This is the blog that I never write. I have had this blog since I started law school. This summer I finished law school – I have written less then forty entries in three years into the blog I never write. I did not write about my pregnancy or my birth, even though I am an avid read of birth blogs.
I have found myself to be fundamentally incapable of doing something I enjoy, but which I do no have to do. Any project/hobby that I have ever started I have abandoned. This blog lies alongside every knitting project I never finished.
I am proficient at completing my “responsibilities” – and there it ends! This perhaps was the reason I found fundamentalist religion so appealing – it took away the choice. My spiritual/ritual life became a responsibility – I did not see observing shabbat or pray as a choice.
I love the idea of this blog, I love its title, I love everything about it. Except I do not write in it – despite a strong urge to write, and yet I do not.
It is hardest to do what we want and not what we must. What would it be like if I did one thing I wanted (0ne active thing – procrastination activities like watching all seven seasons of Buffy do not county).
dear sotah, your words are gift to the world, you only need to write them down for their magic to be spread
I came to your blog via your “will of God/leaving orthodoxy” post – that my friend, was something powerful. I have deep, deep issues with Judaism in general, Orthodoxy in particular, as the God that is hinted at therein “amounts” to so much more of a Person than just the covenant with the Jewish people – I don’t think it’s my mere intuition that Torah need not exhaust His Will to be true, any more than one painting can exhaust an artist intents – or even all work by an artist.
And Judaism doesn’t exhaust who I am. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong Jewish. I’m a Ger of ten years, and I don’t belong here and it’s destroying me. The kinds of arguments for exclusivity made by Orthodoxy I find made in various forms by so many other faiths and philosophies – even the “argument from Sinai ” doesn’t militate against other encounters, let alone texts (it doesn’t even argue for “The Torah” – only for the encounter; it even seems to presume comparable encounters). I grew up in a staunchly feminist, single-parent home and actually stiffled my awareness of gender issues in Judaism as I adopted it – finally it just broke, I’m glad to see you writing on it…
I know this is all rambly, but it’s erev Shabbat and I just wanted to thank you for writing your blog, and ask that you maybe just post now and again – don’t give it up entirely! (If you like I will share my blog with you). I will course through it a bit more before I start for tonight. You mention graduating law school in DC – who knows, we might have even met – I worked an area law school for 2.5 years (in a kippah), last October and still work on the same campus. Be well!
Oh Dang, you just mentioned Buffy. Be my friend.