Welcome to the JavaRanch, Mikel!
I'm a little confused because you appear to be saying that you're using JSF at the same time you say you're not using JSF.
Depending on which webapp container you're using and which version of that webapp container you're deploying to, you may or may not have to include some support jars in your WAR. For example, EL is integrated into
Tomcat 6, but has to be supplied as part of the webapp in Tomcat 5.5. Likewise, the jsf-impl libraries are sometimes supplied by the container and sometimes have to be manually provided as part of the WAR.
The secret of how to be miserable is to constantly expect things are going to happen the way that they are "supposed" to happen.
You can have faith, which carries the understanding that you may be disappointed. Then there's being a willfully-blind idiot, which virtually guarantees it.