loss of faith

I am still single. I do not believe that this will change. I really wanted to have children of my own, but I don't think this will happen either. I am having a difficult time processing this and trying to understand why prayers aren't working. I switched from praying for myself to praying for others and this isn't working either. I want to belive that there was someone for me- but that something happened to him- or that G-d just thought that we already found each other.

I found it comforting to pray in the Orthodox community in Dallas because I was able to sit with women and not among the families sitting together- the one thing that I want and don't have- So I sought out the solitude of the women's section. My shul in Columbus has the men sit in the middle and the women sit on the edges all facing the same direction. The shul has been very welcoming to me-

I have a place for shabbos dinner every week. But, something happened this Simchas Torah during the hakafot, when I looked around at the families- the smiling children (that I will never have) holding tiny torahs, moms and daughters dancing- fathers and sons all caught up in the whirlwind of freilechah. and I was alone. The women invited me to dance with them and I could not stop the tears running down my face. This is a happy holiday and I couldn't stop from crying. Another year has gone by and still I am alone. The women were trying to cheer me up by pointing out the other people in the room and their troubles- "that woman just lost her husband off 50 years....that woman's daughter was just diagnosed with breast cancer...that man just lost his job....etc..." this was not helping at all. No one actually asked me what was wrong and why I was crying- they just didn't want me to cry. I told them that I was leaving to go to a different shul- but actually just walked home- sobbing.

I think that G-d does not hear my prayers- or see my tears- or understand my pain- or care about my pain- to the point that I have come to question whether there is a G-d. In my studies at the Kollel, I have been in a commandments class, we study every Thurs night and are learning the mitzvot one at a time...we got to the commandment where we are not supposed to question if there is a Gd or not. and I am conflicted. I still believe in G-d, because without this faith, I fear that I would crumble into a million pieces, but I truly think that I have lost my faith...not just in G-d, but in prayer, and I don't know how to reconcile this loss of faith.

I went to a lecture given by Rebetzin Epstein (probably fifteen years ago) where she had us write down the way we wanted to have a Jewish household after we were married, and then told us to take that list and create it now- why wait?
I keep a kosher home.
I keep Shabbos - as best I can-
I study torah- at Kollel and with my private group.
I do good deeds- volunteer at the food bank (this afternoon), soup kitchen, visit the sick at the Jewish home here in Columbus...
I created all the ways I want to have a Jewish household after I am married and yet I am still alone. I feel that by creating this Jewish household without a husband, HaShem sees no reason to provide me with a husband. because I already have the house that I want...this is the logic side of me trying to decipher the game that is being played on me. I just don't know what else to do- I feel that my actions are not enough.

Menachim and Ephraim went into the water and then the water parted- they had to take the first step- well, I took that step, and another step, and another step....etc... and still the water is not parting.

I used to have faith- and now I don't- and yet I still have faith- this is my conflict. I can't abandon- yet I can't embrace and I don't know how to explain this war that is waging in my heart.
this need to have faith- this fear of losing faith-

Neelah was troubling this year, standing for the two hours, I tried to make more sense of it this year, tried to have that perfect faith for those last two hours of the holy days. I do not fast because I am diabetic, and had surgery on my foot a few years ago and was unable to stand for the entire time, but this year I had no excuse- except for this war raging-
why was I praying? what good will it do? am I here just to make myself happy? am I here so the people in shul will see me? the words in the prayer book Neelah service are not very entertaining- or uplifting- or spiritual at all...
These two agonizing hours I stood, wanted to sit, wanted to go home and watch tv- wanted to stay- wanted to pray with meaning- maybe this was the "first step" action that would bring something into my life- maybe if I could stand the entire time- I would create that faith-


hard to believe that yesterday I talked about sandwiches losing their sandwich status.

well, thank you for stopping by

when does a sandwich stop being a sandwich?

