How I Became Jewish

    A great Torah scholar of our time just asked me how did his Christian best childhood's friend's little sister come to a Kabbalah class?  So I responded.
    How I became a Jew is a long story.  It started long before I knew, but I was only to realize the journey once I became an orthodox Jew.  My first realization was at my mother's funeral.  My uncle on my dad's side mentioned that my Grandma was probably Jewish.

    I was married to a devout Christian/Catholic/Baptist who was uncomfortable with Judaism at the time, so he would tell me, "You're not Jewish.  You've never even stepped in a synagogue in your life!"  So we explored Catholicism and the Baptist religion together.  I taught Catholicism for 6 years in my children's Sunday school, since I was honoring a promise to G_d---I couldn't get pregnant and once told G_d that I would raise my kids to love Him, if He let me get pregnant!  I got pregnant immediately.

    Then the ladies of the family started getting early onset breast cancer, and we found that we had the BRCA 1 gene.  Our particular gene came from our mother and is Ashkenazi Irish.  My mother died never knowing of her Jewish ancestry.

    My marriage failed and I moved home to Sacramento to be closer to my dad and clear my teaching credential in math/physics/engineering and I met an orthodox Jewish guy while kayaking on the lake after I prayed for my Adam.  I wasn't going to convert, because I felt that I couldn't deny Jesus, though I always went directly to G_d for help.

    When my boyfriend took me to Israel to meet his parents, I asked G_d to tell me what religion that I was supposed to worship, because I'd been attending at KITC for over a year by that time.  My boyfriend was in control of the itinerary and I'd long forgotten what day it was when I was praying in the Cathedral of Gethsemane right after posing in front of the marble carving of Jesus wanting to pass the cup---he didn't want to be the Moshiach, the Messiah.

    Then an understanding came over me, "Look at the date.  Look at the date!"  

    I reluctantly stopped praying and pulled my cell phone out and saw that it was July 9th and wondered where I was July 7th.  July 7 or 7/7 is the day that our tabernacles were rebuilt---my cousin and I had our double mastectomy surgeries on the exact same day a year apart without planning to combat her breast cancer and my inevitable breast cancer from the BRCA 1 gene.  7/7 on the Roman calendar is the day that G_d changes my life in a drastic way.

    I thought hard about what I was doing on 7/7.  It was the answer to what religion that I was to worship.  We were at Yad Vashem, and I was looking for my relatives that didn't get out of Germany or Slovenia.  I was also on the Western Tunnel Tour and was the closest to the Holy of Holies that you can get exactly 7 years after G_d gave me a sign of a fish that I was going to live after I asked for one while kayaking fishing on La Jolla Cove. I needed the sign, because right before my kayak trip I was told to collect my medical records for my family, because I was going to die.  So on July 7th, 7 years after I got a second chance, the only things that I did that day were Jewish, not Christian.

    Just to make sure that I caught that message, G_d made the first Parshat, Torah reading, when I returned to California Devarim/Deuteronomy Parashat Re'eh 13:2-5, "If there should stand up in your midst a prophet or a dreamer of a dream, and he will produce to you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes about, of which he spoke to you, saying, 'Let us follow gods of others that you did not know and we shall worship them!'---do not harken to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer of a dream, for Hashem, your G_d, is testing you to know whether you love Hashem, your G_d, with all your heart and with all your soul."  I knew from that direct Hebrew to English translation that I'd never seen before that G_d wanted me to become a Jew and started my conversion immediately.

    As a Jew I now know that my grandma's wig that everyone complained about was a sheitel.  She also always made latkes which my dad called potato pancakes.   The Levine family of Joliet, Illinois also renamed my grandma from Angela to Ruth, so that is not done unless she converted or was Jewish.  She was very persecuted for her Austrian/Slovenian accent in America during WWI, so I can imagine how scared she must have been about being Jewish during WWII.  She never mentioned it to her dying day, and I was one of the closest grandchildren to her.

    I also know that when I almost drowned in the American River at 12 years old and saw the tunnel of light that gave me hope that I was going to live that G_d kept me around for a reason.  It was my devout Christian brother who pulled me out of the river when I couldn't move anymore.  He put me on my back on a beach, and I looked up and saw that it was a cloudy day with no sun.  The light I saw was G_d.  Now I know that I had a personal Batmitzvah from G_d at 12 in the mikvah of the American River.

    It was exactly 40 years later after reading the Christian bible about 5 times through and having a lot of unanswered questions that I became an orthodox Jew.  Though my boyfriend insisted that I became orthodox so we could get married, he left me 2 months before I completed my 1.5 year conversion.  I guess G_d wanted to make sure that the conversion was understood to be His, G_d's, idea.  In retrospect, it all makes sense, though it was painful.

    So I attend Kabbalah classes to make my spiritual tools more understood and stronger for my next journey that He takes me on.  I have found my spiritual peace as a Jew in a not so peaceful world!
    
P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

Happy Chanukah!

   Here's the Chanukah song that I sang on my first Chanukah in 2013.  Chanukah Sameach or Chag Urim Sameach (Happy Chanukah)! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOhtDOvDtUE



P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

Funny How I Always Choose Wrong

     Way back a couple months ago a female friend with good intention gave me a card for praying for a Jewish spouse with the instructions that I pray this prayer every night after I say the Shma for 40 nights.  Well only after a few weeks of praying I got not one, but two matches on my See You At Sinai match making site.
     One match had seen me in a dream before my match come to him, and he knew without a doubt that I was his Bashert!  He was set to marry me in an instant.  When he looked at me for the first time on Skype, he just about cried in delight and told me that he loved me!
     He came out for a week during Succot.  He was not fit as he propounded throughout his match making page.  In fact he had a watermelon-sized belly.  I was shocked when he got off the plane, but I was trying to not judge him by his outsides, though he lied about his fitness.  He'd also given me his legal name by accident in an e-mail with his flight itinerary, so I had a friend do a background check while I drove to pick him up and to our surprise, he had been sued by the State of Washington for bad customer service!
     After a week of gently questioning him around this point about being sued by the whole state of Washington, he explained that he was sick with prostate cancer and under care in Texas while he was being sued in Washington.  When he returned to Washington, his wife had kicked him out and filed for divorce, so his last bit of money went to getting some custody of the children and not to defending himself from the State of Washington.  This made some sense.
     Over time he divulged that he was living off social security and that to afford for me to move to Seattle, he'd have to start a new business, so I wouldn't be supporting him.  His e-mails soon changed from love poetry about physics to ideas for starting businesses.  Soon I told him to stop e-mailing about businesses, because that was his issue.  I had a job, and it kept me too busy to help start a business.
     He still through business ideas by me, until one day he said, "Maybe I could get a CNC from that guy who owes my $50,000 for making a CNC for me, and I could make counterfeit collectible coins with counterfeit written on the side of the coin."
     "That's a federal offense!" I interjected.
      After that phone call I paid for a background check on him and then investigated his father to see if his father taught him how to criminally think and not realize it was criminal.  Sure enough his dad had been put in jail for 6 months by the State of Texas for melting feathers to put into pet food.  The smell was so horrible from their plant that the people of Waco, Texas filed a suit.
      Fortunately, G_d had a now expelled student torch a feather in my class to try to get me to evacuate it.  Since it didn't smell like burning plastic which is toxic, I didn't evacuate the class.  It did smell horrible and that was just one feather.  I could imagine how badly his father's plant had smelled.  I could imagine why a whole city filed suit against him and put him into jail.
     When I asked this suitor who desperately wanted to marry me about if his family has had any other legal issues while doing business.  He didn't admit to it.  Then I said, "So you didn't have any problems in Texas?"
     He blamed those problems on antisemitism.  Now I would have believed that, if G_d hadn't had that student torch a feather in my class.  G_d also had the poor suitor suffer from a very bloody bladder disease right after Yom Kippur, so G_d was really not happy about this guy pursuing me so strongly.
     I'd also found that he was using his deceased father's name to do business in Seattle.  He'd mentioned that his new business would also have to be under my name, not his.  This just made my skin crawl that he could put me into jail with some sketchy business deal, so I finally told him that he wasn't ready for this relationship and ended it.
     A few days later I went back to my other match that I'd previously told that I've found my Bashert, so I didn't want him to wait around for me.  For some reason I never ended our match formerly, so I explained that the guy that I thought was my Bashert was a criminal.  I was a corporate spy and did a background check and found that he had some criminal behaviors in business.  My other match was kind and liked the idea that I was a corporate spy and took me back, but said that he would dating others.
     Well, it's been well over a month since this other match actually communicated with me.  I was actually going to formerly end it with him.  Then, out of the blue, he called.  He talked on and on like we've been talking every week.  I did face exercises to rid me of my jowls in the reflection of my black window while I listened to him.  I finally asked him, "Why haven't you ever been married?"
      Then he started another soliloquy with exceptional detail and added at the end, "I'm on the autism spectrum."
      "Oh really," as if I hadn't figured that one out.  "What type of autism?"
       "I have Aspergers."
       "Well, so do I.  How does yours exhibit?"
        He doesn't have the tactile issues that I have, but he has little twitches like twirling his hair.
        I added, "I said it was OK for my matches to have Aspergers, but I didn't say that I had it, since I can pass as a neural typical."  I explained in detail how my daughter made me take the Aspie test, because she was so upset to be raised by an mother with Aspergers.  My son is half neural typical and half Aspie.
        "Aren't female Aspies rare?"  He asked.
        "Incredibly."
        We shared our wonderful soliloquies of our very interesting adventures for over an hour---being gracious and letting the other talk without interrupting.  We didn't have to worry about being misunderstood.  We didn't have to worry about boring the other.  We didn't have to try to be neural typical.  We just were ourselves.
         I ended the conversation, "So, you'll call in another month?"
         He laughed.
         "Could you make it sooner this time---like a week?" I added.
         And so G_d answered my prayer for a Jewish spouse, and I chose wrong.  At least G_d let us have another chance to figure out that we were each other's Bashert.


