Why Orthodox Judaism is a Cult - Part 4

Again, here are 8 criteria that groups use to identify a group or organization as a cult:

1.  Love Bombing - Instant friendship, extreme helpfulness, generosity and acceptance...Group recruiters "lovingly" will not take "no" for an answer-invitations impossible to refuse without feeling guilty and/or ungrateful. "Love", "generosity", "encouragement" are used to lower defenses and create an ever increasing sense of obligation, debt and guilt.

2.  Schedule Control & Fatigue - Study and service become mandatory. New member becomes too busy to question. Family, friends, jobs and hobbies are squeezed out, further isolating the new member.

3. Submission - Increased submission to the leadership is rewarded with additional responsibilities and/or roles, and/or praises, increasing the importance of the person within the group.

4. Intense Study - Focus is on group doctrine and writings. Bible, if used at all, is referred to one verse at time to "prove" group teachings

5. Totalism - "Us against them" thinking. Strengthens group identity. Everyone outside of group lumped under one label.

6. Isolation, Separation & Alienation - Group becomes substitute family. Members encouraged to drop worldly (non-members) friends. May be told to change jobs, quit school, give up sports, hobbies, etc.

7. Secrecy - Group hides inner workings and teachings from outsiders. Sophisticated cults may curry media interest or even employ public relations consultants and ad agencies to manage their image.

8. Information Control - Group controls what convert may read or hear. They discourage (forbid) contact with ex-members or anything critical of the group. May say it is the same as pornography making it not only sinful and dangerous but shameful as well. Ex-members become feared and avoidance of them becomes a "survival issue." 

When I went undercover with the black hat Jews, I received warnings from Jewish believers in Jesus that living as an Orthodox Jew can be a dangerous proposition. Criterion 3 explains why. People are encouraged to become more and more dependent upon the group, and Orthodox Judaism is very good at this. This increasing observance is a bit like approaching the event horizon of a black hole. The closer you get, the harder it is to escape. Once you hit the event horizon, it's game over for you.

For many the event horizon is marriage. Once you are married to an Orthodox Jew, and especially once that marriage produces children, you and your family are now totally hooked on the community, and dependent upon them for everything. It's nearly impossible to get out without losing your entire family.

When I was in the Orthodox community, they wanted to push shidduch on me. Shidduch is the term for the Jewish arranged marriage, which also doubles as the arrangement for dating. In the Orthodox community, a matchmaker sets up a man and a woman for dating, and then follows up with each to see how well they got along. If the relationship goes well, a number of dates later, they become engaged and set a date to get married.

I had steadfastly refused any attempts to get hooked up this way, since I knew the consequences of going along. Still, the Orthodox community may be a cult, but it is a very clever one. An Orthodox Jewish father, who had a daughter named Rachel who was a little bit younger than me, invited me over for dinner on Shabbat. As he kept inviting me over and inviting me to his family events, he put me in situations where I got to talk with Rachel, and help her out with certain things.

Our relationship grew, and I started to fall in love with her. We spent more time together, and I was personally torn. My uncle described it as the undercover FBI agent who becomes so ingrained in Mafia culture, that he leaves the FBI and joins the Mafia for real.

The TV Tropes site has a label for this: Becoming the Mask. A character goes undercover and assumes a persona so long that he becomes his persona. An example is the show Breaking Bad. In that show, the mild-mannered schoolteacher Walter White assumes the persona of the vicious, cutthroat drug lord Heisenberg. By the end of the series, White has become Heisenberg for real, and ruins the lives of all the people he cared about.

In my case, I conveniently had to move away from the community to live in another state for work purposes. If not for this convenient set of circumstances, there might not be any Messianic Drew. I might have been sucked in beyond the point of no return.

Let this be a warning to others who might attempt my stunt. You may think you have an invincible set of apologetic arguments to keep you from getting sucked into believing as a cult believes. As the Messianic Rabbis warned me, there are times when all the apologetic arguments in the world are no match for a strong enough emotional ploy. I spoke with others who nearly joined Orthodox groups, and their story is nearly the same as mine. You think you are safe, but realize too late that you are much more vulnerable to joining the cult than you had ever previously thought.