ULTRA ORTHODOX: Hasidic Jewish Sect FORCED Her to Marry & Consummate with a Stranger

were there other things that were required of you around the experience the specific like Rabbi approved white square cloth that you need to insert inside of yourself twice a day following your period and also you need to wear white underwear and use white sheets on your bed during that time whoa any hint of blood then you need to start over and count seven clean days before you're allowed to touch your husband again hey my name is Shalise ansola and this is cult to Consciousness where we discuss leaving high demand religions and organizations and finding healing and Independence through awareness and true individual sovereignty as always if you're only listening and you want to see our faces go to my YouTube channel where you can like And subscribe at Coastal Consciousness if I didn't mention and you can join in on the conversation I love interacting with you in the comments I do my best to respond to everybody so today's guest I uh poached this guest from Andrew Gold's Channel after we did an episode together I came across her story and it is a beautiful one and an important one so this is someone who grew up in an extreme Orthodox sect of Hasidic Judaism run by her grandfather and we're just going to dive into what it was like for her growing up in that way having children and eventually leaving and how she's dealt with the repercussions of that and now how she's choosing to raise her children differently so thank you so much for joining us Javi weisberger hi uh thank you so much for having me it's so good to be here of course did I pronounce your name right you did as close as you're gonna get I think okay okay I'm doing my best um yeah so your interview with Andrew was so beautifully spoken and so well done there were just some things that I wanted to dive into deeper such as the Purity culture I also grew up in very strict Purity culture but not as Extreme as yours I know it's a very vulnerable topic so I want to say thank you in advance for being so vulnerable and open and sharing your stories because I know it's something that is not easy to do so I think to start off I would love to give everyone kind of an overview of Hasidic Judaism and also which whatever disclaimers you want to give personally because I'm not an expert I'm also very new to this and learning so what is Hasidic Judaism and what was it like in your specific group all right so um this is I feel uncomfortable like speaking about topics that I'm no expert in I just know having lived it what that experience was like for me but I'll do my best there's like several different kinds of Judaism or ways people practice Judaism so there's like the reform movement the conservative movement movement and the Orthodox um the Orthodox is divided into these different levels of devoutness I guess so there's like the modern Orthodox um community and then there's the ultra Orthodox Community which encompasses both the yeshivish community and the Hasidic community the yeshivas are have a lot of similar values as the Hasidic they're also very sheltered from the world and quite fundamentalist but they focus more on tourist study and um the Hasidic Community focuses more on um serving God with joy I suppose or different aspects of serving God I I I'm bad at this um all this to say research it it's interesting I should probably do a research it now that I'm out of it but the Hasidic Community is um like you said very varied it's not like there's one specific leader that tells all Hasidic Jews how to live their lives it's actually so many different sects and most of the sex began in Eastern Europe like pre-holocaust in some rare cases one I'm very familiar with my grandfather founded a Hasidic uh Community when like after the Holocaust here in America so he was a teacher at uh Yeshiva that was not Hasidic and some of his students were interested in his style of teaching and his values um and they kind of flocked around him for um to learn more and to understand his way of being and it was more of a Hasidic focus and so they kind of anointed him their Rabbi and he started a sect called emunas Israel which literally translates into faith of Israel um and that's the SEC that I was raised in and it's similar to many of the other sects and also has its own little things that are unique to it yeah okay so I know in your interview you mentioned you were kind of sheltered from the world so paint us a picture of what that actually looks like day-to-day life are you required to dress a certain way act a certain way are there things that you can and cannot watch or look at how does it differ from some of the other sects of Judaism um so in my experience um we were very very sheltered so no TV no movies no books that were written by people who weren't Hasidic um yeah and it was very very strict and even like in school the the books we used were not um traditional textbooks actually when I was younger we did and then they got more like devout as I got older and they started producing their own textbooks because of like some content that they didn't want us having access to um so when we did use the secular textbooks they would censor them you know so they would like cross out things that they didn't like words like Library were crossed out really yeah and we weren't allowed to go to the public library which is um which is why they censored it oh um so completely sheltered from anything that might give you an idea of what's happened how other people are living their lives um what's happening in the world and um and to answer the broader question that you ask like the day-to-day is very um there's just every single facet of your life is controlled so like from the moment you wake up there's you know a basin with water a cup of water in it that you prepared the night before near your bed um and you need to like wake up recite a certain prayer wash your hands in a very specific way before you even get off your bed you know there's a right the right way to put your shoes on the right way to tie your shoes um everything you wear is very controlled so like for boys you probably know the traditional Hasidic guard white shirt black pants black long suit jacket black hat sideburns and it's like very controlled and for girls it's strict modesty um so you know covered like your neck to your wrists uh skirts past your knees thick tights that cover your legs and um even Styles and fashion is very controlled colors which colors you can wear you know everything is about like Conformity and modesty oh why would they control the different colors were there certain colors that they I guess look down on or was it just so everyone kind of was in the same color palette it's modesty reasons so they don't want you wearing anything bright or you