Going off the Derech

The girl sitting adjacent to me on the plane looked over at me skeptically. "Are you really worried about going off the derech in grad school?" She asked. "Yes. I mean I think so," I replied.Why would I, a presumably faithful and growing orthodox Jew be afraid of that? Until now, I have made a concerted effort to remain in a "frum" environment. That doesn't mean I haven't worked or had any dealings with the world, just that I have tried to keep the majority of my activities within the confines of orthodox circles. I have heard disparaging remarks made of people who do this. How do they expect to be able to live in the real world if they never step foot in it? They will be hit with culture shock when they do! Who knows what'll happen then. It is not so much unlike a body builder who would like to enter the Mr. Universe contest. He can't reasonably expect to be strong enough to compete without working out and bulking up, can he? He doesn't just traipse into the contest unprepared! He works on himself first. Keeps himself in weight training for as long as he needs until he decides that he is ready to compete. The years of yeshiva and keeping myself in a kosher environment were to give me some sort of fighting chance when I got "out there". I am not sheltered. Far from it. I know what goes on out there. Which is even more of a reason to try to prepare myself for it as much as possible. Now, I am emerging, ready for the next stage. And I am a little apprehensive.Ok. So that's the why. But what's the what? What could cause me to abandon my faith? The truth of the matter is this... As avid readers of this 'blog may have gathered, certain aspects of my Judaism are not working out all that well. There's the learning and well... you get the idea. Nevertheless, in my head, I know right from wrong and up from down. Nobody can convince me that Judaism isn't true or Torah isn't MiSinai. I'm totally sold on that. So I would not ever leave Judaism because I thought it was false. Not happening, no way, no how. Why would I, then? There is probably more than one reason but this is the one that I think is truest to the core. I'm curious. (They actually wrote a series of books about me and some guy in a yellow hat. Yes, I know the series is about a monkey! That's why it is called fiction! Of course, all the rest is true though.) Curious and mischievous. A volatile combination if you ask me. I took a personality test and it came out that one of the attributes that I score highly in is “Adventurousness”. I need adventure. Maybe it's partially ADD or something but I'm not content if something interesting isn't happening. So I could plan it out. I could make gedarim. Make sure I don't get into trouble. (And deep down inside I want to.) But that would take the fun out of it. It would remove the adventure. It would make life boring. The interesting situations happen when you just let the chips fall into place.The problem with college is that there are countless pitfalls lurking about. There are many “Tamars” waiting by the side of the road ready to lure horse and rider away. (Understandably, being unmarried doesn't help at all. It just makes matters worse.) And the thing that scares me most about it is that I want to see what happens. I want to see what kind of situations I can get myself into (and back out of (hopefully)). Because I have this sort of death wish, this self-destructive streak. I am waiting for something to occur. And like a bad traffic accident that you can't tear your eyes away from, I want to see what happens when it does. How many casualties there will be, whether the passenger was wearing his seatbelt and whether he will be able to walk out of the wreck unscathed. Because there is no winner in a car crash (except maybe the body shop). And even though I know that, I need to watch things slowly unravel before realizing that maybe something needs to be done. I'm aware. It's immature. It's stupid. It's foolhardy. But it's something that I need to do. Wish me luck. I'll let you all know how it goes.