Oh, that makes sense! Thank you for explaining!

Thanks, after reviewing the rules I'm not sure what the issue is, exactly. I think the mods have an issue with the proof I provided. I saw many people show a picture of themselves holding a note, although I'm not sure why that would be better proof than showing an image of a religious text I own. It seems to me that showing I own religious Hebrew texts would be stronger proof than a picture of my face. If you have any insight into what I did incorrectly, I would be appreciative.

Totally!

I'm a huuuuuge Discord nerd. I've been building and managing community servers for 7 years. It took me a long time to get to a place where I could charge for my services, and it has been one of the greatest professional joys of my life to have been contracted by a company to redesign the server they use as their workspace.... don't tell them but I would have done it for free in a heartbeat 😄

First liquor I ever tried as a kid when I swiped a bottle from my parents' liquor cabinet-- love that stuff lol

Of course!

Thank you for the kind words.

I grew up secular and attended public school.

I think the misappropriation of public funds by ultra orthodox Jews is committing an institutional disservice to the students. I haven't seen an ultra orthodox private school deliver a secular education that I would consider baseline for what the students need in society.

The reason they do this is to improve the chances that the students will stay within the faith, marry within the faith, and raise children within the faith. It's prioritization of multi generational survival vs this generation's needs to be successful professionally.

Incremental. Many of the customs and rules were crafted in such a way to reinforce faith via repetition and penetration.

There's best practices for everything, including how to tie your shoes, put on a shirt, clip your nails, etc. Intermarriage and fraternization with people outside the faith are highly discouraged. This is to ensure Jews survive as a people.

When Jews stop being religious, the chances of them marrying Jews and having Jewish children drops significantly.

Ultra orthodox Jews marry ultra orthodox Jews and have ultra orthodox babies. By contrast, it's difficult to find a fourth generation reform Jewish family.

When I became lax in completing the 3 daily prayer rites per day, I began to lose my faith over time.

I am an atheist. No religious beliefs. I jokingly call myself a Pastafarian if it will get a laugh depending on the situation.

Common misconceptions- All chassidic Jews have the same faith- there are actually dozens of different groups, each with their own philosophies and customs.

Chassidic Jews don't use the internet- many of them do, but are careful in how they do.

Chassidic Jews all have peyos (side curls)- my sect did not

Chassidic Jews judge less religious Jews- most don't. There's a rule that Jews who are not born religious are not liable to keep the rules, unless they become religious.

Kosher means a rabbi blessed the food- It just means that the food was supervised and handled according to the Kosher rules.

Jews are good at math/money- many chassidic Jews do not have a strong secular education.

There's more I'm sure.

My calico cat, Quinzel, brings me the most joy. She's my sidekick. She sleeps on my back every night. I love her very much.

I'm much happier now.

I used to say I live my life with no regrets, but that's such a childish thing to say. I have regrets. I would definitely have done things differently.

I spent 10 adult years being ultra orthodox. I definitely feel like I missed out on forming strong social bonds with people my age, and as a consequence, I feel as though I live largely in isolation.

Having said that, I have a decent online social life.

Possibly, but I chose to view it as a valid question and answered it anyway 😉

I think a lot of people probably have confusion regarding the multiple spellings

I have been very fortunate that I can count the amount of times I experienced racism in my life on two hands.

I remember quite vividly one time a friend of mine had to let me know as we drove through a town that a look of incredulity I saw on someone's face was racism-- I grew up in a very Jewish town, albeit secular. My town was 40% Jewish. I can't underscore how fortunate I was in this regard. Many Jews had to deal with racism as children. I didn't experience it until I was in college, so I never felt defensive about my ethnicity.

Pros- I felt like even though many people in my community were strangers, I could trust people I just met on the street. I never had to worry about what to wear, it was all black slacks and dress shirts lol.

Cons- I disliked the amount of professional nepotism there was. They are used to being in close proximity at synagogue so if someone bumped into you, they were not in the habit of saying "excuse me." I hated how limp the handshakes were. I hated that everyone would ask for your first and last name immediately on meeting someone... but that's probably a pet peeve.