P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

The Thanksgiving Blues

    Today as I kayaked on Lake Natoma where I met my ex-fiance tears were in my eyes, not for him, but for being without my children on Thanksgiving.  Perhaps that's why my ex broke up with me last year at this time.  My motherly instincts to have my children with me, when I'm thankful for all the G_d has given to me, always makes me sad when I'm without my precious children every year on Thanksgiving.
    Yet G_d gave me glassy water with a massive storm overhead, a storm heading to the Sierra Mountains to drop the snow which I prayed for to keep me busy skiing while I was alone.  G_d gave me a lake all to myself with the most beautiful reds popping out of deep greens.  G_d gives me so much when I cry to Him on the water....and just when I cry to Him.  I constantly blessed all the beauty and miracles that he gave to me as I paddled onward toward the mountains and back, and the glassy water and beauty lasted without a drop of rain upon me.
    Though the blues hit me later in the morning, earlier this morning I was too sleepy for the blues to hit me as I dropped my son off at the airport.  He's such a good man and lives with me again, so he can go back to college.  I spent all my college money on his sister while he was finding himself and developing his rock n roll band, Air Surgeon.  He's never stopped loving me over that.  His sister is much different.
    After his sister's college graduation and wedding, she wrote and told me to only write her if it had to do with money or a severe medical emergency.  My dad's stroke was not severe enough, and she wrote, "Your breaking the rules."
     When I told my son this for the first time yesterday, he said, "What a spoiled, bratty, princess!"  That's what most of her psychologists have told her in professional terms over the years, too.  I still have hope that one day whatever I did or didn't do is forgiven.  She's my daughter, and I love her.
     I know that, because I was severely physically and emotionally abused by my middle brother and sister as I grew up with undiagnosed Aspergers that no amount of work will obliterate the insensitivity that I have toward abusive behavior.  With all my training as a teacher, I know more and more what abusive behavior is.  I know what made me feel bad and never did it to my children.  I know that I moved my children far away from my siblings to keep them safe, but what did I unknowingly bring with me that hurt my daughter?
     She's explained it to me: I didn't listen to her enough.  I had Aspergers.  I wasn't strong enough during my surgical menopause, and she felt like a parent to me.  I fed her huge Paku fish, that looked like a piranha, to the cat when that fish ate all the other fish in the aquarium.  For some reason she felt like I always thought she was fat, though I purposefully stopped myself from doing that to her, since my mother did it to me.  At least I did better than most abused children do as parents, but that's not going to make my relationship with my daughter any better now.
    After finishing my mandatory reporters training for teachers last week, I remarked to my son, "They added something new into it this year.  They added, 'Interview the parents that are abusing their children, because they probably will tell you how they're abusing their children without even knowing it.  In their minds what they do is not abuse.  It's just what the family does.'"
    "Did I do something bad that I was unaware of to my children?"  I asked my son.  At least my son didn't think so, but what if my abuse was now his normal?  What an endless cycle of training and retraining myself to recognize abusive behavior.  What an endless cycle of removing myself from my siblings' and exhusband's abuse only to be abused by my daughter's rules of interaction.
     Anyway, I'm alone, so no one is abusing me on Thanksgiving, but I wish that I wasn't alone.  I wish that someday I'll find a life partner that will look into my eyes on Thanksgiving and make me focus on him and not on missing my children or the pain from my past, just as G_d keeps me focused on the beautiful glassy water and reds of the trees as I kayak toward the mountains and back beneath the storm clouds of life.


P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

Getting Psyched for Skiing!

   Water conveys energy on so many levels.  This energy revives me while I'm kayaking on it, swimming in it, hiking through it, or skiing on top of it.  With our cold storms with heavy rains my students and I were excited for the snow, so I watched my skiing videos from 2014 and got psyched up for visiting my old haunts at Squaw Valley and Alpine.  I definitely need to train, so I don't get hurt this season!
   While exploring Alpine Meadows I just followed ski tracks and got a bit lost on this adventure!

    My GoPro can be a bit difficult to adjust for videos.  A few times it fell downward and took a video of my legs moguling.

This is a great mogul run which is way off the beaten path at Granite Chief at Squaw Valley.

I did have a nasty fall down this shoot when I hit some ice.  I belly flopped on my apple and severely bruised my ribs.  I learned to cut my apple into slices or just have soft fruit in my lunch, if I'm going to store my lunch in the front of my body suit.

Olympic Lady is my favorite run at Squaw Valley.  It's where I'd always find my expert skiing friends each year and catch up.  The lift isn't operated anymore, but you can still get to the East Bowl with a little work!

A random expert skier that had the same skill level as me joined me for the day, so I put him to work and had him take video of me!

I had to put a KT-22 video in.  This is Northface.  The Westface was solid ice that day and couldn't be skied by even experts.

This shows how tough it is to ski on ice and why I'm alone on Granite Chief!

