Category: Wahmish Stories

Have a good wahmish story?

Leave stories in the comments about sometime that you were a victim of wahmish, a time you used wahmish to get what you wanted, or just try to wahmish me by telling me something that (you think) that I don’t already know but would find interesting enough to distract, confuse, or sidetrack me from writing my posts.

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Why I Converted to Judaism

עמך עמי ואלהיך אלהי

Am-ach a-me ve-lo-hach el-o-hi

“Your people shall be my people, your God, my God.”-Ruth 1:16

One of the questions I get asked over and over again is, “why did you convert to Judaism?”  Sometimes the question comes simply from a lack of understanding and a desire to learn.  Other times it is a hateful and, dare I say, anti-semantic comment with a denotation of “Why did you abandon Jesus!?”

            Generally speaking, I answer the latter of the two questions with a smart ass remark, “we weren’t real close anyway,” and leave it at that.  If, however the question comes from a desire to learn, I’m all-to-ready to teach.

I was raised Missionary Baptist. As you were probably aware, I sorta got a distaste for Christianity in middle school and high school and dabbled in an array of other faiths, wicca, Buddhism, and the like, but never quite found what I was looking for there either. Two occurrences with Christianity turned my view on it
1. No one at church could answer the REALLY difficult questions or sort out the contradictions in the gospels.
2. Mrs. Powers. I went to church 3 times a week as a kid, to Buffalo Valley Missionary Baptist Church. I could recite all the important scripture. Lead what I deemed a faithful life. When I was in 5th Grade I noticed that Mrs. Powers treated the kids that were in her Sunday School class at the Methodist church superior to those that were not. I joined that church and soon was treated as one of the elite. She taught me nothing in Sunday School except the political nature of religion.
As and adult I only seemed to find further hypocrisies in various Christian faiths, specifically in the “judge not lest ye not be judged” quotation that is so often forgotten and new with certainty that it wasn’t for me. Like Ghandi said, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are not much like your Christ.”
When I started working in the kitchen at the Museum of Art I had to cook for a group of people that was primarily Jewish. I liked these people. I liked the way they did business, and handled life. I became interested in Kosher law and that lead to the other 600 or so mitzvah, or laws of Judaism. The more I studied, the more I wanted to learn. They were able and willing to answer the hard questions, with science! I’m a man of science before I am a man of faith. They didn’t view me as an inferior, an HONESTLY ALL ACCEPTING faith. We even dropped gender pronouns in the prayer book. To me God may be a man, to you a woman, tomorrow something else. יהוה אחד Adonai is One, but reveals yon self in a myriad of ways do different people. To Moses God was a burning bush, to Elijah a chariot of fire, to Einstein, a mathematical equation. The stories in the Torah are real in as much as they have real meaning, but are all just parables. The earth took billions of years to form, not 7 days. Big Bang WAS the Creation. Dinosaurs walked the earth and someday man will not. When I found a faith that preached what I knew to be true, I was hooked.
I feel the purpose of religion, all religions, is to keep us connected with the divine source. Faith is the connection, religion is the action. When we forget religion, we often forget faith. I couldn’t live in a religion that was so separate from life, nor in a life that was separate from fact. Judaism was the answer for me. Everything I do, I remember יהוה. I don’t always keep Kosher, I love meat with dairy. But when I break the rules of Kosher, I recognize that I am doing so and my recognition brings God back into my life. When I sing, I pray, when I eat, I pray, when I go to the bathroom, I pray, when I do anything I pray. I don’t say a prayer, but I do it with God and that is prayer. Life with God is Prayer. “Pray like everything relies on God. Act as if everything relies on you.”
There is more to learn in Judaism than a thousand lifetimes could teach. I’m all about learning new things so it’s perfect for me in that respect as well. I even got to learn a new language!
As an extra bonus, as of June 23, 2006, the date of my conversion, I have the “right of return.” I can commit a crime and sneak of to Israel without the threat of extradition. Isn’t that alone reason to convert?
I could go on for hours longer. If I haven’t fully answered you and you’d like to talk more about it, feel free to email me back or give me a call. It’s a topic I love to talk about.

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Covid-19 Testing

Covid-19 Survival Gear; Alcohol, Sanitizer, Soap, Water, Thermometer, Tissues, and lots and lots and lots of toilet paper. One also needs face masks to wear improperly, and rubber gloves to throw on the ground, but these were in too short of a supply to be in the photograph.

The following is a dramatization of my attempts to be tested for Covid-19 in Broward County. These were confusing and difficult times for everyone so no single party can be considered to “blame” but it was a fruitless nightmare.