know red was forbidden um Neons bright colors things like that was it because it would draw too much attention to yourself exactly yeah no and and how early were these modesty standards implemented as a kid so that's actually one of those um odd ones because it is specific uh sect to sect and the more strict sects the one I was raised in starting at three years old so little girls until they're three years old can wear whatever they want and then at three is when the modesty will start to kick in oh that's a lot to unpack there because it makes you think why is Modesty important to a three-year-old and what that message is sending to Children about their bodies and and I would imagine it would make you feel it would it would be a little bit scary and make you feel uncomfortable if and I don't know maybe you can fill us in as to what they were telling you when you were a child as to why you had to cover up at least in Mormonism they do I would say as early as well as early as the parents want but you're kind of made to follow modesty rules once you become a young woman which is around 12. so that when I was going through uh adolescence I remember thinking I had to be modest because I was causing men to have impure thoughts about me and when you're that young you don't even really understand what that means but it makes you feel really uncomfortable like people are always watching you and you have to stay pure and it's just very icky so how was that explained to you as a child having to cover up so young did you ask those questions so it's interesting because I hadn't really thought about this before um because it starts so young they don't tell you it's about men when you're three years old right they say it's about looking like a proper daughter of God whatever that means okay you're a daughter your royalty you're a daughter of the king with a with a royal child be dressed so inappropriately there's that framing [Music] um and then but as you get older there is all the like conversations about boys and men and being careful not to be immodest around them so it's definitely also woven in there um and because it's like I said it starts so young it's just kind of always bare on your Consciousness um and I actually have an interesting uh a fun little story about okay because let's get personal here for a minute okay I think I was like just a weirdly clueless kid I just kind of was she's just going through life everything was confusing I didn't understand most of what was happening I was just floating through it all um and I did no I did learn about sex when I was like I think in eighth grade um my classmates someone knew someone read it in the dictionary someone was telling somebody else and I was cool enough to be in on that conversation so I knew like the very basic idea of like what the anatomically happens during sex um I was very disconnected from it like it just it was just this weird piece of information I had that I knew was dirty and inappropriate yeah when I was engaged to be married fast forward to that part of my life and we can always go back for missing important bits um I was 18 years old I was um you know gonna marry this man that I didn't know and prior to marriage they send the girls to something called a Kala teacher which is someone who prepares you for marriage um so there's like a series of lessons right before the wedding that you learn about all the laws of family Purity which are like super intense um about when you're allowed to have sex but actually they don't talk about that immediately so it's more like there's all the different things you need to know about husbands and wives touching each other during your period you're impure you're not supposed to be touching each other after your period you have all these like different rules about like seven days after your period you need to prove that you are completely clean of your period for seven days so there's this um this little white cloth the specific like Rabbi approved white square cloth that you need to insert inside of yourself twice a day I think it was twice a day I might be missing I forgot it's so long but I think it's twice a day leading up uh following your period and also you need to wear white underwear and use white sheets on your bed during that time whoa and the point of all of this is to say that if there is any hint of blood then if it's if it's ascertained to be period blood then you need to start over and count seven clean days before you're allowed to touch your husband again or it hasn't touched you oh my goodness yes that's a lot of pressure for you and also putting it on that young woman that she is unclean during her period there's already so much a taboo around menstruation and us women not feeling comfortable even talking about it but it's so natural and normal that without it we wouldn't even have childbirth so I can't imagine that extra layer of making you feel unclean how did that make you feel um it was awful I just want to be clear it was absolutely awful for me although we're gonna get a lot of pushback on this because um there's more discourse around this now in Jewish spaces where they're pushing back on the term of unclean or you know they're just saying it's a ritual Purity it's all the same when I was in it it definitely felt dirty and shameful and bad um so I just want to preempt any of that this course happening here um it was it was a very stressful thing and I resented it so much um but I want to stay on track just just finish this story because I feel like I just took you off on a tangent all this to say I'm at this Cola teacher she's teaching us all these rules about you know what it's gonna what to expect at the wedding and the final uh not what to expect uh what the rules are for marriage and the final session with her is the sex talk and this is when young girls learn for the first time what actually happens um in married life um many girls know beforehand like myself or have heard you know through different ways but um that's officially when you're supposed to learn about it for the first time and and boys do the same thing with something called the Hassan teacher where they are being taught what the boys are supposed to learn um so I was at this college teacher she was giving me the talk and while I thought I knew everything before then I suddenly realized like there's a big gap in my knowledge um and I don't know if this is too vulgar to say on your podcast but nothing is too vulgar this is great Best Time Ever um I asked the college teacher how does the how does the man's penis know to get hard at that time when you're actually doing the deed valid question right and suddenly it was like wait like this is so important I never like this how does this happen and so she explained to me that when men see men are very visual beings