To Give or Not

I have been quite aggressive in my latest attempt to raise money for several different causes that I am supporting through my bike riding. Ever since I came back from India, I have upped my own donations, I constantly bring up the subject in conversations with just about anyone, and find myself being willing to hit up anyone with the request for a donation in any way or form.

The idea of helping others resonates strongly in me. One of the reasons I love Judaism so much (despite frequent headaches it gives me) is the importance it places on the good deeds, charity, and general idea of helping and giving. My family donates generously on regular basis, and we try to volunteer as much as we can. A side point, within my own family we don’t always have consensus on our causes, where to volunteer and which organizations to volunteer for, but we are united in the belief of helping via monetary and non-monetary means.

I don’t think the desire to help is inherent to mankind. If it was intrinsic to us, no major religion would mandate obligatory donations. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity command its followers to donate. I think the fact that these religions not only mandate obligatory donations, but also specify how much people ought to donate, is a further proof that unless forced somehow, a person isn’t necessarily going to help others.

Guilt

A link to a post that I wrote for a fellow Jewish blogger. The post is about the guilt or lack of when it comes down to frum matters… Here is the link to it http://blogmidrash.wordpress.com/2009/04/21/i-refuse-the-guilt

My Judaism

Last few weeks I have been thinking about blogging on “Where I am with my Judaism”, and then I get an email from my friend who wanted to know my opinion on this post http://avrum.net/2009/03/15/whats-it-like-to-be-a-rebellious-child-guest-author-deena-levenstein/

Here is what I wrote in reply to the post:

“Timing is pretty funny thing… Last few days I have been thinking about where I am with my Judaism today, and had planned to blog about it sometimes this week. This morning I get an email from a friend of mine asking me what I thought about this particular posting. One hell of timing, isn’t it?

I am the most rebellious child in my family. I have been so since I was a little girl who just wouldn’t keep her mouth shut… still haven’t learned how to do that. I did, however, learned how to be a lot more diplomatic!!!

I had rebelled against many things. At one point Judaism was my form of rebellion against my parents’ way of life. Part of reason for becoming frum was to separate myself from my parents’ way of life. And then I rebelled against Judaism as well.

And like Deena, at one point the frum way of life just stopped making sense… The meaning of it was lost on me… Having to continue on with the frum obligations while not feeling like doing any of it was TORTURE!

And like Deena, moving away was the best decision I could have made for myself. Moving away allowed me to find a space where I could honestly talk to myself, and do that which resonates true inside me.

Deena, I think you should be very proud of yourself for choosing honesty with yourself versus running away from yourself. It is a long and hard journey, and having traveled one myself, I think any pain to reach a point where one is true to herself/himself is not that big of a price to pay.”

A Letter To A Palestinian Friend

One of the advantages of being away in India was an opportunity to forget about all the politics except those concerning India. Or forget about politics all together. Now that I am back here in USA, hiding from the Middle East political upheavals isn’t an option anymore.

I fear the current events have placed a lot of strain on already complex human relationships. My only hope is that we all can remain connected to one another as we go through these horrible times, and have our loyalties and connections tested.

I am sorry for all the senseless loss on all sides

Kind G-d

I struggle with my faith and belief in a kind G-d. Is G-d truly kind? Judaism holds that G-d created us out of love, and is with us at all times, good and bad.

A child is hurt… It is bad… G-d is watching… G-d is there, bearing witness…

What kind of G-d is that who does nothing to stop that?

And this is love?

Prayers For My Soul

I got a call from a dear friend of mine, whom I met at religious seminary for women back in Israel. My friend went from being a typical Jewish American kid with no Jewish identity whatsoever (all the while she is a deeply spiritual person, and her search for spirituality has led her to Buddhism, exploring India in search for a deeper meaning, and etc) to discovering Orthodox Judaism, and becoming a very Observant Jew today. And when I say she is Observant, I mean she went for the entire nine yards: ritual washing of hands when she gets up, saying prayers over everything (and I mean everything), keeping kosher, and going to sleep with a prayer on her lips. A very structured life… Believe you me, since I have lived that life myself!

During our conversation my friend wanted to know if I am even less Observant than when we spoke last time. Upon hearing my answer “Yes, I am not Observant at all nowadays”, she told me that she would pray for my soul every day. Naturally I had wanted to know why she thought that my soul needed prayers. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for prayers, if people want to pray for me, by all means, go for it! The answer I got went like this “Observant way of life is the absolute truth in the realm. Your soul must be suffering greatly when you choose to be non- Observant, and therefore I will pray so that you return to the true path.”