Thursday, April 19, 2020….

Me: ::::fever, runny nose, sneezing, coughing:::: I think I’m sick

Work: You can’t take time off now! Can’t you see we’re busy!

Me: I’m going home and I’m staying home!

Work: You will be in trouble if you don’t prove you have Covid-19!

Me: Maybe it isn’t Covid-19.  Maybe it’s just a cold.  Either way, I’m sick.  I’m staying home until I feel better!

Work:  You will be in trouble!

Friday….

Me: ::: to Broward Health Dept:::: I need to take the Covid-19 test. I work in healthcare and I have the symptoms.

Broward Health Dept: You need a written prescription from your doctor in order to get tested.

Me: Dr. H I need to take the Covid-19 test in order to prove to work I’m sick, apparently seeing me running a fever and coughing and sneezing isn’t enough. I need a written Rx in order to take the test.

Dr. H: You can pick up the Rx on Monday.

…..two days pass and it is Monday…two days now without a fever….

Me: I’ve come to pick up my Rx for the Covid-19 test

Dr. H’s Secretary: OMG! YOU CAN’T BE IN HERE! You have to wait outside! You’ll infect us all! ::::slips the Rx under the door:::::

Me: ::::to Broward Health Dept:::: Ok, I have my Rx.

Broward Health Dept: Ok, good. Now write your phone number on it, and email it to ridiculouslylongemail@browardhealth.org and someone will call you to make an appointment

Me:  :::::Follows instructions and waits:::::

And waits

And waits

Broward Health Dept:……

Me: ::::calls and gets the same instructions and follows them::::

Broward Health Dept:……

Broward Health Dept:……

……And evening and morning were the third day without fever…..

Me: :::: calls and gets the same instructions and follows them::::

Broward Health Dept:……

Broward Health Dept:……

Me: :::::sees on news that anyone who has been without fever 72 not eligible for test through the health dept::::

Work: You need a Dr’s note saying that have to quarantine in order to get paid sick leave

Me:  I don’t care about the PAID sick leave, I just want to still have a job to go back to next week

Work:……yeah, you need a Dr’s note…..

Me: Dr. H, please help me.  This is making me NUTZ!  I’m not sick any more!  I just want to go back to work next week!

Dr. H:  Come in at 1pm on Thursday.  I have a few test kits, and I’ll write you a note.

Me:  Baruch HaShem!

…….Wednesday……

Work: Hey Danny I need you to contact the doctor 1st thing in the morning we need to get your results back from the test to make sure it’s negative otherwise I gotta get somebody to come in here and clean up the place I need a doctor’s note ASAP

Me: The doctor is not in on Wednesday. The test results take 72 hours.

….Thursday….

Me: ::::feeling fine with just a lingering cough::::::::Goes to my pharmacy to pick up my regular medication:::Goes to Shake Shack for a takeaway burger and milkshake::: Goes to see Dr. H:::: Dr. H waves me into the back into a room before his secretary returns from lunch::::

Dr. H:  How do you feel?

Me: I feel fine.  I have a cough from time to time, but it’s getting better.  I haven’t had a fever in 4 days.

Dr. H:  :::does the normal check of blood pressure, pulse, Oxygen, temperature, listens to chest:::  Whatever it was seems to have cleared up on its own.  Since you don’t have a fever, and haven’t had one in several days, I can’t give you the test.  It would take forever for results to get back for one, and for 2 you’ve been fever free for too many days for it to be conclusive.  I will write you a note though for work.  When are you supposed to go back?

Me: Sunday

Dr. H:  That’s the 29th…probably good to stay quarantined a few more days anyway just to be safe….by the way, you’re due in for lab work….

Me:  I have an appointment already next Wednesday.

Dr. H: Ok, good.  Here’s your note:

               “To whom it may concern: The above was seen in my office today and he is in optimal medical condition to resume full work duty effective Sunday 3/29/2020.  Please call for any concern.”

Me:  Sends the note to Pharmacist in charge and store manager.

Work:  We need to make sure that your test results are negative in order for you to come back to work.

Me:  You’ll have to contact my doctor.  He has cleared me to return to work on the 29th.

Work: Will you have test results by then?

Me: :::::Recounts all of the above simply as for a child::::

Work: Return to work on Sunday the 29th.  We will talk on Monday.

….. Saturday….

Fellow Employee:  Ummm…they tell me that you’ve been sick.  I have a 3 month old at home.  I don’t want to take anything home.  If you’re sick then I’d rather you stay home tomorrow than risk infecting us.