when they see something that they're excited by the blood rushes to their penis and it gets hard and for me that was like this huge aha moment where I finally understood why modesty existed in the first place oh and I remember just running home like from that lesson and like grabbing my younger sister and like hiding in a room with her and being like I understand everything now like you know this is why we need to hide from men and this is why you know because they their penises get hard when they see us and it felt so revelatory I mean you're not totally wrong but can you imagine if just I mean you know there's just guys walking around with hard penises all the time because someone's wearing a tank top like it's not that sensitive well who knows I'm not a man I can't speak for for penis owners um but what I can say though and this relates very much so this like Purity culture theme is that the more like men are repressed the more that is true right like the less they have permission or access to allow themselves just to like be in the world and see people the more they're sensitive to the very littlest things so kind of yes all connected that is such a good point and I'm glad that you brought that up so what are your thoughts because okay there's so many questions I want to ask here the first being were you excited about this at all about having your first sexual experience were did they even explain about female pleasure and how to physically get your body ready to accept a man what's what's going through your mind while you're preparing to get married and I assume it's an arranged marriage you said you don't know the person I was not excited about it at all I was terrified um nothing about it felt like good to me I was grossed out and very turned off by the whole thing although like that's very specific to me I have talked to other girls or women who say that for them it was very exciting and they couldn't wait for sex with their husbands for me it was like this is a stranger I barely know him men in general I was just really turned off by men and also in a separate piece that might be specific to me is that I had been sleeping with girls for like for several years at that point um and so I didn't understand though that what I was doing with girls was the same act as the thing that was going to happen in marriage just with different Anatomy to me it was like I have this intimacy with girls and I love it and we just love each other so much and like touching each other and when I get married there's this very specific act I need to do with my husband that is about his pleasure um they were not related things to me like I didn't have language for the thing I was doing with the girl so like it just felt like this other thing that was like not exciting not yeah yeah that brings up an interesting point around not knowing that they were comparable and the the thing that I can relate to is I was never explained what masturbation was for women I just always knew that that's a guy thing and don't do it and it's wrong and sinful and whatever and then once I figured out what it was I was like oh yeah I've done that before I have no idea that I had been sinning this whole time and was it similar to you do you think if he would have explained what you had done with other women that you would have been punished for it or looked down on for it and did that ever happen did you ever tell anyone what you had been doing so I absolutely would have gotten in trouble for it um I did get in trouble for it at summer camp one year the the director of the camp called me into her office and told me you're not allowed to be kissing girls and I don't know who ratted me out but that was the framing like you you can't be kissing girls and I was like oh okay um but I knew it was bad I knew it was I knew it was immodest you know and that it felt shamey and and wrong in that sense but um but if I had been sleeping with boys as a teenager I would have been like absolutely punished and you know it would have been seen as cardinal sin so it's interesting it's almost like this weird loophole because women's sexuality it doesn't exist um like we've just not seen as sexual beings and so it's like that's not right it's dirty and bodies should be hidden and shameful but not you're like having a a sexual uh act outside of marriage level shameful oh that's so interesting in Mormonism and most other Christian denominations being gay is seen as an Abomination towards God but if you're saying that sexuality didn't necessarily exist for women did they view what you were doing as the same serious type of sin or is being gay a sin an Abomination to God in your religion being gays and an Abomination To God In My Religion okay for men okay um for women it's one of the it's actually interesting because nobody talks about it we you know it's just not a thing that's even addressed not gay men either like none of it is talked about um I only learned about the the fact that being gay is a sin after I left the community when I was in it there was just no you know no real nobody mentioned it at all um but when I was questioning like after my divorce and struck my struggle to figure out what's next for me I there was a period where I was trying so hard to figure out how do I stay within Judaism and still be true to myself and I reached out to this Rabbi who was actually a modern Orthodox Rabbi because I knew I can't even ask this of a Hasidic Rabbi but I was like maybe a modern Orthodox Rabbi will give me some you know sense of like permission to be myself and remain in Orthodoxy and the rabbi said no I'm not allowed to be pursuing you know a sexual relationship with a woman and it's it's forbidden and I was like well then what does God want from me um he said God wants you to be celibate for the rest of your life if that's the only way you can get sexual pleasure you should just be celibate um that makes me so angry and that's the same for Mormonism they're like oh no we accept gay people you just can't be gay it's like wait what you can't act on it you just have to get married force yourself into a straight marriage and have children because that's what God wants for you so were you okay I'm going back a little bit we're kind of popcorning which is great to get the broader scope of everything so when you are having these sexual experiences with women and now you're being forced to marry a man that you don't know how how did you feel when all that was going on like during your your wedding and after the wedding and the things that you're expected to do what's going through your mind and how are you rectifying this it was such a difficult time for me and you know like as time passes I like discover new layers of what that actually felt like for me I think I was just a zombie in it all I was like just