First Glance at Jewish Orthopraxy

Rumblings of a new enlightenment

I have a lot to say on this topic, I won’t try to write it all here.

I will try to introduce the orthopraxy¹ phenomena, and why it’s caused such a stir on this platform. It usually makes people quite uncomfortable.

A few days ago, a new Substack appeared on my search page by the name of the “The Lakewood Skeptic”. Written by an anonymous individual calling himself Exit98². You can read his posts here, here, and here. They are mainly about his (and some of his friends) experiences losing their belief in the traditional understanding of Judaism and the then quite horrifying day in and day out of hiding these beliefs from those around him while continuing to practice outwardly, attending Minyan, Learning, and keeping Shabbos all while being a complete Apikores.

The phenomenon of orthoprax individuals in deeply religious communities is both fascinating and deeply unsettling. It forces us to confront questions about authenticity, community, and the nature of faith itself. What does it mean to belong to a religious group if belief is absent? And more pointedly, what kind of environment continues to foster such a profound dissonance between internal conviction and external practice?

His writings struck a nerve because I know they aren’t isolated anecdotes—they’re a window into a largely unspoken reality in the frum world. While his experiences are centered in Lakewood, similar stories are whispered in other Jewish enclaves around the world. They’re the stories of people who feel trapped, who can’t reconcile what they’ve been taught with what they now believe (or don’t believe), and who live in constant flux between faith and heresy. These are individuals who go through the motions, sometimes for years, to avoid the social and familial fallout of revealing their true selves.

I’ve heard these stories firsthand. Close friends, family members, even people I would have never suspected, have shared with me these struggles. Some started questioning in high school or yeshiva when they encountered ideas that didn’t align with what they were taught. Others had their faith shaken later in life, sometimes by a book, an article, sometimes by exposure to new ways of thinking. But the common thread is this: they felt there was no room to express doubt or explore these questions openly. So, they hid. They buried their doubts and carried on as though nothing had changed, because in communities where conformity is paramount, stepping out of line can mean losing everything.

What’s particularly eye opening is how these individuals continue to perform their public religious obligations meticulously. Outwardly they daven, they learn, they observe halacha to the letter. Not out of belief, but out of a sense of duty—or perhaps out of fear. They don’t want to hurt their parents or alienate their spouses and children. They don’t want to be the cause of familial shame or risk being ostracized. So, they stay. They stay, and they suffer in silence.

But why does this phenomenon exist in the first place? Part of the answer lies in the way doubt is treated in our communities. Questions, especially big ones about the existence of G-d or the veracity of Torah, are often seen not as opportunities for growth but as threats to be quashed. There’s little room for intellectual exploration or spiritual struggle, particularly in environments where faith is treated as binary: you either believe, or you don’t. If you fall into the latter category, the assumption is that you must have done something wrong—you didn’t learn enough, you didn’t daven enough, you didn’t try hard enough. In my experience many times, these were the individuals who were most into Judaism. Unlike the “Classic OTD” phenomena, these were usually individuals who were consistently top of class.

The education system in many yeshiva-oriented communities doesn’t help. Secular education is minimal, critical thinking isn’t encouraged, and the curriculum often focuses more on rote memorization than on engaging with the complexities of Jewish philosophy or the challenges posed by modernity. It’s no wonder that when even adults who have spent years learning Gemara encounter difficult questions—whether through books, the internet, or their own experiences—they feel ill-equipped to address them. And because doubt is stigmatized, they can’t speak openly about it; they bury it.

The result is a growing number of individuals who outwardly conform but inwardly feel alienated. They’re not just questioning; they’ve lost their belief entirely. And yet, they stay, because leaving feels even more impossible.

This is not sustainable. Communities that prioritize appearance over authenticity, that value conformity over genuine connection to faith, are setting themselves up for a crisis. You can only paper over so many cracks before the entire structure starts to crumble. And make no mistake: the cracks are there, and they’re widening.

If we’re going to address this phenomenon—and I believe we must—it starts with creating spaces where doubt isn’t taboo, where people can ask hard questions without fear of judgment or ostracization. It starts with recognizing that belief and faith aren’t static states but a journey, one that includes peaks and valleys, certainty and uncertainty. And it starts with an honest reckoning about the pressures we place on individuals to conform, often at the expense of their mental and emotional well-being.

The orthoprax phenomenon is uncomfortable because it forces us to look at ourselves and ask hard questions about the type of communities we’ve built. Are we fostering communities where people and religion can thrive, or are we creating conditions that drive people to hide who they are?

It is my opinion that we are at an inflection point in the evolution of Jewish Orthodoxy in the Post-Holocaust era and I think the Orthopraxy question will only get louder.

1. Orthopraxy is usually defined as doing the “right things” in a religious context vs Orthodoxy which is defined as having the “right beliefs”. In our case we are referring to people that are only walking the walk of a frum jew while internally not believing in fundamental Jewish ideas.

2. The exit for Lakewood, NJ off the GSP (I think)