by Chaya Kurtz

It’s come to my attention lately that I am failing at being a religious fundamentalist. I know, it’s a crummy thing to fail at, as achieving the status of the most holy woman to ever surface in the history of Judaism would definitely be a big freaking boost to my ego. I’m not sure how I even live with myself, considering how low I have stooped. Here are the top ten reasons why I am failing at being a religious fundamentalist.

10) I voted for Obama: After getting chewed out by a bunch of peers at a Shabbos lunch for voting for the Obaminator (sorry, dudes, I could not vote for Team Rape), I started to understand the zeitgeist of Crown Heights and the Jewish fundamentalist world at large in 2013. Half the people at the table were on food stamps, and they thought it was a great idea to vote Republican, because in order to be a real religious fundamentalist, you have to be a knee jerk Republican. You also need to be on food stamps, whether you can afford food or not, but I am getting ahead of myself.

“I pay taxes while you work part-time under the table and suck up government programs, and you’re going to tell me I am an idiot for voting for Obama because you think Bibi Netanyahu can’t stand up to his Middle East policy? You think Bibi even gives a shit?” I thought. “If your wife needs a life-saving abortion, you want the government to decide if she can have one? You want the US government to be your medical posek?!” I thought. I didn’t say those things; I only thought them. But here I am with my big mouth saying them now, since “everything that rises must converge”. If you can name that quote, you probably also are failing at being a religious fundamentalist (or you know how to Google).

9) I like the gays: I have no problem with gay people. My own failure at disapproving of “the gays” (as they are called by properly educated religious fundamentalists, and a gay person in the singular is called “a gay”, not “a gay person”) stems from the fact that THERE ARE 613 COMMANDMENTS IN THE TORAH. Why you gotta harp on just that one? Why don’t all the successful religious fundamentalists freaking harp on people who go as gossips among our people, or who cheat in business with “incorrect scales”, or who don’t rise in the presence of an educated elder? There are 51 commandments in the Torah portion in which the whole “no man on man action” thing comes up. Do “real” religious fundamentalists get ostracized for being gossips? No. They get rewarded! Do parents disown their kids who do a little shady business? Not usually! Did G-d command those things in the same breath, and in the same context, as the whole “no man on man action” thing? You can’t tell me He didn’t. It�s right there in the Torah. But seeing things this way is why I am incompetent at being a religious fundamentalist.

8) I have a job that doesn’t involve therapy, education, children, bookkeeping, renting out substandard apartments, processing diamonds, or selling cellular phones: But my husband is a therapist who works with children and education, so do I get points for that? Alright�maybe the virtues of my husband will save me. Also, my great grandfather was a jeweler, and he passed the business on to my uncles. Does that count, even a little bit? Please say it counts. I can’t handle this feeling of failure for much longer.

7) I like Arabs: I was really surprised when I moved to Jerusalem, went to the Malkah Mall, and found it to be full of Arabs. Everywhere I looked, there were Arabs doing such things as buying T-shirts and eating ice cream. Who knew? Arabs eat ice cream! Yes, you get the occasional bloody axe murderer or suicide bomber, but as a whole, I just can’t bring myself to hate Arabs. (Blah, blah, blah Naturei Karta likes Arabs so there goes your argument, Chaya. Whatever.) I would live in Yehuda or Shomron (and have!) because I don’t think that living on Jewish land according to the Torah is hateful toward Arabs, and I am a strong believer in the Jewish state, but I just don’t hate Arabs. If you don’t think it’s possible to live with such a contradiction, think again. Obviously being able to live with contradiction is a sign of failing at being a religious fundamentalist. I have just angered the entire world. Moving right along!

6) I am not a native Yiddish speaker: I do, however, know how to say, “I get great pleasure from looking at the monkeys.” Ready, it’s really cool: Ich hub shtark hanaa fun kookin af du malpis. #fail #failure #freakingfailing

5) I do not own a single pair of loafers: What’s up with Chareidi women and loafers? Why is the loafer the shoe of choice for Chareidi women worldwide? And why loafers with rubber soles, in particular? I’ll tell you why: The loafer is the perfect shoe for the religious fundamentalist Jewish woman. It is eidel and tsenua, goes with every skirt, and is functional for lugging a baby carriage up the stairs of the apartment building. I have almost bought loafers many times. Just this week, I went into DSW and found of pair of brown, rubber sole loafers that were exceptionally comfortable. I chickened out. Why? Because I am a failure.