That answer made me mad; I was getting an image of myself with smoke coming out of my ears. The smoke does come out my ears when I am faced with such rigid statements. It is great that Observant lifestyle worked for my friend. I think it is absolutely amazing that she was finally able to find a place and structure that helps her to blossom. Yet that same structure almost destroyed me. I ballooned to 310 lbs while living that lifestyle, which essentially turned out to be something that holds very little meaning to me. Not all of my weight gain came from becoming dissolution with Observant world and way of life, but the weight gain was one of the voices of my inner world trying to tell me that I was unhappy, but couldn’t admit it for such a long time, and therefore relied on external to shut down the voice in my head.

At the end of our conversation I asked my friend if she recalled a particular lecture at our school that deals with an idea how external represents the internal. If my external was so unhealthy looking, while I was part of the “true” structure, why is that my external is getting slim and hot now when I said “good bye” to that true structure? Seriously, when did my soul needed prayers the most?

Update

After visiting my About page, which I clearly haven’t visited since the beginning of the blog, otherwise I would do what I am about to write about (ho ho ho, too many abouts), a lot sooner.  I changed “Jewish woman” to “Sefardi Jewess.” While I am a Jew (Oh Lord, what was I thinking the day I decided to go all Orthodox?), my identity is that of a Sefardi Jewess, which says a lot for those of you who know what I am talking about!  For those who don’t,  don’t worry, stick with visiting my blog, and you will learn. For, I intend to explain all about the importance of stressing out why I am a Sefardi Jewess, as opposed to merely stating that I am a Jewish woman.  

Peace Message or Propaganda?

There was a peace event sponsored by the Indian community in Seattle today. I ended up attending it purely by chance; happened to spend my morning at the beach where the event was held. Parts of the event were dancing shows put by various groups. One of them was Palestinian students who used dances as messages of peace for Palestine. At least that was what the host said in his initial introduction.

What it turned out to be was Palestinian students using dancing symbolism to carry messages of them being the only victims of the Israel/Palestinian conflict, along with re-writing the history and facts. During the show the students talked about never giving up their struggle, changed few historic facts, and I quote “Prophets Moses, Jesus and Mohamed being born in Palestine.” Are you kidding me? Everyone agrees (Jewish and Muslim historians) that the word Palestine didn’t come into existence until after the birth of Prophets, who were born in Israel.

I was really disappointed by the whole thing. On one hand, there were posters carrying Gandhi’s about peace and tolerance, on the other hand, there are Palestinian students who are yet to say anything about peace and tolerance towards their Israeli neighbors.

I feel defeated in advance when I come across Palestinian students making subtle attempt to blame Israel during peace events. How is that being productive? Is that even fair to hide behind the message of peace to bring an unproductive point across? This was a peace event, yet I haven’t heard one word of peace from Palestinian side. When I participate in such events, I speak for both sides, and the need for peace. If today’s event was seen as a peace event by Palestinians, do I truly have an honest counterpart on Palestinian side?

Body Arts and Hallacha

I have been thinking, dreaming, wanting, and talking about getting a tattoo for quite sometime. At times I find myself thinking that I should have gotten several tattoos prior to my gerus, which wouldn’t create any problems with hallacha at that time. Over the years I have presented this question to a number of people who are knowledgeable on hallachic matters; some of the answers I have gotten left deep impression on me, and I deemed them worthy of being posted on my blog.

Half Jews

Sat through a lecture on tzedacha given by what I classified a typical New York frum rabbi.  He was short, balding, quite chubby (tsk tsk tsk, all that good cholent calories landing right on the belly and staying there for good), constantly swaying back and forth, talking in deep nasal voice, with real New York accent (you know, the real deal, Noo yawk tawk), and laughing loud and booming laugh.  Smart fellow, made a number of good points and drew some very interesting conclusions on the laws of charging the interests on loans. 

For the most part I enjoyed the lecture; that is until Noo Yawk rabbi made sarcastic remarks about people who join www.halfjew.com site to prove his point that there is no such thing as a half Jew.  I am as aware of hallacha as the rabbi, but is he aware of an individual pain of not feeling whole at the core of one’s identity, and always feel divided?  With today’s high rate of intermarriages, I don’t think Jewish speakers should be cracking up such jokes, it might hit a bit too close to home for a great deal of people.