Shippy The Problem

Shippy Is Not A Problem. (Discaimer 1)

SHIPPY is deffnently not a problem! the problem is is that she's not here viseting!thomas

I've had it here folks. I throw in the towel, i begin the rant. Dust off the soapbox because im armed with a keyboard and i am pissed.

I say this for a woman who wont or cant say it for herself. There is nothing wrong with Shippy. I get tired of her being treated like some freak, having to explain again and again and again why she is doing what she does. She just wants to be Jewish. Orthodox Jewish. Why is this upsetting everyone else so much? The only impact it has on your life is what she decides to do or not do in it. and that's her right. I wish more people would do the same. At lest she is bloody doing something. Ask her what she did last week and her eyes will light up, because she is climbing into the arms of G-d.

Don't you get it? she isn't a FREAK. She's just devoted to this weird God from Israel a few zillion years ago. She is not a special case, you don't need to lower your eyes or your voice, this isn't something dirty or forbidden. I understand the jokes because it makes you nervous, and i went through that stage too. Maybe if you crawled outside the box of your safe comfortable little existence you might kick up some dust, raise some hell, do something, love something, fight for something, be ready to die for something. think about it.

She isn't a freak because she prays before she eats, or washes her hands at funny times, or because she covers her elbows. She is a decent upstanding wonderful funny young woman. Quit freaking out all right? This isn't the end of the world. She isn't going to not love you any more, or not want to hang out with you anymore. Because her religion is an All Or Nothing case, she cant just DO SOME STUFF. But relax. IT ISN'T PERSONAL. So it makes you insecure about your life. bugger off or join the club. She fears shit too.

Tell you a secret, a big fat juicy secret. It will blow you away. better sit down.

Our Orthodox Jew is human. She skips meals, cries because of what mom said, she puts her undies on one leg at a time and sips her juice from the close side of the glass. She likes to get 9 hours of sleep a night and gets 6 instead. She's got a guilt list, wears clunky funky jewellery, likes a nice opera or two, wears PJs till noon. She loves a boy she cant have. Secretly she craves corn pops and saturday morning cartoons. Her favourite song is Beautiful People by Marylin Manson.

Sorry, did i just blow my cover? Did you just have to consider what maybe sometimes, stuff hurts her too?

I am her identical twin sister. I am also a lesbian, bisexual, pagan and a witch. She prays to her god in her room, and i caste a circle for mine in my room. She still eats at the same table as me. On bad days we still sleep in the same bed at night.

Look this isn't at any one person. Its sparked off because of an argument i had with my mother today. Mom doesn't "get" this jewish thing. She just doesn't. She's a good liberal little parent so she smiles and nods and tries to use supportive statements, but the truth is she's scared.

 MOM. THIS ISN'T THE END OF THE WORLD.
    Shes JEWISH not DEAD.

Just cut her some slack here. She's trying to follow one of the most orthodox religions on earth with virtually no encouragement and little support. We eat pork on saturday, everyone else in the family is bisexual or pagan or both. Dammit we all have dreams, stuff we want so hard it makes our teeth ache and our skin crawl. If you're lucky enough to know what it is, and have a way to get to it, go and never let anything ever hold you back.

She isn't asking anything from you other then a bit of support and to be left alone. I watch this nobel woman struggle under the stares, the snide comments, the little biting bits that grind her into the ground. She's human people. very very very human. She at lest is trying to be a good one.

Could someone just be happy for her?

(1) this came from a rant at my mother today. Its been a bad mom day, and just one too many friends smiled at me on monday and asked me why Shippy was converting. something in me has snapped.

Dear Dawn or Shippy. Or Both.

Yay you.

It is so beautiful to see people who do what they want to do. What they feel they have to do...or both. You are *both* an inspiration to everyone who knows you, please don't forget. What is in people's minds is not always on their lips however, and we forget to say it. Or are afraid to say it. Please remember that no matter what we say, your every move impacts more than you will ever know. You live not for yourself alone...

I'm *happy* happy happy for you.

