Over the past two years I have gone through life changes. I was born into a Jewish Orthodox family in Brooklyn, New York. All my life, my teachers, family members and community have given me the message that to adhere to the rules of the Torah and the rules of Jewish Orthodox society makes me a good person.

I have never fit in to this strict mold, but only thoroughly explored what that could mean for my life after I graduated high school. I noticed the people around me, how they followed the rules, which rules they chose to focus on, how they related to others' lives, how they present themselves as perfect and cause pain behind closed doors etc. and concluded that majority follow the rules primarily to fit into modern day Jewish Orthodoxy, and not because they believe in everything they are doing, as they claim. The fact that culture is represented to me as the Truth, as Objective Morality, repulses me.

I have a brother who lives in Texas. He is a different kind of personality than the people I grew up with. He is a practicing Jew, part of the community. He follows the rules of the Torah. He is also simple and honest. He doesn't make up more rules to seem pious; he doesn't parade around the fact that he is a giving, compassionate person who does a lot for his community. He keeps to himself and lives how he does because he believes in it. He does not use his religion as a tool to promote himself in the community.

My thoughts are: if I had been exposed to a community of Orthodox Jews with this kind of honesty and integrity, things would be different. If they lived followed the rules of the Torah because they really believed in it, and didn't use it as a front to make themselves seem pious I would not have a problem associating myself with them. Perhaps I would still not want to follow the rules as they do, but I would have a problem being associated with them. It is the society of strict rules made up by humans in the name of God; the judgements, the expectations, and the immense and widespread pain caused, in the name of God, that makes me so angry, so repulsed.

I just want to run away from anything to do with such hypocrisy.

Sadly, it has also affected my relationship with God, who I need, want, and love. My realization here is that my confusion is not necessarily as I first thought: (is God real? is the Torah true? do I have to follow all the rules...). Rather, it is the people who present themselves as his emissaries that confuse me. I want a relationship with God, and now I do not know who He is. Is he like my high school principals? If so, I want nothing to do with Him. Does he judge me as my neighbors and peers do? I will reject a relationship with that.

I believe He is love, but I have no idea what that means. I will go discover it for myself, far away from corrupted views of love, and God.