There are two steps in this saga. The first is that Yeshivists, or as I like to call them Shivists, turned my life and my mind into mush. They did that by telling me to drop out of college, leave my home, and disappear to Israel where I would "learn Torah" as if it cannot be studied anywhere else. The rabbis at the yeshiva filled me with terror about society, about gentiles, and about myself. They disparaged anything that wasn't exactly them, including Chassidim, especially Chabad, Rabbi Soloveitchik, and the derech of Rav Hirsch, all of which appealled to me. They ordered me not to get job training, not to take part time jobs, and to not contemplate ever earning a parnassah. They taught nothing about God other than He punishes for the slightest infraction and He approves only of Talmudic scholars. They discouraged going on shiduchim for now is the time to "learn Torah," even though I was long past the maximum age outlined by the Talmud. Worst of all, they trained me to shut off my mind and obey.
As a result, I wound up poor for a long time then stuck in painful jobs for which I had no training or appetite. Worst of all, the Shivist disparagement of people who earn a parnassah haunted my mind. Getting married took forever because I started so late. I was spiritualty starving and wracked with fear.
When I first met Zionists I didn't take them seriously, particularly after I landed in Israel. Their insistence that their strife ridden dumpy little country full of angry people was the "flowering of redemption" and the "future for the Jewish people" was laughable to me. But after twenty years suffering in the Shivist world I reconsidered the Zionists. They weren't quite as opposed to secular studies or working for a living as long as you did it in Israel, the dumpty little strife ridden country full of angry people. Because my mind was mush, because I was trained to trust blindly and obey, I started to absorb their ideas without sifting through them. Who am I to question their rabbis?
With two decades of Shivist diatribes against Gentiles in my head, I succomed to the ridiculous Zionist predictions of the imminent collapse of Chutzeh l'aretz and Holocaust part II. Holding on to the belief that there must be some hope in life, I fell victim to their salespitch about the booming Israeli economy, the subduing of all the country's "enemies," the Israeli spirit of brotherhood, and the future for the Jewish people being in Israel. I have been here now for ten years, and I can tell you that none of that is true! None of it! Jobs here, particularly for olim, are the pits, low wage, unstable, with bad work conditions. Small apartments cost $1,000,0000. Whether or not Israel actually has enemies, the government and people act as if everyone is the enemy and bomb somebody or another every single day and insist that every Jewish youth be a cog in its killing machine. As for Israeli brotherhood, I have never lived in a place where people express as much hatred for one another. I also have never lived in a place with as much venom against religious Jews. And the future? There is no future for my children if apartments cost $1,000,000 and salaries, if you can get a job after surviving the army or escape from it, are similar to those in Albania.
I titled this how I came to make aliyah, but it's an aliyah only in name. Effectively, it's been a yeridah, a massive one on every level. It started with the Shivists, and then came the Zionists, most of whom are products of Shivism.
Now you have the rest of the story.
