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Perspective and Respect

October 25, 2011 by Patrick Beaulier

Late night tonight, it’s almost 3am in California. It’s about 5 hours past my typical bedtime and I am up trying to work on my rough draft for my thesis. Yet, before I sleep I read about community members that need a little extra prayer for one reason or another. Childish as this seems at first, I read with skepticism, expecting to see gripes about bruised knees and sprained ankles. Quickly, I realize there are community members who need added prayer and a speedy recovery. I no longer am able to write my thesis chapter or shut my eyes… my perspective has just changed like a paradigm shift between shallow care and deeper meaning.

It seems that the prayers we say should not just be for those who are ill, but their loved ones as well. Is that not the true Jewish value? What is community if we pray for one’s physical welfare while their loved one is emotional suffering by watching? We should pray for both. Aren’t we all affected when someone is ill, dies, suffers? G-d forbid we understand their pain, that we’ve felt it. However, being the sick or watching a loved one be sick, still is suffering.

I find it painstakingly hard to stand in shul and say the name of the person I know who is ill. I am terrified my voice will crack, might I cry, am I so worried that someone might judge me, that someone might ask who the person is and why I have mentioned them as opposed to others. On PunkTorah, people seem to offer sentiments so freely. Maybe I am committing an aveyrah or not being the community member I wish to be.

Upon further reflection, I have decided to add to my list of thoughts and blessings not only the ones who directly suffer, but all parties involved. We are supposed to value life. Like Israel has recently demonstrated with Gilad Shalit, when one suffers, we unify and suffer together.

May our stories of pain and suffrage end on the note Shalit’s did. May we all find our way into the comfort of someone’s arms we love and may those who are in need of healing have the speediest of recoveries. May we as a community, no matter the size, understand that pain is not a trivial feeling of shallow distain, but of genuine discomfort. And may our understanding prove to be commentary that we as a people are constantly in prayer for those in need.

Again, for all those on our prayer list and for some who aren’t, may you find the comfort that is needed to handle these moments, may there be healing and may there be hope.

Be True to the Streets,
Yentapunker

Filed Under: Community Member Blogs, Judaism & Belief Tagged With: convert to judaism, convert to judaism online, darshan yeshiva, jewish prayer, oneshul prayer list, online conversion, patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, punktorah, rabbi beaulier, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier, yentapunker

I Became Blonde Circa 5771

September 28, 2011 by Patrick Beaulier

It’s Rosh Hashana and times, they are a changing. It is a time where we as the Yids all over the world look back on the last year and ask, “what the hell was I thinking?” 5771 became my infamous year of vanity. I spent more money on clothing and hair dye than ever before. Why am I sending my confessions of vanity during a time where we should be spiritually cleansing? Well, my outside needed to start reflecting what I have to offer from the inside. I have been battling with the way I am seen, secular or religious. Then, it happened. I found myself in an expensive (but good, because only the best clippers get near this Jew-Fro) salon. I chopped approximately 10 inches off my hair and went blonde. Since, I have had comments that I look less Jewish. Many people have said I look better? I am surprised; does one equate to another? It took me 5 months to identify with the color hair that sits on my head. I think it looks good, but I’m not blonde. So, was I good to myself in 5771? I created a vain monster that bleaches her hair, doesn’t leave the house without makeup, and now makes fake curls on her freshly bleached head.

I have a hard time identifying what I look like within the community. Hair color seems to be a metaphor as I keep one foot out into the secular world. But like my roots show the truth, the dark curls provided by Has-em keep coming; I am unequivocally summed into a strong Jewish foundation, roots of generations.

There is no way of telling what 5772 has to offer. We will experience joy, pain, simcha, and loss. However, we must do these things as outward expressions of our faith. This year I became skin deep, but I am blessed with the opportunity to question why I chose to focus outward instead of inward. Vanity serves some purpose I suppose. What the purpose is, only time will tell. Like my roots that keep growing and the makeup that will wash away with the winter’s rain, I have to look at myself in the mirror. What looks back is 5771 years of genetics, faith, prayers, miracles, and potential. Chag Sameach! L’Shana Tova and may we all be inscribed in The Book of Life for another glorious year!

