very unsure of what to do and

[00:42:36] you know his little face like kind of took in my rule and he said lean down mom and he said

[00:42:41] if one day when I'm a grown up I eat pizza with meat on it will you still love me? I felt like

[00:42:46] that's the question right like can you be different like this is the choice I'm making but

[00:42:51] I'm not going to tie love to religious observance like I will love you whoever you are and you

[00:42:56] get the right as you get older to choose that. That piece was actually in the New York Times

[00:43:02] and a modern love column and it was fascinating to see the feedback I mean people feel many ways

[00:43:07] about that story and about pizza I got any message on my Facebook page luckily I didn't know how to

[00:43:11] read my like spam Facebook file for a long time and I finally was like oh what are these messages

[00:43:16] here let's see what you know what has shown up in here and someone was like you know I feel

[00:43:20] like you're jumping off a cliff with your child and I was like really really you think that's

[00:43:24] what this is it was a contentious subject that question of what does it mean to not

[00:43:28] believe yourself but to not require your children to stay inside as well you know parenting becomes

[00:43:34] very complicated when one parent is leaving a religious world and the kids have been raised in it.

[00:43:38] It's actually one thing that really stuck up with me throughout is your generosity with the people

[00:43:44] around you having different opinions like I remember somebody asked you in another interview

[00:43:49] like are you angry and certainly Nippy and I have been very angry at times towards our

[00:43:54] former community and people who were at our wedding that shun us now and things like that and

[00:43:59] you said something about free I'm just looking for the quote but maybe you remember it off the top

[00:44:02] of your head about freedom is letting other people also think for themselves and have their

[00:44:07] own beliefs. I mean that's what I would strive for like I would actually love Nippy and I are

[00:44:11] actually not on the same page with this but I would love to communicate with there are people

[00:44:15] who are still you know in even though Keith is in jail I'd love to be able to communicate

[00:44:19] with them and them say yeah I believe this I mean like yeah I actually don't believe that

[00:44:23] anymore and this is why and converse but I can't and I wonder how you got to that position of

[00:44:29] feeling so or it seems to be so like generously respectful. Sarah when I was listening to you

[00:44:34] talk about how so many people were at your wedding and that feeling of being cut off and

[00:44:37] just looking seeing the pictures that feeling of that it was your family right I mean it was

[00:44:41] the people you were so close to and I was curious I think on the episode I was listening

[00:44:46] to this morning where you talked about having forgiven Lauren right I was I was so interested

[00:44:50] in that question for you remember we said we were gonna I get to ask you a question maybe here it is

[00:44:56] that question of like what does that forgiveness feel like when someone you trusted put you

[00:45:01] in such harm's way or did something to you and it's it's a complicated question right about

[00:45:06] forgiveness and what we forgive and when this holding on to the anger hurt us someone said oh

[00:45:12] you don't seem like someone who could get angry I was like okay that is trust me like

[00:45:17] trust me I have a lot of anger about lots of parts of my story and anger about many things

[00:45:23] but for me it was a bunch of when does that holding on to that anger hurt me when am I just sort of

[00:45:26] stewing in it or on fire with it as opposed to letting it go and I you know was just curious

[00:45:31] for you guys where you feel that sense of where anger fits into it or where do you forgive or

[00:45:36] do you feel they too were so caught up in this way. That's the ultimate process right so for me

[00:45:42] I think it's indicative of how much you've reconciled your own process because if you can

[00:45:47] forgive them like if you understand what happened to you then you understand what happened to them

[00:45:52] and you can have the requisite compassion for that and I hold space for that I don't I don't

[00:45:57] really feel angry and I'll use Lauren in this example angry at Lauren and I actually want

[00:46:03] her to get back on her feet because I think she's a very intelligent person capable person

[00:46:07] I'd love to see her thrive all that said I don't know that I'm at a place where I can let people

[00:46:13] back into my life who use their psychology to want us to see harm and to have behaviors

[00:46:20] that were in line with wanting to see us in jail knowing us knowing our family marrying us

[00:46:26] and all that stuff I have a hard time with that because I never did that with my psychology

[00:46:31] towards people that left previously and even people that were angry at me I didn't

[00:46:35] I didn't do that and I know that to some people I can come off as you know hot head and even an

[00:46:39] asshole at time and that's fine and I would even agree with some of those people and fair enough

[00:46:44] but I didn't do that with my mind and psychology at any point during this you know I was pissed and

[00:46:49] you know I was upset my wife was doing that so you know maybe if I saw her and I felt her

[00:46:54] energy and I knew that you know that was to the degree that she got quote conned or whatever

[00:46:59] and I have in my head a little bit but I just don't know so that's kind of where I delineate

[00:47:04] it's also been five years yeah like that we've gone through all different stages I've gone through

[00:47:08] very angry like feeling so betrayed by my best friend that she could have done that you asked me

[00:47:13] a year ago it was a different answer and you might ask me in a year from now it might be a

[00:47:16] different answer too but there certainly was a big shift when she wrote the letter right

[00:47:20] she wrote you a letter right she wrote me a letter but it was also extended to you and

[00:47:23] the and Troy you know apologizing and taking responsibility fully and that's when I

[00:47:30] like let go of all every all anger and and you know she owned what she did and was clear about

[00:47:35] why she did it and not in a blamey victim way but she also was a victim to Keith like she was

[00:47:42] quite young when she got under his grasp all the women were quite young it's hard not to

