At Christmastime: Musings about Pig

What dire straits!

I itch to put up lights or decorate a tree, a couple of things I loved to do.  It meant rich beauty and vibrance and life.  I love light. I hanker for those days this year.  I know it comes from the fact that I have no Jewish community, and no Jews in the neighbourhood.  This is a place where you have to scour for candles for Hanukkah.  I have been using candles in the past sent by a friend from LA.

As I was hunting for them I realised I have a hanukkiah meant for oil, my very first Hanukkah purchase.  So I will use that this year.

Still, Hanukkah is when I decided to leave my marriage and in addition it's been downhill financially ever since.  Not great memories.  And I am also ever mindful that it's a minor holiday, because for me, it's a rabbinic dictum and not from the Torah.  I can't take it as seriously.

My best friend from LA, as always, is sending me little gifts for all the days and she is not a Jew.  There is a place in heaven for her.

Often I think about the relative ease that some Jews have- being born into a community, having kosher food at your fingertips while I still crave bacon that many have never tasted.  I don't really keep kosher but I do refuse bacon and that takes a lot of effort on my part.  I wonder about those born into a community where keeping kosher is not difficult, where even the pizza is kosher.  I marvel at that.  Or where there's a shul or mikvah within easy reach.  Where everyone eats and talks and believes a lot like you.  Where the only thing that occupies someone is how to become more stringent or to determine whose kitchen is kosher, or how to organise one's life more Jewishly.  How much you all take it for granted and are blessed.  You wonder about believing in G-d, or what constitutes an infraction of some mitzvah or belief, or what your neighbour is doing, while I just struggle to not eat pig.

Clearly, G-d has a sense of humour.

Chag sameach to all!