TheRestOfThisLetter isn't exactly relevant to this page

Love Kim

Amen. If I ever have even half the passion, commitment, and patience that I've seen in both of you since the day I met you, I'll be incredibly fortunate. You make life in general, and religious life in particular, look very, very good. All amounts of thanks and support to you.

Love,

Thank you for writing that, Dawn... it made me cry a little... I admire Shippy tremendously, I admire both of you, you are such strong people, knowing who you are. Ditto Kim, you are both an inspiration.

Hving just met shippy last week, I HAVE to add my two cents here. At first I was a felt funny around shippy, because all I knew about her is that she was becoming and orthodox jew, and couldn't sleep under the same roof as unmarried men. This I saw as a problem only becuase it was rather inconvienient to invade her house. The problem was that I never had actually met her, so I couldn't form my own opinions about her. My opinions are that she is an incredibly individual with a great sense of caring. It's cool to see someone so focused on what they do and want in life. (this goes for her twin too!) I have to say with no exageration that shippy is one of the coolest people I have ever met. The only gripe I have about herbeing an orthodox jew is that I can't give her a big fat hug! They should really change the rules that you can plutonically hug a memer of the oposite sex....

  Josh
 

Dawn and Shippy, I've just sent a letter off to you. I regret not writing earlier! It seems like a little bit of genuine support and love could go a long way right now. So, expect some warm feelings in the mail. :)

-Mel

I love both of you. Shippy is not a problem. If either of you are having a bad day and need to bitch at someone, even though we don't know each other very well, I'm here to listen. I'm sending good energy your way.

The only problem Shippy may have is being to kind and caring about others, and thats not a problem, its a blessing. She is truly wonderful and I have tremendous respect towards her for the decisions she has made. -mike

No, Shippy isn't a problem, but some of the choices that she's made are. How can it be right and good to decide that one will never eat food cooked by a non-Jew? Isn't that discriminatory? How can that be seen as acceptable? According to all your different beliefs of right and wrong.... how does that one fit as a right decision?

- Christy

Christy, the way I see it, that's not what the issue is. What's important is how the food is prepared; it's perfectly fine for a non-Jew to cook, so long as they follow the laws of Kashrut (keeping Kosher). A lot of Kashrut is about purity, and it's pretty complex in some areas what's needed for meat to be kosher, under what conditions something unkosher contaminates something kosher (depends on amounts, dry vs. wet, hot vs. cold), etc. A partial analogy.. say someone who is strictly vegan (that's a lifestyle choice as well) is invited over for dinner with someone who who is unusued to cooking vegan or vegetarian dishes. The vegan person wouldn't eat there unless the the cooking person was willing to put in the extra effort to make something vegan. With keeping kosher, it's a similar situation except that the way the laws of Kashrut are, it would be an even larger effort (cleaning & making the oven kosher, keeping the kosher dishes absolutely seperate from anything unkosher, etc) to cook something kosher if you don't have a kosher kitchen. So, to summarize: it's not a matter of who is cooking, but whether they'll follow your dietary requirements. In the case of keeping kosher, that's often too complex to be practical.