[00:47:47] feel compassion for that yeah because I think Lauren is a person that probably wanted a family

[00:47:51] at one point and maybe she still can't I don't know but the best years of her life were

[00:47:55] being abused you know I was friends with her as close to her it's hard not to feel

[00:47:59] compassion for her in that regard for me I felt like in writing the book I wanted to not write for

[00:48:04] my anger I wanted to sort of try to write a book from maybe from the sadness I felt like sadness

[00:48:10] was almost like a better tool for me as a writer to use I feel like for some people who believe

[00:48:15] in a religious world who belong to a religious community whether it's religious Mormonism or

[00:48:18] evangelical Christianity I feel like people believe in religion mad is what they can live

[00:48:23] like you know I can let that be for me it is not a world I believe in but I still feel sometimes

[00:48:28] that sense of longing for you know what it would have meant to be to match my family to be more

[00:48:34] similar and so I can feel the sadness of that without that in any way implying that I want to

[00:48:40] be part of it still or that I'm willing to live that feeling of pretend or lack of authenticity

[00:48:45] for myself you know it's hard when there are parts of something you can long for even if you

[00:48:49] don't want the whole in any way you don't want to re-enter it in any way I am curious to know how

[00:48:55] you put your life back together or not even back together created your new life and how you chose

[00:49:00] what to keep and not keep them before I do just want to say something you reminded me about

[00:49:04] the evangelical Christians we've gotten feedback from some past episodes that they felt like we

[00:49:08] were you know really shitting on uncertain like IFB and evangelical Christians in general and I

[00:49:14] want to like also be really clear that this podcast is not about the good stuff part of it is

[00:49:20] because we do like people to understand what's the hook and why do people join these things either

[00:49:25] or stay in these things and that's important to understand but we're here to talk about

[00:49:29] the abuses of power or like the things that aren't working and also to say as a caveat like if

[00:49:33] you're in something in a religion in a community you're truly happy great I want that for

[00:49:37] people I want people that feel whole and complete and full of purpose and if there's

[00:49:42] something that needs to be looked at you need to look at it obviously you weren't being abused

[00:49:46] you weren't hurt but there was something that wasn't truthful or authentic for you that you had to

[00:49:51] acknowledge and have this like painful separation to find yourself right and that's a really

[00:49:57] beautiful thing and yeah and this is also tricky for me our son is at a Jewish private school

[00:50:02] and I don't know who listens to this and I want to be respectful of different people's

[00:50:07] choices and religions and at the same time I feel like it's really important to always be

[00:50:12] critically thinking and that of course is ironic for us because we were in a course

[00:50:17] that we thought we were learning critical thinking right right and yet we weren't allowed to

[00:50:22] critically think about a few certain key points that kept us in this closed system of logic

[00:50:29] and I think it's important for religious communities to be able to ask themselves

[00:50:32] are we using tactics that are problematic how are we drawing people in or what happens to those

[00:50:38] who question and that you know certainly is something that I think about so much you know

[00:50:43] you want to belong to religious community and it fills with meaning that's great

[00:50:47] but what is your relationship to the person whether it's your friend your child your spouse

[00:50:51] your parent who doesn't believe is there room in your worldview to make space for the fact

[00:50:58] that I choose this this is the truth as far as I'm concerned and yet I don't have to malign

[00:51:03] the person who looks at the same set of non scientifically provable facts and says I don't

[00:51:09] believe in this and you know where do we make space for that possibility I mean for me as a kid one

[00:51:14] of the things that was like made me the craziest was this idea that like I know it's the truth

[00:51:19] because I'm born into it but like what are the odds that I would have been the one born

[00:51:23] into the truth like and like those kids who go to like St. Louis Catholic school down the street

[00:51:28] for me like they think they have the truth and they are told it's the truth but they have to be wrong

[00:51:34] because I'm right and like that this sort of mind game of like how could this be or like

[00:51:39] recognizing and when I was talking to all my New Mormon friends that they looked at me in the

[00:51:44] same way that I have looked at them it's like mind-altering and so how do we make space for

[00:51:49] the beliefs or non-beliefs to other people and that's what I feel like religious communities

[00:51:53] have worked to do on that question of the role of the doubter or the dissentor and

[00:51:57] it's how do we relate to those people. I agree it seems consistent in a lot of these things

[00:52:03] the very tools that the religions try to instill in the kids are ultimately the ones

[00:52:07] if the kids use them end up turning on to question the very foundation and they're all

[00:52:14] going to be at risk at that at a certain point if they're truly embracing the tools that they profess

[00:52:19] which is the pursuit of truth so they kind of have the built-in lexer to the poison if you will.

