Last week, I posted the first five of the ten 10 Hebrew school lessons I’ve been glad to take forward with me into my adult life. Here are numbers 6-10.
There are many things I learned in Hebrew school that no longer apply to my life, or that I choose, wilfully, to reject. I can no longer abide some Jewish thought about the differences between men and women, or between Jews and non-Jews, or between heterosexual monogamists and those of…
(ICYMI: Part 1) Usually, I give myself an hour between waking up and needing to be out the door. I guess the nice thing about waking up on Yom Kippur is how much you don’t need to do. On Yom Kippur, you don’t have to make breakfast. You don’t have to…
There are as many different types of Jews as there are Jewish individuals, so my Yom Kippur is both shared and unique.
It’s difficult to explain to those who have never lived in a place where they are cultural or religious minorities the dilemma of choosing to work on an important holiday. Where I live, for many people, holidays are something you get off work as a matter of course: everybody gets…
This High Holiday season, I thought about a joke.* Three rabbinical students are praying on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The first student, a pious individual who has spent years and years studying Torah and Talmud and who spends all his spare time going over learned commentary, is moved…
I blame Rosh Hashanah for the fact that this blog entry is a day late. The Jewish New Year is so involved. It’s not like the secular new year, where traditions include champagne and a party. Instead, it’s a joyous but serious occasion that involves synagogue services and starting the…
I’m over sacrifice. In fiction, that is. I’m not quite as excited as I used to be about climaxes where Mr. Spock gasps out his last words on the other side of the radioactivity-shielding glass or Harry Potter whips off his Invisibility Cloak in the middle of a Death Eater…
(Monday post = better late than never! On the other hand, it seems I have pneumonia, so maybe that’s more of a reason than an excuse?) I feel the same way about Christmas as I feel about drinking scotch, scrapbooking, or keeping kosher: it’s a chosen activity that makes some…
One time I prayed: every other weekday, in Hebrew school