you know kind of going through the motions um and feeling really detached from myself um but it was a really bad time um when I got married you know like I said my husband I had met him twice for an hour each time before being engaged to him and in those conversations it was just like him telling me like stories from the Torah or like what what the weekly Torah portion was about um or like what he was studying in Yeshiva um it was not like a human conversation um and then you know I was told that we should get engaged specifically like after the first time I met him my father asked me so do you like him do you like him and I said no and he said okay oh no and I went back to the Sleepaway Camp I was at you know with all the girls I was kissing and my father called me up and said would you do me a favor and just meet him one more time for me and I was like okay came home did the whole thing again my father asked me do you like him I said no and he said well do you respect him and I said yes he seems to be a very good Torah scholar and my father said respect is enough and you'll learn to like him and we were engaged and you know six months later we got married without having like any like conversations or you know any real Connection in between and on the wedding night I you know I was expected to have sex with him yeah and not only you know was it my first time having sex with him who was a virtual stranger to me but it was my first time being like intimate with a man yeah period um and because of like modesty culture there was just so little exposure to like men and boys in general even my own Brothers like I just didn't know men um you know the boys are in Yeshiva all day they're like living this very separate life from their sisters and so I just it was like so many layers of like shock for me yeah um to be this intimate with a person with who's a man um and I that night I really felt violated and you know people ask like did he weight me and like no not technically it was really hard for him too neither of us wanted to be there um but I experienced it as a rape you know I felt like the way I describe it is like the community and the rabbis raped me um by having no concern for what that experience might be like for for the person who's actually expected to go through with it um and that was super traumatic and then after the wedding there's these seven days of celebrations called the cheva brajos that we're like every night after the wedding you have like these dinners with family and community members in different people's homes or catered or whatever um and during this period you're never allowed to be alone because of some belief that the I don't want to mess this up but I think it's something about like this bad spirits are trying to attach themselves to you because it's such a holy time there's something something there I'm probably messing it up but there's some reason and so you need to kind of like if you're ever alone without your husband somebody needs to be there with you during that week so like a sister or a sister-in-law would like babysit me during that time and so I just remember like I was so deeply traumatized from what had happened to me on the wedding night and could never be alone in my thoughts because there was always either my brand new husband who had had that like horrible experience with me or his sister or his mother or people I can't talk to about it yeah um and it's not like I'm never alone to even like call a friend and try to process it because there's always somebody there and I'm expected to go every night to these parties and put on this happy face and be like oh my goodness we're celebrating you yeah and I just I just remember that this one night I was looking around at my sisters and I was so angry with them because they had they're married and they have gone through this thing and they didn't do anything to warn me or protect me from this I'm so sorry that you had to go through that I can't even imagine how difficult that must have been to force yourself into that position and you said that he didn't really want to experience that either was that something that was required of you following the wedding yes um so there's something called which is this concept of like a man and a woman are never allowed to be together on supervised or without like alone unless they're married and marriage is only like valid once it's been consummated oh and so you're you're expected to do it the wedding night or else you're not allowed to live together wow were there other things that were required of you around the experience I'm trying to gauge the level of I guess religiosity around that experience other than the obvious yeah now that you mention it oh gosh there's a whole bunch of them so this is a part where I do want to put out a disclaimer that that's different for every different sect and even within the sect everyone has their own stuff like there's just so nuanced and because people don't really talk to each other about it um there's just everybody's experience is very different my ex-husband was very very devout and very anxious about being devout he wanted to do everything 100 perfectly by God and so it led to situations like this being extra traumatic because for example there is a rule that you're not allowed to have any like sepharim which are like holy books in the room with you while you're having sex and so my ex would get very anxious like oh this book is it like considered a holy book if it has the name of God in it or if it's a you know whatever it is he would like get very anxious about stuff like that there's a rule about it being really dark in the room um and so like if there was even a drop of light coming through the window or like the alarm clock light he would get very anxious about that um there was a special prayer that we he wanted us both to recite before sex to like ask God to have righteous sons from this act that we're about to do uh there's so many just like things attached to it and then also specific to the wedding night because both of us didn't know what we were doing um and it was our first time and we had just only ever just learned about it from some teacher um there's a lot of anxiety of like did we actually do it did it like go inside did it properly penetrate is this considered like we consummated it and we didn't know and I just remember like on the wedding night like at 3am after a full night of like the wedding and people and dancing and going home to our apartment and doing this horrible you know and then my ex calling the rabbi to be like how do I know if we did it right you know do we like is it okay um and that was like another layer of like just incredible stress and um and also like this the involvement of the rabbi into kind of this personal thing was another traumatic