[00:52:24] Right when you teach people to think then you get people who can think right and that

[00:52:30] that has to be the way it is or I've had that argument with people about religious art the

[00:52:34] point of art is that I've taped up to my desk right here the job of the artist is always

[00:52:38] to deepen the mystery you know with Francis Bacon I feel like the job of the artist is

[00:52:42] to complicate it and like you can't say like we want to keep it nice and neat and simple

[00:52:46] and still say oh no but we want art like the job is to make it more complicated and to say like

[00:52:51] not always so black and white good job artist right right the casualties to their cause and

[00:52:58] their religion are oftentimes the most critical thinkers the people who leave and do we resort

[00:53:03] to shunning do we have to create like an us versus them mentality a black and white world

[00:53:07] that they have to be cast as dangers you know one of my pet peeve this is one of my chat my ass is

[00:53:12] I can actually tell you tell us tell us what you're saying that phrase I'm telling you constantly

[00:53:17] a natural a natural segue is it's something that you said I don't remember which of my two weeks

[00:53:23] of deep dive into your world but the idea that you know you must have just had a bad experience

[00:53:28] this is the truth right but your experience is the enama the dissenting one is just because

[00:53:33] there's something wrong with you you must have had a bad experience or for so many rituals I was

[00:53:37] told but it's beautiful and if you don't think so you know but it is it's beautiful and so what

[00:53:42] must be wrong I can't you see it right there must be something wrong with you in that sense of not

[00:53:47] being able to make space for like the craziness of different people think different things without

[00:53:52] having to resort to these sort of attacks on you know that this is you don't really disbelieve

[00:53:57] you just must have somehow like gotten someone must have been mean to you or you were abused

[00:54:01] or some other reason why because it's not possible that you could disbelieve this religion that is

[00:54:06] so ironclad somehow yes we didn't actually get to what was the final straw actually like when

[00:54:13] that's something we ask all our guests like what was the ultimate thing that where you decided to

[00:54:16] leave and I'd love to also hear about and share with our listeners the moment where you broke

[00:54:20] Shabbat and turned on your phone in the bathroom right some people may not understand what that

[00:54:25] means exactly can you bring us back there for sure one of the things but because orthodoxy

[00:54:29] has so many rules there's so many ways to transgress but they're so small they almost seem laughable

[00:54:35] because in my mind these were enormous I mean using my phone hiding in the bathroom on a Friday past

[00:54:41] sundown was like you know as bad as you could be that's a gangster move and radical all I did

[00:54:49] was like I read like the I like looked at the New York Times website it's like that's your big

[00:54:53] your big moment that's what you're gonna do but yeah that was when I did but

[00:54:57] that was the transgression the other trans you know a lot of times people talk about the big

[00:55:02] transgressions is being having to do with food because you know there's lots of strict laws about

[00:55:05] keeping kosher which involve not mixing meat and milk foods and not eating certain meats not eating

[00:55:11] any kind of a pig product or ham or bacon but a lot of it also is about if you keep orthodox

[00:55:16] kosher it's you only eat food that's certified as kosher like you only eat at a restaurant

[00:55:21] that's kosher so there are four kosher restaurants in Boston so you only eat in those and

[00:55:26] you know one of my big big rebellions was I had like the organic tofu a non-kocher restaurant

[00:55:32] and everyone's like you didn't have a cheeseburger you didn't go for like the pork ribs

[00:55:36] bacon no I had the tofu and like it's so it's so small these transgressions and yet to me

[00:55:43] they loomed enormously they felt like I could not have been like a more controversial more radical

[00:55:50] rebel than to eat that bite of tofu I mean it was good it was really good have you ever tried bacon

[00:55:56] I'm just curious no because I've been a vegetarian for so long oh right you're vegetarian right

[00:56:02] it's funny like the vegetarianism right like I believe in it like I actually genuinely legitimately

[00:56:07] believe in being a vegetarian so I have no desire to break it because I care about it but yes I

[00:56:13] became a vegetarian when I was still keeping kosher so I missed my chance to try Memphis

[00:56:17] barbecue people are like you're from Memphis and you never had barbecue but like no I have not

[00:56:22] I respect that I think the like the straw that breaks the camel's back there were so many accumulations

[00:56:28] there was just this constant feeling of one little thing stacking on top of another little thing

[00:56:33] I guess two moments come to mind both are in my book but one of them is every month I would go

[00:56:38] to the mikva which is like the ritual bath which is one of the pillars of orthodox family life

[00:56:43] that a woman goes to the ritual bath a week or depending on various complicated countings to

[00:56:49] the ritual bath after her period before you can have sex with your husband it's called the laws of

[00:56:54] family purity and it really your whole sex life basically revolves around it like when you're

[00:56:58] allowed to touch and when you're not allowed to touch and that again one of these things that

[00:57:02] was just a given for me it was just what you did even though I chafed at it I would think I

[00:57:06] hate doing this I don't want to do this but I would do it because it was a given and

[00:57:09] there are lots of rules governing a woman's body in this regard you have to clip your fingernails

[00:57:14] you have to scrub off any calluses you can't have contacts in or jewelry the water has to cover

[00:57:18] you and you know it's one of those things again like that I've always been told is beautiful like

[00:57:22] this is beautiful and the tova voice that was willing to be honest would think I don't feel

[00:57:26] like this is beautiful but it's beautiful and there's almost this inner battle that happens

[00:57:30] between what I'm supposed to officially be feeling and what I was privately feeling the sense of

[00:57:36] I don't experience this is beautiful I don't like doing this I don't want to do this and yet

[00:57:41] there must be something wrong with me because I cannot experience this as beautiful because I am

[00:57:46] told this is beautiful but you can see that combing my hair is not the easiest of feats I have very

[00:57:52] curly hair but you have to comb your hair because there can't be a tangle in it because then the

[00:57:55] water can't fully cover you and so I had you know a hack away at my hair I'm not trying to

[00:58:00] get it untangled but it doesn't want to do that and then there was just one time when the

[00:58:04] there's a woman who said that the mikva lady is called that is the attendant who I was so close

[00:58:09] to being on the edge if she had known she would not have messed with me if she knew that I was dangling

