It Could Have Been Me

Friday night I drove into South Austin to visit friends for Shabbat. She married him and it was his parents who where in from out of state. With the lively conversation and the cooing over the baby, our evening stretched out and before it hit me, we were talking about love, Jewish love as observed in this home. My friend and her husband are luckier than most. They both embrace the same ancient structure. Torah life never looked so good as it does with these two. When he said it, "it is such a shame Saprkey, that you don't have your match(yet)." I figured that I was out of my league now. "You are so great Sparkey," he continues, "you are one of the greatest women I know, You are dynamic, you are intelligent,you are so yourself." I felt awash in a sea of appreciation and understanding, when his mom asked what happened, as if I had a terrible accident. I confessed to missing the mark, making enough and the right kind of mistakes to not see my way clear out of my oneness.

I felt like "Her," a woman from Israel who had a Blog that was called: The Unbroken Glass: The Worst Shidduch Disasters Ever. "Her,"(that was her screen name)openly discussed the odd and whacked dates that she went on, were set up with and where let down by. I felt that she was all of the things that my friends were saying that I was and more. She was living in Israel! She had a strong sense of Jewish self. She was determined to live a Jewish life. Unlike me, she knew there was a Jewish guy out there for her, her Beshert, her soul mate was busy too, searching. He was looking for her. I always doubt myself and G-d that there is a Jewish man for me in the world.

I wished I had thought of the idea, "the worst shidduch disasters ever. I was so intrigued with all of her good fortune in summing up her loss and regret, that I wrote to her. I complimented her on her down turns, well written and with pause. She caused me to think, rethink and think some more. She inspired me to consider that the shidduch crisis in the world's Jewish community was not my problem alone. She eventually met her guy, married and stopped writing that Blog of old world tragic humor laced in our modern time.

I brought up the Russian. He was a man who came to our town for a job in a Kosher dining establishment. I heard from 3 other yids that there was a new bachelor in town and that I could be the one for him. It was thought that there were just 2 of us, women, in the community to appeal to a man's wish for a wife. He was looking, they assured me. I had to see this.

As we were retelling the story now, my friend's husband and I, we are laughing hysterically. If anyone could have imagined that it could be me, it was not one of us. Before he was engaged to marry my friend, he was "helping" out at the place to see that it thrived. He loved the food, eats only Glatt Kosher and was at the time single with plenty of time that was his own. He saw me come in that day when I went to check out the new guy.

Back in the living room, we are screaming now, over the laughter as I am telling my version and in between thoughts, breaking for air. I whispered the part that stirred me most and in so doing, was now compelled to say it again, they needed to know as I was blushing a gavalt.

What I got from my visit with the new guy: he was Russian from Russia by way of LA. He was here to help the community. He was religious as early as not so long ago, had a few grown sons, hated his ex wife and hold on to your mitzvahs, he was circumcised just five years prior to our meeting. That was the clincher.

I am not a religious role model of a modest woman, I am not a woman of valor as I am often encouraged to become. I stared straight ahead and then looked down, thank G-d the table he was sitting at was blocking my view. I wanted to see his crotch. I was beginning to imagine the ritual,as it is done with the new born, with the Rabbi, the whole migillah, even the kiddish, the nosh would be plentiful. Tevyeh the Dairy Man would be there from Shalom Alechiem's Anatefkah. The Fiddler on the Roof too, would be singing our songs-- mazel tov, mazel tov!

What my friend never knew was this part, I was abrupt in telling the new guy that I had to go and fast. I flew down town and met the Rabbi at his office. Rabbi I started, You've got a new guy up at the place telling people, like me, that he was just snipped five years ago. You've got do something! He is going to alienate people, women. Rabbi, people are going to freak out. I am freaking out Rabbi. People suggested he was looking for a match, "nu, he is..." I went to have a look and I get an entire vision of what, the snip, Rabbi, the snip. "You shouldn't have gone, nu?" Give me a break, I shouldn't have gone. I had a need to know. "What need was that, he told you what he wanted you should know." Alright already!