P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

My Search for a Jewish Husband Continued

     When I was dealing with my BRCA 1 issues 10 years ago, I clung onto G_d as a Christian trying to find in Him the strength to fight the error in my DNA and make the difficult decision to preemptively do a double mastectomy which I knew would be the end of my marriage to a boob man.  My first love, who was my only male emotional support, told me then that I should be a nun.  I was hoping as an orthodox Jew that I could love G_d as deeply as I do and be married.  It's not looking likely that that will ever happen.
     My devout Christian brother was so enraged with me when he heard that I was converting to Judaism and also marrying a Jewish man.  He said, "You would give up Jesus for the love of a man here on earth?"  Maybe G_d wants to emphasize that my conversion was purely His idea by taking all my possibilities of a Jewish marriage away from me.  As my brother and a few dear Jewish friends now say, "Just cling onto G_d.  Why do you need a man?"
     It's been 2.5 years since I've had relations.  Frankly I've forgotten that loving feeling, so I don't need a man.  Orthodox men can't touch me, so it's unlikely I'll ever have that loving feeling start again.
     My journey into Judaism has brought me into a deeper understanding of my dear Grandma Ruth, my father's mother, who was a closet Jew.  Now that I'm Jewish I clearly see how she was secretly celebrating Judaism, so no one would harass her about it.  My dear friends at my synagogue have taught me about orthodox Jewish loving kindness, mercy, charity, repentance, and peace---not annihilating another Jew, even when they probably deserve my version of hardball.
     Yes, I've had cause to want to play my hardball.  The Jewish men that have been attracted to me have had major character flaws.  My fantasy of meeting a righteous Jewish man to marry is shattered. An Israeli man lied to me for 2.5 years about not wanting children, renovated a home with me that I purchased for us, used me as a vacation spot in Tahoe, broke up with me in a text while I was sleeping when I was returning to get married, and almost immediately got engaged to an Israeli woman who could have kids.  She broke up with him after 8 months.  An older famous Jew, whose wife was dying of cancer, tried to seduce me.  Another older mogul of the Jewish community, who was conservative, continually tried to get me to transgress from orthodoxy, so we could date.  An American man who wanted to get betrothed by Rosh Hoshana and married by Simcha Torah just wanted to run businesses under my name and credit and have me be his support in his old age.  A man who wanted to be more orthodox broke off his Thanksgiving visit and left me for a women 23 years younger than him---a woman who wanted kids when he didn't.  Numerous men have also just wanted me in the wings, so they could tell their moms that they were dating someone.
     Many of them said that the Mashiach, Messiah, will come when all the Shabbat candles are lit together, which is a mitzvah performed by women.  Well, I do think that the men contribute to this Mashiach issue, too.  How is the Shechinah, the column of G_d's light, supposed to descend upon a minyan of Jewish men in prayer if some of their minyan are capable of such selfish, misguided behavior?
     Though I'm not sorry for converting to Judaism, it has given me spiritual peace while I'm in the spiritual realm, and made my connection to G_d so strong that He even blew the matches out when I tried to light the Shabbat candles too late last night (I wasn't used to Day Light Savings Time yet).  Unfortunately, I am sorry that my Jewish ancestors that left Judaism did have reason to do so.  However, they left a pure form of worshiping G_d in order to find peace on earth with people.
     May we all have G_d's peace within our hearts with every breath that we take and radiate light to this dark world---if we all try to earnestly behave righteously, not just proclaim to be righteous, then maybe the Moshiach will come.


P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

Narrowing the Field

    It became obvious to me that I could not juggle three men and a new job.  I needed to narrow down which man was my bashert, my soul mate.  The limo guy was being kept away by G_d himself.  Who else could prevent a man from making it to a Shabbat dinner with my finest wine and crystal goblets and my friends and family?  His limo's coolant hose busted twice to keep him from the dinner!  He also lost his license due to health reasons, so our whole summer went by without any contact.  I was amazed that he lost 60 pounds after he met me.  He said, "I fell in love with you at first sight!"
    I rebutted, "There's a lot more to me that what you see."
    When I broke it off with him, I just said, "I think that G_d is keeping us apart, and we can't fight G_d."  He painfully agreed.  He called me in the early morning hours, but disconnected before I could answer.
    The fourth match, an MIT-trained naval engineer from Virginia just was difficult with which to converse.  He'd get into an oratory and seemed like he spent way too much time with his mom.  Having never been married at 60 raised a whole lot of flags, so I finally told him that I didn't think that we were a match and not to waste his time on me.
     With the field narrowed, I focused on my third match-maker match, who's name means "Shining Joy" in English.  He wanted me to fly to Seattle to visit, but I told him that I was on a tight budget and couldn't afford it.  He agreed to get me a plane ticket, so I got a substitute for the extra day that I'd be gone, cancelled my Rosh Hashana dinner plans, and excitedly told my friends about him.
     Then he sent me a text telling me that he couldn't arrange the ticket, because I'd be traveling on a non-emergency basis to return to Sacramento for work late of the second Holy Day.  "To fly you to Seattle to celebrate Rosh Hashana, to meet, and be welcomed into my community, then send you back prematurely (on a non-emergency basis) would be generally perceived as a very bad choice to begin our life together in Heaven, and on Earth.  An I want our life together to be Heaven on Earth.  I believe I saw certain coalescent light with scintillation of soft brilliance when I saw you, your beautiful face leading a comet of light.  Your hair was shorter, you were eternal, but only as an authentic Torah observant Jewish couple:  neither too stringent for you, nor too lenient for me."
     "So I cancelled my arrangements and got a sub and your cancelling on me visiting?  I'm in a spiritual state of Israel and have been since I was 12 (meaning G_d and I have been communicating since then).  If you are in the state of Israel, then you only have to observe one day (not the two days off work in other countries).  Though G_d just  inspired me with this thought, I wouldn't use this unless I had to.  I wouldn't want other Jews to misunderstand and be upset or misled.  At least my community completely understands why I'm doing this, since they've watched me work myself to the bone to keep this home on one income.
     "Well, I'm terribly disappointed, shamed, and embarrassed at the thought of having to explain this to the people I've told.  Not a great way to fall asleep after a hard day."
     "If your meriting the love of an upright, good-hearted, G_d-fearing, mature and responsible, truthful, Jewish man, not a worm that eats dirt, for a husband to be so, so to speak, I'm terribly sorry to spoil your plans, and lose face, not to take the word of experienced, living Judaism.  Tell them that you are a Jew, and you accepted 613 strings attached to liberation as other like minded warriors.  And not make war on your Maker....treat kindly, many with love, few at odds, all.  But especially fellow Jews.  In your case, there is also pure romantic love, a durable spiritual union, with enough modest carnal desire to keep you fulfilled...., loved, concerned, considerate, and interested, comforted, and consoled as only an enlightened.  Like one's dearest friend on Earth saved you from stepping into spiritual danger...but for real.  If that's all I was put here to do, not harm, only help, as a Torah observant Jewish man possibly can.  I regret your current discomfort.  I could not have cared more about you.  I still do.  I still care.  That's what great husbands do.  I am sorry you don't understand yiras shamayim, the Jewish doctrine of mutual responsibility.  That's everything.  Everlasting.
     "Together, what happens to you, happens to me too.  You're a semi-physicist.  We are entangled.  Not because we should.  BUT because we must.  Love came easy.  Fear came after.  If not now, for you certainly later.  That's the frequency.  Every time a Jew sins, the Jewish people bear some responsibility.
      "Hey, thanks for the mitzvah mister.  Hey what's your name?  It doesn't matter.  Why?  You don't undo pairs of photons.  Look at one, the other flips.  I didn't have to dig all the way to Israel to discover this.  Just to hell, and back.  I can take on all your financial debt.  Just not the spiritual kind of liabilities.
      "If this makes sense:  honk once.  If this makes no sense:  do nothing.  Marriage is a holy merger.  I cannot believe this does not matter to you in the Holy recesses."  He kept going on while I was sleeping and probably blew a head gasket waiting for my response.
      I finally awoke and quickly replied, "I understand what you are saying.  I'm disappointed, but will still keep the possibility of our marriage in my heart.  I have just ended all my other male friendships to invest fully in our relationship.  I must go to work.  I have parent teacher night tonight.
     "I was able to get my invitation back for Rosh Hashana, but now have no escort for my late night walk home which worries my host, but I know how to get home without being seen.  I did it many times in Tahoe without a walking escort.  I had to worry about mountain lions, mountain men, and bears back then.  I hope that you recovered from your lack of sleep."
     He wrote back, "What's your home delivery?  I am going to order 2nd day air delivery of 1) 25,000,000 Volt mini stun gun, and 2) police and bear strength campers' pepper spray.  Do you want them in black or pink? ...It is not permissible to carry anything outside of the eruv on Shabbat.  However, there is an exception in your case for self protection (pekuach nefesh) for defensive weapons devices.  You may also carry firearms, but I hope that you would never need them B"H."
     "No worries about buying me weapons.  I already have them.  I just didn't know that I could carry them on Shabbat.  Yom Tov I can carry.  We do have and eruv and I created an eruv in my gated community.  I took some Matzah to my orthodox neighbors house in here to create the eruv."
     "I have a compound bow, too,"  I added.  "I got attacked twice at UC Berkeley, and once didn't go so well.  But it got me to get a mace license and take hapkido.  My psychopathic brother was a junior state champion wrestler, and I also had to defend myself every day from him.  I showed him that I could kick his nose into his brain, so he stopped bothering physically.  He tried to abuse me in an e-mail last week.  We speak every 10 years or so, so I asked him why he was so abusive?  He told me to F-off.  Not great emotional composure for a business man.  lol  It's funny that I can push the buttons of this man."
     My shining joy had mentioned that his mom was going in for surgery, so it was a good thing that I was not flying in to Seattle, since he had to fly to New York to see her.  So I added, "May you have a safe journey and may Hashem guide the doctors' hands while they operate on your mom. B"H  My thoughts and prayers are with you.  Make sure that you are with your mom.  Mine died suddenly the night before her surgeries due to an error, so I never got to feel the last warmth of her hand and kiss her warm forehead.  At least I told her that I loved her over the phone."
     My shining joy replied, "I want you with me.  All of you.  Your depth of goodness always mine, always yours."
     "Sounds wonderful.  It's comforting to know that there is a human who wants to lighten my load and truly love me with pure love and not pure lust or as a guide to navigate the upper class echelons.  Shabbat Shalom."
      He added, "My heart comes to rest in your hands.  My mind finds peace in your heart.  Any all is well in the world knowing how close we are.  Shabbat Shalom"
     "You warm my heart with your words."  I definitely narrowed down the field correctly!


P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

The Search for My Bashert

      Being the former corporate spy I did my research on my new match.  He'd given kosher protein bars to an Israeli athlete that could not find kosher ones for her training per an old internet post.  He had a webpage that connected local Seattle businesses, too.  On Aug. 29th, Shabbat, the visiting ex-wife from Seattle of one of our prominent Torah scholars confirmed that she knew this man and told me that he was a good man.  She routinely ate near him at Kiddish on Shabbat.  He was very serious and handsome.  When I asked why he and his wife divorced, she said that he was controlling, but he'd done some work on that over the years.
      Though I did briefly talk to him right before Shabbat, he was trapped in a car carpooling 9 and 10 year old kids who were intently listening.  I completely understood.  When a parent carpools, they get to hear their kids talk freely with their friends while forgetting their parent is in the car.  It's a great time to be innocuous and just listen and learn about your kids; however, if you're the one talking, then the kids get to learn about you!  A first conversation with a love prospect would not be the best thing for your own kids to over hear, of course.  
      Finally on Sunday after Shabbat I looked forward to his call.  He ended up at a music festival all day which was a little irritating.  Was he really serious about talking with me?  Once he returned he carved out a little time for me before evening prayers.  I love his Carl Sagan-like voice.  He definitely is a man of science.  We effortlessly talked during the little time that we had.  Our conversation was short and sweet with hope for future conversations, but I wondered if my heart would ever really open up again.
     My match makers found yet another match to my surprise.  He was on the East Coast in Virginia.  He is also a man of science---engineering.  He also liked to travel to exotic places.  That sounded great!  He isn't orthodox though.  He also wasn't as attractive to me, and I had no way to find out if he was real.  I did my background check on him and found Linkin pages, where he lives, and that all his relatives live around him in Richmond, Virginia.  He was probably going to want me to move there should we be a match.  I'd give him a chance, at least.
     In the meantime, suiter #3 and I talked again.  I just felt at ease and the conversation was interesting and flowed.  We both had a deep connection to G_d.  We both told each other a brief synopsis of our life journeys, as brief as you can be after living over 50 years.  We closed on a beautiful note as he had to leave to go pray again at his synagogue.
    He texted me late into the night, "On my way home I sat by rippling waters.  Still wild geese watched me think about you."
     I adored this line and responded, "How beautiful and sweet.  Water is such a spiritual conductor and certainly connects us."
     "Torah: Jews: water: humans.  Erev Shabbat Shalom."
     "Interesting.  I hope that you had a great day!  My students watched me think about you.  Erev Shabbat Shalom, too."
      "Just about physics:  I touched her.  She was more light than form.  She touched me back.  That was all it took to get waves of love to flow back and forth like breathing adoring moments."
      Oh, suddenly after reading that my heart warmed.  This man knew how to talk to me---in the language of harmonics, my favorite subject in physics at U.C. Berkeley!
      "And the wave periods aligned amplifying the harmonic oscillation of the two waves,"  I quickly responded as my students came into my classroom and stood around me before the bell rang.  "What?  It's still my lunch break!"  I smiled at my students while I texted in front of them for once, instead of them texting in front of me.
       Later I texted, "You're very poetic btw.  I'm enjoying this aspect of you.  My students got into my classroom early, so I hurridly finished my other response to you.  I will smile all during Shabbat while thinking of you."
     "Let's meet.  As a rib taken while I slept.  I want to kiss you once before Rosh Hashana.  We should be together soon.  Hours have passed, since I wrote five other drafts.  I just need to know if we are destined for each other's tender embrace.  But we can get in our cars, GPS our mutual destination, drive until we meet, rest at peak amplitude, then decide who's driving the rest of the way to paradise.  Poetry wax.  It's going to be a bumper crop after 34 years of drought.  It happens when I turn my attention to you.  The feeling is warm as a pulse and deep."
      "I haven't written any decent poetry for 10 years.  I, too, have been in a drought.  I would love to meet you also to see if you are who G_d made for me."  Then I proposed how to drive to each other, but ended that it's safest to fly, and we should probably Skype first.
       Then he told me that he knew in his heart that I was his bashert and that he wanted to betroth me on Rosh Hashana and marry me before the end of the Holy Days of Tishrei on Shmeni Etzeret.

.
      I was uncomfortable with the speed of this betrothal.  Once you're betrothed, you are considered married, but you can't touch each other until the actual wedding which could be months or a year or two later.  I would have to cover my hair during the betrothal---just like I would when we married, since he's an orthodox man.  The hair covering indicates to all other Jewish men that I'm married.  I also didn't know much about him or if he really is over being controlling.
      He is definitely quite knowledgeable in the Torah and a builder of the Seattle Orthodox community.  He definitely is exactly what the Jewish prayer for a spouse requests.  He definitely is the front runner of my three prospects.
   

P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

The Prayer for Finding a Spouse

    One of my regular Shabbat dinner guests insisted that I go to the Rosh Chodesh gathering of ladies in the community.  We learn Torah and do healing prayers all together by reading psalms and doing public petitions for our loved ones.  It's also a time of eating and rejoicing!
    When we talked about numerology, I mentioned my precious numerology that I've recently discovered.  I nearly drowned in the upper American River when I was 12 years old, the age of Bat Mitzvah, the coming of age of a spiritual woman.  The American River is a Mikvah, pure water for spiritual cleansing.  So G_d gave me a personal Bat Mitzvah, since I had no idea of my Jewish heritage.
     Even more amazing is that 40 years after my personal Bat Mitzvah with G_d, I did an orthodox conversion to Judaism in 1.5 years---very quickly.  When the ladies heard my personal numerology, there were gasps.  They knew the importance of the American River being a Mikvah, and some had used it instead of the community Mikvah.  They also were amazed that it was exactly 40 years of wandering through many religions to find my way home.  Only Jews wander for 40 years!
    It became apparent to all that my ex-fiance, who was shamed to leave the country and go back to Israel for what he did to me, actually was a tool of G_d's to bring me to Judaism.  Perhaps that will save him from G_d's total wrath.  His stock has dropped from $12 to $5.5 a share which must have financially devastated him.  I did warn my ex-fiance over our years together that G_d takes care of my revenge better than I ever could.  I just let Him have at whomever has done me wrong and sit back and watch.  Sometimes I'll ask for mercy on the poor person who wronged me, but I have a lot of growing to do before I can do that for my ex-fiance.
    Anyway, I've gotten settled into a life of being an island and not putting myself out there to be hurt again.  My teaching job is going well, and I've gotten the school to pay me to tutor all the Arab new arrivals in math.  These students have no idea that I'm an orthodox Jew, but they realize that I know a lot about Middle Eastern culture.  Together we are helping each other.  I'm helping them learn English math words and they're helping me keep my home.  It's funny how G_d works.
    Also, a mutual friend of my ex-fiance and me gave me the Jewish prayer for finding a spouse with the instructions to say it every night for 40 nights.  So I have.  As usual, G_d listens and the Jewish matchmakers finally found me a third match today.  He does look like a man of science and truth.  I just have to make sure that he's not a man of judgement.  I seem to run into those too much.  Should you do one thing wrong that gives them reason to unmercifully react and break commitments.  I will just have to have faith that one day G_d will bring me my other half who is somewhere out there.  Maybe this match is that man.  Maybe it's not.  TBD