[00:58:14] by a thread at that point dangling in my marriage by a thread dangling in this world

[00:58:17] but she sort of touched my hair and said you know it's tangled can you comb it any better

[00:58:21] and it just I think there are moments when our bodies revolt when it wasn't an option I

[00:58:27] normally would have agreed would have done it or just done a halfway job but it was like every

[00:58:31] part of me was rising up and just this like the word no was just all I could say that I

[00:58:38] couldn't I wasn't going to I could not do it anymore and I just told her no I was like I can't

[00:58:44] and that I guess that moment stands in for me for so many times when I just felt like I had waited

[00:58:51] until I reached the edge until it didn't even feel like a choice it just felt like I had come

[00:58:56] to some kind of impossibility of staying inside you know it wasn't like I could do something to do

[00:59:01] with the kitchen or the stove or the holidays I could do that but this was my body I couldn't

[00:59:06] do anything else when it was about the laws on my body like not for another minute really

[00:59:26] and you know what that's a great idea thank you for that and as we've gotten to know other

[00:59:31] podcasters and learn more about this whole podcast thing we've been learning that it takes a whole

[00:59:36] lot of different resources and different sources of revenue and listener support to keep it rolling

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[00:59:47] that's why we added a way for anyone who wants to support the show to do exactly that you

[00:59:51] can go to a little bit called t.com slash support or the link in our instagram bio or smash that link

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[01:00:02] with a galactic level of love and light and healing resources of course again it's a little

[01:00:08] bit called t.com slash support or check out the link in our instagram bios next up we really

[01:00:12] got to figure out what to call you our listenership albc nation flying monkeys

[01:00:18] we're gonna have to workshop that thanks guys the frankies were a picture perfect influencer family

[01:00:25] but everything wasn't as it seemed i just had a 12 year old boy so appeared asking for help

[01:00:33] he's emaciated he's got tape around his legs ruby frankie is his mom's name infamous is covering

[01:00:40] ruby frankie the world of Mormonism and a secret therapy group that ruined lives listen to infamous

[01:00:49] wherever you get your podcasts this episode is sponsored by better help what are your self-care

[01:00:55] non-negotiables maybe you never skip leg day or never miss yoga maybe it's getting eight hours

[01:01:01] of sleep i mean that's my personal and everyone's dream isn't it well i definitely have some

[01:01:06] non-negotiables like i'm in vancouver right now and i'm spending literally as much time as i can

[01:01:11] outside of nature hashtag cold pools hashtag crushing it nature is a non-negotiable not enough time

[01:01:16] in the fresh air and the trees around me and i start to feel not great not myself not grounded

[01:01:21] therapy day is a bit like my nature walks i try to not miss it and i know i'm just gonna

[01:01:25] feel so much better all around if i make it a priority i get so much out of it it helps me put

[01:01:30] my worries and anxieties in their rightful place and helps me clear my mind so i can focus

[01:01:34] on what i really need and sometimes what i don't need like i don't need to be overbooking myself

[01:01:38] just because i hate to say no to people you know what i mean thanks therapy thanks for helping me

[01:01:42] see that and if you're thinking of starting therapy give better help or try it's entirely online

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[01:01:56] charge look even when we know what makes us happy it's hard to make time for it but when

[01:02:00] you feel like you have no time for yourself non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever

[01:02:05] never skip therapy day with better help visit betterhelp.com slash culty today to get 10%

[01:02:10] off your first month that's better help h e l p dot com slash culty that moment certainly stuck out

[01:02:17] and i realized as you're talking about that that we had asked you to read from your book

[01:02:21] about 30 minutes ago that we got out of tension i can still be one we have time if you want

[01:02:25] me to would you yeah and then i have like one more burning question and note i want to

[01:02:29] make there too sir it often comes down to particularly with women when it comes to my body

[01:02:34] yeah that's true it's off limits that's really when nexium came down it was the physical abuses

[01:02:40] once you reconcile the physical abuses you start to take inventory on the emotional abuses

[01:02:44] that led to that point right if you submit to an authority figure whether it's in your case to

[01:02:50] Keith Reuniery or whether it's religious law when you submit yourself to our authority

[01:02:55] who has control of your body who who has jurisdiction over the most private parts of

[01:03:00] yourself and for me so many of the laws that i really shaped that were about dress code skirt length

[01:03:05] about you know wearing sleeveless am i probably the only person who uses the word sleeveless for

[01:03:09] me that word is like the most delicious world word in the world tank tops now oh my god

[01:03:14] i am like a huge fan of tank tops because it's a sense of freedom over my body of getting to

[01:03:20] decide and so you know what the you know the opening of your book where you describe that

[01:03:24] scene of being branded i feel like it was so you know so riveting and so powerful and that it

[01:03:30] really took us so fully into the sense of what happens when you surrender or lose or force to

[01:03:35] lose control over over your own body over being in charge of your most private part of

[01:03:40] yourself and that i think so often as you said like this breaking point moment for me it was

[01:03:45] just combing my hair it was nothing like what you were experiencing but i think those moments

[01:03:49] when we're asked to do something that really trespass on our sense of control over our physical

[01:03:55] bodies absolutely thank you this is like therapy for me thank you for saying that okay let's let

[01:04:01] tova read you were supposed to believe that this way of life was the only true way you were supposed

[01:04:06] to tell yourself that the rituals and restrictions were binding and beautiful and if you felt any