After the laughing dimmed down and we could catch each other's breathing as we settled down, my friend really got busy now. "Sparkey, it could have been you, He was flirting with you. That was his way of flirting with you. He liked that you came to meet him, he wanted to tell you a little bit about himself," I can't even comment on that last remark, it is too easy. I don't want to be or appear rude, after all, it is a mitzvah and at any age--mazel tov.

Right? I am thinking, I need better, different, right? Then, I was asking as if I needed friends to tell me it was ok to avoid Mishuga, crazy. Now I am asking as if I don't know. When my friend's husband chimed in he would use the accent, the Russian accent was the end of the line. "The snip, only five years ago. The snip, the snip, the snip...." It could have been me and I am glad it wasn't. I ran fast, cut it to the quick and for lack of a better picture, I nipped it in the bud.

Back in time, another Rabbi, the guy who in another story, taught me about inflexible ego, tried to show me how I did not owe anything to any man. A little fast kindness goes a long way. He would charge me with "being nice," when it was uncalled for and when in reality he said I was not nice. He wanted me to be myself. When I heard this not nice thing, I questioned him with a sharp tone. The Rabbi replied, "Sparkey, I don't think anyone would call you nice. They would say, your great but your not nice." Ok....NU, and hurry up, already, gavalt.

Here came the compliments again, "You have the most energy of anyone I know. You are up beat and funny, you are normal with no mask, no filter, no fear of humanity. If I have something I need or want help with, I would call you. You always offer what ever you can, to be helpful, but are you nice about it, not really. You are great, I can count on you." If I were to use the advice from this other Rabbi, I would have told the new single guy from Russia that it was nice to meet him, welcome to Texas and G-D Willing, you'll enjoy it here. And then, leave calmly. He would advice that I not discuss again the experience and if I did, it would not be from the point and perspective of the snip.

With my friends and their family, it was less honest than that. It went fast and furious, it was sharp and to the point. This, I told my friend's mother, is what happened to me and it seems to occur often, if it is not about the snip, then what, you tell me.

The Jewish Zip Code

Yesterday it was 87 degrees in The Hill Country. They say "if you don't like the weather in Texas stick around, it changes all the time." Today, it was chipper at 31 and as the reports were changing quickly. I decided to take off for the Jewish Zip Code, where it may be warmer and friends who can put up with me for the night would know what to do if they awoke to find me frozen to death, take their kids to violin practice.

Once I exit the mayhem, and turn down the street, everything begins to feel better, my neck cranes to look around. The Kosher store is one block away now. The JCC is on my right, down that street. The Rabbi lives only blocks from me now and the other Rabbi and the Chazen are here too, everyone can walk to shul. A Jewish couple opened a flower shop here, close to home I am sure. My friend's place is up on a hill and from the back deck, the view is of the capitol city's hub in transit is preoccupied with motion. As I look out over the trees, I imagine so many Jews trying to get home.

Our friend works at the JCC as a swim Coach and since her kids' Jewish Academy relocated back to the Jewish Zip Code, everything she loves is right next door, except for us. We live in the Baptist Zip Code, 37 miles south west from this plush spot.

Our town is small with only 2 traffic lights. The second light was decided on and installed just 2 years ago, give or take a season as a young boy was struck by a driver while he was walking home from school. His mother was right, we needed a light there, nu? It's there now and thank G-D the boy was not killed. He can still walk home should he wish to do so.

Living this far away from the Jewish Zip Code has turned out to be good for us in a very Jewish way. We are in galute and this particular exile as it is self imposed has done wonders for our sense of place. We have a home now. It's small place, neighboring a nature preserve and a natural spring that makes the heat forgivable when the weather goes in that G-D forgiving direction. Our mizuzot are on our door posts as directed by Torah law and not one local friend or neighbor has ever made mention of them though, they don't notice them at all.

When our Jewish Zip Code friends first came out to visit us in "the land of the new version," our anticipation was high, we went to the door quickly as we could hear them yell out, "look for the mizuzah...." as they were searching for our place. When we opened the door to greet our Jewish Zip Code friends, I thanked G-D for the Torah on posting it "as a sign upon our door posts and our gates," for without the mizuzah that tells G-D that our home is a Jewish home, our friends may not have known eithher when looking from the outside and they may have stopped too soon at another home and could have been invited in by other people.

