Hi Rabbi, I really appreciate all the work you do. Changing my life 😊🙏🙏 sorry for having a lot of questions, I’m just starting on my teshuva journey and there’s a lot wrong with my life I’m trying to stop and change to serve Hashem. All of my friends are really problematic but these are loyal lifelong friends. I know the Torah says not to isolate and to value long life friends. But it also says that it’s foolish and path to sin to be surrounded by a ton of people who are fools (sorry, paraphrasing- please correct me if I’m wrong). I am just going through in my head everyone I’m close to and talk to all the time and there’s a lot of issues. All my female friends are very promiscuous and none are married or looking to marry anytime soon (I’m 31 and they’re all around my age and most are older). A couple of my female friends are bisexual, some are lesbian- all are very liberal. I’ve been wanting to get married and have kids for past ten years and everyone I know always insinuates that I’m weak and have bad priorities to keep wanting that so badly instead of valuing my career more. I only have a few Jewish friends- most are non Jews- and the Jewish friends are not religious. But they’ve all been there for me and very loving for many years- one of my friends I’ve known since I was 3 years old- a few others are friendships spanning 15+ years. I’ve also kept in touch with many ex bf’s on a “platonic” basis but I know they all want to get back together/hook up/ even get married if I was into it (bc they’ve all said so and I laugh it off but try to stay nice and respond when they text/call). All of these ex bf’s are non Jews. I’m really wanting to clean up my life and do true teshuva. I’m just the only one I know who is thinking like this. No one in my Jewish family is orthodox (they haven’t been since my grandparents generation). So they also aren’t necessarily good influences. My mother has been in town visiting me and been amazing, I love my mother- but she’s already insisted I eat non kosher meat bc “it’s not healthy to not eat meat” and made fun of my modest clothes and said I look crazy and insisted I go out to the beach with her and swim around in the ocean. She thinks my orthodox leanings lately are weird and “judgy” even though I haven’t once told her she’s doing anything wrong. I just keep bringing up new things I’m learning like a Snapple bottle. But she tells me I sound preachy and judgy- even though I’m not trying to be that way- it’s just on my mind a lot. Ok I’m sorry again for taking up so much time with all my questions. If you don’t have time to deal with it- totally understand. Thank you again. Much appreciated.

Asked on December 27, 2020