Adventures in Judaism

...but "the big one" (and you know which one I'm talking about) is yet to come! In all seriousness, Thanksgiving weekend with my mom and sister went about as well as it usually does, which is to say pretty darned well for a family with four kids, with almost no impact from our semi-controversial first year of Judaism. There were a few funny-awkward moments – the kids were actually upset when I started the prayer before the Thanksgiving meal in English, for example, and insisted on re-blessing the food in Hebrew immediately afterward – but my family seemed generally ready to accept this Jewish thing. As long as we were happy to start talking (and prepping for) Christmas on Friday, and steer clear of our own upcoming holiday, that is. :-/ My mother did make two negative comments about Judaism, one a minor thing about how baking challah would send her back to Methodism, the other that led to a conversation about how she (like me) got a really skewed idea of what Judaism is a...

I am now entering the fourth month – by Jewish reckoning at least – of this "first Jewish year" project. And I have hit the closest thing there is to a boring spot in the Jewish calendar: a two month span with no holidays, no festivals, no special observances. Reminiscent, in a way, of that six month span in the Christian calendar between Pentecost and Advent, known affectionately to liturgical Christians as "ordinary time." And so, I thought this was as good a time as any to reflect on and share some of the things I've experienced and observed in the past few months about "ordinary" Jewish life. First, the gems: Judaism gives one a whole new language even for talking about ordinary things. My wife and I talked with the kids a few times about the idea of mitzvot , for example, a Hebrew word and Jewish concept that doesn't translate perfectly into any English word or Christian concept.* We found it a good metaphor for learning to keep up with ...

There's nothing like Christmas looming on the horizon to make a person question their commitment to Judaism. One wants to participate in the sheer spectacle of it all: its status as both a national holiday and an oft-cherished family one, the three-month build-up as stores push every manner of toy and tchotchke at you and neighbors add lights upon lights to anything they can hang a light on, the TV specials and the episodes of every children's show in which its characters once again "save Christmas" (could they, this year, not? what would happen then, I wonder?), and of course the music. Oh, the music! I finally got around to picking up my son's trombone for band this year from the music shop yesterday (long story) and he pointed out the small stand of music books for purchase at the back. There were, of course, half a dozen Christmas song books for any instrument you happened to play, but the only "holiday" book we found had a single nod to Chanukkah:...