The Surreal Shabbat

I didn't know how to spell surreal so I looked it up in dictionary.com. In case you're interested, it means:
Having an oddly dreamlike quality.

So true. This Shabbat was so surreal. I ended up having to leave my computer on for Shabbat so I ended up checking my email this morning. Just writing that is surreal. For those of you who don't know, in Orthodox Judaism, you don't actively use electricity. In other words, this was a blatant statement against keeping Shabbos. I was mechalel Shabbat. I "desecrated" the Shabbat.

Truth be told: It's not the 1st time I'm doing something I'm not supposed to do on Shabbat. I put cream on my hands. I use Vaseline. But to use the computer somehow seems "stronger" "worse." However you want to put it.

It makes me wanna barf. I don't know anything. I know nothing. All I know is what is making me feel bad. I know not where I'm going. I am nauseated. I'm scared.

The freaky thing is that it's not like lightening hits. It's not like it physically hurts to do something like what I did. What's freaky is that there is something totally normal feeling about it. That is so damn freaky. The world is not built in that way that you do bad, you feel bad, you do good, you feel good. It's much more complicated than that.

So there I was checking my email. I tried to use my external mouse and then remembered I'd detached it before Shabbat to use the USB port for something else. Amusingly, I couldn't fathom taking out the printer (that was the "something else") and plug in the mouse. So I just used the internal mouse. I opened up the program... It all felt so weird yet so normal. I looked out the window, wondering if a neighbor would look in and notice that I was sitting by my computer on Shabbat.

I got an email from my sister outside of Israel. She wrote me an email, talking to me as if I was only gonna read it after Shabbat was over here. Ha.

I quickly finished because I didn't want anyone to see what I was doing.

Then in the afternoon I went to visit the woman who has MS. We hung out for a couple of hours. I fed her and ate a little myself. We talked. It's good to have her to go to. I don't like Shabbat (well, really I don't like faking Shabbat) so it "killed" a few hours. But being by her isn't "killing" hours because they are hours well-spent.

She wanted me to light a cigarette for her but I told her I couldn't because it was Shabbat. I felt stupid.

QE