These folks may have offered the adults a cold beer and the children would have for sure, been trained in football and in hunting but not before the Lord's Prayer and perhaps a benediction. It can happen that fast, once a people are in galute, exile can be a long ride out to where old is good and new again is actually unknown.

The only reason that we have for staying in the Baptist Zip Code is the price of our home and the property tax rate, gavalt already and nu? We could not afford to be Jewish other wise and the friends who know and appreciate this come visit. They don't fret about the difference in degrees that causes dynamic weather reports from one Zip Code the next and they don't mention the shlepp. They see the mizuzah and they know that they are as close to home as galute, exile, allows. Exile is one thing, property values are something else all together. In our landscape, our Jewish Zip Code friends are cause enough for our neighbors to come outside and say "Shalom Y'all," regardless of the weather, we love that about them!

You've Got to Be Jewish to Submit

To counter the Arab hysteria over the Danish publication's cartoon of Mohammad stowing a bomb in his turban, Iran has decided to attack the Jews. Iran is making room for an anti Holocaust cartoon contest as if one type of cartoon has anything to do with the other. Not to mention that the Jews had nothing to do with the publication of the cartoon in the first place. But, when all else fails, Jew bashing makes so much sense. Pissed off, bash the Jews, we see it all the time. In fact, with our huge noses, we can smell the fall out coming before the smack lands.

In Israel, there is a cartoon artist who is running a contest of his own. He and his chevrah are hosting a competition where they are accepting cartoons with an Anti Jewish theme. The best part though is, you must be Jewish to enter. How's it going you ask? How else should it go, great! Jews tend to exceed expectations and at every turn. Regardless of what we do, we do it well. How else should this balagan go? As a circus, it should go b'seder and it should be a gavalt already, nu?

The objective: draw a cartoon with an anti Semitic over tone and submit it for review. Sit back and plotz while you wait to hear, nu already, if your a winner. Easy enough, I can only imagine. It's not as if we've never submitted before. In history, Jews have submitted many times. It's a gavalt to mention, and now is not the best time to discuss this aspect of our collective will. When I saw the call for cartoons on line, I didn't focus on it then.

In traffic, while tuned to a public radio talk show out of Philadelphia(3:00 pm CST), I listened as the hostess interviewed the Rosh of this Israeli got'cha! As the head of the game, he said, in sum, "Lamah lo?" Why not, I have to agree. Why not make a farce out of this grossly over reported and under addressed anti social parade of destruction and murder while we grow as big as grand marshals sitting afloat the exposure, even if in print. Freedom of speech can be worthless depending on what shackles your wearing and who listens to your drech. In the case of the cartoon critics, the world can hear the call of the Arab attacks, yet listening to it is another story, somethings never change.

For the Jews this Anti Semitic cartoon contest speaks volumes, a little self effacment is good already,(wasn't Rodney Dangerfield a Jew) nu? For the Israeli cartoonist, he is smart to be capitalizing off of the biggest media spritz that his work has gotten in recent days. What Jew can deny him the fresh increase in sales? His work will now enjoy more of the world's consumption basin, the internet is his prize now as the secured purchases are being made, dollars crossing over the wires faster than the Protestors are burning down buildings and taking the media hostage.

The Israeli reports that most of the cartoon entries are from the US. I don't draw like I use to. I want to buy his stuff though and read it. "Choshavti, sh z America," I think this is big! I can guess what your spitting over, that this is the Jew in me! See an opportunity and seize it. Go ahead and say it, and then please sheket b'vakasha, shush up, please. The cartoon contest will defuse Iran's stupidity. It will give us Jews what to talk and argue around. It will teach Holocaust education and we need to keep learning from that. The Jewish cartoon contest will make money and the Israeli artist could use it. Should he see fit to create a bissel, little scholarship that will promote another talented Jew to academic and artistic gain, why stop there?

Torah, Torah, Torah

When a well known Chabad Rabbi taught me the concept of "Inflexible Ego," I knew I was in trouble. For some reason, this Torah was easy to grasp in the moment. I guess that I had had enough. The relationship that I was in with "this guy," was like a one way train ride into the junk draw of life. Everything was piled now. I could not see how to sort myself out from the drech that was wasting my time.

After the Rabbi drove his point home, I got up and walked right out of the relationship that was consuming me. We met, "this guy" and I in his mother's kitchen, when I was 16. It took 17 additional years for the elixir to seep into my brain and for the bond to fuse. The detour in love was at times scenic. Other days, it was as appealing as a B rated movie, edgy edgy edgy. I thought I wanted though to be married so badly and so I stayed and stayed and stayed. He said it, "although this is best relationship that I have ever had and the happiest that I have been and the closest that I have ever felt to anyone, I still think there is something better, I need to shop around." I was stunned as I kept staying invloved with him.

After a time, the Rabbi had to ask, "will you find a Jew, please? This way, you can at least shrink the pool of jerks you may come in contact with. You can have a common base, better conversations and arguments and a serious chance at what you want, to be understood and appreciated." I agreed to the idea and after a while, set out to avail myself for the Shidduch, the Jewish match. Thank you so much for your support. I am alone ever since. I don't mean single. I mean, wow, I am all alone. I have no dates, no calls, no matches, no intervention, no help from anyone who has gone before. People, the Rabbis, say that they don't know what to say to me, "it's hard."

I am reading more now, Jewish Blogs, to see what others are kvetching and kveling about. The romantic notion of relationship catches my eye. The topics of Shidduchim,matches, sex, love and isolation among community are common themes, so nu?

In the beginning of my road out, I made changes. I was getting religion like I had it back in the day when my family was whole. I started thanking G-D for my life as it was, full with so much good. I kept Shobbas, kept kosher and was sure to learn a little Torah when the opportunity occurred, every single day. I did what the Rabbis told me to do. These activities, they assured me, would raise my neshama. my soul would advance and I would become a vessel for the match to be made. It never went that way.

Simply put, there are not enough Jewish Jews to go around. I found and still hold to the idea that between my baggage and their stuff, we are settled in our unsettling ways. I cannot forge a path of clarity from which to make a connection, the match, a life together with men based on the foundation of need to be paired. The basis of marriage in the observant community goes past being fruitful and multipling, although that does sound great coming off of my lips.

Being observant is hard in this new and modern world where there is so much to distract from Torah life. It is really tough in places where there isn't population density to support Torah living as if it were a matter for life. After assimilation, as Jews, we are fewer in just. To shrink one's pools to the point of few and far between makes little sense to me, a single woman who wants to be paired. As someone who observes any amount of Torah life, the pool is a mere puddle with little depth as you might imagine.

I have met Jews, allot of Jews, in person, via the Internet and at shul. It remains, I was too much of this and too little of that for them to consider me. I found them to be un kept and saw how poor their table manners and many other anti social behaviors could make me a hateful person. During these events, I was more judgmental than was typical for even me. Even though other people would suggest that this one or that could be a match, I saw nothing but a project, someone that I would quickly resent, hardly spend my time loving. I felt as if it were not going to happen by my hand.

The politics of searching becomes itself a platform. It appears as if searching as a sport allows us to appease the community with the idea that we are fulfilling the obligation of looking and looking and looking. Finding a match has nothing to do with looking for one when we are middle age and our lives are complicated with histories that we wish told other stories. Now that we are observant, religious and learning....we must pair up with a person who appears to disregard older versions of who we are right now, excluding five minutes ago when we were less then they are now, right now. Consider the surgical procedure of Hymen Reattachment, it's happening. Women can have a surgeon go in and restore her to new, never before explored as a woman of faith. Nu, such a lucky doctor, he becomes her first last man again. Now, she can deny ever being in bed with a man if it means getting to again.

As I was new to the shidduch process and when I met a guy who I thought I might wish to see again, he would mention that since I was not so frum, religious enough for him, I was not a candidate for his match. This same fellow would report to me that just that day he made such a shonda that he feels compelled to confess it as if we were Catholic. Jews don't confess I mentioned. He told me that because I am so smart, I'll suffer alone some more. Such a nice thing to say, nu? Such a Jewish value, spite.