Me:  ::::face slap:::: If you feel that you are risking your child maybe YOU should stay home since you come in contact with probably 30 or more people who are infected every day…  I have been essentially “well” for 6 days now.  I have been cleared by the doctor to return to work tomorrow.  If you have a problem with it, you should contact the doctor directly.

Fellow Employee: Well… ya know… I just don’t want to risk-

My Husband: ::::butts into the conversation:::: Are you telling him that you want him to stay home?  If so then you will have to pay him for the day’s missed wages.  He’s been cleared to return to work.

Fellow Employee: Well, no, I just don’t want to risk…

Me: I’ll see you tomorrow.

Trustworthy Fellow Employee: :::via text::: He says that if one employee tests positive they close that store for 14 days.

Me: Ahhhh, no wonder everyone wanted me to be sick! LOL  Sorry I wasn’t able to give everyone 2 weeks off, but we are not considered “health care workers” in the eyes of the health department….Our boss is though, maybe she should go to a Coronaparty!

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Kristallnacht

This week we mark the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass.  Have we really had enough time to forget?

I came into my Jewish-ness at B’nai Sholom in Huntington, WV under the tutelage of Rabbi David Wucher.  Every year as the leaves began to change, the Gates of Repentance was closed, the lulav and etrog were put away and the sukkah disassembled, a sermon was given the second week of November remembering Kristallnacht.

From November 9-11, 1938, non-Jewish German and Austrian civilians ransacked and burned 276 synagogues and 7,500 Jewish businesses.  Police and firemen were ordered not to get involved except if non-Jews or their property was in danger.  There were 91 Jewish fatalities.

In the following six years the Holocaust took the lives of six million Jews in the most abhorrent of conditions.  Six million is a big number.  It is hard to wrap your head around, hard to visualize.  In human history six million people have gathered in one place at one for an event only five times so it is not something to which most people have a point of reference.  Even then it is hard to put a face, a family, a history, hopes, dreams, celebrations, defeats, times of joy and times of mourning to each individual of a group of six million.  That, as Rabbi Wucher said annually, is why it is so meaningful and important that we remember Kristallnacht, that we tell the story.  We can all say we know 91 people, their stories.

Eleven is another number that we can digest.  Most of us can count on ten fingers the friends and family they know and love best.  We know their lives, their stories, their hopes and fears, joys and defeats, and we know our own.

I recently attended an interfaith memorial service at the Temple I attend regularly.  I wept openly at the reading of the names of those ruthlessly cut down at their time of prayer and reflection in their house of worship.  I have been deeply troubled and effected by this tragedy.  I needed to release my pain.

I wasn’t born a Jew.  Until I was 20, I had no Jewish friends.  Jews were just another “them” that I had heard of but with whom I had no experience.  I converted to Judaism over a long process that began in my early twenties.  Dissatisfied with the judgments and blindness of other faiths I found in Judaism a family that was open, accepting, helpful, and loving.  I found a family that judged me not by whom I was, whom I loved, but on my actions and on my merits.  I found a people that embraced education, truth, and science.  I found a faith where questioning was not only allowed, but encouraged.  Their people became my people, their god my god.  I moved from within walking distance of B’nai Sholom to Cincinnati, the birthplace of the Reform movement and the Hebrew Union College, then some years later to South Florida, home of over a half a million Jews.  Wherever you go, I will go.  Wherever you stay, I will stay.

Through this somewhat Jewishly narrowed lens of life I forgot how truly rare and precious we are in this country and in this world.  Although my life is pretty Jew-ish, we really only make up less than 3% of the population of this country, a very minor minority.  The attack in Pittsburg at Tree of Life robbed us of 11 more.

I did not personally know anyone that was killed.  I do not know anyone who knows anyone that was killed.  The closest degree of separation is: I go to Temple with people that went to Temple with people there.  Why then this profound outpouring of grief?

I mourn with their immediate families.  Losing a loved one is never easy, but in this manner…

I mourn with their congregation.  Every Jewish congregation is a tight-knit community.  I could look around my own congregations and see the people from Tree of Life.  Losing one of them is tough on the community, but losing eleven…

I mourn with the Jewish people for losing 11 of their own, of our own.  We are truly so few…

I grieve with a nation where anyone, Christian, Muslim, Baha’i, black, white, Arab, Hispanic, or Jew is killed in their place of prayer.  I grieve for a nation where the hate-filled speech from the top has trickled down and empowered people to act violently.  No one should have to think about “Active Shooter” situations while they are praying, but I have…

This is a breathtaking event, but it isn’t isolated.  There have been over 300 mass shootings in the so-called United States this year, almost one per day.  Hate crime is at record high in general, and hate crimes against Jews is up 57% since last year.  This is worth being upset about.