piece to all of it yeah I mean I feel uncomfortable just hearing the stories and I'm sure you feel uncomfortable and I'm sure everyone listening is like oh this isn't very comfy too but the reason that I wanted to ask more about the details is because I do think it's important to paint the full picture of what you went through to accurately depict this lifestyle and how far you've come and and just the differences that these different groups have I think it's just important to I guess share the knowledge and allow people to fully understand it so thank you for being so vulnerable and transparent about that uh so you have children so you did eventually figure out how to do it right did it become easier for you uh were you still grappling with your sexuality and trying to force something to work with your husband what was that like as time went on it didn't become easier for me and I'm now like very conscious like we've been talking a lot about really intense stuff so uh just so the audience knows I can also talk about cute and funny stuff but we actually focused for a moment uh it did not get easier it was horrible it actually increasingly got worse and worse for me I still didn't connect it to my sexuality until I went to see a therapist who like my family sent me to he was a Hasidic like a man who had who was a therapist a licensed therapist in the community um and he asked me like so his question was like you know how do you know or actually it's I told him I don't love my husband is how it started and he asked me how do you know what love is and I I said I've been in love before with this girl in my high school and he he said oh so do you think you might be a lesbian and and I said what's that and then he explained it to me and you know for me that was the beginning of me like understanding that there is a correlation between my attraction to women and my lack of attraction to my husband um but it kind of came from the lens of like I need to figure out how to no longer be a lesbian so I can be a good wife and to what I need to do with my husband from your therapist point of view I mean he knew what lesbians were but you mentioned that it wasn't really a thing in in your religion as far as understanding that first women have sexuality and sex drives and then understanding that it's possible for women to be attracted to women was it was it seen as something that they tried to make you feel ashamed about as they would with men or was it kind of like just get over yourself like what was he telling you to do to get rid of this side of you that you were just now discovering the way he framed it was that you know this is an unhealthy reaction to some trauma I must have experienced as a child and he had me yeah and he wanted me to like dig back into my childhood and find the time where I was you know inappropriately touched or hurt or something and then once we heal that I can then be free from that demon is kind of the way it was framed and and I tried I really was I was like hopeful that I'll figure this out and fix it and then I can move on but I couldn't figure it out and he did like a kind of hypnotherapy on me in an effort to get me to somehow find that Trauma from my childhood um and that didn't work and he also uh taught me to self hypnotize so that I can kind of be absent from when I was having sex with my husband [Applause] um and that was traumatic in its own right yeah absolutely because you're just completely dissociating from your body and sex especially for women is such an emotional thing and to even be ready to accept a man you have to be aroused and you have to be connected to your body and you have to be willing and wanting it so I can't imagine how difficult that must have been how long did this go on before you realized you wanted to leave the community and and find something that worked for you so I stayed in the marriage for seven and a half years wow yeah and and you know I saw this therapist and then went after a while he said he can't help me much more and then I was sent to this other therapist and then we did couples counseling we did rabbis leader everybody was in our marriage um and I really really wanted to just make it work it felt like um there was no other option for me really it was I needed to I needed to figure this out and stay in it um and I had three children and I finally but you know the last year I was done and I knew it um and what I'm really grateful for is that there was this one therapist that I that I saw my parents like flew him in from Israel because he was supposed to be the guru who fixes his marriages and um I remember you know meeting with him and he told me you don't want to fix this and I can't make you fix it if that's not what you actually want you want to leave and the best I mean honestly that was such a gift that he gave me because he said what you need to do is spend some time in therapy for yourself because it's going to be a hell of a battle to leave this like he he knew my ex-husband's family and he's like they're not gonna let you go easy they're gonna make it they're gonna make it hard and so you gotta strengthen yourself and get some tools to to cope with that and I did I spent another year in therapy but now with a focus on really like how do I get there myself um that therapist wasn't great you know she told me like you're gonna lose your children if you leave this marriage you know she was also someone in the community and she she was giving me the hard truth like she's like they're this is this is going to be really bad but at that point I just needed I knew I needed to do it and what's interesting is you know I had been talking about divorce from the beginning of the marriage you know day one my husband and I were talking about divorce wow yeah we both were so unhappy the whole entire time so disconnected from each other just like two ships and the Sea just going our own ways um and as as you know as I was building up some like stamina to leave um I think you know he started realizing like oh this is serious ultimately he left me um which was a gift because I don't know how I could have taken it to that step um but yeah eventually so when I was 25 years old I got divorced I had three young children who were one three and five years old I how did you there's so many questions I have I don't even know where to begin like you are 25 three children basically Toddlers and you're alone and you're still isolated within this community that you don't want to be a part of how did you manage how did you get a job like what how I just how I gotta say it how good question how um yeah so I think that a thing that you should understand is that while I was married um I was also the breadwinner of our family um and this is the case in a lot of Hasidic communities not all um but in Medical City