Why Aren't I More RELIGIOUS？？ ｜｜ My Jewish Orthodox Journey
Episode Stats
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189.70038
Summary
In this episode, I talk about why my husband and I are not completely observant as Jews, and the reasons why we are not keeping all of the Jewish laws as we should be. I also talk about the benefits of taking small steps toward becoming more observant.
Transcript
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Hello, Classic Crew, and welcome to today's video where we're going to be talking about
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my journey to becoming more observant as a Jew.
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A couple of days ago, I saw on my channel a comment that I thought was really important
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and interesting, and it asked, you talk about wanting to be more orthodox, you talk about
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wanting to become more observant as a Jew, so why aren't you just doing it?
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And I thought that was actually a good question. I thought it was important for me to address
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because I talk about on my channel a lot how important it is to be religious and how important
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it is to have faith, and I also talk about the fact that I grew up orthodox, but that at this
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point, my husband and I are not observant. So even though we believe orthodox is the correct way to
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practice, and that is the correct form of Judaism, we ourselves are not in a place yet of practicing
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everything as we should. We're very open about this because I don't want anyone getting the
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wrong impression about what we do. We are not keeping all the laws, we are not keeping the
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practices as strictly as we should, and I think that it's really important to be open and honest
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about that stuff, because I want you to know that I'm on a journey just like everyone else.
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But there is a good reason for why Jacob and I haven't already become completely observant,
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or head to the link in my description box. But now that that's covered, let's get into it.
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So just to give you guys a little bit of history, if you didn't already know,
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I grew up Orthodox. I grew up in a religious Jewish home. I went to Jewish day schools.
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And when I was in my master's program, I became less religious. And I talked about this in another
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video, which I will link up above. My husband, on the other hand, grew up Reform. So he really
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didn't have much of a background in any of this. And when the two of us met, I was kind of becoming
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less religious. He was becoming more religious. And we decided that we wanted to become Orthodox
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together. But that was going to be a process. Because for him, there was quite a bit of information
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that he needs to learn. And for me, I had to understand my relationship with God better.
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So I know all the laws and the rules. But I wanted to have a better relationship to my
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creator. And I wanted to make sure that whenever I kept the laws and rules more strictly, I was doing
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it because I understood it. And because I accepted that upon myself rather than feeling like it was
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something I had to do that I didn't understand. So a lot of the time people will ask us, why aren't
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you just observant right now? Why aren't you just keeping all of the laws right now? And I think
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that's a great question. So I do have a few reasons for why Jacob and I are not completely observant
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as of now. And I want to share this with you. So the big reason that Jacob and I aren't totally
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observant is that we don't want to jump into it before we're ready and then have a backtrack
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situation. A situation where we jumped in too quickly, took on too much, and then you get overwhelmed
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and you stop keeping things. And this happens a lot of the time to a lot of different people.
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If you just take on too much, especially without communal support, which is part two, then you
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just won't end up keeping things. You will start feeling overwhelmed. You will start feeling resentful
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and you just will stop keeping things. So instead of jumping in and keeping everything all at once,
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we've decided to take small steps so that it becomes more integrated in our daily lives.
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And so that by the time we are keeping everything, we have taken that on deliberately. That's
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something that we chose. It's something we understand and it's something that we believe
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in. And this is especially important for my husband because he grew up really not keeping
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any Jewish laws. So for him to take on everything all at once would mean that he would really have
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to do a 180 from everything he knew growing up. And I want for him to have the best opportunity to
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actually love and understand and keep all of the Jewish laws because there are many Jewish laws.
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We have 613 commandments. We have pretty strict rules about how we spend our days and spend specific
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times. And it's very important that if you take those things on, you really understand them because
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otherwise they just feel arbitrary. Now, I don't believe they are arbitrary. I want to clarify.
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I'm saying it can feel that way if you don't do this intentionally. And that's really important.
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So we have decided to take things just a little bit slower so that as we do become more observant,
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we really keep to it. And this is something my husband has said, is that we are orthodox,
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not orthoprax. So what orthodox means is that you believe in the laws and the rules and you believe
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that orthodox Judaism is what things should look like. We are not orthoprax. We don't practice
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the laws that we believe in. So we do keep many of them at this point. We have a completely kosher home,
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for example. But we don't keep as many as we should for people to see us as orthodox. And that really
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comes down to us keeping sabbath and the holidays. Once we're keeping sabbath and the holidays,
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then we would be much more openly accepted as orthodox Jews. And I would feel comfortable saying
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we were orthodox Jews. So that is really the main reason that we are not totally observant as of right
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now. But part of that is also where we live. So Jacob and I don't live in a primarily Jewish community.
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And being in an orthodox Jewish community is one of the fundamental baselines of living a Jewish
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life. Because when you are keeping sabbath strictly, you're not allowed to drive. You have to be able
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to be within walking distance of things. So you all live in a small area. And if you're living outside
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of that area, it's very difficult to actually keep the laws because you're not allowed to drive
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anywhere. Judaism is such a communal religion, which is part of what makes it so beautiful.
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So that when we are not living in a Jewish community, we are not actually getting an opportunity
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to participate. Now, do we believe in God? Absolutely. Do we believe that we should be
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practicing more? A hundred percent. We are just working on that slowly and surely. Kind of like
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the turtle in the hair. We are taking the slow but steady to win the race. We really want to be
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the best, most intentional Jews by the time that we are actually keeping everything. So that is where
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we are at in our orthodox journey. I hope you guys enjoyed today's video. I'd love to know in the
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comments, where are you at in your faith journey? Kind of what are you doing? Because I know we are
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all in different places when it comes to our faith. So I'd really love to know. Let me know in the
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comments down below. Thank you so much for watching today's video. Make sure to subscribe and please
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make sure to hit that notification bell to get notified of all of my new videos. If you would like
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follow me on social media, it's at classicallyabby absolutely everywhere. Thank you so much for
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watching and I'll see you guys in my next one. Bye!