Alone again, yet not, I know

It's now about ten minutes into Shabbat as I type this and once again, the Jewish blogging world goes quiet until Saturday night and services, prayers, candles are on the minds of many. I am at work keeping my word to work the schedule I agreed to before I set on converting.

It's not easy being here. Since setting on this path, I've started learning Hebrew, wearing a kippah, reading a translated Torah, eating kosher whenever I can, reading of Jewish and Israeli history and paying attention to the news, hustle, and flow of modern Jewish and Israeli life. There's no bar to any of the things I need to do. I can pray English or Hebrew any time of the day. I can speak with G-d whenever. Shabbat is the lone observance I cannot reliably make yet.

Nevertheless I try. I light my battery-operated light, I pray, I try to stay up and not get depressed.

Someday I will get the schedule I want. Someday.

Father says killed daughter in Canadian hijab case | International | Reuters

G-d does not want you to do this.

A sad end to the over-sexual-objectification of women by men who claim to be pious. A pious man can sit in a strip bar and not think more about naked women than they might catch cold. A not-so-pious man is so insecure about his own self-control that he'll beat his daughter to death over whether or not she wears a scarf.

If all a woman is to you is a fuck toy that needs to be boxed, you're not pious. ESPECIALLY if you think physical violence is acceptable in the pursuit of it.

A lesson for certain people who won't of course learn no matter how much we wish they would.