communities the women are the bread the people who go to work the men study Torah the men are just studying Toro all day yeah so I was working the entire time and continued to work after the divorce um I felt so relieved in that that early like the the beginning of like that new chapter after my husband left and all of a sudden I was like it's just me and these three babies like we can do this um and it was like a heavy weight was lifted off my shoulders um I didn't feel like anything was harder because of him leaving like on the contrary I felt so much lighter and Freer it was the first time in my life that there wasn't a man who was my father or my husband controlling me and telling me what I needed to do and yeah I I think because also this is part of like growing up as a woman in the community it's like you're trained since you're little for motherhood that's like a thing that you know you're expected to really like get good at and I shaped my whole identity around that and that's something I'm grateful for as a person who has children that like my immediate Instinct after that divorce was just like I'm gonna make this life so good for these children um and there's something like also specific to me which is you know my name is Java I'm called Javi but the name is Java um Java is the name of you know Eve Adam and Eve um it's the Hebrew word for Eve um and the Torah explains why did Adam name his wife Java and the answer is for she was the mother of all life and from when I was little that was like the pet the little nickname that my father had always you know joke around about oh look at our mother of all life you know um and so it I actually have it tattooed on my on myself but yeah and I have it you know there with my children's birthdays um first tattoo I got when I left the community tattoos are forbidden um all this to say uh it it came it was an instinct for me that I'm I'm gonna do this really well and and it was easier to do without having to get permission from some man for every decision I was making and um it just everything became for me a lot more um thoughtful and I was I was really thinking about what do I want as a parent how do I want to raise these children who are we as a family um which led me on this little journey of like exploring my sexuality more um trying to reconcile my sexuality and my religious identity and ultimately realizing that I can't and that's when it became obvious I need to leave and I need to take these children with me and live an authentic life with these babies yeah what did your husband or your ex-husband think about that so um after I got divorced my ex-husband remarried very quickly after four months later he was married to another woman wow four months yeah um it was fast and she uh didn't have any children of her own at that time and so he for some reason was Guided by his rabbis that he needs to focus on his new marriage and not complicate things by seeing his children and so he really like stepped out of our life and was not very present little visits here and there but really very very minimal um so like for four and a half years after the divorce you know he was just not in the picture and so when I left the community I thought you know I've seen other people leave and the horrible reaction that the community has to them but I thought my case would be different because my ex was so uninvolved that I thought like he had no standing even if he tried to like do something um to harm my relationship with the children I was wrong um when I left the community um the first day I you know left my apartment without my wig on and in jeans um it was immediate like I I was going to a doctor's appointment um I went to the doctor's appointment I came home by the time I came home the whole entire Community knew about this terrible thing that I did which you know leave my apartment in jeans and and without my head covered and um and the the reaction was Swift it was we're gonna take your children away from you and it and but it and by we it was not just my ex-husband it was a concerted effort by the entire community so like they moved into quick action they had hired him the best lawyers they had a whole case built against me and they and very quickly the court ordered that my children be removed from my care and and go to live with their father wow that I just can't even imagine just the complete shock and the reason is because you did something as simple as going out in jeans and it scared them into thinking that you were leading your children down the wrong path and now your children are taking I mean what's going through your mind are you regretting your decisions uh how were you able to fight back against that so I never regretted my decisions um I it was so clear to me at that point it was years in the making I knew I needed to do this um and thank goodness the instinct to just fight like hell kicked in I was not going to like take the sitting down I was going to do everything in my power to um have a meaningful relationship with my children and give them the opportunity to leave the community as well to have a future outside of the community um it was just very clear to me that I knew to do everything in my power to get there and I was really lucky because people rallied behind me you know my new community of friends and some wonderful non-profits like I I reached out to a non-profit called her justice well actually I reached out to an organization called Unchained at last and they connected me with her justice and her justice gave me a pro bono attorney who turned out to be like Angels like they were as a big firm so they were actually able to like support me through like all the pieces I don't know how much uh your audience knows about just what the legal process is like and it's horrible I hope nobody has to go through it um but it's a lot it's years and years and years of fighting um and so just to be clearer like um my the judge ordered immediately that the children be removed from my care and then a week later I got attorneys who represented me and so the children we came up with like this temporary order or this temporary decision um like while the custody case is being played out the children were to he would my ex-husband was to have primary custody and the children would have visitation with me for three days a week um my ex was fighting for me for me to have only visited uh supervised visitation so that I can't you know at least tell them anything or expose them to anything of my values or thoughts while they're with me and thankfully that there was like a stay on that the supervision part on and the judge said like when we get to the end of the hearing or the trial then he'll determine that so just for those I think it was like four years that this case dragged on um and during that time the