I was eating a sandwich in public today. The public part is important to know because if I was home alone and eating this sandwich I would not care so much about manners.
Facts of the case
I stopped for lunch and ordered a chicken patty sandwich. The bun was smaller than the chicken patty and when I finished eating the part with bread I was left with more chicken so I picked it up with my fingers and ate it without using a fork. Then I had this horrible feeling that I had committed an aggregious offense. I looked around to see if anyone had seen my error and then I really wanted to know - when does a sandwich stop being a sandwich?


Issue: eating in public with my fingers
Rule: it is not polite to eat with ones fingers in public unless it is finger food- or wrapped in something or nestled between two pieces of bread, the latter we call a sandwich

hors d'eourves are eaten with fingers, amuse bouche with fingers, tacos are eaten with fingers- but when a taco is baked and covered with sauce- it is now eaten with a fork. (but I digress- probably why I am not in law school anymore....)

we need more references:
a potato
chopped, boiled and mixed with dressing- fork.
baked- cut open, filled with butter, and other stuff - fork
sliced, breaded, fried- fingers
sliced, breaded, fried, smothered in chili and cheese - fork

so the answer could lie with the messyness of the food itself.

apple
washed eaten raw - fingers
cooked in any way, apple sauce, apple pie,- fork
one exception is when baked into a small pastry (yummm krispy kreme)
the other exception is when made into a condiment such as apple butter- spread it on a piece of bread and you have a sandwich.... which leads back to the original issue....

sandwich
cold or hot bread- two peices filled with "stuff" - fingers
one slice of bread topped with "stuff" - fork
exception- grilled cheese fits the "topped" rule and not the two pieces rule...
but the open faced turkey sandwich must be eaten with a fork.

more sandwich thoughts...
there is a hot grill that clamps bread at the edges- so just about anything could be put between two pieces of bread and be called a sandwich....
so, macaroni and cheese could be clamped on the edges with one of these gadgets (what I want for Chanukah, btw) and be considered a sandwich.
if you pick it up with your fingers and bite into it and some of the mac n cheese falls onto your plate, I would say you have to eat that with a fork or a spoon.
but why?
back to the messy factor.
If we place a slice of pastrami on rye with some spicy mustard and some of the pastrami falls off the sandwich and on to the plate- but you still have bread left in your hand--- can we just pick the fallen up and place directly into our mouths or must we re-attach the meat back into the bread- and then place into our mouths....

this is different from the original issue-- because in the original issue- I ran out of bread and still had chicken left over, also there was only one large bite left over...no more sandwich- no more socially acceptable finger food.

so new question, when does a sandwich lose it's sandwichyness?

sushi is eaten with fingers in Japan, but not in the US. so could my answer lie culturally?
what do we eat with our fingers that other cultures eat with forks...
In Paris there are patisseries on the corners of the streets where beautiful thin women purchase small pies and scarf them down while walking down the street....
In the US- we sit down and eat pie with a fork and plate.
Parisians are thinner than Americans, maybe we should eat pie while walking and not sitting down- maybe that would help the obesity issues in this country...
maybe if we ate all of our foods with our fingers we would be thinner-

think about it-
we eat messy foods with forks- what makes a food messy? cheese, gravy, sauce,
hmmmm.

gotta go play poker...

Thanks for Dropping By

I read an article yesterday that showed me exactly how far this country has come since the Emancipation Proclamation. A black woman was fired and is suing her former bosses for harassment.

This seems like an article that could have been written in the 1850's, the problem is this happened over the past three years. She was fired in 2007.

The worst part is that regular people get to comment on the article. I hope you are as outraged as I am when you read these comments (below). As you read these comments, and if you like, there are 400+ just like them, think about this hatred that is still among us. think about how this country will actually show their true colors as this election comes closer to election day.

People like these commentors are voters. People like these commentors are full of hatred for anything that is not like them. People like these commentors will never elect a black president, even if he had a white grandmother. These commentors would not vote for a woman either.

I want to believe that we have changed in the past 150 years, the truth is that we, as a country, were still separated as "whites and coloreds" in our recent history. Rosa Parks lived in my time. She lived in our time. Martin Luther King, Jr. lived before my time- I wish I could have heard him speak.

