So it’s hard to believe in God. I get that. Especially since in Judaism you have to believe in him 24/7 your entire life. You don’t get a day off to try paganism or Buddism or whatever. It’s also hard to always love and respect him considering that God is the number one killer of, well, everything.

Levity aside there are plenty of legitimate reasons for a person to doubt the existence of God. In fact, to my understanding, that’s kinda the point. If I could prove to you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God existed, well you’d lose the ability to choose to worship/follow him.

The assumption being that any rational person, if given conclusive evidence of God would not or could not turn her/his back on God out of spite. Though I might question that assumption based on some people I have met, but that’s a topic for another time.

To be clear, I’m not discussing people who have never been orthodox. I am specifically interested in those who have grown up as orthodox Jews and at some point in their adult life, are questioning whether or not they should continue to be orthodox Jews (this is also to the exclusion of teenagers who are sowing their wild oats). The way I see it people who have their doubts about God - I eschew ‘crisis of faith’ because the people I have spoken with never seem to feel like they are in a crisis - fall into two neat categories.

Those who want to believe Those who do not want to believe

My concern here is the first group. Recently Pop Chassid was spreading the word about trying to de-stigmatize having a therapist. The point of that movement was to disabuse people of the idea that working through a mental issue means that there is something fundamentally broken with that person. I believe the same is true in Judaism.

Instead of the theoretical discussion of things like Rebbi Meir’s attempts to persuade his Rebbi, Acher, to return to Judaism I’d like to focus on what can be done practically to help.

There is a paucity of resources in this area, mainly because discussing it is so taboo. Based on the people I’ve spoken to I would infer that a typical case goes something like this:

I have been going through [insert hardship] and it has been making me reconsider my belief in Hashem and how he runs the world. I don’t want to give up my Judaism entirely because of [insert loved one who would be devastated] so I continue to act Jewish but I don’t know if I really mean it anymore. I can’t speak to my [insert spiritual mentor] because s/he wouldn’t understand.

This type of behavior has been described (probably incorrectly) as orthopraxy.

Here’s what won’t work for these people:

Aish or other kiruv organizations, they’ve heard those arguments all before.

Any sort of in-person work shop, the stigma is too strong.

Ignoring the problem and hoping that if the source of stress goes away so will the doubt.

So, what’s the solution? Can you halachically sanction 'taking a break from Judaism’? Do we create some sort of organization that is trained to deal with questions of emunah for frum people?

I open the floor to suggestions.