[01:04:11] rumbling a dissatisfaction you were supposed to believe that the problem lay with you my own

[01:04:16] discontent i hoped remained well hidden it wasn't the sort of thing i would have shared

[01:04:21] because along with the actual rules there was another set of laws equally stringent yet more

[01:04:26] unforgiving enforced not by a belief in god but by communal eyes that were just as all seeing

[01:04:32] and all knowing inside my head a voice constantly whispered what will they think i tried to force

[01:04:38] back my burst of doubt to locate the spot where i was getting lost did i believe there was a god

[01:04:44] that i believe there was a god involved in the world did i believe there was a god who

[01:04:48] revealed his word to moses on mount sinai did i believe these laws were binding on me

[01:04:54] we all believe claimed the prayers that were sung around me do we really ask the voice growing

[01:04:59] more brazen inside me there is no fighting it it was a late doubt slow and asserting itself

[01:05:05] but now it broke through me pushed me dared me would have someone me for instance or to take

[01:05:11] on the role of heckler in this synagogue where i stood yell out that in fact i wasn't so sure

[01:05:17] the stalwarts all around me would shush me all disturbances quash all descent hidden away

[01:05:22] but surely inside some of these minds as well burn this same strange fire these same doubt riddled

[01:05:28] thoughts that's exactly what i wanted and there was also that line somewhere else about how you

[01:05:34] didn't even need to be watched all the time because you had surveillance in your skin right

[01:05:38] and i i feel like that's how whether we call it gas lighting or you also talked about like the

[01:05:43] little miniature rabbi in your mind right to picture that in the next in this there's a question

[01:05:50] about what is a conscience and i remember somebody saying and this sort of became my thing ever

[01:05:55] since he's like it's kind of like a little silver robot that lives in your brain and like tells

[01:06:00] you what's right and wrong and i wondered are those rabbis like fully eradicated from your

[01:06:05] psyche or do they pop up every now and then right i wish i could say oh it's fully eradicated that

[01:06:10] it's like your voice and depends on the day i mean i feel like with all these kinds of

[01:06:15] leaving one thing that you know struck me so much with talking to people who've left religious

[01:06:18] worlds is you know i'm curious if this speaks to your experience as well that you don't leave

[01:06:22] something all at once like you leave you leave again and i feel like years go by and i have a

[01:06:27] moment where i'm leaving again like i feel like i'm always in the stage of further leave

[01:06:31] taking and you know for me for a long time i would drive on saturdays the first time i did it

[01:06:37] i was like oh god the car works on saturday like who knew like that you know like the cause of physics

[01:06:42] still let me drive this car on saturday but i couldn't drive it in a neighborhood where i might see

[01:06:47] someone who was part of the orthodox community i would take the long way around and i would feel

[01:06:52] silly doing it i would feel even after my book came out i was like who exactly am i hiding from

[01:06:56] i have written a book where i've described this exact scene but i couldn't do it and now i can

[01:07:02] i mean i still i look around me i'm still aware of that strangeness of being publicly breaking

[01:07:07] these rules that really shaped me but i think for all of us who've left something that has shaped

[01:07:13] us so much i think that maybe we're always in the process of leaving there's always little

[01:07:18] threads that hold on and we with time leave more change our understanding of it and god it's

[01:07:24] been a long time it's been i guess 10 years since the first flood gate opened for me but i still feel

[01:07:30] like i'm leaving i still feel like it's a long process of deciding what pieces of it i remain

[01:07:35] connected to how to maintain connections to people who i you know care so much about and how to

[01:07:41] constantly bolster the part of me that is able to stand on my own outside of this sort of strong

[01:07:46] communal structure to live with uncertainty to live with the question of i don't have all

[01:07:50] the answers i don't know the truth of the world i'm not presuming to know those things i don't

[01:07:55] i don't have to have an answer for you know why do bad things happen to good people like i don't

[01:08:00] have to offer like a you know a little pat answer to these kinds of questions and i can live without

[01:08:04] that kind of presumed certainty about the world now how do you feel about community now or have

[01:08:10] you found a new one or new ones what's that word mean now to you it's funny it's a loaded

[01:08:15] word for me it's a it's a mixed bag i mean i crave community i think one of the things that kept me

[01:08:21] and i know kept so many people inside religious worlds again thinking of my my Mormon friends

[01:08:26] is that sense of community where even if you didn't believe in it community almost could be the god

[01:08:31] that you didn't believe in it could take the role of that and in moments of need in moments

[01:08:36] of sickness and family gatherings i mean there is something really special about that kind of

[01:08:40] belonging but you know for me i would say well what cost right you belong to a community but then

[01:08:45] you belong you belong to that community and what happens when you belong to that and so i feel like

[01:08:50] i've slowly created different kinds of communities it's much looser i don't feel like you know the

[01:08:56] community this sort of like all caps you know community that people talk about i have different

[01:09:00] communities i have a writers community of people who i'm connected to who i love as

[01:09:05] writers and friends i before the pandemic i had a gym community and i would sort of joke

[01:09:10] to my husband that my gym was my new synagogue that i would go you know religiously just to the

[01:09:15] gym and and it was a different kind of community was based on a different interest we had a shared

[01:09:18] interest in working out and i think i was trained to feel like well that doesn't count

[01:09:22] and that's not a real community that's only about something as insignificant as like working out

[01:09:26] but like that's a community like that was a nice thing don't tell nippy that right oh really

