Congrats Haters!

Oh hater mail, oh hater mail!
How silly are your queries!

Seriously. I try really hard not to go all grumpfest with the haters on my anonymous question-asking series, Ask Chaviva Anything, but essentially since I revealed Mr. T to the world, someone has decided to make it their #1 priority to devote a bunch of unnecessary time and energy to making me feel like a fat, whiny, ugly, horrible person who has surely ruined Mr. T's life.

I have to wonder what kind of people are so miserable that they have to devote even an ounce of energy to making someone else who is having a rough time of it feel this bad.

So bravo!

Mission accomplished, haters of the world!

Yeah, I'm fat -- man, I'm HUGE (shamu, as one hater has called me) -- and yes, I whine, because I'm a horrible, miserable person with nothing better to do but come online and kvetch.

And yes, it appears that Mr. T's life has gotten a whole lot more miserable since I joined the party. No need to poll innocent bystandards on this one.

It would appear that I am the source of all of the misery of the world, so let me remove myself as hastily as possible. How would you like me to go exactly? Please feel free to reply anonymously, of course.

Your wish is my desire, haters. You win.

Ask Chaviva Anything: The Hater Edition

We all have them. We all try to ignore them. But sometimes, I like to drag the haters out into the public eye and maybe let them see how ridiculous their questions and proddings are. Why? Because what we see and detest in others is that which we see and detest in ourselves. It's about coping with those things, not deflecting them onto others.

Question Number One:

I'm rather confused by the contradictory nature of your adherence to tznius. You dress very modestly and yet you talk quite freely about matters which are rather intimate and inappropriate for the public sphere. Just today you posted about vibrators on your facebook page - isn't it a bit contradictory to be modest in dress and yet not in behavior?

Okay, what you're confused about is what tzanua is. Above all, I frequently remind people about the many layers of tzanua, because as I discovered when I did The Tzniut Project a few years back, many people see tzanua as a very shallow thing -- cover the elbows, cover the knees -- when it's about so much more. It's speech, actions, how you carry yourself, the company you keep, the way you eat, the way you sit, everything.

So I'd like to know what -- other than my Facebook post at my utter shock at the ease in which people can purchase vibrators in the UK and why they're located in something as benign as the Bandaid asile -- is "intimate and inappropriate" that I post about here on my blog or even on Facebook. I'd really love to know. Give me some examples. Oh pretty please!

For those of you curious about the utter scandal to which this questioner refers, this was the Facebook post:

 Now for Question Number Two, which is actually more of a statement.

"I feel so antisocial. On my computer. While the family observes #chag. D'oh." Are you FOR REAL??? I give your marriage about six months ... 

Oh haters. Oh haters! The quote the person refers to is from Twitter. You see, this year, because we were in the UK for Pesach, things were kind of messy. Me, a new olah to Israel, and Mr. T, holding to the traditions and rulings of the Chacham Tzvi (when in Rome, do as the Romans do), had to figure out our situation delicately. Traditionally, those who do not live in Israel celebrate two holiday days at the beginning and end of Passover -- those are days that are very Shabbat-like in restrictions, but you can cook and there are other leniencies. Those inside Israel only have one day at either end of Passover.

After speaking with a rabbi, it was decided that I only had to hold to one day, while Mr. T had to hold to two days. The result was that I was sitting in the bedroom doing work (because, well, work called, and I was observing one day) while the family was sitting in the living room reading or conversing about odds and ends. I felt bad about it, and Mr. T and I discussed how strange it was to be on two different time tables. Hopefully, next year, we'll be on the same schedule and all will be right in the world.

As for your bets on my marriage, I hope someone actually took that bet. And bet you a lot of money, because this marriage is pretty amazing. But I have nothing to prove to you. We'll talk again in six months, mmk?

Peace to the haters!

Some Words of Wisdom

This post is more an FYI or PSA than anything. Both of these little morsels came from readers/friends and are pretty apropos. My comments aren't necessary; I think they'll speak for themselves.

Item 1 comes from Tablet Magazine and was written by Daniel Gordis in a Tisha b'Av piece called "Sinning Against Each Other." The reader/friend highlighted this specific portion:

"Rabbi Joseph Telushkin recently shared a beautiful thought with me. The Talmud suggests that the First Temple was destroyed because of serious violations like murder, idolatry, and incest. The Second was destroyed because of “baseless hatred.” Since the first violations are seemingly so much more serious, why was the First Temple rebuilt after 70 years, while the second never was? 

