Question

I have an issue that’s been bothering me for a while, and maybe you can help me. I’ll tell you about two cases that reflect the problem.
I have a friend who was lightly religious, and in the end became completely secular, and then at a certain point decided to strengthen his observance, or become religious again—and became Religious Zionist again.The point is that he is very, very attached to material life and this world. He has a lot of criticism of Torah people (including Religious Zionist Torah people).He lives in a Religious Zionist community that has a hesder yeshiva, and most of the community revolves around the yeshiva and Torah, and that bothers him. He saidthat what would suit him would be to live in a community of economists and lawyers, because what’s going on around him is exaggerated. His wife, a few times while I was staying with them at home,complained and pushed him to go to rabbis, Torah classes, etc., but he’s a bit indifferent to it. And one time when I was at his place, he made me instant coffeeand brought out a pack of Pesek Zman and said, “Ah, this is the good life, this is how I like my life.” Another friend was secular and became religious again,and married a very religious woman. But he too has difficulty with Torah people and yeshiva students (Religious Zionists, and all the more so Haredim). Hestill prefers to teach (he’s a teacher) in secular schools because he feels safer there. He has criticism of yeshiva students and religious rabbisthat they aren’t connected enough to God, only Talmud all day, and that when they leave yeshiva they don’t know how to find Godin their lives, etc. What I don’t understand is this: after all, both of them became religious again. One left completely and decided to return; the other became religious again.In both cases they have strong wives who want to be very religious (I know this from my friends themselves who tell me, and also from varioussituations that I witnessed), and on the other hand they have an aversion to people who are connected to Torah, and they are very strongly connected to physicalityand material life, and it seems that they still have grievances in their hearts against people with a Torah connection. If this were someone who was born religious, I’d still havesomething to think about, but someone who decided to make a change and draw close to God again—I can’t understand how he gets to that state.I’d be glad to hear what you think.