Anecdote Regarding: God, The Universe and that Table

[eumelia]

I was sitting at the bus station minding my own business.

A man of about 50-55 comes towards me and asks if it's all right if he smokes. I thought it was very (see, overly, for the society we live in) polite of him to ask and said "sure".

This was quite obviously a ploy.

He begins to tell me a story.

"I just couldn't sit at the other bus station. There was a girl there; dressed far too revealingly for me, her chest hanging out and short pants".

I'm staring at him as though he's grown an extra head. Instead his beard, peyot, kipah (yarmulke/skull cap) and tzitzit become glaringly obvious props for his forthcoming tale and story.

In my head, I'm screaming: "Why? Why is this man talking to me and regaling to me this bullshit story!?"

He continues (sans my loud thoughts that this man is a religious nut): "I ask [the aforementioned girl] do you believe in G-d?"

In my mind: "Mercy!"

He tells her words: "'Yes' she says and I ask you [that is, me and the universe in general most likely] if she's have said 'yes, but I sin', I could live with that... But dressed the way she is... how can she say that!?".

Meanwhile, I'm trying to understand why this woman (if she indeed exists outside this man's narrative) engaged with this man, seeing as I was doing my best to Not Engage with this person and his irrational tirade about how this woman's dress somehow marks her heretic - obviously I'm the best audience ever! What with my long jeans, trainers, long-sleeved shirt and high necked top underneath it.
If only we were telepathic, nay?

He goes: "She tells me her beliefs are simple. How can creation be simple?!"

How I wished I had a desk on which to bash my head and his continuously!

Throughout this entire time I'm dying for a bus, any bus to arrive to take one of us away! I'm also silent, grimacing from time to time and keeping away from him as much as possible while not leaving the bus stop - I really did not feel safe enough to tell to STFU... perhaps if there was another person there I would have told him to stop bothering me... but *Gah*, the situation just really did not encourage aggressive-aggression and I went for body-language instead.

"Creation can't be simple" this man says, "I tell her [still this very-well-could-be-fictional-girl] 'that table? You see it? Someone designed it, yes?' she replied 'yes'. So no tell me G-d doesn't exist!"

I was ready to throw up on him. I had been feeling queasy regardless, but I could have blown chunks over this.

He continued with this line of talk and thought for a good ten minutes, in addition going on to inform me that the Bible predicted Swine 'flu (o_O) and that according to Rabbi What-ever-the-fuck 14,5-and something are going to die because that's the Gimatric interpretation of the Hebrew letters of Swine 'flu (which are שפעת חזירים).

I actaully breathed a sigh of relief when his bus arrived and he was out of my life.

It was just too odd. I don't think I'd ever been proselytised to before. Obviously him asking me if he could smoke was a ploy to start engaging me in conversation.
Good tactic.

I now have a funny anecdote about Jewish fundamentalists... who are so different from all the other ones you encounter in the street (much to our annoyance)

---

Off Topic, but related to the fact that I'm home and talking about this.
I'm feeling queasy and at the last minute decided not to go the talk tonight, because I'd rather not be sick in front of people.
I'm disappointed, but hopefully I'll be able to catch the DAM people at a later date during their visit in the region.

Comments

I always get confused

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lux_aeterna_1/]

by the stickers saying "מאלוקים מתביישים, צנוע מתלבשים" (be ashamed from G-d, dress modestly) - The almighty created you. Like, HE can't watch you in the shower?

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Haha! לגמרי!

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

וואו. אנשים.

(Is that right, or bad translation?) :)

My husband was once "saved" by born-again Christians in a shopping mall because he was too polite to say no.

I'll really miss the guy if he gets raptured up!

...but at least he didn't come home with another set of Ginsu knives.

Seriously, what makes people think that randomly bringing religious things up to total strangers is ever that effective?

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Were you in Intel? (Yes, that's a spot on translation if you were going for "Wow, people.").

Beyond it being totally ineffective, it's just downright scary at times.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

Nope, I googled a translator!

The only Hebrew linguist I know is actually Native-American. For some reason they thought she'd be good at Hebrew (and she really likes it!)

Wow. People. They can be very, very freaky. I agree.

[stateofwonder.livejournal.com]

Man, I'm jealous about your lack of proselytizers! This happens a lot in any big Canadian city (and probably the small ones too). Especially, annoyingly, at the inter-city bus terminal in Montreal, where you're frequently stuck for more than half an hour with these Jesus-lovers yapping at you. Plus ALL THE FREAKING TIME in Kenya.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

It's not about Loving Jesus or even god loving us in return, it's about the veracity and infallibility of anything and everything written in the Bible (sans new testament, obviously) and adhering to these idiotic social codes made up in the middle ages and after the Jewish expulsion from Spain.

But, yeah, proselytising is a very non-Jewish thing, I've gotten pamphlets from the Jews for Jesus people and thankfully the Chabad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chabad#Outreach_activities) people do not offer their off-the-street services to women. This was just some random guy.
Not a context I'm used to, at all.

[sabotabby]

You should have told him that good Jews don't proselytize.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I would have if I (a)felt safe enough to do so on a dark bus stop corner and (b)if he'd have let get a word in edgewise and I wasn't inching my way away from him, grimacing the entire time.