Well That's Life

I feel like I am constantly pulled in many directions, and am looked at in so many ways. I am the ultra orthodox girl when speaking to those more to the left of me, and the super liberal gemara learner (I wish I knew how to learn gemara!) Its so hard to be stuck between so many worlds, I feel like there are very few people who I could actually talk to and for them to understand me. Lonely woman of faith? perhaps.

To my friends more to the right, I am not succeeding because I do not say tehillim when riding on a bus, or do not wear dark tights, to the left I am failing for being too religious, too observant, and caring too much. In the world I feel most comfortable, I guess we can call that the post Israel bnei akiva world- the more strictly observant modern orthodox world I am failing. I am not a high level learner, I just started davening 3 times a day again, as opposed to twice, and it is quite a challenge. I feel like in the world I belong to, no one gets me. Anyone cringes at the word chareidi. I do not feel that is the ideal way of living life, but I just can't stand any reaction I get to that world anymore. Several times I spoke to people, and brought up that I was staying in Har nof for a week and a half in my recent stay in Israel, and they actually cringed. CRINGED. I found myself defending myself, saying, that there is a dati leumi community in har nof- but for what? why must I do that? Why can't the Jewish community be more accepting of others. Oh no Chareidi people are more careful about dress, have a different ideology then me, but do we not all have the same goal? I sure hope we do! Avodat Hashem- we want to serve G-d, get close to Him, try to understand His ways as best we can. Is the Chareidi world doing that well in their bubble? I don't know. Is the Modern Orthodox world succeeding while contributing to society?

So few of the people I speak to have ever been in a non denominational setting. I tried to explain to a girl I was speaking to that I recently spoke to a conservative guy who is observant and we were discussing ideology- she stopped me mid sentence saying well they're wrong, they're all wrong and stupid for believing what they believe. Well I think thats a huge issue in the Orthodox world- people don't listen to the other side. I am not condoning Conservative Judaism, but I think it's crazy to observe something all your life without exploring others. How can you know something is true without exploring? Is this such a crazy concept? When did people stop thinking?