I made my comment in such a way to get him off the hook, to cover for him, show him I was able to understand that we can often take our lives for a ride. What was his crime, he ate in a popular and un kosher fast food place. Un kosher meat, fries and a coke was how he spent his lunch hour. Oh, how he wanted the milk shake but drew the line there. I saw how my developing yiddishkite was a threat to him and I moved on again. There were a few guys who at 49, 53 or even 58 that had a deal breaker called: "kids." That's correct, these men who missed the boat and never had gotten around to it, to start a family, expected now to get so lucky. "Next," the Rabbi says as I pack up my position on the matter. The Rabbis say to deflect from the negitive, I shoould take on another mitzvah, make my vessel stronger. Oy Vay, am I'm telling you. What good deed could I adopt in the face of learning how a date of mine, an observant guy was reduced to un kosher fast food and how he found me as being less observant than he imagines he wants for his Torah wife in his Torah based home. I was hungry for a real man.

Before I could look ahead some more, it happened that I glanced back in time. What drove me to "this guy?" I often allowed that the years we shared in common gave me a sense of place. As an orphan, I would now define myself as having roots in his life and family. He knew me unlike many many people that I whirled past, I wanted so badly to belong to some place, someone would have my heart. In sticking to my tribe, I know that I am now grounded in my rootlessness. This space, smells like food that I can't eat. It holds people that I can't relate to and friends who I love dearly even as their marriages are hanging on by a thread. I wish I could mend my life. Inflexible ego is about "This Guy" and then me not willing to make a change in our perspectives. We were the same in this manner.

Like a hopeful girl, I called him once since my departure and hung up. Like a complete mishganah, I phoned him a second time and learned why the Rabbi insisted it was inflexible ego that prevented him from going forward, aside from the fact that "this guy" was not a Jew and in that way, not good for me. I appreciate the ideal in this situation and I do thank G-D that I am not married to him. "This guy" was my broken heart. My neshama is another story.

Stuck in the Snow

It was me who called after the long pause in our communications. He told me he was sending for me, to expect my E-Ticket by morning. New York state back at Thanksgiving weekend made a lot of sense to me then. Today, I am wondering what mishugas was I looking for that I didn't already have right here in the great state, nu?

I always wanted to go to Niagara Falls and he said he would take me. He reminded me that they have a kosher butcher shop by him and that I could have what I need. My mind was filling up with ideas; G-D knows I have what to need.

He said, "You'll come and see what's to see, if you like what you see, the picture; we can get married already, nu? We need marriage," he assured me. I wanted it then, I admit it now. My imagination, rich as I invented assumptions of how it would be was actually breaking my heart. I was softening up, opening and feeling the warm glow of attentions, eyes on my every word. So what happened? He was late to meet me at the airport. Nu? I was getting ready to burst into hives, oy, my anxiety. Had he not been late once before it would have been new.

When he appeared and grabbed my bag, we hurried out to the car, watch the snow, the puddles and there's some ice. My new Texan way knows not from coats. I was freezing in my sweater, my cotton socks where wet as I touched down on his drive way, my foot went right into a pitch black puddle. He reminded me to watch where I step.

Once inside his home, I knew it was a mistake. I saw how he needed me. If he had any desire for me, from the looks of things, it was not clear. Nu, I thought, we could get a house cleaner, once or twice a week. That was my other mistake.

In the morning, the breakfast in bed was delicious and it was off to the store. He owns an up scale men's clothing store, was voted Best Men's Clothing Store in town just the year before....mazel tov! We worked together there. You should have seen me, dealing with the displays, I arranged the sock tower, pushed all of the socks ever foward, cleaned glass surfaces, tossed out dead food stuffs from the office, you get the picture. I was, for a weekend, the wife I never dreamed of being. I didn't even fight about it, I just worked my tush off. It was so unlike me, to have nothing to say. G-D forgive me, I thought terrible thoughts. What I would say if I could, senseless to report here.

During our discussions, we packed the car and headed for Niagara Falls. The weather was in my favor and from the American side, I could see Canada and thought about the other man who held my attention. He was just on the other side unaware that I was so close to him.

It happened fast. The water was gushing hard and fast over the frozen ground as I wondered if I was standing where my parents may have stood while they were on their honeymoon so many years before. I moved a bit closer in toward him and while the wind was cold against my skin, I felt my eyes wander across his face, I saw the stress. Cairo, Egypt stress transplanted into this new world, his smile cracking with the wind. He called me by my full name and in his own English, he made mention of what I dreamed he would say. It was a gavalt yet I knew I had to get home.