The police acted swiftly and efficiently to end this event.  The Justice System will see to it that the perpetrator is justly punished.  Will the hate, the rhetoric, the racism, the privilege and the fear of losing that privilege come to an end as well?

Few survivors of Kristallnacht said that they could see it coming.  They lived in a democracy.  Their citizens, they themselves, had a say in their governance.  It was supposed to be a shining example.  Their rights, their properties, their religion, their lives were protected.  Then rose to power someone who lost the popular vote, that drummed up the sentiment, the hate, the fear.  Afraid of the Jewish prominence in society and their rise in power after World War I the charismatic leaders of Nazi Germany fed hatred, racism, and propaganda to the poor and weak populous,  then allowed them to release their wrath on the scapegoat minority, and suddenly one night, without much warning, the government no longer protected this minority.

Anyone that cannot see parallels is choosing not to.

Complacency is guilt.  To think that all Germans were all Jew-haters is daft.  It is fair to say that, like my friends and family growing up, most Germans only knew that there were Jews, and maybe knew a Jewish doctor or lawyer or grocer, but had no feelings one way or another toward them.  It is hard to talk people into killing their friends, their neighbors, their classmates.  It is much easier to incite people to hate the “them’s” and the “those people’s” that you don’t know, with whom you have little to no contact, people that look different, speak a different language, pray differently, minorities.

When I sat down at the memorial service, the World War 2 veteran to whom I sat next asked me if the police were still outside with bomb-sniffing dogs.  I told him that they were.  He shook his head sadly and said he didn’t like that, that he never thought he’d have to worry about coming to services at the Temple, not in America.  I agreed.

From November 11, 1938 until May 8, 1945 the Nazi government murdered six million Jews.  Once the fuse is lit, it burns fast. How long is our vision into the future?  How far are we from our own Kristallnacht, when the masses, beaten up to a fervor, are released on the minorities without intervention?  It hasn’t happened yet, but to say that it can’t happen is naïve, at best.  The only way that we can at this point keep from lighting the fuse, is to blow out the match.  We must all stop being afraid of losing our privileges and instead be ashamed of having them.  In every aspect that a person is privileged there is someone that has to do without, and that is shameful.  We must stop hating that someone for wanting an equal footing, and bring him or her up to it.  We have to stop fearing the stranger seeking shelter, and share our bounty.  And we must absolutely stop supporting the privileged white men that stir up mistrust and hatred in order to keep their power.

We find ourselves in a situation all too similar to that of Interwar Germany.  A division is growing between the haves and the have nots.  Nationalism is on the rise, education on the decline.  Communication between people, parties, is nearly non-existent.  The people with power are resorting to saying desperate things in order to keep that power.  People are doing desperate things to support those people.  We all want to “Make America Great Again,” but some people think that “America” only implies to them personally.  A truly great America is one where everyone is housed, and fed, and healthy, and educated.  One where everyone feels welcomed and loved, and everyone has enough, a country that shows its greatness by helping countries-people-achieve greatness too.  If these are the ideals that we hold for individual greatness, and we are a democracy, a nation of individuals, these are the ideals of greatness that we should hope for our country, and require in its leadership.

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WAHMISH Decoded…Maybe

For over a year I have heard the term used. Almost everyone at the company for whom I work uses the term. And anytime someone comes from a different location, they use the term and are surprised that we know it. No one, however, seems to know the true origin of the word, or who coined it. This morning, while laying in my bed, I figured it out….Maybe…

We

All

Have

More

Important

Shit

Here

As in, “We All Have More Important Shit Here to do than listen to your cockamamie story of how your alprazolam went down the sink.”

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The Bilge Life

Last night I dreamed that I was organizing a river cruise in the mountains. This was triggered by a number of external factors, as was the overall mood of the dream.

In the dream, many of my best friends had supporting roles…though I’m not completely sure how supportive they all were.

One bought me plane tickets to fly back to the mountains….but the plane crash landed.

Another friend was giving me a ride from the airport to the port in her car…but ran into an electric pole.

Shaken, but unharmed, I Ubered on….until we were held up by a train wreck.

