Moore Style - Speaking Up Against Human Rights Issues

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

This week's episode is different than anything else I have talked about. Although I do not usually talk about politics or religion, I felt that with what is going on in the world today I needed to use my voice and platform.  My heart aches for the human rights issue that is going on in the Middle East. Innocent lives are being taken and no matter what God you worship, there is not a God that would say it is His will to allow this.  In this episode, I am sharing the story of why I converted to Judaism and the importance of opening up about religion in dating. I hope you join me in this deep discussion and please know that in these tough times, you are loved. In this week’s episode, we discuss:  [02:29] Why I am talking about religion and politics today [03:12] The backstory of why I converted to Judaism  [08:15] The human rights issue going on in the Middle East [09:59] Converting to Judaism out of love for their culture and religion [12:20] The importance of discussing religion before marriage [17:32] There is not a God who would allow this in His name

Hi, everyone. I'm your host, Celeste Moore, and you are listening to the Down and Dirty podcast, aka the Double D's of dating. This is a podcast for navigating the ins and outs of modern midlife dating. Here, we will discuss the challenges that men and women face in today's dating world. Like many industries, this one is forever changing, and I believe this platform will help those who need or want it. Today, it is the best time to take control of your desired outcome, whether it is a marriage, significant other, life partner, or just to gain the confidence in dating once again. Every other week, we will dive in and talk about different viewpoints that seem to be challenges in today's dating arena. So let's get into today's episode.

Welcome everybody to another episode of the Down and Dirty Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Celeste Moore, and I want to give a big shout out to everybody who continues to listen to the show and to all of you new listeners tuning in. I really hope you do take some of these lessons here that I try to teach and educate and just trying to get real and honest with real relationship life issues. And I hope that you get a few little nuggets and bring them into your own relationships. Please don't forget to leave a review and a five-star rating, please. That really helps the show get more recognition and in return, it helps the show become more visible. I know that with Apple, if you scroll down all the way to the bottom of the show, there's

a place to leave a review and a five-star rating. So I think a few of you asked how to do that. Don't forget to visit my website, CelesteMoore.com, and leave me your email because I love to send some freebies about two, three times a year. and I also have a blog in which I think that you will all learn something or benefit from and if not just go ahead and share it because the more people that they have these tools the better they have to be successful in relationships. Now I normally don't talk about politics and religion but because of what is going on in the world I feel that I have a voice and I have this

platform for a reason. And today I'm going to be talking a little bit about both. I want to give you a story about me and where I come from a little bit. And this will kind of set the premise of my show today of really what I want to talk about. I want to start today and give you a little backstory of the show so that you can kind of understand like where I'm going with this. for those of you who don't know me, I was not born a Jew. I chose to be Jewish. Back in 2001, I was dating an Israeli guy. And for the longest time, he was like, oh, you'd be such a good Jew. Like you'd make the perfect wife. He has all these great qualities. And I was like, ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Stop, stop, stop. And then I started to think about it.

I grew up in South Florida where most of my friends were Jewish and I would celebrate the holidays with them and they'd celebrate the holidays with me. And I did have some friends that had a Jewish mom and a non-Jew father. And so they did Hanukkah and Christmas. And throughout the years, it was just very normal for me. So when I did start dating my Israeli boyfriend at the time, it wasn't so out of the question for me to want to learn more about Judaism. And so I was living in Los Angeles and I started studying a class that was called Introduction to Judaism. And in Judaism, a lot of people marry outside of their religion. But before they decide to marry and before they decide to have children, they go through an introduction to Judaism. And at the end,

they can choose to become Jewish or not. So it's not a conversion class. I hate to say that word. It's not a conversion class. But anyways, I started studying the University of Judaism in LA because I just found it really fascinating. And I started questioning myself, like, why do I celebrate the holidays? Why do I celebrate Jewish holidays? Why do I celebrate? why do I feel like I kept coming back to that and so I really sat with that and I ended up taking it's it's like a six-month course and really they want you to live as a Jew celebrate the holidays keep kosher do all the things that Jews do like typical traditional Jews but within Judaism there's all different sectors you've got the really extremist the Chabad and then you've got

like you know reform or reconstruction at the other spectrum but there's like seven or eight different sectors in Judaism and that just means that there's all different ways to practice and and be a Jew if you will and this course was just like kind of in the middle all conservative so I'm taking this course and in the middle of it like almost towards the end my boyfriend and I we broke up and so then I had like a very traumatic experience he was my first love I was 25 at the time and it destroyed me it was I I just was so distraught I it took me so long to get over him I really did think that he was the person for me um but obviously it was the best thing that happen because he needed to work on himself and I needed to work on myself. And so we went our

separate ways. So at the time, I decided to take a break from the class because I just didn't know what that meant for me. Anyways, I came back and realized that, you know what, I really do want to finish this because I was soul searching. And I'm not a super religious person, but I am a very spiritual person. My soul thrives on the beauty of closeness to spirit, right? That means through music, through people, through community. I love that they are philanthropic. And that was always really big for me. I love that they're family oriented. I love that women are treated like queen than the religion there's all these beautiful things that really resonated with me and I decided that the end no man I wanted to convert but let me tell you to become Jewish

is one of the most difficult things you can actually do because of the fact that Jews are the chosen ones and I don't want to say this disrespectfully to anybody out there listening but God said you're the chosen ones and what that means is that being born a Jew or being a Jew is a lot of responsibility you have to be the person that people look up to that people respect that you are the ones to set the tone set the mood and that's a lot of responsibility. So that's one reason why it's very difficult to become Jewish. And another reason is because, fuck, they've been persecuted from day one. And they're still persecuted. And to see the horrors over thousands of years, way before World War II, the Crusades, and now, as a human,

not only a human Jew and a woman and somebody who spent time in Israel and who my daughter spent years and years of time in Israel going to camp and with her friends and these beautiful experiences my heart hurts and I'm so I can't even tell you the audacity the hurt the the anger the the pure horror I feel for what is going on right now. And I need to use this platform because I want you to know this is not. I know it's a Jewish thing that Hamas is influencing that it's a Jewish thing. But if this is a human rights thing, no human, no God, I don't care what religion or what God you believe in would ever allow somebody to behead babies, to murder innocent children and women and raping and pillaging and putting it on video, brutally

murdering a grandmother and putting it on her granddaughter's Facebook. I mean, this is beyond And anybody who is a human being can understand what is going on. And I really didn't want to go there. But I really feel that as human beings, we have the right and we have the need to speak out to say this is not okay. Okay, I went off a little bit and I wasn't going to go there yet because I wanted to finish with my story. but my story is I decided to become Jewish because for me spiritually it feels connected

it feels aligned and I decided this back in August 9 2001 and so because it is so hard to become Jewish they make you live like a Jew for a year keep kosher live by the rules go to temple sing the songs learn the prayers in hebrew read hebrew and still after all of that i wanted to become jewish so there's a panel of judges called the bait dean and there's three old men who i had and you come in front of them and they ask you why do you want to be jewish are you marrying somebody who's jewish no i said okay the look of their faces like even more causal well Okay, so why do you want to become Jewish? Do you know that we've been persecuted?

Do you know that becoming a Jew puts a target on your back? Do you know that the responsibilities as a human being, being Jewish, that puts upon you? Are you ready for that? And I said, yes. Okay, I want you to recite these prayers. I recited the prayers. What do they mean to you?

And I told them what they mean to me. And at the end of this whole thing, they still had puzzled with looks on their face. they realized that I wanted to be part of this community and culture and religion because for me it was pure love and so at that time when they said okay I went through a rebirthing process I went through what's called going into a mikvah which is a body of water that is blessed and you get completely naked and take off nails and contacts and anything that you would not have as a child coming into this world. And I would say prayers and I would dunk and say prayers and dunk and say prayers and dunk. And after that, I went through the whole process. And let me tell

you, nothing has come close other than having a child more spiritual for me. And I know that's not everybody's experience. And I say this for a lot of reasons. Because since my Israeli boyfriend have not dated a Jew. And it wasn't an issue because the person that fathered my daughter was not my life. But before we had decided, he respected that I was a Jew. He respected my culture and my religion and how I wanted to raise my child. And I think the big issue is when you're dating, whether it's new or whether it's getting serious, and you're at the point in your life where you want to have children. This is a discussion you have to have before you decide to marry someone. And it's not because one religion is not better than the other.