[01:09:31] yeah maybe nippy is very very religious with his right his fitness right i was like there

[01:09:36] was a trainer i would go to these group training classes and i was like he's the rabbi the other

[01:09:40] person's the assistant rabbi you know it was like my little world that we you know we love that

[01:09:44] running joke but i think that maybe in some ways like the antidote to the fear of leaving a world

[01:09:50] is that you're told that you'll never belong anywhere you'll be all i it's like you'll be all

[01:09:54] alone forever you know you will never have people to connect to and i think it's recognizing

[01:09:58] there's so many different ways we forge connection and that religion doesn't have a lock on community

[01:10:05] and then i can find other ways to feel a sense of community and i have to find that more for myself

[01:10:10] i do sometimes and i also i think i'm much more comfortable certainly post her because of the pandemic

[01:10:16] being alone i mean so much i feel like a being a writer is like i sit in this room i have to write

[01:10:21] my book i'm working on a novel i feel like just sit do not move out of this room for five hours

[01:10:26] and just work on your book and that is its own form of connection it might not be to people

[01:10:32] at a you know sav at dinner table but it's also it's a connection to the world and a connection

[01:10:35] to myself to what i want to be pursuing what i want to be doing you just shared some really good advice

[01:10:41] to people and i'm wondering if there's anything else you would say i would want to know about

[01:10:44] any messages you'd have to former members or former friends you don't talk to you but really

[01:10:50] if i could distill it to one piece of advice you may have for someone who's still in anything

[01:10:55] and questioning and the community thing you just said is is one piece of it is anything else

[01:11:00] you'd say that might bolster people or give them strength to either to leave or to feel like

[01:11:05] with some sage advice for what's on the other side well i feel like that idea that you can listen

[01:11:09] to your own voice you can listen to that voice of doubt it feels enormously scary to maybe make

[01:11:15] change and to maybe really examine a question but the flip side of it is even worse having to

[01:11:20] constantly quiet that voice is really a really hard way to live to feel that somehow you are

[01:11:26] a threat to your own mind that to really explore something and to really be able to ask yourself

[01:11:31] questions and you know for so long you know i've certainly felt like this in my first marriage

[01:11:35] my mantra to myself was nothing can change i would sort of hunker down about this idea that i would

[01:11:40] be unhappy about things and i was like well nothing can change nothing can change and

[01:11:43] yeah and it was sort of shocking to us how wrong i was that things can change that you

[01:11:48] can change things i don't want to you know sugarcoat it like it's enormously unsettling

[01:11:53] to leave something to leave a marriage i mean to leave a to get divorced with children is a hard

[01:11:57] process to go through but we can go through things you know i think for me the greatest pleasure is

[01:12:02] knowing that i am allowed to think what i think that i am allowed to feel what i feel and to

[01:12:07] believe what i believe that i don't have to constantly be quieting that so that i can match

[01:12:12] some external version of who i'm supposed to be is that true freedom i think it is right

[01:12:17] what would be a better freedom like i mean maybe it starts there right if you can't think

[01:12:21] if i can't if my thoughts even inside my own mind are not safe i mean i don't even feel that sense

[01:12:27] of freedom in my head how could i ever feel free in any other capacity i'm wondering how you feel

[01:12:33] about Passover now and just sort of the metaphors of that story and for those anyone who's listening

[01:12:37] who doesn't know it's if they've watched disney's the prince of egypt i think that's the one

[01:12:42] that's the one that sort of tells this story most people have without getting to into the

[01:12:45] weeds of it how do you feel about Passover now and the and the story and what you've gone through

[01:12:50] i guess like with so many of the holidays you know it used to be that we think about the rules of them

[01:12:54] i have to follow these rules and this is what it has to be and everything has to comply with this

[01:12:58] very very particular set of guidelines and that would be the the role of them now i regard the

[01:13:03] holidays the way like maybe i regard like july fourth or Thanksgiving like not so up on like

[01:13:08] the details like could i make a critique of Thanksgiving like sure i could but like i

[01:13:12] regard it as like a family holiday and i would pass over i can i can recognize my separateness

[01:13:18] from parts of the holiday or parts of the rules and yet still connect as a cultural tradition as a

[01:13:24] family thing as a historical as a sort of a story i feel like it's like a mythology about

[01:13:28] jewish peoplehood and jewish connection and in the story about freedom which is ironic because

[01:13:33] for so many people i think they often feel enslaved by the rules of the holiday that's

[01:13:36] supposed to be about freedom but i can decide to connect to the parts of it that i want to be part

[01:13:43] of i think it's a holiday about storytelling about telling you know generations telling a story and

[01:13:47] i can connect to those parts and i want to celebrate with my family and so i do i think

[01:13:52] i can enter an environment where the rules are followed but as long as i don't have to pretend

[01:13:57] as long as i don't have to pretend like oh yes yes i also care very much about the exact

[01:14:01] details that that's the soul destroying part like i feel like honesty is the antidote to that like my

[01:14:07] parents know of course they know i'm not observing i'm observing with them that i'm there with them

[01:14:12] because i want to be with my family but that i'm not that i don't regard it in the same way or i

[01:14:16] don't have the same strict observance of the rules i think you nailed it anytime there's

[01:14:21] pretending that's the killer right well i don't think that either nipir i realized how much

[01:14:26] especially towards the end at least for me i'll speak for myself that i was pretending i

[01:14:30] was right pretending to be a good girl like you know taking notes but really i was like making

