Ending a Relationship Raising Doubts

Posting because I need to air out my thoughts.

Over the past year and a half or so, I have grown tremendously religiously. From unaffiliated to being shomer shabbos/kashrut, I’ve made it important to hedge observance with an intellectual understanding of observant Judaism. During this time, I have wavered, had ups and downs, but have always been on the ‘up’ generally. However, I developed a relationship with a non-Jewish girl about six months into my journey. Ultimately, it is ending in August – we both know it because this is what we discussed recently.

Yet, I still feel conflicted – to an extent fanatical. Everyone that I feel comfortable talking about this with in my personal life is either not observant or not Jewish so communicating why I am ending it does not make sense to them. This lack of clarity is making me feel like I don’t know why I am doing it. Additionally, I truly feel, for the first time in my religious journey, that I am truly sacrificing something. Shabbos and kosher were immediately and immensely gratifying and did not trigger a self-reflection on ‘what am I giving up’ or ‘is this all real’? However, this aveira is triggering extreme self-doubt.

I think the bottom line is this – what if my love of this lifestyle is overriding my intellectual capacity to honestly assess it? In other words, I am choosing to loosely accept what is being taught to me (or what I am teaching myself) just because I like it? If I were to stop liking it, would I instantly attack the foundational ideas that led me to believe in the first place? What is the point of Judaism if the religious elements are completely removed? Do I even need independent, secular, ‘rational’ reasons to justify the Jewish identity? Is there even an answer that is uniform? Really, are all these questions just coming from a place of hurt that is leading me to question everything? One cannot say that is really an honest evaluation of anything, rather just emotional desperation.

Someone asked me recently why being Jewish matters. I could not explain it from a secular, empirical perspective. It made me feel like a fanatic. This person was questioning why our history matters, why our collective fate matters, the values, etc. I could not explain the uniqueness of the Jewish identity in terms that made it inherently different than, say, being English (in ethnic terms) or, say, Buddhist (in religious terms). There’s the beauty that underlies a Jewish lifestyle, how our values guide us (and the world) to a more meaningful (holy) existence, the narrative of the Jewish people’s survival that inspires perseverance and gratefulness in every generation, etc..This identity was hidden from me for most of my life and, now that I’ve discovered it, I do not want to give it up.

Most of what I have written here is not even about the girl. While it hurts now, I realize that this relationship has only existed for little more than half a year. Neither of us have ever been in a position where we had to make significant compromises for each other. Rather, it is the end of the road because we are both moving out of where we met at the end of Summer. That logistical reason cloaks the harder question in many ways. The prospect of a long-distance relationship is an easier ’cause’ to jump out of a relationship than ‘you’re not Jewish and this is why it matters.’ We’ve talked about her joining the tribe but I was never satisfied with her answer. For me, it has to be for the right reasons.

From an outsider’s perspective, I could imagine the headline ‘religious fanatic ends loving, promise relationship to maintain his ethnoreligious purity.’ Clearly, I am exaggerating the matter but it is all too easy to feel this way. I want to not feel this way. Rationally, I know that I am only feeling this way because of emotions involved in ending a relationship. How, without this identity, I would not be feeling this way. I am not saying that I wish I were not Jewish, chos v’shalom. Rather, I am trying to explain my anxiety that I have made a shift to observance and what if it is all for nothing?

I’ve reached a point where I truly believe in our tradition’s ability to defend and assert itself. Questions of science and Torah do not scare me nor does documentary hypothesis. Additionally, Liberal Judaism just does not do it for me so I could not really ever bring myself to intellectually accept their understanding of Judaism. I greatly respect their approach and love that they keep people involved Jewishly, but it is just not for me. As a result of this, I truly feel that it is either Orthodoxy or no Judaism at all. Don’t take this as me feeling ‘boxed in’ by Orthodoxy. In fact, I feel that the variance of Orthodox approach is so wide and can move around in many different bubbles. This issue is as follows: either Judaism is correct (Torah is divine, their is a Creator, and the Rabbis have the correct divine intent and subsequent authority for writing rabbinic law, essentially) so obviously this is the path or Judaism is not correct (Torah is not divine, their is no Creator, and/or Rabbis don’t have the divine intent/authority) so why does this all matter? I am quite a believer that the Torah is divine and that their is a Creator, and I really do long to understand both His ways and the nature of rabbinic law. Perhaps, that is the issue. I do not understand and that lack of understanding fuels self-doubt. After all, I am living this because I truly believe and that makes it feel risky. I do not have knowledge, I only have my experience and one that is overwhelmingly positive.

I will be studying in yeshiva by the fall of this year so I am sure these feelings will either be resolved or washed away due to that experience. Though, I would appreciate any and all advice. Thank you for reading so much. Just this exercise of writing my thoughts out really helps me calm down.