Kiddish Club. While the haftorah (prophetic portion) is chanted inside, I’m standing outside in the sun with my black-suited back against a white wall. A group of men gathers around the whiskey, fish and crackers, listening to a brief d’var Torah.<\/p>\n
My friend Jim* walks by. I grab him. “All I need is one scoop,” I say. “One scoop could transform my social status. One scoop could get me married. One scoop could turn my site into the next Drudge Report. One scoop is all I need! I could be a contender!”<\/p>\n
“It’s up to you to transform yourself,” says Jim. “We will never accept you here. Maybe some other shul will. If you made a parnassah, you could get married.<\/p>\n
“Your life is such a waste. You threw away everything to follow your penis. I don’t know what you thought you were going to get by converting to Judaism. You’ll never be one of us. <\/p>\n
“You could become a motivational speaker, tell people not to do the things you did. Your blog is irrelevant. I look at it at times, it’s all about yourself. These long self-involved posts about your sexual conquests. <\/p>\n
“And this one man play? Even if it was successful, it will only further alienate you from the Orthodox community. <\/p>\n
“You should move to Israel, enroll in a yeshiva and you might find a 27-year old to marry. Chabad believes in couples of the same age marrying but other Jews think differently. You’d have much more of a chance getting married if you moved to Israel. You might even find a shul that accepts you.”<\/p>\n
“You could’ve been somebody, but you threw it all away.”<\/p>\n