Chillul HaShem first. I have written out the rant I had a few times already this morning and deleted it. I’m just really really sad of those who focus more on their outward appearances do not think about the words that come out of their mouths, their behaviour when in the community at large or the lessons they theoretically learned as children.
I am even sadder that I did not school my reaction and returned a remark this morning while at the grocery store. I am sad because if I had bit my tongue (as I generally do, today was not the first time I’ve had experiences like this) it would have shown that while I do not fit the local outword uniform perfectly I have the desired lessons internally. I must say that I’ve sort of been waiting to see what event would break me and cause me to not bite my tongue and let loose a remark. Where I live there is a very large disconnect between people who “claim” to be all good by the clothing they wear, the food the eat with the labels it has [and I don’t mean organic], the appearances they give versus how they really behave. My tongue hurts from the constant biting back of remarks, my arms hurt because I’ve stopped shopping locally because of these people, my insides hurt because they make me sad. All of that said I am going to try to do better to avoid certain places at certain times. I know what the people are like and my reactions to them.
And that is why I prefer the term Observant to describe me, if you must.
Ok. Moving along. Mishpatim is this week … Sh’mot (Exodus) 21:1-24:18. So can I take the experience that happened to me earlier this morning, read the parsha, and come away with something? Perhaps. In skimming through various pages in response to this week’s parshah, I decided to look at items geared toward children. I found this Mishpatim Roundup and a girl’s comment made me go back and think about this. The actual text (here) even with Rashi is a bit difficult [for me this morning, anyway]. But she brings up a good point, treat people as people. My brain is swirling with parables and stories of all sorts which boil down to think before you speak and treat everyone well. I could probably tie in something with guardians but I still feel terrible about not fixing Devorah’s wheel before I returned it (I’m slowly looking for the parts) so I’ll leave that …
I tend to evaluate people by their behaviour in the grocery store. Yes, we all have bad days, but I’ve found I can learn a good deal about people. It’s changed here in the past six years. Not for the better. Ask me about driving shopping carts some day… [or don’t, I’ll rant for weeks].
Can you tell I’m still sad that I stooped to her level?
Moving on to other things, Nach. I’m still behind but I’ve been trying to read one “dose” a day. Because of my linkage to the program and that google finds it, I was asked to provide some comments about the program, even though I’ve fallen behind. While I writing them up (I still need to turn them in), I discovered some additional tools while researching. OURadio.org actually does distribute some of their programming through podcasts and you can subscribe through iTunes. They do not publish the full feed and I seem to be having difficulty downloading the Nach Yomi podcasts but I’ve had networking woes lately so I think it could be me. It also seems that “A Daily Dose of Torah” has not been updated for several weeks and that makes me sad too.
Thank you for putting up with this rantish post.
שׁבּת שׁלום