Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots

As far as I can remember, I have always wanted everything from life, everything it can possibly give me. This desire separates me from people who are willing to settle for less. I cannot even comprehend how people's desires can be small, ambitions narrow and limited, when the possibilities are endless

I can't bear the thought of living an entire lifetime on this planet and not getting to do all the things I dream of doing, simply because they aren't allowed. I don't think it will ever be enough, this version of freedom, until it is all-inclusive. I don't think I can be happy unless I'm truly independent.

If my mind cannot be tied down, if my dreams cannot be diminished, then no amount of restraints can really guarantee my quiet submission.

I'd rather believe in reincarnation than hell. The idea of an afterlife is much so more tolerable when returning is an option.

Subconsciously, I have started to say goodbye to the people and objects in my life as if preparing to die, even though I have no real plan. I just feel strongly, in my gut, that I'm not meant to stay here.

Can anyone survive without faith, however its labeled? No matter how you live, it seems, you need faith to get by, to get ahead.

I feel so extraordinarily happy and free when I read that I’m convinced it could make everything else in my life bearable, if only I could have books all the time.

I am not aware at this moment that I have lost my innocence. I will realize it many years later. One day I will look back and understand that just as there was a moment in my life when I realized where my power lay, there was also a specific moment when I stopped believing in authority just for its own sake and started coming to my own conclusions about the world I lived in.

There is always a happy ending in children’s books. Because I have not yet begun to read adult books, I have come to accept this convention as a fact of life as well. In the physics of imagination, this is the rule: a child can only accept a just world. I waited for a long time for someone to come along and rescue me, just like in the stories. It was a bitter pill to swallow when I realized that no one would ever pick up the glass slipper I left behind.

If you are forced to confront your fears on a daily basis, they disintegrate, like illusions when viewed up close.

Until the stifling heat of summer sets in, my neighborhood is suspended in momentary perfection, a fantasy filled with swirling gusts of pink and white petals that rain down on the sunlit pavement.

I am convinced that my ability to feel deeply is what makes me extraordinary, and that is my ticket to Wonderland.

For a while I thought I could un-Jew myself. Then I realized that being Jewish is not in the ritual or the action. It is in one's history. I am proud of being Jewish, because I think that's where my indomitable spirit comes from, passed down from ancestors who burned in fired of persecution because of their blood, their faith.

Bubby scoffs at my question. A Jew can never be a goy, she says, even if they try their hardest to become one. They may dress like one, speak like one, live like one, but Jewishness is something that can never be erased. Even Hitler knew that.

I resolve to venture into the city on my own. I look at maps in the library—subway maps, bus maps, and regular maps—and try to memorize them. I’m afraid of getting lost; no, I’m afraid of sinking into the city as in a quicksand, afraid of getting sucked into something I can never escape.

Will he be able to tell, when he sees me, how truly wonderful I am? Will he want me?

Can you ever really leave the place you come from? Isn’t it best to stay where you belong, rather than risk trying to insert yourself somewhere else and failing?

I talk to him in my mind, and even I will admit that I do not come to God humbly, as I should. I talk to him frankly, as I would to a friend, and I’m constantly asking him for favors.

The true name for God is devastatingly holy and evocative; to utter it would represent a death wish, so we have safe nicknames for him instead: the Holy Name, the One, the Only, the Creator, the Destroyer, the Overseer, the King of All Kings, the One True Judge, the Merciful Father, Master of the Universe, O Great Architect, a long list of names for all his attributes.

To be freed from the prison of staying still.

One day I will look back and understand that just as there was a moment in my life when I realized where my power lay, there was also a specific moment when I stopped believing in authority just for its own sake and started coming to my own conclusions about the world I lived in.

I cannot be one of those girls who fritters away her entire life in this small, stifling square of tenements, when there is an entire world out there waiting to be explored. I don’t know how, but maybe my escape will be accomplished in small, steady steps, like Francie’s. Maybe it will take years. But I know, with great certainty, that it will be.

For a woman of such intelligence and wit, surely it is beneath her dignity to parade herself in front of the most distinguished of men, in hopes of a few morsels of attention.

I too want to be such a woman, who works her own miracles instead of waiting for God to perform them.

The books he claims are treacherous serpents have become my close friends.

I don’t want to fight for anything. I want to just be and do, with no one saying they’re letting me.” —From The Romance Reader, by Pearl Abraham

Why did I decide to speak up? Someone had to do it, and it turned out to be me.