Addendum to last post

[theyellowhobbit]

I guess the other problem is that I left out of the last post is that I still feel bound to the Orthodox community. If I started davening CJC again, if I started wear tzitzit and kippot and tallit and t'fillin, I'd run the risk of marginalizing myself. People would take notice and lose respect for me.

It was all well and good when I wasn't observant to begin with -- I didn't know any better. No one could hold my upbringing against me. But to have become observant, and then knowingly "break halacha" [or halacha as defined by the OCP] would be something that caused people to lose respect for me. I'd be "leaving the community." I would risk losing friends. And there's no comparitive community that I could move to. There's no "reform community" at Penn that is actually cohesive and does stuff not on Friday nights on a regular basis. They're only Shabbat Jews, unless at NFTY events, which end when you start college. Same with mainstream conservative. CJC is way better than the outside Conservative world, but it's still tiny compared to OCP [which is why I got to read TOrah weekly-- they needed me to!] In the real world I'd be on my own again, though I guess I will be anyways.

Maybe people won't notice me davening CJC on shabbat. It would be my own business if I counted myself in a minyan again (which for me would require me to start davening daily again for it to be justifiable). People in OCP would never see me read Torah. But then rumors in the OCP travel faster than the speed of light [evidence of which was the speed of everyone finding out when Danny and Alyssa got engaged on Purim last year]. Then I'd of course be subjected to many debates. And A would be a jerk [like he always is on this topic] and tell me how I have Torah values and "know better" and am obviously doing something wrong and am encouraging egalatarianism.

Actually that last point might be a motivation, because he can really annoy me.

But I'm afraid of disappointing people. Everyone was so proud of me when I first became frum. Now they're indifferent, and don't notice how much I'm struggling.

Comments

[masteraleph.livejournal.com]

You are aware that there are plenty of reasons to say mishebeirachs? I know that you're used to the Mishebeirach for cholim, but there are ones for just about every event- usually lifetime events (birth, wedding, etc) but plenty that aren't, including the general mishebeirach for an oleh, which OCP does for every guy who goes up to the torah, regardless. For a sampling, see 442-443b in the standard hebrew/english artscroll, but there are lots more in other editions and other siddurim. You can of course still object to it.