P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

Israel Be Strong and Be Light

     With antisemitism on the rise with the call for a boycott of Israeli products even on Facebook perhaps Israel should take a look inwardly.  Of course every nation makes mistakes, but Israel is special.  It's G_d's country.
      In Deuteronomy (Devarim) Moses states in 4:8-10 "And which is a great nation that has righteous decrees and ordinances, such as this entire Torah that I place before you this day?  Only beware for yourself and greatly beware for your soul, lest you forget the things that your eyes have beheld and lest you remove them from your heart all the days of your life, and make them known to your children and your children's children the day that you stood before Hashem, your G_d, at Horeb, when Hashem said to me, 'Gather the people to Me and I shall let them hear My words, so that they shall learn to fear Me all the days that they live on the earth, and they shall teach their children.'"
      Rabbi David Abudraham (Abarbanel) states in reference to 'entire Torah,' "The key word is entire, for the Torah;s infinite wisdom is recognized only when it is seen, studied, and understood in its entirely."
      Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi) states, "Only if you remember the laws and perform them perfectly will you be respected by the nations, but if you permit forgetfulness to pervert your proper performance of the commandments, you will be regarded as fools.  The Torah is not a grab bag from which one may pick and choose.  It is like the blueprint of a complex edifice; unless every part is followed, the building may collapse."
     Rabbi Chaim Ben Attar (Or Chaim) states, "So that they shall learn to fear Me.  The very fact of the Revelation as enough to implant a sense of awe into the Jewish soul, so that fear of G_d became part of the nature of the Jew.
     "Moses implied that fear of G_d is an essential outcome of the study of Torah and contemplation of the Revelation Meditation that does not lead to commitment and action is entirely insufficient."
     Israel, it is time to look at your study and at your actions.  If they are aligned with the Torah, continue on.  If they are not aligned with the Torah, try harder to do better and do Teshuvah (repentance).  Unfortunately, the darkness is targeting the light's imperfections.  Be strong and be light.


P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

The Mitzvah of Returning a Lost Item

     Last week I was busy finishing my nesting in my home that G_d will not let me sell.  It's been 5 years since I've unpacked my pictures, and I've even got the last room, my office, organized and unpacked.  The wild thing was the last box.  I didn't even see this box, because it was under the poster that my Tahoe students had made me as a going away gift saying, "Sacramento is lucky to have you!"  and many students put little post its with words of love and encouragement.
    After I put the poster up on my wall the box was hard to miss.  I didn't recognize the box, and my movers had taped is securely shut.  I cut the tape with scissors and to my surprise the box was full of my ex-fiance's pictures of he and his first wife!  With curiosity I looked through the pictures that I'd never seen before.  Was there any hint of this man's cruelty in his youth?
     I searched his face to see how I could have been so blind as to be used for 2.5 years for thrills, only to be left by a 57-year-old man, because I couldn't have children anymore and right before my Jewish conversion was complete, so he'd have to marry me.  And yes,  we did have that conversation that I couldn't have children 2.5 years before.  No, this man had no cruelty visible.  He was utterly in a selfish, fantasy world.  Unfortunately, I had to do the mitzvah of returning this lost item to him, and soon because he was leaving to Israel forever at the end of the month.
    Now I know that G_d timed this for me to find this box at this time for a reason, so I decided to go with the flow and follow the moral road and let G_d do what He does best, dish out the consequences.   So I wrote a little note on a sticky note and attached it to the box.  I always called my ex, "Ahuvi," meaning "My love" in Hebrew said to a man.  He always called me, "Ahuvati," meaning "My love" in Hebrew said to a woman.  "Lo," means "not" in Hebrew.

     "Lo Ahuvi,
            Today you have mazal tov.
                     Lo Ahuvati
P.S.  Don't try to thank me."

    So basically I said, "You"re not my love,  Today is your lucky day.  Not your love."  Since he has been harassing me by trying to drop my items off one at a time, I've have him on "Harassment Warning."  He wants to apologize to me, but I don't want to hear it.  How do you accept an apology from a person who basically left you out to sea and never checked to see if you made it safely to shore?  Then when I appeared back in civilization alive, he put on the pretense of being a supportive friend in front of others by buying me flowers in celebration of my conversion.  No, I would never speak to this man again.
     This presented a problem.  I didn't want to see him, but I had to return these pictures to him, and it appeared the G_d wanted me to do it myself, since few people liked him after what he did to me.  He also had his new Israeli fiance with him.  He brought this non-observant, new Israeli fiance to the synagogue two Sabbaths ago to parade her in front of everyone.  She really didn't want to be there and didn't know how to follow an orthodox service.  They stopped the Torah in front of her for quite some time before she finally figured out that she was supposed to touch it.  They never stop the Torah like that!  I did have to have 4 shots of whiskey to get through that Sabbath kiddish with grace and a smile.
     Then the solution came to me!  He's selling his home.  He'll probably have an open house on Sunday!  I checked online and indeed his home was listed as having an open house then.  So I brought the box in to his home which was bustling with people and placed it immediately by the stove where his fiance would probably see it.  I quickly distanced myself from the box to remove any connection of it to me and walked through the home like everyone else, except I was making sure that he really was moving to Israel and that I'd gotten all my things back once and for all.
     One of his Israeli friends saw me as I passed her and our eyes met briefly.  She was stunned and I just smiled in victory.  He was leaving the country, because of the shame that he caused the Jewish people over leaving me right as I was returning to finish my conversion.
     To keep her from questioning me, I got the real estate agent's attention to take care of one more matter. The night before the infamous break-up text while I was sleeping, I negotiated with my ex-fiance that if I were to move in to his home, then all the pictures of naked women will have to come down, so I can entertain members of our community at the home.  Apparently, the real estate agent had also had him take down a lot more than those pictures, but he missed one---the one of the half-naked blond by the master bed that looked like me.  So I escorted the real estate agent to that picture and said, "This picture should be taken down.  It is offensive during an open house."
     Without waiting for his action or reply, I walked out the door.  I did my mitzvah of returning a lost item, made my presence known to one of my ex-fiance's friends, and got all the pictures of naked women off the walls without touching anything.   My smug smile of success beamed as I left that home where I once had lived and planned on making a life.  Now my ex-fiance would have to explain to his new fiance about me and why I would have a box of pictures of his first marriage.


