Thanks for all the great comments from last week!

Just to note: Any registered user has posting access, not just commenting access.  So feel free to not just comment, but make your own posts in response to the challenges!

Also, if you have something interesting or inspiring that you want to share, please feel free to do it any time - it doesn't have to be related to the current challenge!

Speaking of the current challenge...

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This week's challenge: Post about something that challenged you.  If you want, it could be a story of triumph over a challenge.  Alternatively, it could be a story of avoidance of a challenge.  It could be something this week, or even something from 10 years ago.  Your choice.

Also, if prose is not your medium of choice, feel free to do it in another medium - art, photography, poetry, whatever you prefer.

 

Looking forward to all the great posts!

~Miriam

So it's technically past a week... by a few hours.  But here's my response to the challenge:

  Something that made me pause. This Shabbos, there was a farbrengen (a gathering of souls).  One of the things said there struck me.  Within Judaism, there does exist the concept of asceticism, of self-abnegation.  There is that which is inherently holy (required), that which is inherently unholy (prohibited), and then there is that which is inherently neither.  These last are things like the internet, that are permitted, and one can choose to use them for either holy or unholy purposes. 

 There is a certain, optional, high level of service in Judaism in which people deny themselves (or greatly reduce the amount of use of) that which is permitted.  In some yeshivas (Jewish learning schools), it is in vogue to practice this.  For instance, to not use condiments on food, such that the sole purpose of the food is its nutrition, and not its taste.

However, one of the people at the farbrengen said in the name of one of his teachers (note that I'm paraphrasing) , that while not putting condiments on your food is fine and all, the real self-abnegation is going to bed on time so you can be well-rested for classes.

Hey you!  Yeah, you, reading this site but not commenting.

Obviously, this site does not make you pause.  So I have a challenge for you:

Post something here that does make you pause.   Pause in thought, confusion, epiphany, humor... whatever it is, just something that makes you pause.

You have 1 week.

(and, to be fair, I'll be doing it, too) 

Inspired by a bowl of ice cream, late at night.

I'm in the grocery store, wandering through the aisles, looking for a potholder.  It's the last thing on my list, and it's proving elusive.  Dinner is waiting on it.  I eventually decide to go ask a clerk where they might be located.

As I'm walking to the information desk, I think to ask for some heavenly assistance: "Please, G-d, let me find some potholders so I can make dinner soon."  My next thought is what I could do for Him.  I realize that before I went to the store, I had been eating, and had forgotten to say an after-blessing.  The proper, specific, after-blessing, I don't have memorized.  The general one, however, I do.  I start reciting it quietly to myself as I'm walking.  I finish the blessing, and I look up.

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Judaism.  Religion?  Race?  Nation?  People?

Perhaps.

To me, "the Jewish people" are a family.  3 fathers, 4 mothers... then going down to Egypt as a family of 70 people.  By the time the Torah is given, there are 600,000... and that's just counting the adult males!  By that point, we're called a 'nation'.  Yet put two Jews together, even ones that call themselves atheists and don't know *anything* about Judaism beyond what's said in the media, and there will be an inexplicable bond between them.  It's a sense of... "whatever happens, this person is on my side.  They may be crazy to everyone else, but they won't mess around with me."  It's family. 

My first Jewish friend, I trusted more than anyone else in the world, even when I didn't know a thing about Judaism other than what I'd heard in the media.  This person was also the one that told me I was Jewish because my mother was.  We were crazy atheists, but we were also crazy atheist Jews.   Tony, wherever you are, I hope that you are safe, successful, and that you connect to your Jewish roots and to other Jews.

In Crown Heights, after Yeshiva, before visiting my aunt, before coming home.

In limbo.

Paul McCartney's birthday wasn't May 18.  It's June 18.

 

I think this makes my previous post all the more ironic. 

So it's been 2 weeks since my last post. What have I been doing?

