Thank you. Right now I don’t have a direction toward any particular religious stream, and I’m also not planning to leave religion. The main focus of my doubts is the very meaning of the matter of faith. From what I understand, there’s no way to arrive at religion without believing. I’m listening to the Rabbi’s series on faith, and it seems that faith is based on intuition and tradition, together with logical explanations, but proofs won’t exist. But in that way you can arrive at faith in any religion, including Judaism. That is of course a very general conclusion, but it touches on other things in religion too, like why follow one specific stream if there is no proof that it is the true stream, and similarly in the realm of Jewish law and halakhic rulings, why listen דווקא to a certain rabbi, etc.

I’m a bit older than you. I was, and still am, in the same place as you (as a married man).
What follows is just for sharing, and the insights are only my opinion (meaning, it’s possible they’re based on personal anecdotal and non-representative experience).

So as I said, while carrying doubts, investigations, and philosophical thoughts, I went into matchmaking.
My view was that opinions, ideas, outlooks — are not relevant.
Because everything is flexible. Everything is fragile. Everything changes.
And overall we’re talking about a young woman washed over by seminary propaganda, and it would be easy to change her mind.
And it really doesn’t matter compared to life itself, a relationship built on attraction and love.
I didn’t present my thoughts (the skeptical and modern ones).
I just tried to approach more modern girls, hoping they would be more flexible later on.

Now, a few years after the wedding,
you could say
I was right and not right.
I was right that it’s possible to have an excellent marital relationship based on unconditional love.
That life, the routine, career, livelihood, etc. are the center. (Especially when there’s a child.)
That it’s possible to connect even when there are differences of opinion,
despite gaps on the religious level, and in outlook on faith, on Haredi society, etc.

I was wrong:
1. It’s not so easy to change your spouse’s mind.
2. A lot of arguments arise around religious / ideological issues.
3. If your spouse allows exposure to anti-Haredi content, etc. (for example, Michi Abraham’s columns),
and doesn’t overturn the table over different religious behavior,
then broadly speaking there is intellectual and behavioral freedom.
Although you can’t really “come out of the closet” officially, in terms of outward markers,
because you’re already part of another family that is more conservative than you, and you don’t want to pay too high a price.

Still, I’ll sum up by saying that as much as Rabbi Michi emphasizes the need for courageous steps (in the religious-liberal sense),
I think that isn’t always recommended or worthwhile.
Haredi society is not a cult. It’s a continuum, and it doesn’t really bind you in a dictatorial way.

You can give your family / environment / sector its dividend (style of dress, institutions, shidduch, etc.)
and continue with broad, open, religious-liberal development.
In the end, preserving the relationship with family, keeping the line — has an enormous advantage in personal life.

My recommendation is: if you identify modern characteristics in yourself (even general skepticism about faith),
the recommendation is to look for a guy who fits your family sociologically (Haredi, right?)
but not someone who is mainstream consensus. Look for a more modern guy.
There are yeshivas with more “thinking” guys who deal with philosophy, etc. (“thinking” meaning: they engage with and wrestle with faith, with all the rest of the rules and laws).
Usually these are “strengthening” yeshivas, etc.

Develop together, think together, adapt yourselves together.
You don’t need to lay everything out before the engagement.
You can just feel things out a bit around “open-mindedness,”
and hear from the answers what direction he’s in.

As for everything else, that’s already classic compatibility,
which depends on your particulars.

Good luck

Miss, if you’re interested, I’m also single and connect to Rabbi Michi’s style, so if that’s relevant then maybe we could work out together 🙂

Thanks for sharing. Since you have experience, your insights helped me a lot. That really is exactly what I think: in the end, most Haredim don’t actually have faith based on very strong arguments, so from my perspective it seems that with a few basic questions and opinions of mine I can collapse his faith and then we’re already on the same page… From what you write, it seems it’s not that simple. The most important thing really is open-mindedness and thinking in general, but the question is how do you test something like that already at the dating stage, when there still isn’t really a relationship yet. Because as far as I’m concerned, right now I’m open to any possible opinion, but I don’t see any chance that I’d say something like that at such an early stage. On the other hand, it’s obvious that it’s very important in order not to reach disagreements later on. How can you feel your way around such a broad and significant topic?
As for the question of whether to come out of the closet, that will always be problematic. Because even if your spouse shares your views, there’s still all the family and friends around.

We can try… of course there are many other factors that need compatibility besides connecting to Rabbi Michi’s style.

27 years old

I can tell you that you are not an unusual case.
And “every pot has its lid,” even within the Haredi yeshiva world.
There are many guys who allow themselves to engage in and even reflect on faith. Many of them feel the moral wrongs of Haredi society and express a lot of criticism.
(For example, I have a brother in an elite Haredi yeshiva who voices many sentiments in this style.)

The choice to “come out of the closet” and perhaps try to look for another sector / society may sound like a good idea ideologically, but bad in terms of stability, especially at your age, and you may regret it and feel lonely, etc. (Once you have a family — if that process happens, it will probably be easier emotionally, because you’ll be moving together with your base and your stability.)
Also, from your questions it sounds like you still haven’t reached a clear-cut conclusion,
and to the best of my impression, with a bit more study of Michi’s content, maybe later you’ll get excellent answers to some of your questions (especially regarding the transition from belief in a Creator to the Jewish religion).
So maybe it’s too hasty to make a transposition already at this stage.

And again, in today’s Haredi yeshiva world — the one they are surely aiming you toward — there are more than enough guys who would suit you ideologically.
It just remains to identify them.

How exactly? That’s a hard question. One would need to know you, your family style, the matchmaking suggestions.

But broadly speaking, it’s worth looking for a guy who is open, intelligent, who perhaps behaves in a more modern way, and trying to see that this isn’t because he doesn’t connect to learning or because he’s drawn to fashion and pleasures, but because there is an open ideology behind it.
That’s a good starting point. From there you can move forward together, in integration. Maybe there will be a few disagreements, but when the gaps are small — it’s not a big problem.

27 and 20 seems to me like quite a significant gap, even though of course that’s preferable to an ideological gap… In any case, I think the most correct thing is that in both areas there shouldn’t be overly large gaps, so it seems less relevant to me. Just out of curiosity, do you also come from the Haredi world?

I also think the most correct thing is to look for a guy who is open in the intellectual sense, but the truth is that I come from a pretty extremely conservative family, and in their eyes any guy who is a bit more open or modern does that out of shallowness.

A personal recommendation:
Age 20 is very young. And as you said, you’re on a journey of development and still not really formed in who you are.
It’s worth thinking whether you want to bind yourself right now to a commitment that, even in the very best case — if it turns out to be crazy love — still won’t allow you to continue your personal journey of development: now not one family but three are expecting you to stay at the point you were at when you got married, and as a Haredi woman, children will probably also come very quickly, along with acceptance to educational institutions, etc., and then you may find yourself chained to your place with no ability to move at all, regardless of whether you feel that it is your right place or not. Raped by reason, so to speak.
Personally, I would recommend that you live a bit more outside the hothouse, get to know the world, continue learning and developing, because marriage is a very heavy burden that in most cases does not easily allow movement. Therefore, don’t get married because “everyone does,” but because you truly feel ready for it in every respect.
Good luck!