This Kosher thing might be backfiring…

Do to life circumstances, the wife and I haven’t…um…mitvah’d all week.

We just got home from an afternoon out full of crying babies and complaining three-year-olds, so the kids were banished to the livingroom to watch some G-d awful Barney episode off the Roku, and I settled down in front of the computer with a tasty light plate of cheese, crackers, and summer sausage. Tiffany gives me a kiss before I start eating and idly suggests we have sex.

Yeah, sure. Let’s do that.

What?

Let’s have sex.

We can’t. I can’t even kiss you. You just ate meat with dairy.

…sonovabitch.

See, Tiffany is going kosher, and she’s doing it alone. I mean, why bother converting to a denomination that lets you interpret Torah for yourself, if you’re going to do something as restrictive as not eating cheeseburgers?!

She’s doing it to be closer to G-d. Or to bring G-d closer to her, I suppose. The theory is that the mindfulness one needs to have to live according to the mitzvot will always keep G-d in your mind, thus imbuing every act with a sense of the Holy.

That’s beautiful.

But I didn’t get any.

So that’s less beautiful.

Two posts on the TC Jewfolk

Matthew wrote about Jewish bling.

Tiffany wrote about ketubahs and Christians and cultural appropriation (deep!).

We are reaching an exciting milestone with TC Jewfolk: getting usernames. I think we might have to have a party with the two of us and some of our new organic kosher vodka. (I didn’t get it because it was kosher, but because it was local and organic, but it is a nice extra touch, don’t you think?)

Dear G-d, would you please write me a recommendation letter?

I lost my job this week. It was stupid.

The reason I lost it, not my job.

Actually, my job was stupid, so don’t pity me. It was beneath me.

I’ve had a lot of problems with work over my life. I’m a talented guy, and I can really sink my teeth into work, but I never try going for the things I want. And I never entirely take responsibility for my life and family.

This year has brought a lot of changes. I’ve spent more time with my family, and I’ve joined two institutions that are all about becoming a better person, Freemasonry and Judaism (listed in no particular order for all you cynical types).

In the end though, I don’t know that I’ve got all the self improvement out of it that I’ve been looking for. I don’t blame the institutions, obviously. This is a me thing. You get out of these things what you put into them, and it’s obvious to me now that I haven’t put enough into them.

What also seems obvious is that there is a G-d (or at least a cosmic social worker assigned to my case) and they’re looking out for me. You see, I certainly don’t curse G-d for me losing my job. I had to leave. It was killing me. I knew I had to leave. I was even making half-hearted attempts to find new work, but as long as I had it and it was just barely good enough, and it was a known quantity, and it was safe, I wasn’t going to leave.

My wife cut back her hours and I wasn’t going to leave. My daughter needs to go to pre-school soon and I wasn’t going to leave. We are accumulating debt and I wasn’t going to leave.

And now, through no fault of my own, in a manner I could have never predicted, my safe job left me.

And I’m nervous. I don’t do well with change.

But I have so much going for me. So much support. So much potential. And now I need so much faith, in G-d and in myself, to know that He gave me everything I need to do what I need to do.

It’d be nice if G-d actually did write me a recommendation letter, but if I took some time to think about it, in so many ways He already has.

I should take the time out to read it.