I truly feel there's something for everybody. There's a God for everybody. Maybe you pray to the universe. Maybe you're not even a religious person, but there is a higher power. There's something that created us. There's something that drives us. Like I said, I'm not super religious, but what that means is like, I don't need to go to temple every weekend. I don't keep kosher. I do things that resonate with me and my family. And that's a perfectly good way to be a Jew. I mean, you can eat a bagel. You can eat a bagel and lox and that's your way of being Jewish. You can be a Hasidic Jew. You can do, there's temples that are directed around yoga. So there is something for everybody when you're in when that was something that was really important

to me is I grew up as a Mormon and that wasn't my choice I was born into that and for me that never resonated if you didn't walk the line perfectly you were not being religious you were not being a good Mormon and that always felt wrong to me it always felt wrong to me that you were guilted for things. And this is, of course, my experiences and what I went through. And everybody has the right to be who they are, worship who they want, but we are all humans. We are all love. We are all true love beings. When you strip away all the ugly in society and who we're supposed to be, we were born pure love. Look at every baby. Every baby is innocent and pure and beautiful. and that is how we come into this world and that's who we are in our makeup in our true being and

when you can live more in love and and be loved you will attract love I promise you and when you're more clear with what it is you want your life goals for me religion was never an issue when dating or marrying. As long as that person respected my beliefs, they didn't have to believe them themselves, but allow me to practice and observe the holidays and have my daughter bat mitzvah and all the things that was important to me. I would never put my religion on anybody and say, this is the way, this is the ultimate. What you're doing is wrong because that is not what Jews do anyway. We don't want you to believe what we believe. We don't want you to have that. You get the choice to love who you love, to be who you are, to worship who you want.

And that's the beautiful thing. And I think what I'm trying to say is what was right for me is not right for everybody. And that's okay. And if you can go into that relationship knowing that you can respect someone and love someone and not always have the same belief in religion. If I dated someone that was, I don't know, Catholic, right? And it was really important for him to go to midnight mass. I would love to go to midnight mass. I don't want to be Catholic, but I would do something like that if you really love someone. Now, when it comes to raising children, you should decide on one religion and not saying it's Jewish or Catholic or Muslim or whatever it is for you. But what happens when a child has two opposite

belief systems? They get confused. They don't know what's what. And then the parents usually fight. And then it's like, well, I want to raise my kid this way and I want to raise my kid this way. So you have to become unified in where and how you want your family to be raised and guide them in the right way because it's really important and that is a huge point in having a healthy relationship. Maybe you're older like me and now I have a teen daughter and I'm with someone who maybe has another child and that is also important to me knowing that like if you respect me and allow me to live my life, I respect you and if you can come together and have that mutual respect, then you can have a healthy relationship. I know that today was not

my usual fun, you know, sex talk or a talk that really is fun and exciting, but I feel that I must say. And what is happening is really, really scary. It's hurtful. It's horrific. It's horrendous. And I can't even wrap my head around what these people are doing to innocent people and innocent lives. And I feel helpless. And I feel that I want to do what I can. I feel so bad for civilians and innocent lives that are being taken. But I am proud to be Jewish. I am loved. And because I believe in a different God, or I worship a different God, then you does not make me any better and does not make you any better. And in no shape or form would any God allow and say it is God's will to murder babies, to kill an innocent life, to capture and mutilate

and rape and pillage. And that is not human. That is not God. God would never. I don't care what god so that is just a human less terrorist and please in these tough times know that you are loved and i really appreciate you being here today and listening to this please give love please show love please be love thank you have a great great day thanks for tuning in to today's episode come and hang out with me on instagram at celeste more image let me know your thoughts on today's episode because i always love hearing from you all. You can find all the links and resources in the show notes of the episode on my website, CelesteMoore.com. Okay, that's all for now. I'll see you in the next episode.

See you next time, friends.