[01:14:35] to do lists for things you know like the back of the room i was pretending to listen but i actually

[01:14:39] was doing other things in my notebook because i was so bored right it's like we're getting through

[01:14:45] school yeah right and i'm sure you had an awareness of the consequences right if you were to say

[01:14:50] what you thought like the consequences are large i mean there's a reason why we don't do those

[01:14:54] things you know we yeah we there's so many reasons why we don't speak our truths or say what

[01:14:59] we really think because we are so aware of what we lose in doing that yeah there was certainly a sense

[01:15:05] of how we would be tacitly punished in front of the group if we were to speak out so you get a

[01:15:10] squelch squelch squelch in fact i don't i wouldn't even say that i enjoyed passover or passover

[01:15:14] meant anything to me until i left lafnexium and the word freedom had a meaning to me that i'd

[01:15:20] never experienced before so i'm curious now after reading your book i will bring you

[01:15:27] to your story and relate to it very differently now i think so i feel really grateful that i well

[01:15:33] first of all met john dylan and the mormon community and through them i met the good book club and

[01:15:38] they're the ones that referred me to you and and of course we'd wanted to do an episode on

[01:15:42] an orthodox studious and still i think may do more and as i understand the difference between

[01:15:47] modern orthodox and ultra orthodox and hecytic orthodox and i don't know if you're familiar

[01:15:52] with this love to whore thing that's happening right now i am yeah i mean yeah i think that you

[01:15:56] know the orthodox world spans the spectrum and so i placed myself kind of at the modern orthodox

[01:16:00] left wing edge it goes very far to the more extremist section there's been a few netflix shows by

[01:16:06] but there's a wonderful memoir by a writer named shulam deen called all who go do not return

[01:16:11] and well it's about his leaving the ultra orthodox community and there i feel like you see even

[01:16:16] more stringent sense of what it means to leave even more of a sense of punishments for

[01:16:20] leaving whether they are shunning from families family estrangements the other thing that really

[01:16:25] really chaps my ass is people who lose their children in custody battles when they leave

[01:16:30] the orthodox community that i would say is like when my anger comes out it is about that

[01:16:37] where secular judges will rule in favor of the religious spouse to award custody because

[01:16:42] they are funded by communities the religious spouse receives enormous funding from the

[01:16:47] community to save the souls of these children and i know of a case just this week actually

[01:16:51] i was reading about where parents mothers or fathers who are not religious will often lose

[01:16:56] their custody of their children taken away from them and i find it such a travesty that secular courts

[01:17:01] would weigh in about religion but that they would privilege religious practice over a parental

[01:17:06] bond how does that need to change like what do we do about that i will often see facebook go

[01:17:11] fund me account and i feel like because the parent who has left in two cases that come to mind

[01:17:15] the parents both came out as gay and that of course added fuel to the fire but it is horrific to me

[01:17:20] horrific to see parents who are stripped of their parental rights by a secular court not even by a

[01:17:25] religious world and well yes that is my biggest trapping of ass a lot of these are protected by

[01:17:30] governments government needs education on what these things look like can they consistently get

[01:17:34] it wrong right at that feeling that these parents are asked to adhere to religious rules and

[01:17:39] custody agreements as if the courts should have any say whatsoever in religious practice the

[01:17:44] ultra-orthodox world has more of these cases because of the distinction between modern orthodoxy

[01:17:49] which is much more involved in the secular world versus ultra-orthodoxy which is far more insular

[01:17:54] where it's much less likely that people will have gone to college or will have the same resources

[01:17:59] that someone like who comes from the modern orthodox world like me is that where the series

[01:18:03] based on the book or unorthodox yes is that where that falls in okay so that was part

[01:18:07] of the ultra-orthodox world i didn't see this but there was the show my unorthodox life

[01:18:11] was too triggering for me i couldn't watch it when it came out is like a reality show oh man

[01:18:16] when it came out this past summer everyone kept texting me are you watching it and i was like

[01:18:19] i cannot i cannot do this yeah fair you know and there was a huge defensive reaction to it

[01:18:24] but it's not like that she's you know she's crazy or she's bad or whatever it is but

[01:18:28] of course she's right you're always crazy it's always the answer but i think that that world

[01:18:32] i think that that would be an interesting thing to explore it's also a great memoir by

[01:18:36] a writer leah vincent called cut me loose about leaving that world and so there have been a number

[01:18:41] memoirs about leaving the ultra-orthodox community as well well we certainly have more homework to

[01:18:46] do especially with the love to whore situation for those who don't know it's extreme correct me if

[01:18:51] i'm wrong right right wing and also like there's child abuse and it's an extremely sex yes like

[01:18:57] extremely sex yeah yeah yeah and when i saw videos from that i mean my heart like i can't even talk

[01:19:03] about it i'm gonna cry but like we did speak to some people who are advocates for exposing this

[01:19:08] group and nobody would talk to us because they're still too afraid because it's like happening right

[01:19:13] now and there's ex-members out of escape but like you know that's such a far different world which i

[01:19:19] think is good for people to understand like even christianity and Mormonism there's there's such

[01:19:25] a spectrum of extreme and people who don't know like oh you're Jewish like are you part of

[01:19:30] that right you know like i'm actually i eat bacon and i have a christmas tree so i look different

[01:19:36] right there's like a little separate there's such a range right and even even i mean the jewish

[01:19:40] world but even within the orthodox world there's just like my modern orthodox world