P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

Visions, Dreams, Anthropomorphisms of God

      G_d promised to Joel the restoration of prophecy, "After that, I will pour out My spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy.  Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions." (Joel 3:1)  Old women will dream dreams, and young women will see visions due to the line before it which includes sons and daughters.
      What's the difference between dreams and visions and why is age the barrier between them?  We are involved in dreams---sleep walking and talking---we're participating in a dream.  When we have a vision, it's just like watching a movie.  We are seeing it in an uninvolved way.  We can't stop it or change it.
       Why do we only see visions when we are young, but when we are old we are allowed to participate in a dream?  When we are young, we have so few references and education that we may join what is revealed to us in an inappropriate way.  We are not allowed to participate, because we may innocently do something very dark with our new found gift from G_d and pervert and sin with our gift.
        Now my grandma who started me on my spiritual path outside of religion, only had a 4th grade education.  She was also chased out of the Catholic church by a priest around that same time when she left school to support her drunkard father.  Grandma learned to go into people's minds without their knowledge and make them do what she wanted them to do, and she became a millionairess.  As a kid I found this a great way to cheat at Rummy, a card game.  You just make your opponents discard the card that you want them to discard.  My brother is a CEO and multimillionaire, who's given in to evil, so I can only imagine what he's doing to people's minds.  I just stay far away from him.
      When I became an adult, I stopped using this mind-control skill with the only exception:  I used it last December at the Christmas staff party of a Tahoe high school that ran me out of town for being Jewish.  When it was the principal's turn to pick a gift, I made her pick the gift that I chose for her.  She walked over, looked at all the presents, picked up the present that I was focusing on and sending to her mind,  and it was the worst gift of all!  Because I had a little fun and revenge with her, she also got a lighter consequence from G_d than everyone else involved in my harassment.  So, that's what we do when we're angry, young, uneducated, basking in darkness, or not wise.  Hence, the youth and untrained, naturally-gifted spirituals are only allowed spiritual gifts with huge restraints.
      There is an exception to this.  Due to the quantity of people who are assimilated Jews with prophetic capability, G_d lures them back.  After Grandma was done teaching me how to cheat at cards, G_d gave me visions of who I'd see the next day.  These were people that I would not normally see, so it had more impact that I was experiencing a bit of prophecy at 16.  As I fell over to the darkness with my spiritual gifts and no religious training, I started trying to manipulate the physical world.
       I practiced and practiced with no results for a year.  Then at the Big Game between Stanford and Cal in 1982 I was in shock at what I did---I didn't act like a vessel of G_d, I selfishly did something on my own (with G_d's help without my knowledge).  The year before my two brothers had razzed me cruelly at the Big Game tailgate party at Stanford when Cal lost to Stanford.  This next year, 1982,  Stanford and Cal were neck in neck.  We had 2 seconds left and I wasn't going to be razzed by my brothers again, since Cal was losing!  In the middle, 5th row of the cheer section and with deep emotion I went within myself and visualized an unorthodox way to win the game, since I don't follow football and don't know football plays.  I opened my eyes and Cal did everything that I visualized and won the game.  Now that play is in the top 10 most famous football plays and is called "The Play."
       My mouth dropped open after "The Play" happened, and I dashed out on to the field with our cheer section to scream, "We're number 1!  We're number 1!" to the Stanford fans.  I learned how powerful my gifts could be in this world, even though I didn't have too much of a relationship with G_d.  G_d allowed me to do this to encourage me to selfishly continue honing my abilities, so when I did bother to study G_d's Word and follow His Mitzvot later in life, my skills were so honed that it was like breathing.
       My way of learning spirituality is not a recommended way to go about learning how to be in a prophetic realm and alter this world by any means.  G_d just wanted me to continue to develop myself and gave me amazing reinforcement by allowing me to alter this world without truly knowing Him.  I had no human support system like some spiritual families do.
       There is a severe drawback to learning spirituality in an untrained and selfish way.  Now that I am G_d's servant, I am paying for decades of being selfish and detached from G_d.  I've suffered enormous loss---loved ones dying, millions of dollars disappearing, several health catastrophes, and my heart being broken over and over again by people that I love.  My brother who is a CEO and misuses his gifts may never suffer like I am in this world, but he will have no part of the World to Come.  My beloved Grandma will be saved by me.  We can save our ancestors by being righteous, because they had a part in making us righteous.  So prophetic skills are not to be used selfishly and without G_d's Word or practicing Mitzvot.
       So why would G_d let me alter the world when I was young, yet only have dreams when I'm old?  What is that about?  When we're old we don't usually need to part the Red Sea or create a famous football play just to win a game.  G_d's made it clear to us that the manna will fall, all our needs will be provided, and if we stray we will pay.  We have faith in Him and have a close relationship with Him.  He does want us to listen to Him, interact with Him for others as a witness to others in order to strengthen other people's faith, do exactly what He wants us to do or it will be painful, and be His interface here, as well as anything else G_d may want to do with us.
       Once G_d trains us with various baby steps year after year, we finally rate spiritual dreams.  So we old people will connect all our various gifts that we've learned to use which are appropriate to see and experience that which G_d allows us to see and experience while we are wandering in the spiritual world.  We have enough life experience and training to interpret and interact with what we are seeing and participating in.
       The only problem is how do we interpret what we see and experience?  We interpret what we see and experience with what G_d has taught us so far.  Per Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan in Inner Space "G_d can only speak to us in a language we understand and we therefore have a rule:  'The Torah speaks in the language of man.'  This means that a physical allegory may be used to express a very profound philosophical relationship between G_d and his creation."
      This allegory evolves as we evolve, as well.  For instance, when I was a Christian, I interpreted a major dream in Christian allegory.  Now that I'm an orthodox Jew, I interpret the allegory of the dream much differently.  Each interpretation of allegory is appropriate and valid for that time period, because it's meaning was what I needed at the time, even though it was one dream.  G_d knew that I would unfold the depths of the dream as I studied about G_d further and followed His Mitzvot.  In years to come, more from the dream will be revealed to me, as I draw closer to G_d.  On a macro level the Torah that Moshe (Moses) wrote also reveals to us more as we evolve.
      We draw closer to G_d by studying His Word in the Torah.  The Torah uses anthropomorphisms, so that we can better understand what we're absorbing.  However, G_d has no parts or body, so there is really no physical description of G_d when these anthropomorphisms are utilized.  "G_d's eyes"  alludes to His omniscience in this world.  "G_d's hand" alludes to His power and guidance of this world.  He is the master chess player that is letting us chose how to move our pieces while He is moving us to a certain corner.When something smells good to G_d's nose, He understands the bright light of our love, restraint, beauty, dominance and empathy, and foundation.  Perverse acts would smell bad to G_d like the acts of Sodom and Gomorrah.  When G_d speaks, He is showing us kingship and our boundaries.  Though there are many emotions and other anthropormorphisms, we should always remember to not take them literally, since we don't have the capacity to completely grasp G_d's unity while in this world of many parts.
      So grow with G_d and Mitzvot all you prophets in training.  Bare your iniquity, as I did to know God's Glory.  Now is the new age to be ushered in.  We must do the work that we're destined to do.  We are servants of G_d and need not this world, yet here we are.


P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

Second Match Maker Disaster

     Dating in your 50's is just fraught with peril.  This time it only took two phones and two follow up e-mails calls to know to run like the wind!
     My match makers are frum (observant) match makers and apparently they got my second match from a less frum dating site, since no orthodox Jewish man will accept me as a match.  Due to being new to all these Jewish dating sites, I didn't really grasp that I might be matched with a Jew that was opposed to orthodoxy.
     Yes, we both are extremely spiritual.  Yes, I could share my spiritual experiences on the first phone call freely.  However, when I sent many pictures of me in Israel with one with my rabbi in the West Bank and one pointing at the Dome of the Rock and wishing it wasn't there on our holiest sight on the planet, that's when the deal breaker occurred.  He is a leftist, conservative Jew and thinks that the orthodox Jews on the right are a danger to Israel, since they want to keep the West Bank and rebuild the temple one day.   He also started attacking me for my references not being Jewish enough, since I'm a convert.  That's a huge violation of Torah to make a proselyte feel that they aren't fully Jewish.  Once he had me dumbfounded into silence,  he went into a long oratory about Judaism for the next two hours!  Great getting to know you talk.
      In my rebuttal e-mail I wrote:

    "I'm glad that you came into my life, though it can be disturbing to see what I look like from your perspective.  I never thought that I'd find someone similar to me, and I realize that you speak from a truthful, unfiltered heart, as well.  I do feel that around you I will have to be more careful with my words---guarded, until your honestly is more embraced with mercy.  Since we are both on the spectrum, perhaps this is your blind spot.  Your approach works well for patients, I'm sure.  I'm not trying to be your patient.  I'm trying to see if we're each other's love of their life.    Our first conversation was spiritual and uplifting and filled with promise.  We are so much a like, yet last night, I felt belittled by being categorized as a right wing Orthodox Jew who was really a Christian and enemy of Israel.  It's funny how I really only serve G_d.  Yes, my ego and my lack of understanding of other forms of Judaism get involved at times, but as I progress in the wisdom that G_d leads me to learn, I'm sure my ego will become less involved and my understanding of Judaism will become more profound.      G_d has planned my life with every unique struggle, success, and path.  By categorizing me as an enemy to Israel, you've categorized G_d (my creator) as an enemy to the Israel that your ego wants.  Remember, if G_d wants Israel to thrive, it will in the way that He wants it to thrive.  We are only mosquitoes in his plan.  "Man plans and G_d laughs."    My hope is that in the future we can again have a more spiritual, uplifting conversation and celebrate our uniqueness, share what we've learned, and respect the other's views in a loving, merciful way.  My hope is to learn more about how your day or week went, what Bhakti did lately.  Thank you btw for what you have taught me so far.      May your next few days be deeply blessed with beautiful blue skies and sunshine and the waters reach out to you to embrace you with G_d's love.  May your loved ones also embrace you with their tenderness and love.  Happy Birthday!     Mazal Tov and Shabbat Shalom,              Isolde"

        Of course he came back with a detailed rebuttal of his own and even criticized my birthday blessing for him by saying that I was trying to cleanse him of sin in a Mikvah or Baptism.  He added that we wouldn't be needing to discuss mundane things like what we did during the week or the cats.  We weren't a match.