children spent you know Thursday to Thursday after school till Monday morning with their dad and then they would come to me Monday through Thursday and I had these three precious days a week with my children I was legally not allowed to share anything of myself with my children like none of my values none of my ideas none of my like anything about my sexuality wow and also it's even crazier that the judge also included in there that even when my children are not with me that while I'm in the Hasidic neighborhood I need to show up like a Hasidic person no I wasn't allowed to leave my house in the clothes I wanted to wear I wasn't allowed to um like if I wanted to travel on the weekend which is like the Sabbath I wasn't allowed to so I would have to like walk outside of the neighborhood and take the train from there or get a cab from there but I was like a prisoner in my own Community for years wow that must have been awful because you finally gained this freedom and this Independence and you're happy and you're thriving and then you're thrown right back into four more years of being controlled again and also not having your children I I'm sure you don't want to speak for them specifically but what were their responses to this back and forth that must have been really difficult for them going you know three days on and then four days with their jobs it was awful honestly it's such a traumatic time for like in the store the grand scheme of all of our Lives I think now that my children are some of them adults already and one almost an adult um there's you know it's it's a lot to process and a lot to unpack like it in the at the time it was just survival we pushed through I was putting on that brave face every time they would come home on Monday and I had like you know prepared projects and treats for them and to help with that transition from you know their father's house to home and yeah it just was awful and a big piece for me as well was this terrible fear that they're being brainwashed against me right um which which they were not an unfounded fear they were they were being told that everything I stand for and everything I value was evil and bad and ugh I know so many people like myself whose children turned against them whose children remained in the community and refused to like respect their parent who was no longer of the faith and I was so scared of that happening but I also had this legal um muzzle which like yeah didn't allow me to talk to my kids and help them kind of understand the things that I believed and the ideas and the values and all the things that I cared about and I mean I did some creative Shenanigans to try to like get around the legal barriers and still be able to like deconstruct some of these like ideas that they were being taught in school and at their father's home like what one of the things I did was I um created a family values wall and so anytime we would like read a book or watch a movie or whatever it was um and we would like notice a value that was being expressed um and it was something that aligned with the values I wanted them to to have we would draw it out on a paper and stick it onto our family values wall oh yeah and this was one of the ways that it was like you know because up until then it was just like a clear book of God's you know rules of how what morality is and what's right and wrong and I wanted to like kind of break those apart and analyze what are actually values that we are aligned with and you know some of these are were things that like are just you know not anti-hasitism I suppose like which means I wasn't straight up saying Hasidic values are bad these are good values I was saying these are our family's values this is what we care about and they were some of them different than what they were being taught there was you know anti-racism and um inclusivity and you know things like that that were not being taught in other places and we constantly would go back to them it was almost like this thing that like became integrated into our day-to-day life I can't imagine how difficult that must have been because were you forced to also continue what they were doing at their father's house in your home you said you were watching movies and earlier earlier you said that you weren't really allowed or you had very strict rules around movies so were they kind of going to you and doing things that they wouldn't have been able to do at their dad's house technically no I was not allowed to do those things that they were not allowed to do at their father's house um oh you know there were some things and I don't want to like uh get myself into legal trouble here I found some workarounds and figured out ways to still be able to share things of value with me and there was a concern always that the kids would go and tell their dad and that would be used against me and so I was careful about the things that I chose to share with them or why I'm sharing it with them and everything I had like you know a thought like I was very responsible and careful about that like is it worth it am I taking a risk that's worth it right um but one of the things I did was like and this is you know if any of your listeners are trying to deconstruct their children or trying to help their children understand the larger world we live in while also them being you know for whatever reason in the Hasidic schools or in fundamental spaces and not having access one of the things I did was I would collect like curate these little like playlists of videos um I would do this through Facebook so I but anytime I would see something on Facebook that like was like a current events or um something values based or just something cute I would save those links in my Facebook I don't know if like this is so passive it's so long ago um and and then like at dinner every night we would have this little like show I would show them all the little videos that I had curated over you know over the weekend while they were away um and it was like a way to kind of give them bits of the larger world and share with them the things that are important and again like deconstruct some of those problematic ideas um and we would discuss it and you know and it was fun and it was light and there was a cute kid and a puppy and then there was also just like here's what's happening in politics and here's what's happening and you know and so it it was a full-time job figuring out how to give these children a core sense of identity that aligned with the values I wanted them to have while still being really careful about not getting in trouble with the courts wow I Just Wanna Give You a virtual Applause here because that is amazing you are amazing for doing all that for your children honestly I don't know if every child in that situation could have been so lucky to have a parent who