• No... I don't know if you're right Noam. I know the complexity of the Kosher laws are part of it, but I also remember Shippy telling me about how when she was cooking at the Bliss' house, she'd have to get one of the kids to turn on the stove... because only a Jewish person could turn the stove on, and as close as she might have been to Jewish then, she wasn't Jewish enough to be able to turn on their stove. Besides... even if it were just the complexity of laws... I seriously, seriously question any religion that lets a complexity of laws get in the way of other things... like family or friendship. This is just me question of course, and doesn't have to be taken seriously by anyone else... but there are actually quite a few of Jenny's choices that I'm starting to question. I'm under the impression that she wouldn't be able to come to my funeral if I died soon, because it would be in a church... I wonder what would happen if one of her sisters or mother died... I hate the idea of religion pulling people appart... but then, maybe it doesn't matter to some people, those things like celebrations, weddings, funerals, common meals, whatever... but those are really, really important to me. Those are how we create friendships, families, relationships. No matter how much Jenny might still claim to be a friend, I don't know if I could count her who was one of my two closest friends for most of my life as a friend. Because she can no longer take part in my life as a friend would. No big deal, I guess, because people are allowed to leave their friends and everything, but it is a big deal and I cry when I think of her. If Shippy's so darn caring to others, why can't she see how much I miss her? how much I start to hate her, simply because I don't know what else to do to let it be less painful? I question why a God would consider little details about what dishes are used for what food more important than being able to eeat with friends, or whether the purpose was to prevent people from being able to befriend nonJews. I question Jenny's motives, and whether for her its really about God or about hiding from all the hurt and fear she's faced in her life. And the minister at my church is putting me in touch with a Jewish rabbi, a friend of hers, because I think for me to have Shippy as my strongest example of Judhaism would be as sad and wrong, as for someone's only example of Christianity to be those fundamentalists that Shippy used to like to criticize. I will try to understand, even though this is not easy. But I will question the morality and implications of Jenny's choices. To say something is for religious reasons and brings one closer to God is not enough to explain it to me. That reasoning has been used by humans to explain all sorts of laws and decisions they've made, most of which have caused harm, not blessings.

My comment is gone, because I think what Rosie said below is true. I do have fairly strong feelings about this, but I'm not sure this is the place, so they aren't going here. I'd be comfortable on a site started by Shippy with an explicit request for comment; as it is I feel it's too much like talking behind her back. Charlie

I agree with charlie. Although I've only met shippy a month or so ago, so I don't know her as well, or in such a lenghthy manner as others, people DO change, and stopping change is a bad idea in my opinion. I can see where christy is coming from (if 2 the person answering noam is indeed christy), but I think instead of lamenting the fact that shippy is now "unaccessable" I think it would be wiser to embrace the way shippy's changed. I don't know about other people, but despite that fact that shippy is 'unaccessable' I find her a whole lot more accesable than a LOT of people I've met.

Everybody...I don't think it's fair to be arguing over whether or not Shippy is a "problem" (or whatever) on wiki...we don't have any other pages that are made specifically to analyze and evaluate individual people, except those started by the people themselves. Shippy didn't start this page. Maybe she doesn't have a problem with it. But we don't know. I appreciate having a place to send support to her and Dawn. I am not you, Christy, and if I were in your situation I would quite possibly share many of your feelings. But I don't think it's fair to discuss her on wiki like an abstract subject, especially without her permission...you know?

• I totally second this. Its just not right to analyze somebody on the web, who's permission we don't even have, or do we? -mike

Ok, I agree with Rosemary and Mike. But I'm going to be totally hypocritical and continue agruing anyways.

There is a very simple thing called belief. Everyone has it to some degree. But the problem with belief is the it's very hard to understand other peoples beliefs.

When I first met Shiffy, I couldn't understand why the heck she would want to change her life so much. Cook foods just right? You can't do some things on some days. An aranged marriege? Why would someone want to do all this?

It's simple. Belief. Shiffy belives in Orthodox Judaism. I spend a long time talking to Shiffy last new years, trying to understand her belief. But there isn't anything to understand. She belives in Orthodox Judaism in the same way we belive the world is round and that the earth goes around the sun.

As soon as you relize that it's just belief, it's a lot simpler. Something in Orthodox Judaism speaks to Shiffy. There's something in it that she likes enough to change her life. That's it. And she is expressing her belief through converting.

I don't agree with lots of Orthodox Judaism. But it's not my place to tell Shiffy or anyone what to believe. It's not anyones right to make people change belief. Shiffy has decided that Orthodox Judaism if right for her. It's not our plave to called her a "problem" or to say she is "wrong." It's not our place to deabate Shiffy's life for her.

Shiffy truly belives in Orthodox Judaism. Nothing more. Nothing less. -Victor (The LHF)

Thank you Josh, Charlie and Victor for your thoughtful comments... your comments help me see things in new ways, which is all I ask. -Christy