4) I don’t make kugel: Successful religious Jewish fundamentalists seem to never tire of cholent, kugel, “salads” containing mayonnaise, crappy kosher pizza, instant coffee, and Coca Cola products. For quite a while, I got very into kugel and cholent. In fact, I even figured out how to make a convincingly authentic potato kugel bound with flax seeds rather than eggs. (YOU CANNOT DO ANYTHING RIGHT, CHAYA. SUCCESSFUL RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISTS EAT EGGS.) After adopting the standard Chassidic diet for a year, I found myself in the gastroenterologist’s office, under anesthesia with a tube down my throat searching for the source of my stomach pain, bloating and indigestion. (I know that one particular Hadar HaTorah rabbi likes to tell the students that the bocherim in the olden days had stomachs of leather and souls of silk, and the bocherim of today have stomachs of silk and souls of leather. I am not denying that I am a failure! My wonky digestive system is just one more sign of my religious inadequacy.) That was the end of kugel for me. After getting off of gluten, cutting back on animal protein, and increasing my consumption of vegetables and fruit, I am happy to say that the symptoms went away on their own. Hashem heals all flesh and performs wonders (points!). But I don’t make kugel (demerit!). Since gluten-free, egg-free, high-fiber kugels do exist, and I don’t make them because I don’t feel like washing my food processor, let’s call this one a wash.

3) I don’t use an Internet filter: This is largely because I earn a living producing Internet content, but also because I really enjoy reading Gawker. I am aware that reading Gawker is bittul Torah, and exposes my eyes to not tsenua ideas and imagery. I can’t do anything right. I am going to go gauge my eyes out. Wait, no, marring my own body is also prohibited in Parshat Kedoshim, so ix-nay on the auging-gay. There I go, expressing my love for “the gays” again. #FAIL

2) I HATE THE WORD “SHVARTZE”: Yes, I KNOW IT SIMPLY MEANS “BLACK”. Removing cultural context as a way to justify one’s use of racist language is bogus, and my failure to be able to do it is a sign of my failure at becoming an honest to Goodness religious fundamentalist. Sitting at a Shabbos table bitching about “the shvartzes” is a practice I will never be able to master. Also, whites hate Jews, too. Whites have been known to pillage, rape, burn down, imprison, maim, and molest Jews. Because I am a failure, I am going to start using the word “vaiis” in a derogatory way. �I actually know Black Jews who have been at Shabbos tables where the other members of the table sitting around bitching about “the shvartzes”. I would not allow that in my house, and for that reason, I lack authenticity. Do I think I am better than you? How does it feel to be up on this pedestal? Chaya, you do not have a right to judge other Jews that way! Omigosh I just puked in my mouth a little. �

1) I love G-d, and I know that He loves me: I am going to get a thorough scrubbing in gehinnom before I am in any condition to enter the next world. I just accept this as fact. �Why? Because I am failing at this frum thing. I have a potty mouth. I laugh at farts. I talk to black people on the street (oops, I mean shvartzes. I am intractable.). I fight the urge to sing along to the reggae music that they blast from their cars. In fact, I know all the songs from before 2007 because I was a big reggae fan in my previous life. I have a degree in Women’s Studies and I still believe that some of the stuff they taught me is true. When I have children, I am going to send them to either college or trade school and I am going to make them get internships or apprenticeships. I am going to drill the English language into the children that I don’t have yet in the afternoons after yeshiva. No kid of mine, unless he is a bona fide gaon, is going to sit in kollel for more than a year. (I KNOW! Any kid I have who merits to be a Torah scholar will purely merit it on my husband’s zechus. How could anyone as failure ridden as myself ever merit to have a Torah scholar as a kid on her own accord?) Clearly I am a fake, a phony, a failure, and a shame upon the Jewish people. I am how far we’ve sunk as Jewish women.

But you know what? If I end up in gehinnom for a hot minute, it’s going to be OK. Hashem will be supervising the proceedings. He won’t let my soul die. If the Alter Rebbe could survive being tortured by the Russians, I think my soul can survive being cleaned up by Hashem. I’d rather be a failure, a walking complexity machine, someone who lives on the margins and lives in the grey space, than be an asshole who throws rocks on Shabbos, and will only eat two heckshers even for parve non-shmitta food, and tries to control the behavior of my neighbors through gossip and shame. Am I a hypocrite for trying to shame other people who are like that? Can I ever stop with this torrent of failure?

Chaya Kurtz is on Twitter. Feel free to troll her there: @chayakurtz