The best memoirs often read like fiction, immersing readers in someone else’s reality. Leah Lax achieves this in Uncovered: How I Left Hasidic Life and Finally Came Home, reformulating the conventional narratives of coming out and escaping Hasidic life.[i] Lax writes a rich story of her exploration of her authentic self, drawing readers in with her vulnerability. Throughout her life, she is torn between being who she is told she is and running away from the restrictive definitions of others, ultimately coming to define herself on her own terms. Uncovered details Lax’s relationship with Hasidic law and life and how she discovered herself within and around them, engaging readers with honesty and emotion.
Lax’s story, chronologically at least, began in a Reform community in Texas, highly immersed in the secular world, where she first learns of and is drawn to the Chabad Lubavitch movement. Raised by two parents experiencing mental illness – her mom showed several signs of depression and her father had gone through treatments that left him vacant – she was left yearning for intimacy, belonging, and purpose. As she discovers this world of structure, this world of love from family, community, and God, she chooses to leave behind her secular family and lifestyle in favor of religion, where an arranged marriage in college sealed her into the Orthodox life. However, she finds that no matter how whole-heartedly she commits herself to her role as wife, teacher, mother – as a Hasidic woman – to be unfulfilling, a burdensome obligation to care for others with little time left to tend to her own needs. When she does turn her attention to her own needs, she begins to discover herself through exploring the boundaries of Hasidic life, as well as the boundaries of life as a woman. It is this journey of self-discovery that leads her away from her husband, away from Hasidism, and into herself.
Something which sets this book apart from other memoirs detailing departure from religious fundamentalism is how Lax captures the complexity of Hasidic life. At times, Lax falls into the pattern of other feminist and queer writings, which vilify fundamentalist religions as agents of patriarchal oppression. Lax does detail aspects of her Hasidic life that leave her feeling childish and without a voice, controlled by halakhah and the expectations of Hasidic society that force her to suppress her own needs and desires. However, this book is not Lax’s stance against Hasidism; she does not claim this to be an accurate and holistic representation of Hasidic life. Her book is a memoir, her own story of how she came to identify herself. Thus, her claim is not that Hasidic life is bad and oppressive, but rather that it was not a home where she felt like she belonged. More than representing Hasidism, Lax is demonstrating her complex relationship with Hasidism, as well as her relationship with her own self, from the perspective of her final position as a lesbian who had chosen to leave that world.
The book is rife with instances of Lax crossing boundaries in an attempt to understand herself. She gradually adopts the boundaries set by Hasidic law, crossing into that world with skirts and wigs and ritual bathing. As she questions her identity and her belonging in Hasidic life, however, she pushes against those very same boundaries that initially brought her comfort. The act of hair-covering is one of the most central of these boundaries, its literal and figurative meanings present even in the book’s title. Early on, the wigs and scarves acquired for her married life are a symbol of her belonging, a certainty in who she is and the role she plays. However, as Lax’s certainty in her Hasidic identity ebbs and flows, so does her adherence to covering her hair. She occasionally allows her scarf to slip back, exposing her hair, until she ultimately discards the scarf altogether, along with the various boundaries set for her by Hasidic life. The wigs and scarves had come to cover more than just hair. For Lax, they represent not Hasidic law, but a false self which she had used to cover up truths about her identity and her past that she was afraid to confront. As she is forced by others and by her own heart to uncover and take ownership of these pieces of her life, she leaves the cover of her Hasidic life and its boundaries behind.
Lax’s
book is not an accurate and holistic image of Hasidic life as a woman, or as an
LGBT person. Nor does she claim it to be. It is her own personal story, her
journey of self-discovery, that happened to lead her into the Hasidic world and
then back out again. Thus, it is not very effective as source material on the
subject of Hasidism, but very effective as a memoir. Lax is not telling a story
about how patriarchal religion silenced her, but how she felt silenced by a
lack of identity and an unfulfilled desire to understand herself. In finding
and embracing her identity, Lax regains control of her voice, her actions, and herself.
[i] Lax, Leah. Uncovered: How I Left Hasidic Life and Finally Came Home. Berkeley: She Writes Press, 2015.
