Warning: ramble ahead

I haven't posted for a long time, I know. I've been busy but the main reason I guess is that I'm not really sure what I want to write. Sometimes I get ideas before I fall asleep but I always forget them before I wake up. So where am I at? Have I reached a new milestone? Is being indifferent better for my mental health?

The truth is, I might be indifferent to this blog (temporarily), but I'm not indifferent to skepticism. TO and I still talk about it a lot, of course. I think about it all the time. I guess what I'm trying to work out is what it means to be connected without believing. Most of the time, I don't really feel Jewish, but I don't feel not Jewish either. I just feel like me. But there are still things I want to do. It was so important for me to get to megilla reading tonight. Why? Is it just habit? Or fear of getting caught out being less frum than I used to be? Do I even care about what other people think? (I know the answer to that question -- I do sometimes.)

The afternoon I was walking down the street with a religious friend and we passed a small group of people who were obviously Israelis, not frum. They looked relaxed and happy. My friend and I just ignored them and they ignored us, but I was thinking to myself that in some way I'd like to be like them. Secular. Not overdressed on a Saturday afternoon. But still with an inescapable connection to Jewishness.

After we passed them it occurred to me that I could have said "Shabbat Shalom" and they probably would have appreciated it. I didn't not say it for any particular reason; it simply didn't occur to me. But the fact that it didn't occur to me in time bothers me.

I've often walked past people (men and women) more religious than me and been ignored when I said "Good Shabbos". Depending on my mood, I either let it slide or say, "I said, Good Shabbos" really loudly. Either way, I find it offensive to be ignored in that fashion. And I don't care if another Jew is religious or secular. So I'd like to greet either type (or anyone in between) in the same way.

Anyway, I'm not really sure where all of this is going. I think what I'm trying to say is that I still have a long way to go before I'm the person I want to be Jewishly. It's going to take a long time before I can not look down on Reform. Before I can work out why I won't eat treif meat but I'll turn on lights on Shabbat. There aren't necessarily concrete arguments to be made here. To me the proofs are already there and not really disputable. But the emotional side of things, the emancipation from my previous mindset, that's what's ahead for me.