Report: …Sara, a third year law student who lives in Michigan with her husband of five years, together with their young daughter and two pets. Sara is a former Bais Yaakov girl from a moderate yeshivish family who stopped being frum in her early twenties. She currently practices Elder Law in a free clinic and has worked in the past as a middle and high school teacher at Bais Yaakov.
…"I was once working on a paper having to do with the history of Jewish communities in fifteenth century Italy. In doing that work, I came across a shailah/tshuvah about mixed-gender dancing. I was shocked that in a fairly orthodox setting of several hundred years ago, mixed social dancing was widely accepted, for the purposes of encouraging suitable matches. This led me to other reading and eventually to question the system of halacha."
"Above all though, the thing I treasure most about my life that wasn’t possible in the frum community is that the schemes and plans and ambitions I formulate are not viewed with suspicion. I don’t have to worry about balancing everything against religion. My religion recognizes a greater diversity of human activity than frumkeit allows itself to recognize."
Lucy comments on XGH’s commentary: "You don’t mention that Sarah is happily married, a mom, attending law school, planning a career,still believes in g-d (albeit one with a son), maintains a relationship with her parents and those family who will let her do so and presumably is not an alcoholic or a drug addict. Her path may not be the typical one and it certainly is not the stereo-typical image some frummies like to convey of OTD (off the derech) people as lonely, loveless, godless,sex-addicted drug addicts."