[01:19:44] to lave to whore is like feels like a million miles away for sure you know that there's

[01:19:48] such a difference between these different parts of the world that all fall under this

[01:19:52] umbrella of orthodox yes and then also even in the reform and secular like just to

[01:19:57] clarify we also have dreidels on the christmas tree and a menorah and it's the whole thing but

[01:20:02] all that to say even though we did come from very different worlds with all these rules

[01:20:06] like i said to you on the phone the other day everything you spoke about a lot of it i knew

[01:20:10] it there's more backstory that explains some things but everything the ceremonies you

[01:20:13] mentioned i was aware of them they just weren't rules for me it was just like you know we

[01:20:18] trick or treat and we light the candles we like we have this whole range of things but regardless

[01:20:23] of that like you said at the beginning just to wrap up circle back it's a universal truth

[01:20:28] it's a universal struggle to leave to find yourself to know yourself to grapple with these big questions

[01:20:34] what is good what is bad you know what if there aren't answers how do we live in this society

[01:20:39] i really hope that people read your book and have the same meaningful connection to you

[01:20:44] to your story and the catharsis that i felt with going through that journey with you thank you

[01:20:48] the compassion that you demonstrate too is one of the things that stood out to me thank you

[01:20:53] when people are real like when we actually share our real stories when you like push aside all of

[01:20:58] the like posing and pretending like that sense that people go through a lot of things and we all

[01:21:04] are trying to find our way and want to understand things or understand parts of ourselves i love

[01:21:09] what you're doing with the podcast you know the idea that telling stories is how we do that

[01:21:14] like it's through storytelling and through people sharing their experiences because it's so easy to

[01:21:18] feel like i'm the only one who feels this way or i'm all alone in it and like your podcast

[01:21:22] does what all these you know storytelling venues do is they create the sense that there's so many

[01:21:26] people who are struggling with these same questions in so many different contexts that we're all

[01:21:31] really trying to find a sense of understanding by sharing something in an honest way tova i hope

[01:21:37] we can stay friends and keep in touch we just think you're a marvelous writer and an incredible

[01:21:42] mom and a brave person and we're so grateful that you trusted us to interview you today imagine

[01:21:48] yourself walking into a forest you can see the path and the trees high above you the air is crisp

[01:21:57] you are walking towards your happy place allegedly allegedly say it with me anything said here i'll

[01:22:04] miss podcast about alleged cults alleged mlem schemes alleged douchebaggery mindfuckery

[01:22:11] criminality spiritual fraud or the like is offered purely as commentary because the views

[01:22:17] and opinions expressed on a little bit culty do not necessarily reflect on official policy

[01:22:23] or position of the podcast and any content provided by our guests bloggers sponsors or

[01:22:30] authors are their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion group club organization

[01:22:37] business individual anyone or anything so just let these words drift into your mind without

[01:22:43] needing to focus on any of them you are great you are capable you deserve to be happy nobody's

[01:22:50] mad at you unless you're actually a narcissistic culty criminal if that's you cut that shit out

[01:22:58] don't be a fuckwad but if that's not you again you are great you are capable you deserve to be

[01:23:05] happy a little bit culty loves you what do you think sarah i just really want everyone

[01:23:13] to read this book like i said i think that it's it's all there it's just all there and again we

[01:23:17] will do other episodes diving into some of the more culty aspects of the religion and and since

[01:23:23] recording this we found out that she's close to finishing her new novel so keep an eye out for

[01:23:28] that and i'm sad to report in spite an hour or two of research that i don't think that jews

[01:23:33] word sell at each other i like that i like knowing that yeah but not in a way of like i read

[01:23:38] something and don't get what the intent is behind it or don't get the essence of it i don't

[01:23:42] read the quotes and stuff like that feel confused so nippy has been trumped i can't word salad

[01:23:49] at trump by the jews i've been defeated well guess who has a lot of word salad teal swan oh teal

[01:23:54] swan and if everything goes as planned we'll be dropping that episode next week and that's

[01:23:59] something that you guys have been asking for for a long time and we spoke with a reporter who

[01:24:03] covered teal swan and the teal tribe extensively in a podcast called the gateway so if you

[01:24:08] want to listen to that between now and next week then you'll get a gold star you've got some podcasts

[01:24:14] that you'll get a gold star and a stripe on your sash and it'll be more interesting i think because

[01:24:20] we're not we can start to do a deep dive in an hour but he did an incredible deep dive into teal swan

[01:24:25] so do your homework talk to you next week all right thanks everyone bye toodles

[01:24:38] let's keep the conversation going we'll be back soon with more episodes of a little bit culty with

[01:24:52] more experts and survivors and sometimes experts who are survivors as well as some familiar faces

[01:24:58] from the vow from hbo if you've got suggestions or questions on upcoming topics find us on

[01:25:03] instagram at a little bit culty and for more background on what brought me here my memoir

[01:25:09] scarred the true story of how i escaped nexium the cult that bound my life is available on amazon

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[01:25:42] this podcast going just don't be a little bit culty about it a little bit culty is executive

[01:25:47] produced by me your co-host sarah edmondson and anthony nippy aims that's me associate

[01:25:53] producer is jess tardy produced edited mixed and mastered by citizens of sound our amazing

[01:25:59] theme song cultivated is by john bryant and co-written by nigel assilin i'm sarah edmondson

[01:26:05] and thanks for listening to a little bit culty