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A while back I posted here that I had a falling out with the chassids and broke off from judiasm for a little bit. Today, July 5th, is the 11th year anniversary of the day I lost my first love.

Given the fact that Judiasm tends to remember mournful days (see Tish B'Av) I decided to come clean and get it all out in the open to have you know what made me the way I am, how I took the religion and the culture and everything else and hung up my kipah and ate a bacon double cheese burger on Yom Kippor, and then kept the reciept for I think, 4 years.

Anyrate, here's my little poem, based on a song by The Freeze, I admit it's not origional, but I changed some of the words to make it have more sense.

I thought I'd gotten over her
She died and she is gone
But now it seems she's turned a prankster
Making her memory live on.

"I still love you so much Neufy,
Here's a message wet with tears."
And one that I'm getting
And she's been dead eleven years.

"Don't forget me Neufy
And all the times that we have had
I'm sorry that I left you
But at least you can be glad

That in a way I can be with you
Although not in human form
Don't forget me Neufy
While you keep that woman warm."

I'm property and loyal
To a woman of the grave
While my guilt ridden conscience
Keeps driving me Insane

She never was a jealous type
Even back when she was here
But even though she died
She has never disappeared

I won't forget you Desi
And all the times that we once had.
I'm sorry that you left me
But at least I can be glad.

In a way you're always with me
Although not in human form.
I won't forget you Desi
For you I will always mourn.

~~~ Denise Meridith O`Shea B : 9/18/78 D : 7/05/96 ~~~

The way she died and everything else was quite dramatic, I really wouldn't like to get into it. But that wasn't what turned me out.

What turned me out was the fact that come the days of Awe I asked my Rav if I could say Yikzor for the girl I loved. His reply was as follows.

"She was born, raised and died a Catholic, you do not give the rites of Yikzor to the Goyim."

Needless to say I was crest-fallen, but I didn't make a scene. I held my tounge and just walked out of the Shul, I haven't been back to that particular one ever since. I went home, put on a wife beater, some jeans, some doc martins, and started running around with skinheads. I was a freshcut brew skin and took out my grief by getting drunk, and getting into fights. I no longer cared and had traded in tommorow for today.

The reason I turned my back on Judiasm is because I felt it turned it's back on me. I've made my peace with HASHEM but not with the organized religion part, I'm still not a member of any congregation, I'm just on the outside looking in.

Anyone ever feel like that?

I deeply sympathize with your loss and your grief. Your rav was right, we don't give Jewish rites to non-Jews. Also, we don't give rites to girlfriends and boyfriends even when they're Jews. Yizkor is said for one's dead relatives, not friends or lovers, no matter how hurt we are by losing them. I'm sure that her family respected and loved her enough to give her their own rites -- which helps her, possibly, but admittedly doesn't address your own hurt. You needed your rav to put aside his personal feelings about you dating a non-Jew, and address your all-to-real grief despite the differences between his ideology and your personal experience.

What you were looking for wasn't really Yizkor, per se, but rather for some way to recognize, express, and honor your personal grief. Speaking to your rav after the holidays might have yielded some information you felt more able to use, a meaningful way to Jewishly express your grief. While your rav didn't respond in the way you'd hoped, speaking to him after the holidays might have made all the difference. Talking to him right at the synagogue during services, you'd almost guarantee that he was hungry, stressed, drained of energy, and surrounded by other people who wanted to speak to him. He had to give you a short answer (which wasn't really satisfying for you) and then hope you'd approach him later to figure out a meaningful way to Jewishly express your loss. Instead, the demeanor of one man on one stress-filled day was enough to turn you off to an entire tradition that actually did have a way of embracing you in your time of anguish, had you been able to receive it at that time.

I hope that you have a chance to reconsider your stance. Judaism has a place for every Jew. Yes, some need to make a bigger effort to find our own place. We may not always find that the first particular rav we approach is willing to help us in the way we need to be helped, but that doesn't mean that the tradition as a whole can't make room for us. I liken our ravs to our fathers, and our tradition itself to our mothers. While one may sternly discipline us, the other comes to us afterward to gently chide, then to comfort and re-embrace us so that we don't feel cut off from the family. Judaism is patient, kind, loving, warm... and lonely for the children who leave her. She continues to prepare meals that we love, even though they get cold waiting for us to come home and eat them. Her arms ache to hold us again, and all she waits for us to see us coming up the walk so that she can fling the door open wide and set our place at dinner again.

I'm so sorry that happened- nobody deserves something like that. There's not much for me to say that Divash didn't say in a much more eloquent and knowledgeable way, but the same sort of thoughts still remain.

All I can say is that I hope things get better for you. After going through something like this, you know better than anybody the harshness of life. I just pray (or hope, if you'd rather I not) you get to see goodness in it as well.

As someone who's faced alienation from religion, I can most certainly sympathize with what you've gone through in regard to Judaism.

But, I think Judaism is wonderful in that there is G-dliness in all of us. We don't need to go to Synagogue to be Jewish, or to connect with G-d. Our faith, our belief, isn't just to perpetuate itself. We don't have confession, we don't need Priests, or Popes, in order to connect with G-d.

But, while we don't need these things, G-d has seen fit to provide us with a community of our fellows with whom we can share our grief, our joy, our trials and our triumphs. Being part of the Jewish community isn't about going to Synagogue, or eating strictly Kosher; for me it's about being there for our fellow Jews in their times of need, and having them be there for us when we need them.

Personally, I don't think you need to be part of a Synagogue to be part of the Jewish religion, and more importantly the community. So long as you are there for others, and are willing to let us help you if need be, I think that makes you as Jewish as anyone who follows the strictest of guidelines for prayer, holiday, and diet.

Since I'm big in the whole songs that no one's ever heard of department, lets try another.

When in my younger days, when my father said to me.
If I don't give s**t to anyone they won't give it to me.
Since then my self esteem has spent some time down in the dirt
Cause life knows when to kick ya boy and knows when it's gonna hurt.
Now I don't give s**t to anyone, they're giving it to me.
But not today, and nevermore, I'm setting myself free.

It don't do much to piss and moan, complaining all a drone
Memories should serve you 'til you pick the road you've gone
You don't need me to tell you that your life's a one shot deal
So don't burrow in your busted past just go where your heart feels.
It won't be long until today's a distant memory
So walk the road, with head held high, and be all you can be.

If you're looking for some sanity, well I tell ya look to me.
I've been down there and done the time, I'm still strong enough to scream.
All that I can tell you is, don't let them get you down.
You got some strength left in your heart then fight to hold your ground.
I may not have that much in life but I still got the desire
And when I get that doubt in mind, I hear that voice inside.

Hey na-na-na-na
Hey Hey
Hey someday will find outselves a way.

~Find a Way by The Ducky Boys

Hope that answers your question.

Take care, and our thoughts are with you.