Israel- at this point, I don't give it much thought, but in general the belief I held was that the Israel/Palestine situation was a battle for survival, and the rest of the world would have been happy for Israel to lose. I never felt racism towards Palestinians, but I did meet many in the community who did. I'm sure we could talk for hours about this one. At the time, I wanted a peaceful solution that had Israel retaining as much land as possible, preferably gaining more as it was the only way I thought Jews in Israel would survive. Many ultra orthodox Jews believe it is against the rules for a Jewish state to exist before the coming of the Messiah, and protest the state. My sect supported Israel very strongly, though.

Lol I always thought it was bananas how little regard some ultra orthodox Jews have for traffic during holidays.

Realistically according to the "rules," they should not be impacting people driving during holidays when it's against the rules to drive.

To answer your question directly, though- it depends on the particular sect. There are dozens of types of Chassidim, named after the original European town the branch originated from.

Although I did not grow up Orthodox, I did grow up in the Jewish faith. There are two milestones that many Jews go through even if their families are not religious:

circumcision

Bar/Bat Mitzvah

I completed both of these rituals at their "regular" lifecycle points.

They were super into singing-- I was attending college to get a music therapy degree (I switched to music composition eventually). I was always more into music theory than I was into performance-- it's the math of music.

As a kid I was into Star Wars and got involved in online gaming in the 90s, before there were traditional online multiplayer games... had to do P2P connections. I read a lot of Star Wars.

As a kid I built my own PCs...

I became a meat cutter... Went down an artisanal bread rabbit hole...

I'm a foodie and I work as a specialty food broker (spent some years working for a specialty food distributor)

I'm on the Discord Hype Squad and I work with companies to build Discord servers (some as workspaces, some as community hubs).

I used to stream mobile games on my Youtube channel, specializing in theorycrafting explanations (if you're bored: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBiVyhKnpqs )

I got very into Classic World of Darkness TTRPG and started the first CWoD community server....

I'm sure there's more but there's a limit to how much random stuff I feel like listing before it becomes ridiculous (and I am certainly an expert in ridiculousness)

I stopped believing. It took me years to realize I stopped believing though. I probably spent more time lying to myself thinking I still had faith, but didn't. Then I spent a good amount of time just keeping up appearances. Eventually my wife at the time and I had "the talk." For awhile we made it work, but honestly the religion was holding us together. She struggled a lot with many of the restrictions, but it took her some time to come to the realization that it wasn't working for her either.

We lived in an ultra orthodox town. By this point I had a job in a company that wasn't owned by religious Jews. I got promoted and my company paid to relocate us. I now live in a town that is "normal."

We spent some time not being religious, together. Eventually we realized that we both wanted different things and it wasn't going to work. We tried counseling. It wasn't something she wanted to pursue. We split up.

Eventually she stopped blaming me. In many ways we became better friends after we split up.

Every so often old friends contact me.

Yes. Yes.

Bacon came earlier. I ate bacon as a kid though.

Cheeseburgers are still a bit weird to me-- I prefer hamburgers. Spent 10 years keeping kosher and dunno why this one is still weird to me.

I certainly don't avoid milk and meat together, but I eat what I like.

You catch more flies with honey... errr... more non-religious Jews with vodka ;)

Circle gets the square!

I think the holiday you referenced is the Hebrew word I've seen with the most anglicized spellings-

Hanukah

Hanukkah

Hannukah

Hannuka

Channukah

Channuka

​

.... you get it.

Both are acceptable English spellings of the Hebrew word, which is a conjugation of "chesed"-- Hebrew for kindness. I always found "ch" a more appropriate spelling as the sound is not that of an h-- it is more guttural, beginning in the back of the throat, rather than forward in the mouth.

I guess technically both look like typos as it's a transliteration.

I am ethnically Jewish. My parents met on a Kibbutz in Israel when they were in their twenties. I grew up attending synagogue a few times a year. In college I came across an ultra orthodox synagogue on Yom Kippur (a very solemn holiday) and they seemed to be so much more motivated on that holiday than happy holidays at the conservative synagogue I grew up attending. I began attending more and more. Part of my personality is that I like learning very detailed skills/philosophies/topics, and ultra orthodox Judaism is just about as complicated as a religion can get. My curiosity was met with acceptance so I got more and more involved.