Eventually I made it to the boat. A Bon Voyage party was held to celebrate my survival, arrival, and the upcoming voyage. Well wishes abounded. It was going to be a grand old time, a fascinating new adventure…the ship listed starboard, capsized, sank. Caught in the bubble of air, like the Poseidon survivors, I took a deep breath, broke a window, and found myself too deep in the water to make it back to the surface.

I woke up then to the peaceful, yet somehow ear-grating midi tune, Maple, of my phone’s alarm.

My career path seems to have been a plane crash, followed by a car accident, delayed by a train wreck. Now here I am, 36 years old, still completely lost about what I want to be when I grow up, starting a blog, and hoping that it isn’t a sinking ship.

My mother always instilled in me a sense that I could do anything, and be anything that I wanted when I grew up. The problem is that I agreed, but could never figure out what that anything is. Then, in high school, when I realized that I was gay, I did some research on what my statistical life expectancy was. At the time, with the AIDS epidemic still not far in the past, and homosexuality being the cause of disproportional number of teen suicides, along with the internet being too new to have a great many sources to consult, I found the average life span of uncloseted gay men was 35 years.

Now this information might have been complete bunk. It probably was. But I read it, and as a young impressionable 17 year old it stuck, and it changed me in ways that I am still fighting to get over. Suddenly I thought, “well I have +/-20 more years to do everything I want to do. I best get to it!” The first thing that had to go was plans of being a doctor, or lawyer, or architect, or anything that would take a decade in school. That would be half the time gone! I settled into a mindset that it didn’t matter if I was stuck in retail drudgery forever, because, hey, it was only 20 years anyway!

Whatever job I found, I did, and I did it (like everything else in my life) to the best of my abilities (a.k.a. well). Need a sales clerk? Done! Need a pharmacy technician? Done! Need a Chef? Done! Need a Purchasing and Facilities Manager? Done! Need a Regional Manager? Done! Need an Uber Driver? Done! Need someone to paint your house? Done! Need someone to install a light switch? Done! Need someone to fix your boat? Done! You name it…

Here came THIRTY FIVE rolling in like an Indian train fire! And what was I doing? Laying pennies on the track. When it hit me, I was unemployed, so completely broke that I was preparing to be homeless, with a substance abuse issue, looking around wondering why the Hell had I outlived my time. I was so depressed that even suicide seemed like too much work.

Then I got a job.

I wanted to work. I wanted to work so bad that, despite this retail pharmacy job seeming like punishment for all the bad things I had done in this life and the last one, I was so grateful to have to go to work that I said a prayer of thanksgiving every time a patient went ape shit on us because it took four hours to fill their prescriptions, every time I was called in to work on my day off, every time I was asked to stay late. In short I said the shehecheyanu three times a day, every day.

Then new management came and the job became a normal nightmare retail pharmacy job instead of the abject misery that it had been. I was beyond grateful for the breather, we all were, but just like the self flagellating monks, I had gained some amount of atonement and spiritual self-satisfaction from torture, and now it was gone.

Six months of this normal feeling of not wanting to go to work today had me realize that I really didn’t want being a pharmacy technician suck away any more of my soul than I had allowed it to do over the last 12 years. It is a good job. It pays…well. It has some amount of social esteem even. I even once felt like I was helping people. Being sick is tough. I know. Helping people with the difficult transition, and the difficulties involved with the transition from sick to well, is very satisfying. More and more, however I find myself padding the pockets of big drug companies, and the corporate beast that is my employer, and less helping people. My job has me so occupied trying to upsale, and trying to meet their ridiculous rubrics, that I rarely have time, or am able, to actually help a person even find where the baby aspirin is, let alone help them get well.

Clearly, the time for me to move on has come, but money doesn’t fall from trees, and I’m still as clueless as ever as to what it is that I want to do, so I stay. I’ve always heard the adage that you should do what you enjoy and the money will come to you. :::coughbullshitcough::: The things I love in this world are food, travel, photography, meeting people, experiencing new things, sex, entertaining, learning, and more now than ever before in my life I feel drawn to writing….so here I am…starting a blog.

I don’t know that I thought that this would be easy…but I didn’t expect it to be quite so complicated. And I don’t have a clue how it could ever make me a dime at it but here we go. I’m going to call my dream a “manifestation of my fears” and not “a prescient vision” and hope I enjoy this pleasure cruise.

WELCOME ABOARD!!

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Wahmish Stories

Have a good wahmish story?

Leave stories in the comments about sometime that you were a victim of wahmish, a time you used wahmish to get what you wanted, or just try to wahmish me by telling me something that (you think) that I don’t already know but would find interesting enough to distract, confuse, or sidetrack me from writing my posts.

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