My father tells a story of when he was a college student in the 60's. He grew up in Pennsylvalnia and he travelled to the south with a fraternity buddy of his. He remembers walking down a street when he saw a black man walking towards them. He watched as the black man crossed the street in front of them and continued to walk towards them and as they passed each other, the black man crossed back to continue walking on the same sidewalk. My dad believes that the black man was not allowed to walk on the same sidewalk as a white man.

This wasn't a story out of a history book that I had to memorize. This wasn't some foreign place on a map that I hadn't heard of. This was the country that I live in, that we live in. And this is still happening. We should all be outraged.

I am sorry to say that I do not have a solution. I can not even begin to imagine what the solution is. Baseless hatred is not new. Baseless hatred is not even uniquely American.

Well, thanks for dropping by.

The following are excerpts from the article and comments by real people. the real people are identified, if you want to send them a note, just add ("at" aol. com ) to the name.


In the lawsuit, she alleged she was referred to as "Nappy Headed Mo" and "Queen Sheba," by co-workers, was often told she worked on "colored people time," and was frightened by one official who routinely made references to the Ku Klux Klan.

"Does your workout include an urban obstacle course with a flat-screen TV on your back?" she claimed Balash asked her.

When packing up a dark garage at Texas an official told Grant: "Keep smiling and pop your eyes out 'cause we can't see you."

Grant was forced to work outside more often than the white male officials because her supervisors believed she couldn't sunburn because she was black.

While riding in the backseat of her car pool, co-workers told her to duck as they passed race fans. "I don't want to start a riot when these fans see a black woman in my car," she claims one official said.

NASCAR Faces $225 Million Lawsuit - AOL Sports


essied200010400 04:45:13 AM Jun 11 2008
I am sick of black people. Always looking to get what they can for free. They have no pride or self-respect. They are the laziest segment of our population., and the damn government keeps paying them to smoke crack and have kids. I hope I live to see the day when welfare is ended and they all whine and cry about how the white man is "holding them down".

countryhonkiee 04:36:25 AM Jun 11 2008
ANOTHER "AFRICIAN AMERICAN" HA-HA WANTING A FREE RIDE, IMAGINE THATPUT HER ON THE TRACK IN THEMIDDLE OF A RACE

aferdman 02:09:09 AM Jun 11 2008
This lady is full of it. I hope the judge throws the book at here for these ridiculous claims. Everybody is so sue happy these days with these astronomical amounts ($$). My solution is that picks up the tab for her to get prescriptive drugs like RIDALIN and CHILL OUT B****!!!

carljwall 01:40:15 AM Jun 11 2008
just another One of YOU PEOPLE!(blacks) trying to steal every thing the white man has. NASCAR will always be for us Rednecks, so if you don't like our jokes, then go watch tigger Woods play golf!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

johnnygoodwrench 12:42:18 AM Jun 11 2008
Again America held hostage by minorities. This **** goes on all the time. Build more boats and send them back.

gigharborman321 12:27:51 AM Jun 11 2008
Here we go again, a black woman wanting free money..whats new ......The said thing about it is this: NASCAR will pay her off !..and we wonder why things are as they are in this country

baddazzdude301 11:13:46 PM Jun 10 2008

ijinnc 10:35:17 PM Jun 10 2008Report This! DOES THE NAME "TAWANA BRAWLEY" RING A BELL? DAMN.........IT SEEMS BEING BORN IN AMERICA MEANS EVERYBODY OUTSIDE A "MINORITY CLASSIFICATION" MEANS YOU'RE A RACIST BIGOT . DAMN , I WISH I HAD BEEN BORN AS A MINORITY........MY CHANCES OF BECOMING RICH AND AN INSTANT MILLIONAIRE BY MAKING ANY KIND OF "RACIST CHARGE" TRUE OR UN-TRUE WOULD BE 1,000,000 TIMES MORE LIKELY.Not to fear.
If Obama gets elected, we will be the minority.

steveusafret 10:42:48 PM Jun 10 2008
Oh-oh....she's black.She'll win her case, regardless of the facts.