The answer, Rabbi Telushkin heard from his own teacher, Rabbi Aharon Kreiser, was that baseless hatred, dismissive attitudes, and communal rancor are different. They are the sorts of actions for which we can always find explanations and justifications, and so, we never really confront the fact that we’ve sinned. This is why, Rabbi Kreiser said, the Temple that was destroyed because of baseless hatred has never been rebuilt."

The second item is less of an item and more of a "way of life" assessment. Are you ready for it?

"Ignore the haters. You're not the jackass whisperer."

With that, I bid you a good eve'. (insert smiley face here)

And Here's the Truth

Where Do We Go From Here?

I know you're all waiting, waiting to hear about what happened to six years of blog content that used to be here, waiting to hear whether I'm going to continue blogging about Jewish topics that have made me the blogger and Yid that I am today.

The truth is, I don't know what I plan to do. The content still exists online, but it's all private, so good luck finding it. So far, two people have written very different posts about my situation and what came to pass last week. There's the post on Chicago Carless called "Orthodox Blogger Bullies" and there's another up on Mekubal called "Chaviva/Kvetching editor: My Response."

Now, I want to say up front that I didn't ask or encourage either of these posts to happen, but both of these men had kind, honest, and powerful things to say. If you haven't read them yet, I encourage you to do so. I think Mekubal's insight into who I am and what the Orthodox community did wrong when addressing my current life situation and choices is a lesson from which we all can learn.

I've received more than 100 emails and Facebook messages from people apologizing for what I've been through here on the blog and pleading with me to reconsider hiding and no longer sharing my story with the world. I was even surprised that my older brother -- who, I'll admit, I haven't always gotten along with -- spoke out on my Facebook wall about me giving in to the "haters." Coworkers counseled me, friends on ROI counseled me, and, most importantly, Taylor listened as I explained all that was happening and why exactly I was being treated the way I was.

Should I let a few people dictate my choices in life? Of course not. What if those people have the power to destroy me? Well, that shouldn't matter. The only thing I can control is how I react to a situation and how I allow myself to feel afterward.

There was something different about this particular instance of Chaviva-bashing, however. I can't explain what it was, but there was something that struck me as particularly painful. Even when I received a lot of criticism and painful comments back when unveiling that I was even dating a non-Jew, I handled it like I've handled every situation like this. But this time?

I broke.

Being told that you're everything that's wrong with conversion, that you're the poster child for why people don't want converts, being told you're the worst thing to happen to Judaism ... it's hard. It's beyond hard. Judaism saved me from myself, it saved me from a dark, dark place that I was in. Every time I discovered a new mitzvah or way to express myself Jewishly, it felt like crawling out of darkness.

After everything I went through over the past two years, I have struggled to find a way to express myself Jewishly in the way that I always have, to crawl out of the darkness that nearly drove me to suicide near the end of my marriage, and that process was criticized and shat upon by people I once considered friends.

And in that moment, in reading those words by Erik, Bethany, and Skylar, I felt myself drift back into that darkness. That place of loneliness and sadness that existed before I let my Jewish neshama shine through. I felt myself a stain on existence of Judaism. A harbinger of pain and suffering.

I never gave myself a position of power, and I never asked for it. That others give me that power says more about them, than me, I think. And it's something I've realized over the past few weeks. Yes, I understand that I'm in a position where individuals look up to me and seek me out with questions and curiosities -- I'm not your average convert to Judaism, and that story is what I've always committed to sharing. I make no money off this blog, I have no ads, I am committed to storytelling, largely for my own sake.

Meeting my heroes of the Stuff You Should Know podcast
gave me some peace of mind in Austin. 

In those moments of hateful speech, I wanted to disappear. I figured, if I just "go away" ... I won't have to break up with Taylor, who I adore, and I won't have to continue bringing harm onto the Jewish community. I was ready to let myself go.

Luckily, I left for Austin and re-entrenched myself in the world of technology and innovation. I found myself among people like me, people who see the power of technology and social interaction via the web. Between that, all of the emails, Facebook messages, blog posts, blog comments, texts, Tweets, and everything else, I felt perplexed. Private versus public, Chaviva versus Kvetching Editor, Amanda versus Chaviva ...

Listen: I don't know what I'm going to do with all of those posts. Yes, I could create an archive and turn off all comments, but I don't think there's a way to delete all the existing comments, and I don't necessarily want to delete them all anyway. But do I want those posts out there? Do I want six years of my life to be available for scrutiny or praise? Do I want to continue blogging about my Jewish experiences? I don't know. I almost feel like it's impossible to not blog about my Jewish experiences.

I am, after all, a Jew.

They can't be divided. Jew, Woman, Girlfriend, Blogger, Educator, Social Media Ninja ...

Just stay tuned, if you will, and we'll see where this goes. Won't you?