       I was amazed that I couldn't put polite boundaries on a relationship therapist without him breaking up with me.  It was clear why he'd never been married.  He embraced his unfiltered honesty with no mercy as his strength and didn't see or care that it pushed every love interest away eventually.  He also added a strategy of non commitment---dating goyim (women that weren't Jewish), so they'd never be Jewish enough for him, like my ex-fiance did.

       In my defense, I explained that I was trying to spiritually energize him with the water reference for his birthday per one of his references of water being a spiritual conductor, not a mikvah or baptism reference for cleansing him of sin.  Then I added that this was exhausting and agreed that we weren't a match, wished him "Shabbat Shalom," and ended our match on the dating site.

      While I was writing my rebuttal to my failed second match, my jolly, culturally Jewish, limo guy from Marin that could lose 100 pounds called to see how I was doing.  He made me smile.  He hired my son the day before as a limo driver and told me that he wanted to take care of me.  He knew that I was a rich girl that lost her money, and he wanted to make me a rich girl again.  I certainly gave the modest life with a religious man a try for 3 years.  So what he heck!  He earned some "acts of love" points with me.  

       In that moment I realized how at ease I was with him.  He wasn't observant at all, but he loves my spirituality and doesn't mind me being a kosher modern orthodox Jew.   I'm going to figure out how not to be his codependent, but help him to be healthy, and we're going to take care of each other like married couples do.  We both were married for over 20 years and know the work and communication that it takes to create and keep a good marriage.


P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

My Second Match Maker Match

     It's been several months since I had the Jewish match makers search a 3000 mile radius for a match for me.  I knew that it'd be difficult, but I didn't expect to not have a single match.  I felt like the orthodox male community had abandoned me, so I asked the match making website to cancel my account,  I was just going to have to have G_d fling the man in front of me once again while I was on one of my adventures.  The website asked for more time and increased their search efforts for me.
     Before I met my ex-fiance I cried in the isolation of my bedroom to G_d, "Where is my Adam?"  A week later my ex-fiance quickly appeared on Lake Natoma when we were the only ones on the lake.  In retrospect I realized that I asked G_d for the first man.  He gave me the man who would allow me to find my Jewish roots.  He gave me the man who would lead me to my understanding of my Jewish ancestry.  He gave me the man that would help me to become a legal Jew, instead of an assimilated one.
     G_d had recently led me to another Jewish man who understood the spiritual part of me on a base level.  He is a ghost hunter.  I joked with him that if I went on a ghost tour that I would probably ruin the business, because I'd tell the souls where they were and where they needed to go.  He loves this part of me, though he only knows a small portion of my gifts.  He also helped me to celebrate my spiritual energy, and I started to reorganize my home and especially my bedroom to make it a spiritual power house, because of his adoration of my soul's power.
    Unfortunately, I knew that he was not the one for me.  We met to help each other. He needed to lose over 100 pounds and had unchecked food addition issues.  I'd already dealt with all my addictive tendencies, so when he asked me to regulate his food, I knew that he was asking me to be his codependent.  I danced around his request and kept being supportive from afar.
     In my own gated community, I was being a bit stocked.  A handsome and charming man who grew up in the socialite circles of my childhood neighborhood was renting a home near me and realized that I read my book at the pool every Saturday afternoon.  So he'd come join me.  I enjoyed our conversations and catching up on what the socialites were doing while my mom and dad were busy volunteering and making our community better.  He was very respectful of my celebration of Sabbath, but I did feel like I was just a mark for him to live in a home in a nice neighborhood, since he'd never be able to afford a home there.
     My hair dresser and I talked about this.  She was so worried, since the male wolves were starting to circle me that she thought that I'd better try to make things work with the man that has wanted to date me for 35 years.  I love him dearly and trust him like no other man whom I'm not related.  He would never break my heart and care for me and love me so intensely, but I didn't know if he was the one that G_d wanted for me.  Right when I was finally free to date him, I completed my orthodox Jewish conversion which made it improper for us to be together.  To me that was G_d saying, "I know that you love him, but it's not your path."
     So a few weeks ago I again cried in the isolation of my bedroom, "Where is my husband?  The one who will help me to do what I have to do for you?"
     Within a week, on July 6th, a Jewish match maker let me read yet another rejection of a match for me.  Here I was trying so desperately to shield my heart from any more rejection, but I bravely read it.  It was full of tenderness and understanding and respect.  I'd never met a man like this.  He was actually looking for someone exactly like me, but he couldn't do the fitness requirements for climbing Mt. Whitney.  I'd forgotten that I'd put that in my profile!  He also wasn't technically oriented as I requested, but he joked that his grandfather was one of the engineers that built Hoover Dam.
    On July 7th I wrote back to the match maker,
"Hi Deborah,

    I don't know if I timed out and my reply made it to you, so I'll keep it short this time.  Yes, I would love to talk to him.  Physical fitness and being technically oriented are not so important to me, as the other areas where we do align.  I will have to edit my profile a bit to emphasize this.

    Shalom,

                 Isolde (Deborah Ruth)"

     Now as I've mentioned before, G_d communicates big corrections in my life to me on July 7th.  So this was a monumental match, and I don't have to even know my match to know this.  He accepted my match on July 9th.  After reading his profile over and over again and overcoming my issue with finding the "accept" button, I finally accepted his match on July 11th.  I liked his Buddhist statement:  "There are two questions I should ask yourself:  Where am I going? and Who will go with me?  If you ever get those questions in the wrong order, you are in trouble." I've been forgetting to honor the first question, because I hate to be alone for long periods.

    My match and I finally talked on the phone on July 13th and talked for 5.25 hours!  It was amazing to meet someone who could see me hiding inside of this body, someone whose soul is on the exact difficult journey for which my soul was sent down here to complete, someone who I didn't have to wear a fig leaf around.  After we finally ended our conversation on the phone, I did what I haven't done for over 10 years---my soul traveled to another person.  While I laid in bed and held my pillow in my arms, my soul laid next to him and gently caressed his shoulder and arm as he lay in bed thousands of miles away.  When I returned to just me, I slept with a smile on my face and saw G_d's light beaming down upon me.  Thank you G_d!


P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

My Daughter's Beautiful Wedding With Her Dysfunctional Family

     My daughter and her fiance planned and executed a beautiful wedding, despite having especially dysfunctional families with which to manage.  The first hurdle was who to invite to help her choose a wedding dress in early January during the Arctic chill with temperatures around zero.  All the moms---future Mother-In-Law, Ohio Mom (her aunt), myself, and step mom---and my ex-husband were invited for this occasion.  Her father and I helped her pick out her prom dress, so she continued that tradition with her wedding dress.
     Before her dress-choosing day started she insisted that she help me pick out a "Mother of the Bride" dress.   OK, so she did threaten to turn me in to "What Not To Wear" when she was a teenager, so this was not an out-of-the-blue request.  lol  I was very comforted in my heart knowing that she'd like my dress at her wedding, so I had no worries.
      After my daughter tried on many wedding dresses, we had tears coming down our faces as we watched her become a beautiful bride to be.  When she found her favorite dress and veil, she rang the bell which was a tradition at the Bridal Parlor.  She was to be one of the most beautiful brides ever!
      As the day approached, my daughter and I had planned on me arriving a few days earlier to scenic Akron, Ohio to help her with last minute issues.  Unfortunately, one of my pilots in Salt Lake City disappeared, and I missed my connection due to the delay and my Mother/Daughter luncheon before everyone else showed up.  We did manage to get our nails done together, before her Ohio Mom had her and her friends over for dinner.  I also gave her the presents that I'd brought.  Fortunately, I hadn't wrapped them, because my bag got rained on while it was on the tarmac and everything was damp.  At least I kept the 500-gigabyte hard drive of my daughter's childhood in the original packaging, so the plastic kept it safe.  The cutting board that I made from scratch and the Papyrus Essence from Aswan, Egypt that I'd bought for her a few years ago were fine, as well.

