The Psychology of Religious Exit |
High-demand religious groups use information control to create closed systems—questioning becomes unthinkable.
Leaving fundamentalism means losing an entire interpretive framework for reality, not just changing beliefs.
Social ostracism from religious communities activates the same neural pathways in the brain as physical pain.
When Zalman Newfield stood in a Brooklyn post office at 15, unable to sign his own name in English, the postal worker's impatience was the least of his problems. The real crisis wasn't illiteracy—it was identity. For anyone raised in a high-demand religious community, the boundary between self and sect dissolves so completely that leaving isn't just a change of address or belief system. It's a kind of psychological death and rebirth, one that research on cult departure and religious trauma suggests can rival the stress of surviving combat or escaping domestic violence.
Newfield's recently published memoir, Brooklyn Odyssey: My Journey out of Hasidism, joins other compelling accounts—Shulem Deen's All Who Go Do Not Return, Abby Stein's Becoming Eve, and Sara Glass's Kissing Girls on Shabbat—in chronicling this personal transformation. Born into Brooklyn's Lubavitch Hasidic community in 1982, Newfield grew up believing his spiritual leader was the messiah. His yeshiva included no secular education whatsoever. The outside world, he was told, was "like a pit devoid of water but full of snakes and scorpions." His identity was completely absorbed; he was a "foot soldier" in the Rebbe's army. And then, gradually, he wasn't.
What makes Newfield's account psychologically significant isn't just that he left, but how the exit transformed his entire mental and emotional structure. Psychological research on religious deconversion identifies common stages but misses the intense existential dizziness involved. When your community has controlled your worldview since childhood, leaving means losing your way of interpreting reality itself.
One of the most influential dynamics Newfield describes is "information control"—the deliberate restriction of access to outside perspectives. In Lubavitch culture, this involved creating an entire environment where questioning was deemed unthinkable. Students were taught to be pnimi—genuinely committed from within—which seems like autonomy but functions as its opposite. True authenticity meant complete alignment with the Rebbe's teachings.
This is classic thought reform. Research on high-control groups shows that members develop what psychologist Robert Jay Lifton called "ideological totalism"—a closed system where every challenge can be deflected by the system itself. When Newfield was taught that dinosaur fossils millions of years old were planted by God at creation to test faith, or that women's souls are "too elevated" to require the same commandments as men, he wasn't learning geology or theology. He was learning a method of mental self-defense against cognitive dissonance.
The first hint of rebellion came through forbidden knowledge. At 16, Newfield's roommate broke into a library and brought back The Call of the Wild and Robin Hood. These weren't subversive texts—they were children's adventure stories. But for someone whose reading had been limited to religious texts, the impact was profound. Here were heroes who acted out of personal choice rather than divine decree, and, most controversially, for pleasure without moral justification. He read for hours simply because it felt good, and in a system built on delayed gratification and divine purpose, that pleasure itself was subversive.
The Gradual Erosion of Certainty
Psychologists studying religious departure note that leaving is rarely a single choice but a gradual buildup of doubts that eventually become overwhelming. For Newfield, the process took years. He was gradually exposed to secular ideas—initially through books, then through missionary work that introduced him to non-Lubavitch Jews, and finally through higher education. Each encounter slowly eroded the comprehensive worldview he had grown up with.
What's striking is how long he kept his faith even as doubt grew. At 11, waiting for the Rebbe to declare himself the messiah, Newfield felt the bench beneath him creaking under thousands of jumping believers. The Rebbe appeared hunched in a wheelchair and said nothing. The cognitive dissonance was overwhelming—but Newfield's thought wasn't "maybe we're wrong." It was "Why are we not worthy yet?"
This illustrates the psychology of sunk costs writ large. By adolescence, Newfield had committed his entire identity to being part of "the first generation of redemption." To give that up would mean admitting that thousands of hours of study and sacrifice could have been based on a mistake. The mind fiercely resists such realizations.
The Social Death of Leaving
If the cognitive challenges are intense, the social ones are devastating. Newfield describes how community members spoke of those who left: "He's a frayak! A bum!" The contempt was visceral, and the message unmistakable: deviation meant social death. Research on shunning shows these aren't merely unpleasant experiences—they activate the same neural pathways as physical pain.
When Newfield left, he didn't just lose an argument; he lost his entire social world. The friendships that carried him through yeshiva disappeared. Even decades later, he still wonders whether his old friend Alter—who danced at his wedding—feels "betrayed." His relationships with his Orthodox family require constant negotiation. His mother accepted his non-Orthodox wife and daughters only "on a provisional basis."
This ongoing provisional status describes many who leave high-demand communities. Psychologist Marlene Winell coined "religious trauma syndrome" to explain the lasting effects: chronic anxiety, difficulty trusting one's judgment, and persistent feelings of being damaged. Newfield, now a sociology professor with a Ph.D. from NYU, still recounts moments when he feels he's "taking up space that someone, somewhere else, could put to better use."
Rebuilding After Leaving
The most hopeful aspect is what psychologists call "post-traumatic growth"—new strengths gained through trauma. Yes, Newfield lost community and a sense of certainty. But he gained the freedom to think whatever he wanted, befriend anyone, and create a life on his own terms.
His choices are revealing. He married a woman who studies Talmud but rejects Orthodoxy. They observe Shabbat dinners but alter the prayers—changing "God chose us from among all nations" to "God chose us along with all nations." Their daughters learn Hebrew and celebrate holidays, but are taught to see religious stories as just that: stories created by humans with all their flaws. This isn't rejection but a creative rebuild—keeping what adds meaning while discarding what limits.
Most poignantly, Newfield teaches his daughters what was denied to him: the right to choose. He reads them Dr. Seuss and tells them he's proud they can read at 6 what he couldn't at 16. He doesn't dictate their future relationship with Judaism. Having escaped one totalizing system, he refuses to create another.
At his nephew's circumcision, Newfield stands among the Lubavitch men—an outsider present with love. He has no black hat, no illusions, no certainty. But he possesses what the boy at the post office didn't: the ability to shape his own life. That freedom comes at an extraordinary cost. Whether it's worth that cost is a question only the exile can answer. But Newfield's memoir suggests that for those who undertake the journey, the question isn't whether to leave but how to live with having left—and how to make that choice matter.
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