I was a fake agnostic

"To believe in God is to believe that we are known. God sees. Therefore we are seen."_Jonathan Sacks

Slap, punch, ping in my brain. I was lying on my bed during this Shabbos afternoon, reading.
I had to put the book besides me, i could not go further in my reading.
My hand was on my eyes, realizing later that my hand was in the position of the Sh'ma Yisrael prayer.
The answer that i was looking for for years.
During half an hour, all my memories came up: why Hasidim said that i believe in Hashem without being able to give me a good explanation?
I am digging this hole in my brain to understand this attraction to Judaism since my childhood.

I always have been a fake agnostic finally.

I put my right arm on my eyes, and caressed my left shoulder. Yes, i am still alive, and a bomb is exploding in my brain.

When i was a teenager, i heard and listened a lot the inner voice. It helped me to grow up, to take decisions, to think if it was right or wrong. I hear it differently now, and also less often. I thought that it was Hashem. That was not!

You can hide, but there is always someone who sees you, i knew it.
One of my favorite poem has been written by Victor Hugo in La Légende des siècles* (The Legend of Ages), La Conscience* (The Conscience).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Hugo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Légende_des_siècles

I copy the link of the poem in French:
http://poesie.webnet.fr/lesgrandsclassiques/poemes/victor_hugo/la_conscience.html
I didn't find the English translation, sorry. I didn't check either what Google Translate offers.

Hugo said that 'Conscience is God present in man."
The poem describes the torments of Cain escaping the eye of G-d (the voice of his conscience), after he killed his brother. The action takes place at the dawn of the humanity in a biblical scene of the Old Testament. Hugo uses superlatives, creates situations increasingly tense and violent before the repetitive failure of Cain to silence the voice of his conscience, reminding him the fratricide.
The last verse is sublime: "The eye was in the grave and looked at Cain."
I studied this poem in High School Junior, i read it, reread it many times. I thank this teacher who let me study this poem. That's never easy to please all the students. I haven't been pleased too many times in school. Most of the books were boring.
And at those times, i didn't think Torah. But the Holy Book was already there, in my mind for years through this fascinating poem.

Jonathan Sacks talks about this inner voice that it doesn't compare to Hashem.
He adds that "The moral sense is prior to the religious sense."
That was so good to read that. His open-mindedness and his analyze of the human being's brain are comforting. He doesn't belong to any sects.
Chabad likes him a lot. Chabad is a sect, a group, before being a community.

Last week, i met my Jewish friend, G., who helped me a lot by giving me the book The Letters of Light which was the first revelation on my path of faith and belief in Hashem without being yet aware. Jonathan Sacks was the second step, a huge step.

I have not seen G. for a while. He didn't know about my last revelations, and my choice to go for an Orthodox conversion. He sent me to meet up some rabbis. I experienced, but i didn't find what i was looking for.
He was painting his bathroom. He is ambivert. He was in extravert option, his ego is big but he knows that i know that he hides a deep shyness. I am the same.
I didn't know how to tell him that, now, i was believing in Hashem. But i had to tell him. I like hearing his point of view. He will point out some aspects, and asks me the good questions.
He looked at me astonishingly. "How did this happen? You always told me: "I don't believe in G-d…"". The book of Jonathan Sacks helped me to put words on my feelings, questions, emotions, i replied.
Now, the Orthodox conversion was too much for him to hear.
"I can't hear that right now, that's not the good moment. Let's wait for T. (his girlfriend), and we are going to sit, drink some wine, and be able of having this conversation. I have to paint."
But later, he came back to the conversation and was a little upset that i was shomer, cover my head, and also to mingle with wealthy intellectuals. "You will get married a rabbi and, have 9 children."
No way! I am a 'daughter' of Simone de Beauvoir and the Existentialists.
I enjoy the company of Hasidim of different sects, that's true, but it doesn't mean that i want to be a part of a whole. I am not a follower. I am not a leader either. I don't believe in a collective thought, but in an individual thought.
To be Jewish is not only to be religious for me, but it's to have a moral sense before. I have one, but i could not be entirely Jewish if i didn't believe in Hashem.
It also means that i always felt Hashem without knowing it. But my work just starts because, i have to learn the prayers and to understand them. I dislike to recite a poem without understanding its sense.

That is one of the reasons why i don't post on CL anymore, because i want to meet Hasidim who likes their Hasidic life. On CL, the big majority of them was unhappy, except my king. :-)
To meet them in stores, and to try to have a conversation with them, brings me more than trading emails with all of them who want to get into my pants. :-)
Those ones didn't have morals, and that bothers me a lot! I don't blame the misery, i have my miserable days like everyone! But i stay at home, and i bother no one!

"The most remarkable thing about such people is that they thought there was nothing remarkable in what they did." _Jonathan Sacks.
According to my experience, people who have morals don't brag, but remain humble. I appreciate that a lot! To help others, to keep your promises, to save people has to be something obvious. If you brag or ask for being flattered, it means that there is something wrong with you.

Bragging is the nerve of this city, NY, where i don't feel comfortable for a while. People who talk and promise many thing: do it instead of talking, or shut up!
My refuge is in the different Hasidic communities and Jewish readings. That doesn't mean either that there are not people who brag in the Hasidic community. I met a lot like that: pretentious and arrogant.
I don't need these people, but i needed them to understand what i was looking for: humankind in Judaism. I want to meet up Hasidim/Frum/Jewish as Hasidim/Frum/Jewish, and find their humankind before the religion.

T. arrived and we resumed this conversation. G. was not upset, but there was something wrong. He was scared that i become a shomer. I can't be shomer, i like touching and being touched anytime. I am starving of cuddles all the times, so i have a cat. :-)
I can't be a Satmar, Chabad… They will never accept me, because my path is unique and mine. I like thinking on my own. We have all different backgrounds, and we need to adapt ourselves to the Holy Book. Everything is a question of interpretation: i don't think like my neighbor.

Torah has morals that we have to respect. Some are the same that the laws of a society.
I have never seen a country or society which allows murder… I don't talk about country with terrorists government. They don't build a country, but an anarchy.
Some country allows polygamy, except for women. Why is it so unfair for women?
I am not polygamist. :-)

G. was right for one point: i don't feel comfortable to travel on Saturday now. I stay at home or i go for a walk around. I spend time to read.
He showed me all the books good for me, and the ones he likes.
He recommended me the Torah translated by Aryeh Kaplan: the best translation so far for him.
Your thoughts about it?
I already bought his Jewish Meditation.

I was glad to make G. happy. He likes being useful. He is scared of failure. He has a hard time to take risks. I tried to help him, but he ran away, pretending that he was busy, when i asked him for coming by to talk seriously business for him. He is so on track!
He ended this conversation by: "You will keep on writing Hasidic porn", relating to the poetry. That's not porn, but erotic! Perhaps, according to a puritan point of view, it's porn! Ver veys!
I don't like either intellectuals from the high society. They are locked in their thoughts and lives.

When i travel, i like seeing cultures different from mine, but i also like feeling the culture: i want to see all the beauties of a city. I mean, i go to dangerous areas. I received stones in Warsaw, Belfast, Istanbul… I want to understand why these people are so angry. I don't visit a city like i visit a zoo.
I am doing the same in the hasidic communities. I take the time to talk to these people about their life, and they enjoy talking for most of them.

Street conversation in Williamsburg, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein