u/Elegant-Pie-1096

Che Ahn is the senior pastor of a mega church in Pasadena, CA called Harvest Rock Church and he has frequently been involved with movements targeting college students. Harvest Rock has recently planted groups in USC and UCLA. Che Ahn had no chance of winning, but even after being dropped from the ballot due to missed deadlines, he asked his congregation to vote for him in the primaries as a write in candidate, telling people to “have faith.”

He has been exposed for asking a woman in his church to stay married to her physically abusive spouse and claiming that God may be calling to be a “martyr” if dies in her marriage due to her injuries. When she was beaten so severely the police came, she finally listened to law enforcement, doctor, and her therapist who advised her to leave before she and her baby in the womb dies. When she divorced him, the church accused her falsely and kicked her out because she was joyfully worshipping that she was free. She nearly committed suicide, and after a divine encounter she chose not to, and has since become a teacher and counselor who has started a safe house for abused women in the Philippines.

Please be careful of what church or Organization you go to and take care that the doctrine they teach is biblically sound, not manipulated to keep abusers in power.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FhctdrNGrlA

I wanted share this because I think research is incredibly helpful in navigating the real exiting process beyond just not being part of a high control group anymore in the attendance sense. I’m suffering from a compounded case and my trauma was not primarily from Chabad, even though I have been negatively affected by a few extremist people from Chabad in a dehumanizing way during some of the hardest times of my life. Those extremist people though have also walked away from Chabad a year later though. Anyway, I walked into Chabad hoping to heal from another high control group and then met an ex Chabad rabbi who warned me not to get too close - he was leaving it. Surprisingly though the trauma he experienced was so similar to mine. Both of us have experienced psychological trauma that has manifested on to physiological trauma - his looked like daily panic attacks for hours over the course of years and mine manifested into a neurological disability.
Also, if anyone wants to share, how far along are you in your healing journey? What has helped for you? Right now I’ve been finding community in just a handful of people who were able to become a safe space to share my story. A majority of them are ex orthodox or moderately secular. I’ve isolated from most of the world and am starting over for the most part. What I find safe about people who have exited high control groups is this: they didn’t resort to group think to mistreat other people and they would rather exit than succumb to a harmful ideology. Right now this is more important to me than just how it sounds, it’s essential.

Hi, ex-chabad Noachide here. No worries if you don’t know what it mean- it’s basically a set of Mitzvot for non Jews who want to be a part of Jewish community without converting, and it is something that is almost exclusively known in more orthodox sects of Judaism.
The noachide laws for the most part just seemed like what any normal law abiding American citizen would do anyway, and most level headed person would fit the category.

I started going to a Chabad for a few years due to some friends who brought me there not too long after leaving a cult. I thought the Rabbi and Rebbetzin were welcoming for the most part and never did me harm. Not too long after I started visiting regularly, I saw on the news about the yeshiva students who dug tunnels in 770. That was the first time I wondered if Chabad could be more dangerous than I thought, because 770 was the headquarters.
Even though chabad condemned the act of the students, it seemed like there was definitely a radical ideology in there if that many students were a part of it. Actually, I even felt like I got to know about that because G-d was trying to warn me because I was getting too close. I’m not saying it was or it was not for sure- it was just a feeling I had.

Then not too long after, I met someone who grew up in Chabad and went to Rabbi school. He was venting to me and some other friends about how Chabad was a cult and how he was born into it. I saw him hyper ventilate and suffer panic attacks due to religious trauma for several hours severely and he said it happened day. I was worried that he could die early if this kept going on.
Then I discovered this channel and other sources who were telling me how many chabad kids have suffered, attempted suicide, etc.

As someone who has previously left a cult and know how damaging it can be, I began to feel conflicted about the movement that made space for non Jews to be among the Jewish community without converting. There are several personal reasons why I am not converting and none of it is due to difficulty or rigor, but I still do have a fondness for the Jewish tribe and have religious/non religious Jewish friends.

The part that has scared me the most is about how kids are treated in religious schools. This is institutional abuse, and I wish more people were helping them. While chabad noachides aren’t Jewish, I felt conflicted about being a part of a movement that has been expanded at the sacrifice of a considerable number of Jews who suffered under chabad, some almost to the point of suicide or long term harm in other ways. As of right now I have distanced myself.

That being said I have never been a part of an official noahide program at Chabad. However is there such a thing and has there been any harm done to noahide non Jews? Although just because there isn’t harm done to noahides it doesn’t mean that it has not harmed Jews- that part is well documented. Is anyone familiar with it and knows what it is like? What I can recall is that an ex chabad rabbi told me that chabad basically teaches that non Jews are the devil, and that I will be discriminated on the basis on my background no matter what if I am not Jewish. I am not doing it through Chabad based off the concerns I heard from ex chabad members and ex chabad rabbis but I just wanted to know what it is like and wanted to gain clarity on where I was at during the years I was there.

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/62221/jewish/The-7-Noahide-Laws.htm