• Starting a 'new' job - tutoring high school students in Math and Science... which is what I do during the year, but this time it's in a more structured environment.
• Figuring out for myself what femininity means. This might be a post of its own at some point. Or even a series of posts.
  
• I spent an awesome Shavuos (it's a Jewish holiday) at the Chabad of Chandler. And I've come to the conclusion that teaching from a text is like telling a story... the base part of it is there, but your audience likes flourishes... and that takes expressing yourself.
• ... it's hard for me to express myself in front of people I don't know.
• Arranging things such that I can go to yeshiva in July! I'm all registered and I just bought the plane tickets for it today! Woo!
  
• Being sick from a cold and thus staying home for Shabbos.
  

Look for more content from me in the coming weeks.

A child, two years old, will start a trek from the living room to outside, upon seeing an open door.

A parent, upon seeing this, will pick up the child and redirect them, causing the child to now sojourn in the safety of the house.

G-d seems to do this to me sometimes when I'm just about to say something.  The person I'm about to speak to will come up with some other topic, and before I know it I'm swept away from the direction I was going.

Yet, sometiems I do find my way outside.  And sometimes it is indeed scary.

It's 11:23pm on Sunday, May 18, 2008.

I had a decent day.  However, I'd felt all day, even last night at 4am, that there was something special about the date.  Something that I couldn't quite put my finger on.  Someone's birthday.  A couple of you might know what I'm talking about already, but it took me until bedtime to realize that today was Paul McCartney's birthday.  He turned 66.

Those of you who are Beatles fanatics, and those of you who know how much of one I was, are probably wondering how I could forget.  Those of you who don't know are probably thinking "Who cares?" or are confused.  Basically, from 7th grade, all through high school, I was obsessed with The Beatles.  I checked out books about them from the library, wrote reports about them in school... the whole bit.  But slowly, it's fading.  It's been fading for several years, really.

I'm not who I was in middle school, and I'm not who I was in high school.

Growing up is weird.

Happy birthday, Paul.

Note: I originally wrote this about a year ago.  Now, with Our Open mic, it has a home.

So it's Friday afternoon, I'd just put some meatloaf in the oven for Shabbos dinner (not a particularly traditional meal for Shabbos, but it was something I knew how to make), and I was cleaning up the kitchen.  I had some leftover breadcrumbs, and I wasn't sure what to do with them.  I asked my dad if he wanted to use them for anything, or if I should throw them away (I didn't really want to waste them, though).  He suggested I put them outside so birds could eat them.
 

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About a week ago, I received a text message on my phone.  Pretty boring, right?  However, I don't have a text messaging plan, so every message I get charges me an extra 15 cents.  If it's someone I know,  it's mildly irritating, but at least there's a point to it.  This time, I was txtmsg'd spam.  Bad enough my email inbox gets spam, but for me to have to pay for it...!

So I got to thinking.  Okay, everything happens for a reason.  If G-d didn't want it to happen, it wouldn't happen.  

So why would G-d send me spam?

This time, it was garbled stock tips.  A month ago, it was picture-messages of porn.  I could make sense of the porn (don't ask--and whatever you're thinking, it's most likely wrong).  But stock tips?

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This is what I would have read Wednesday night if I'd had the internet (or thought about it beforehand).  I wrote it my Junior year of high school.

Jealousy

I hate Jealousy.
It's the dirtiest feeling in the world.
It rips and tears at your soul,
stabbing you in the back
until you can think of nothing else.
Driving you insane,
leaving you a poor, wretched,
bitter old hag,
having nothing better to do
than to make other people miserable.

It's worse threadan Hate,
because it brings Hate along
when it visits you.
It brings along another good friend,
the Lust for Revenge.
It brings its friend Depression,
when you can't do anything
about a situation.
It brings Loneliness,
and its friend Isolation.
They both come
when Jealousy takes over.

They all binge and party in my soul,
trashing the place,
staining it with their arrogance.
leaving me to try to clean up,
trying to repair my sickened
heart and soul.

I made this last night, and I'm not really sure what to title it.  Any ideas?