Filed Under: Community Member Blogs, Random (Feelin' Lucky?), Shabbat & Holidays Tagged With: blonde jews, convert to judaism, convert to judaism online, darshan yeshiva, jewish blondes, jewish girls, jewish identity, online conversion, patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, punktorah, rabbi beaulier, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier, yenta punker, yentapunker

Jewniks of the 21st Century

August 12, 2010 by Patrick Beaulier

Jewniks of the 21st Century

by YentaPunker

This publication was inspired by one of my professors, Dr. Ball, and written in honor of Patrick Aleph.

In the 1950s Jack Kerouac, alongside many of his dubbed “Beatnik” friends, wrote a novel in three weeks called “On The Road”. It took Mr. Kerouac 7 years to travel the county and continually do some soul searching. A man growing up with the social repercussions in America of The Great Depression, World War II, and The Cold War, needed a place to avoid conformity.

It is within his subculture, the Beats, that he found refuge. The Beats avoided the “Corporation Man” and refused to end up like their fathers. They looked for deeper, transcendent meaning in their quest for a new tomorrow.  They gave new definitions and context to words used within the culture, providing meaning that redefined their acceptable behaviors. These Beats valued poetry, books, Bebop, and were compelled to find the authentic in their everyday lives.

With all youth subcultures comes backlash by those who fear change or have different values systems. The Beats were called “Beatniks” in a satirical reference to Sputnik, the satellite. Their dark clothing and hair styles were criticized, as though their parents had not been an active participant in the Flapper era. If their parents were more accustomed to the Victorian way of life, it was even more horrendous on the family.

So why would PunkTorah even come close to this movement we see as a joke within movies like “So I Married an Axe Murderer”? It’s an easy grab. PunkTorah was created for those of us who are looking to redefine Judaism. It does not mean we want to start a new sect, but merely to identify that we as Jews are on the preverbal search that Kerouac so graciously and vigorously wrote about.

PunkTorah’s overall goal is to transcend from classification and create the authentic embodiment of Judaism at its core. These Jews too value books and poetry. Some of these books are valued cross sects of the religion, but others may be less accepted in other communities.  We cannot be defined by labels! Clearly the genre of Punk is rebellious in nature. It redefines how Punk may use the connotation of rules and order, but defies what our larger community expects from us; we desire individuality. This is not our parent’s Judaism. This sense of the nishama seeps from the very embodiment of the way we davven, dress, speak, and carry about in our temporal lives.

Kerouac had no intention of being connected to Judaism, but he captures what Jews in their teens, 20’s, 30’s (and even those above) are reaching for. He writes of the holy when things cannot get any worse. He sets his characters up for failure, but they do not lose hope or insight to themselves. They separate themselves from the collective whole in hopes that they too will understand themselves in the context of the temporal world. Their rebellion is not one in hopes of destruction, but that based on progressive change. This is PunkTorah’s take on Judaism. We are the change that’s in the world. Our hearts pray they way they know how and our actions follow. We have redefined words, but not taken meaning from them. Continually on the road, we struggle with our journey of life. We are the Jewniks your Jewish mothers warned you about.  Are we perfect? No, we simply are the authentic form of G-d’s creation, human.

Be True to the Streets-

Yentapunker

Filed Under: Community Member Blogs, Jewish Media Reviews, Random (Feelin' Lucky?), Rants Tagged With: beat movement, beatnick, beatnik, beatnik generation, convert to judaism, darshan yeshiva, jewish identity, Judaism, kerouac, new jew, patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, punk torah, punktorah, rabbi beaulier, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier, the beats, yentapunker

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