I was going to be good and not go online after Shabbat (the Sabbath), but I needed to put my computer on to send an email and record some writing ideas, so I thought I would say hi.
The shul Zoom Kaballat Shabbat (synagogue Zoom Friday evening service) was not great. I had a lot of social anxiety, worried people could see my room, worried people would think I had switched off my webcam when it simply doesn’t work for more than a minute or two, worried I could be heard even with my microphone muted, just generally worried… They got everyone to mute their microphones, but it meant it didn’t sound particularly loud and “together,” if that makes sense. I probably won’t do that again. To be honest, I think using Zoom for more than three or four people just freaks me out and confuses me a bit and I’m not sure why (probably an autism thing).
I seem to wake up around 8am and go back to sleep because I worry I haven’t had enough sleep or simply feel too overwhelmed to start the day. I think I need to try to get up then and stay up, somehow, as it would get me some more time in the day.
That was it, really.
Oh, I get emails from various library blogs for work reasons. I opened my email after Shabbat and found that The New York Public Library blog has just posted a massive list of “raised Orthodox, rebelled, became secular” fiction and non-fiction to go with Unorthodox. I know I said the other day that I don’t think there’s a massive conspiracy of publishers to promote leaving Orthodox Judaism and to silence people who join it, but it seemed a bit much not to put any books that present Orthodox Judaism in a positive light on the list, not even Chaim Potok’s The Chosen and its sequel The Promise or My Name is Asher Lev and its sequel The Gift of Asher Lev, both of which deal with people who defy the conventions of their Orthodox upbringing while not entirely burning their bridges with the community and still remaining fairly religious.
What is something that you would look forward to doing if you got up at 8? I get up around then every day and for me (I’m old), it’s the thought of my coffee and doing some word puzzles. I think that books tend to be more popular if they have conflict, angst and drama, which leaving any religion will elicit. Choosing to stay in one’s chosen religion/denomination isn’t as exciting a story. That’s my 2 cents anyway!
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To be honest, I’m not sure what I would look forward to doing at 8am that would appeal more than being in bed.
I think people were wondering why there aren’t stories of leaving the secular world and becoming religious, but there probably isn’t so much drama there either.
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I remember there was a show that followed mennonites or amish kids leaving their community. I guess they are looking for anything that the majority of people don’t know about, but that trend sounds disturbing. I hope it’s not an antisemitic thing. Jews don’t need to be “othered” any more than they/we already are.
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I don’t think it’s antisemitic exactly because I think the people writing and producing these books/programmes are mostly Jews. Still, I find it uncomfortable. I guess it makes me wonder if non-Jews will assume that all religious Jews are like the most fundamentalist 1%.
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