Welcome to Reality - The Baalei Teshuva Frustration

B"H

Definition :
"Baalei Teshuva" - the ones who weren't born religious but became religious later in their lives.

There are plenty of people and blogs criticizing the Kiruv - Movement. Young Jews would be drawn into Yeshivot or religious programs. There they undergo a brainwashing procedure and finally transform into a black hat or a long skirt. Then they terribly go on the nerves of the born religious Jews, as the new Baal Teshuva "surely" knows everything better. He just saw the light and lets us know about it.

On the other hand, blogs criticize that religious institutions miss telling the Baalei Teshuva as well as haredi converts to Judaism the truth. Israeli haredi reality shows that those newcomers are not always fully accepted by the born haredi society.

This accusation is justied and I asked a student of the litvishe Yeshiva Neve Yerushalaim about her opinion. "Neve" is a huge institution for female Baalei Teshuva located in the Har Nof neighbourhood in Jerusalem. Mostly young girls from Anglo countries, Russia or Israel study there and the final goal is finding a Shidduch and getting married.

Throughout the past twelve years, I got to know many Neve girls. The majority loved the seminary. I also met a few dropouts and as soon as they heard the name "Neve Yerushalaim" they felt like throwing up (according to their own words). Others loved Neve but after leaving the seminary, they went back to a modern - orthodox life but regard Neve as an important experience in their religious lives.

I have already written quite a few times about the difficulties of converts and Baalei Teshuva getting accepted by haredi society. As a newcomer you might get the impression that you are accepted but after a while you find out that it is not so. Of course, I won't deny that there are exceptions and it mostly depends on your surrounding. However, Israeli reality is that many born haredim look down on Baalei Teshuva or at least don't consider them as equal. The best example is the Shidduchim business. Although a convert or Baal Teshuva may be better off by marrying another convert or Baal Teshuva, it cannot be denied that usually the Shadchan (Matchmaker) only offers them other converts or Baalei Teshuva. A Shadchan hardly sends a convert to a born Haredi. Maybe only to those who are three times divorced, have twelve kids or mental problems. In haredi society, and especially in chassidic society, you usually get your counterpart. This may be better for you but sometimes it can also be offensive.

Nevertheless, there are also those Baalei Teshuva or converts who want to escape all this prejudices and start inventing a new biographie. Suddenly a female convert to Judaism from Heidelberg (Germany) comes from a prestigious chassidic family in Heidelberg. By the way, where are Chassidim in Heidelberg ? No, I don't mean Chabad; I mean Satmar, Vishnitz or Belz.
And the grandmother was gased in Auschwitz although she is still very much alive and riding on her bike through Heidelberg.
A life full of lies in order to get accepted. Not only by society but also accepted by herself. In the end, the girl believes her own story. However, the Haredim know exactly what is going on because the haredi world is still a small world and everyone knows each other.

The girl I spoke to from Neve Yerushalaim gave me an interesting answer and hopefully it does help some readers who are in such a position:

"The problem of acceptance exists in every society. If I as a white woman would sit in the middle of twenty black women, who do you think is more likely to get attacked by the twenty other women ? The same happens in haredi society. Why should I be upset about the fact that I am "only" a Baalat Teshuva" ? It wouldn't change anything anyway and the most important thing is to strengthen one's own personal relationship to HaShem".

According to Halacha or Mussar, a convert or Baal Teshuva is on a much higher level than a born religious Jew. As soons as someone does honest Teshuva (repentance), all his former sins are forgiven. Thus, he enters a completely new stage in his life. Someone born religious usually doesn't feel all this little temptations like breaking Shabbat. He grew up with it and is so used to all the Halachot. Probably too used to them, as many times, he forgets about the Holiness of the Mitzvot and takes everything for granted. The Baal Teshuva, on the other hand, really has to fight the smallest temptations. All this little things he knows from his former life.

Even if we honour the converts in the Amida prayer and know that they and Baalei Teshuva are on extremely high level, unfortunately many religious Jews simply forget about this fact. On the other hand, converts or Baalei Teshuva shouldn't fake their identity and thus mislead haredi society.