put so much time and effort into helping them become well-rounded adults and I think what most of us at least I'm very curious about knowing is what were their reactions when you were finally able to tell them oh geez this is what's been going on and this is what I've been wanting to tell you about and this is who I am um it was a slow process I didn't just like first it all out like that it was and there's still things that are coming out now it's like it's you know it was their whole entire lives and it was there's a lot to unpack and we're still unpacking it a lot of therapy for all of us honestly just a lot of therapy um but we're healing you know we're healing we're learning about It ultimately where they are now is just grateful that I saved them from that experience they're they're you know just always expressing that it's so constant it's you know it's always um right underneath the surface of Our Lives of like you know my eldest kid turned 20 last month at 20 I was pregnant with them wow you know married to their to a stranger I'm pregnant with them and they're going to college and you know having their first relationships and learning about you know what their interests are and um not not forced into a marriage and having a baby and so like these things just are constantly bubbling right under the surface um of you know they're just they're just so grateful um that they they're getting to just be people in the world and learn and figure out their own truths and live by their own value systems and not feel um restricted to a very um limited life yeah wow that's honestly it's incredible that they are able to understand where you were coming from and see it from your perspective and I'm sure yeah they're grateful to you for that and do they still have a good relationship with their father as well they're they're working on it you know they they actually um have like court-ordered family therapy with their dad um and so that's really helping them to kind of confront some of the pieces that didn't feel good for them and to talk it out and um yeah there's there's healing happening all around yeah oh man my heart is just so it's like full and it's heavy and it's like I need to take a few deep breaths I'm a little emotional over here it has just been such a ride to experience your story and to hear how you came out of this on top I feel like that's an accurate statement right do you feel liberated and happy and how are you now I feel so liberated and so happy you're asking me in the right moment you know I turned 40 this year oh my gosh I got engaged to the person I love so much this year thank you and I'm about to go uh this summer I'm taking a three-month sabbatical from my job um which I'm just so grateful that my job offers that and so I've been working there for seven years and so now I get this paid sabbatical and I'm just excited to like use that time to heal and to learn more about myself and to figure out like what's this next chapter gonna be um looking into like different healing Retreats and you know writing workshops maybe I want to write a book yes please do I would like to or maybe I'll get a Ghostwriter I don't know we'll see um but I'm excited you know like there's it feels like it's finally over the worst of it is behind us and now the healing can begin I mean the healing has been happening all along too but it feels yeah it feels better and um like like there's just only only the good times now my friend always likes to say like now is the time for prizes you know we get the treats now we've done all the hard stuff and we get the treats so yes you have definitely earned it and in that spirit I need to get your Linda listen moment your sassy statement as the viral video with the Toddler goes um something that you want to say to someone or an organization or it can be inspirational for our viewers here Linda listen it's hard to imagine a big beautiful magical life while you're still in one that is so restrictive and controlling of information so dream big take look at somebody in the world that you're like oh wow they're living this incredible life and make that yours because you freaking can because there's nothing actually in the way you can live the biggest boldest free life that you imagine for yourself and everything that's standing in the way now can be taken care of can be removed and I'm not trying to like do this like toxic positivity thing it's going to be awful the process is going to be terrible but when you get there it's going to be so so good so it's it's worth it do the hard thing you deserve the big beautiful life oh I love that Linda listen do the hard thing because it's worth it thank you so much for sharing it has been such a ride as I've mentioned before I just can't thank you enough uh would you like to include any social media handles or resources um totally up to you thank you yes um I would like to encourage folks to donate to footsteps but steps is the nonprofit that supports people like myself disclaimer I work there but it's good work and it's important donate to footsteps if you need to leave the community a Hasidic Community Reach Out to footsteps it's footstepsorg.org and regarding me I I want to do better about social media but find me I don't know on Facebook or Instagram and if you message me something meaningful I'll probably accept your your request awesome we'll put the links down below for anyone who wants to get in touch any final thoughts before we go I'm just so grateful I got to have this conversation with you today and I'm so proud of the work you're doing um you're such an inspirational person and I I just hope everybody gets to live their best lives thank you so much I really appreciate that and to everyone listening if you'd like to support the podcast that would mean the world you can support over on patreon patreon.com close to Consciousness or having behind-the-scenes conversations and news updates exclusive updates uh and until next time follow your highest excitement to be conscious and be well thanks for listening if you like what you hear it would mean a lot if you could like And subscribe on YouTube been leave a review or a comment to help with their visibility you can also find me on social media at colts2consciousness or Reach Out by email at colts2consciousness gmail.com

Channel: Cults to Consciousness

Views: 1,030,281

Keywords: cults to consciousness, exmormon, exlds, deconstructing faith, finding sovereignty, cults, cult member, leaving cults, awareness, healing from cults, healing from trauma, shelise ann sola, chavie weisberger, ultra-orthodox judaism, arranged marriage, ultra orthodox, hasidic, hasidic judaism, leaving ultra orthodox, escaping ultra orthodox, chavie, jewish sect cult

Id: 8BGL_i27XRw

Length: 61min 41sec (3701 seconds)

Published: Mon May 01 2023