mawidge
"i just want to stop feeling like half a person"
"ok, you started feeling this when?"
"uhm, i dunno, just recently... it's just like... i used to say that I wanted to get married but now i know that i want to get married."
"yeshiva does that to people, going to six wedding a semester would do that to anyone..."
"no but it's not even that, i mean it probably didn't help, but what i'm feeling now was always there, i just didn't know what it was."
"well it is impossible to live as a proper jew with only half of your destiny."
"yeah"
"could you marry someone who was less religious than you?"
"uhm, yeah..."
"really?"
"yes."
"lets say she wasn't shomer negiah?"
"uhm... yeah... i mean I wouldn't touch her... but i could"
"but then she'd want to touch you"
"but if i wasn't an idiot I'd make clear that any of that would be a mistake"
"ok... but i just just don't see how you could marry someone like that, i mean being shomer negiah was a huge thing for me... it totally screwed up my relationship with my family and friends, i don't see how i could be with someone who's not willing to..."
"uhm, think about it another way... is being jewish about 'the synagogue'... no, it's about one's entire life. the response to the reform movement moved the focus of jewish life from 'all of life' to a building, but that's a distraction, not the point of being a jew, it's living your entire life...
so i guess i see being shomer negiah or kashrus or whatever as 'synagogues'... I don't think that only one thing can define who a person is or where they're going spiritually, you have to look at the whole picture..."
"and what would you need to see?"
"i'd want to see that she is still trying to grow, even if she's not at the same mile marker as I am, as long as we're on the same road..."
"but how do you know that?"
"well, that's why you're going on dates... the conversation."
"but practically, you can't live with someone who doesn't keep kosher..."
"you may be right, but i've never dated someone who doesn't keep kosher"
"fair enough"
"soon by you?"
"soon by you."