Play Nice

Last night I showed up early to the Chabad House for a concert. Rabbi Bloten from Kfar Chabad, Israel was in town with his guitar. I was so early that a teacher from the Hebrew Academy had plenty of time to visit with me and show me the annoucement from the Rabbi. They are starting a building fund to address the shul's needs. The historic victorian on the UT Campus needs a huge amount of restoration. I sat there and thought about it and as I wrote a check, I imagined so many things that could be done with so little and then, the Rabbi's wife thanked me a gavlat. "Nu," she said, "this is very nice, thank you." I have to say, I am happy to be able to give even if it was more like a blessing than such a donation.

Rasing Money

Thanks to a friend, I am invited to contribute to a silent auction for a good Jewish cause. As a Tupperware Consultant, I am donating a gift certificate. As fundraising goes in the Jewish community, it is easier to get your needs met from a multinational corporation who has driven your expectations off shore than it is to gain financial support at the grassroots level from congregation members that we see all the time. The multinationals profess to be better able to give you what you want from afar as it is tough to expect people to support what they want in their own community and then to contribute money and make it happen.

The non profit silent auction is like a multinational corporation when the issue is money. People see the items and immediately, they learn to ignore needs, their expectations shrink as they connect their role to the objective and resist raising money for their community. Multinationals are successful as they diminish the needs of employees and customers, increasing their position as they go. They keep hold of their gelt and are richer for it. Much like how a multinational corporation depends on people to keep them afloat. In our small shuls, these community members wonder how we ever get by without their unyielding help and support.

As a result of this opposite world behavior, the "I can get it cheaper at (insert Big Box store here)," supporters quickly become consumers and forget all about their community's needs as they withhold their expendable income for no good. Thinking only about the bottom line, the personal need to minimize their spending now, of all times and places. Such people are cleaver to appear caring and supportive as they attend key events that address their group's needs for money while they risk nothing. We are taught to kvetch about the goys, as foreigners?

I often wonder about the Yiddisha strangers in my landscape who pose as supportive icons of the cause just as they are seen leaving (early) from any number of fund raising events to go pick up a few things that they "need from (insert Big Box store)." Jews release tensions that acquiring goods and services causes them when combined with being seen at fundraising events where they didn't fully support the goal, to raise money, to give as we can. As these Jews are en route on a simple drive out to the nearest (Big Box store) to acquire even more drech I have to wonder, who let the dogs out?

The asked me about Pesach, already?

Now that I am not eating wheat products and people are asking me about Pesach, what am I doing for seder, where am I going, I feel more out of place than ever. One couple, friends of mine from Chabad approached me over a week ago, "nu? seder, where are you going?" I had to think about it, I am never sure about this question. I would assume that I would be going out from the land of Egypt and that this would thrill my friends to no end. They would be happy for me. Instead, I proclaimed, I won't eat matzah, I can't, I am eating wheat free now. I hoped this would suffice and that my friends would feel that I would darken their own journey from slavery to freedom, that they would not seek my company at their seder. It didn't go that way. My friends invited me in spite of my objections and I said yes. I would be happy to come, what can I do, bring, to be of help.

It is hard for me, to feel alone at times like this, orphaned for the holidays. Friends have families too big to include in my small home should I send out smoke signals, "Seder at Sparkey's this year" These friends have Halachot they keep. The ones that I try and ignore, making me a better candidate for visiting as I will get up and go when its time for me to be heading home. I am a better hostess than visitor. Driving home on a Yun Tiff feels better to me than staying put, feeling like I could do something I would regret. The feeling of captivity sets in and I become afraid to breathe in the same air as other people whom I don't know well at all. The kin folk of host/hostess and their friends too, everyone is so nice and cooperative at first. After the first day melds into the next, they too can't take it any more and begin to commit shonda after shonda to release any tension, the stress that I let explode upon first exhale. With one foot in each world, I struggle with myself in front of others to drive the point home, not much good will come from me in times of deep collective observance. I am afraid that I will come to love the torture that I see observant Jews deflecting in their time of melt down and recovery and melt down again as they work to keep our heritage whole. With much to consider, maintaining the structure of our forefathers never looked so good.