     My AirBNB hosts recommended the lovely Chowder House Cafe in Cuyahoga Falls, so I made the best of my solitude and enjoyed the best cooked cod that I've ever had in my life.  Since I was also not needed for the next day, I woke up at 5am and drove to Niagra Falls which is on my bucket list to see.  It was a 3.5 hour drive---like a drive from Sacramento to Fresno---a California day drive.  The Falls were well worth the drive!  It was sunny and beautiful, unlike Akron, Ohio which was socked in with dark gray clouds and rainy.  I did pray very hard for my daughter to have a beautiful, sunny day for her wedding when hearing over the radio that Akron's weather report for the wedding day was iffy.

     I managed to only spend 2 hours at Niagra Falls, so I could get cleaned up and ready for the rehearsal dinner that my ex-husband was hosting at Briccos Restaurant in Akron.  Now I had done a lot of preparation for the wedding.  I'd been biking and kayaking 6 days a week after completing my Mt. Whitney climb in an attempt to make sure to look stellar and the apidemy of health to make the ex-husband have a tinge of regret for leaving me emotionally and to help my daughter by showing her husband-to-be that she was going to age well, too!  I also wore a dress from 10 years ago that I wore on our family cruise down the Mexican Riviera.

     When I saw my daughter at Briccos restaurant, she asked what I did that day.  I wanted her to fully enjoy her friends without any guilt about me, and I told her exuberantly, "I went to Niagra Falls.  I always wanted to go and I'm used to being the Party of One, so I just got up at 5 am and did it!"  She smiled and was so happy that I made the best of my situation.  I felt for her and her husband-to-be to have to juggle so many deeply hurt parents.

     When I got to the parent table at the restaurant, the step mom asked me what I did that day, as well.  I asked my ex-husband, "What did I always want to do every time that we came to Ohio?"

      "I have no idea," he said with disdain.

      "I went to Niagra Falls!"  I said in triumph.  His eyes still had no recognition of this desire that I had to see the Falls.

      "You mean the Cuyahoga Falls?" the step mom interjected.

      "No, the Niagra Falls on the border of Canada and the US in New York."  

      She had a look of amazement and added, "Oh, I love the Niagra Falls!"

       We had a lovely dinner and were all very civil.  My new friend, the new mother-in-law, was relieved that her ex-husband was not there.  She was also kind enough to drive me home.

       The wedding day finally arrived.  It was the only sunny day with beautiful blue skies that Akron had seen and would see in ages.  Thank you G_d!  My son and his new wife picked me up too late to get any lunch, so we made due with lemonade until the food was served at the venue.  I felt awkward about not being with the bride while she was getting ready, but she just wanted to be with just her friends beforehand.  Then I saw emerge from the bridesmaid room her aunt, the Ohio mom.  She invited me back, so I took her up on it.  

      I stayed as clear of my daughter in the bridesmaid room as possible, since it was her day and a Mitzvah to make the bride happy.   My high heels were killing my usually hiking-boot-clad feet though, so I finally pulled up a chair a few feet from her and asked if I could bless her.  She agreed, so I put my hand on her shoulder in order to not ruin her beautifully styled hairdo and did a blessing.  Her friend next to me commented after I was finished, "Wow, that was really wonderful!"

     After I sat down, I looked at her wrinkled bridal gown hanging up thinking, "Man, if I was included in the preparation that would have never happened.  I painstakingly ironed every wrinkle out of her graduation gown just 2 months ago."   Fortunately, her cousin had a professional steamer at home that would do the trick and her brother quickly arrived with it, so the wedding was not delayed too long.  Her dad and step mom also arrived with her bouquet, so she was set to walk the aisle!

    As the wrinkles were being steamed out, I noticed that my daughter was not wearing her Great Grandmother's pearl bracelet that I let her borrow.  She had some new, hip, fake pearl bracelets all together as a set.  I was aghast that she couldn't have added the single strand of my great grandmother's to the other ones and quietly said, "Are you wearing anything that is borrowed?"

     "Mom!  Stop!  I have enough to worry about!"  So I sat back with a strained, polite smile in my chair hoping not to be asked to leave.

     Once my daughter started putting on her dress, the photographer started taking pictures and then waited for me to get near my daughter to help, so she could take the traditional Mother and Bride-to-be pictures.  My daughter never realized that this was a tradition, but I quietly crouched down near the floor and helped her get her slip pulled down, since it wrinkled under her tightly-fitted dress.  She was amazingly beautiful and when I looked into her eyes, I almost sobbed.  "Oh, I'll stop. I don't want you to cry and ruin your beautiful makeup," I explained as I dabbed the teared corners of my eyes.

     Finally, it was time for me to be seated near the front of the ceremony, since I was the first parent to walk down the aisle.  I held the arm of the best man and walked like a joyous queen down the aisle with a beaming smile.  

     Then the step mom came down the aisle behind me and sat next to me, which I didn't mind.  The Ohio mom's husband videoed for me.  Unfortunately, he recorded his wife who was sitting next to him being exasperated when she realized that my daughter had asked her to sit between my ex-husband's new wife and me.  Apparently, my daughter was worried that the wives would act out during the ceremony, but we rose to the occasion and acted like adults and made this day all about her by putting on our party faces.
    Finally the bridesmaids and bridesman joined all the groomsmen, and we all stood for my beautiful daughter as her dad escorted her down the aisle.  I was so thankful that he was able to walk her.  He almost died when the children were young in a car accident after falling asleep at the wheel.  Though he never changed his erratic driving style, he learned not to drive while tired.

    When her dad gave her away to the groom, the groom's eyes were so filled with emotional love for her and astonishment at how beautiful she looked.  It was an amazing sight to see so much love for my daughter and her joy in her eyes to marry him.

     I was so happy that she was able to find her soul mate and so happy for him to find a woman who was strong and could hold her own in a disagreement, so he would never create a dysfunctional dominate/submissive relationship, but an equal one.  They had both learned well from their parents' debacles and chose a partner in life wisely!

     The bridesmaids and bridesgroom posed with the bride.

     The groomsmen posed with the groom.

     The wedding party all posed together.

     Family pictures came after the ceremony, so we all posed when requested to do so.  We did a biological parent shot even though it was uncomfortable for us to stand so close to our ex's.

    Then we did all the parents.

    I managed to get one in with only my daughter and my son and his new wife were to the side of the unprofessional shot.

     Then the reception began!  

     They did a traditional first dance and then a father/daughter dance.  Later my son danced with me, since he knew that I loved to dance at weddings!

      My ex-husband did a touching, long speech and then I went up to do one.  I could see my daughter mouthing to her husband, "Oh, no!"  He kissed her cheek gently to calm her.

      "My daughter's pediatrician said when she was 2 that she had the energy for the next millennium!  She does and became an amazing artist, equestrian, and nurse, and now she has met the most amazing man for her.  I'm so happy for you two for finding each other.  May G_d bless your marriage!"  I said through my choked up tears and they both ran up and hugged me, and then I sat down while her Ohio mom did an impromptu speech, too.  I told the groom later when I wasn't so nervous that he also has the energy for this new millennium, and he politely thanked me.

       I spent most of my time with my son and his new wife who was also alone, but my ex-husband's new wife and I had a friendly chat, too.  We both wanted peace for the family.  I did join the ex's family table and explained to the ones with whom I was close that I didn't want to cause a problem for the new wife or ex-husband, so I gave my ex his family with the divorce.  After hearing stories of other family ex's causing lots of problems for the siblings' new spouses, I decided that that would be the most loving thing to do.  They understood, and I knew that they still loved me, too.

       When the wedding started dying down, a bridesmaid and I helped my daughter out of her dress and bagged it and hung it up for her.  Then my daughter surprised me as we walked back to the reception.  She asked me to dance with her, and so we did!  It was an incredible moment to hold her hands and dance like she was my little girl again, but now she is an incredible woman in her own right and an amazing man's wife.  I told her when we finished how amazing she is to graduate cum laud, get and start a nursing job, and successfully plan a beautiful wedding.  She smiled and hugged me.

       My son and his wife intimated that they were ready to start their journey around the United States again and were my ride to my AirBNB room, so I thanked my daughter for inviting me and gave her a hug again, said my farewells to the ex and his wife, the bridal party, and the groom, and set off for my journey as Party of One.  The gray clouds rolled back over Akron after my daughter's beautiful wedding.  Thank you G_d for the beautiful day and the love that was shared!

       Thank you G_d for beautiful sunset during a thunderstorm on my flight home, as well!

P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!