shabbat

G-d loves.  G-d forgives.  the question is, how much can we emulate G-d's behavior, and learn to love and forgive ourselves?

i've been through some very hard things.  and the way i reacted to them was very unhealthy for me.

when i broke shabbat, it made everything feel like nothing.  all the meaning that i understood there to be in live was gone, leaving a blankness, a numbness that enveloped me.  i remember weighing my friday night activities vs keeping shabbat and finding it all to be so meaningless and unconnected to me.  and i wanted to be connectd. i wanted to hurt.  i wanted to feel guilt, somehting big.  but i realized that when i stepped out of shabbat, i stepped out of G-d's world, and i removed and form of a conduit i had with Him, other than the most basic one of feeling the lack of His presence.

so i fought, and i clawed, and i destroyed and rebuilt everything around me.  everything in me that left me feeling unsure.  i'm talking relationships, hashkafot, things i thought about myself...

i searched back through my life, looking for times when i was happy, sane, stable.  i found that my identity could not be separated from the fact that i am a Jew, and i love God, and He loves me.  i started with that simple fact, and then did what we should all do when a relationship needs to be rekindled.  i called Him.  i'm not going to recount for you the exact conversation.  but i will tell you what one of my rebbeim told us once, back before i could appreciate what he was telling me.

the kids who are chozrim bitshuva are kids we should all respect and look up to.  but the kids we should look to in total awe are the kids who never left the derech, the kids who are still tempted by the outside world.  we, as chozrei bitshuva, know that the world outthere is empty.  we have tasted of it, and armed with that knowledge, chosen truth and meaning.  those kids - they choose to stick while still believeing that that world has anything to offer.  we already know better.

i put my life back together, and brought into it a new appreciation for what i could do with my life, with my Jewish and religious self.  every day now i am aware and i am thankful for the opporunity i have to live a religious life, and have and make a beautiful relationship with God.  i will never sway from this, never veer.  because i know what it is to not have God, to not have Shabbat, and to have no reason to live.