I joined the army on my 20th birthday. I desperately wanted a change in scenery. This whole yeshiva thing wasn’t working out. I hoped to take a break from it and come back with new energy. I wanted to experience the broader Israel. Meet new people, go to new parts of...
Mitzpeh yericho was my only exposure to the National Religious community in Israel. Being charedi, I half admired half looked down upon them. They were so much more balanced. Their lives were simpler, less burdened, seemingly, by religion. And yet that itself was the problem – they didn’t take religion as...
I will not go into detail about this chapter of my life, because it involves other people. I will say this: experiencing other people suffer can be more traumatic than suffering yourself. I still feel myself relapsing into PTSD-like experiences of anxiety and stress when people around me experience...
As all this darkness and such was unfolding I found myself in a top rabbinical academy, studying to get Smicha and become a Kiruv rabbi myself. I had dreamt of this for years. This was the purpose of it all – to apply all those years of knowledge for the...
I remember trying to take my baby son to Shul so I could pray in a Minyan. Feeling like an idiot by walking around with him in a sling, getting funny looks from everyone else there. Hoping and praying (get it?) that I wouldn’t need to walk out in the...
It all fell apart one day, and I do not get credit for doing so. The initiative came from outside myself. I did not have the inner strength to do the unthinkable, the fortitude to acknowledge failure, the resilience to be anything but what my current shitty life was. So it...
I always transition quickly. Within a week, there was no indication that I was ever religious. I would take tourist friends I met at hostels on tour of Meah She’arim, to try to look at that world through their eyes. Just a fascinating anthropological study, instead of a social institution...
I have long had a tenuous relationship with Israel. Israelis as a collective bug the shit out of me. Rude, bureaucratic, with very little sense of tact, sophistication, or anything that I perceived as culture. I never really was Israeli – despite being born there, Hebrew is my second...
https://soundcloud.com/shalom-tzvi-shore/with-alex-shandrovsky Recently, in light of recent events, a friend of mine asked to have a call with me, which was quite awesome, and to record it, which was cool. We ended up discussing a whole bunch of stuff - why I write this stuff on Facebook and what it's been like for...
be a famous guru and change the worldbe a renowned therapist in my own cityfind a therapist save the planetsave the datetry to save be a millionairebe debt freepay the credit card minimums build a businessbuild a careertry to keep my job be the world’s best dadtry to be there for the kidstry...

Current Weather in Hell

Hell
clear sky
44.5 ° F
44.5 °
41.8 °
76 %
1.3mph
0 %
Tue
45 °
Wed
52 °
Thu
53 °
Fri
48 °
Sat
55 °

Even More Freidom

Discourse

Rabbi Chananya said: who is a dumbass? he who walks four cubits without his head covered. And Rabbi...

How to Write a Frum Novel

This was a post I wrote in my teens, while I was still very much religious. As...

The Penis Gemach

I originally wrote this post while I was still religious, and published it under a pseudonym on...

The 5 Spiritual Love Languages

Judaism teaches that our interpersonal relationships are just a key to relating to God, especially our romantic...

Chumash as an Instagram Post

I think I was still religious when I made these. The writing was on the wall. Facebook...