Adventures in Judaism

Readers of this blog may have the impression that my interest in Judaism is only about half a year old, but I can actually trace my Jewish journey back to this very day 18 years ago, give or take a day or two.  The story begins with one of my best friends from college, or rather with his sister. As I recall, she had somewhat recently married a Jew and was going through the process of converting to Judaism. Her brother, my friend, was picking up odd bits and pieces of Jewish culture and seemed to enjoy sharing them with me about as much as I enjoyed being shared with. Prior to that point, my exposure to Judaism was limited to having learned the phrase "L'chaim" from watching  Fiddler on the Roof. That, and the fact that my family was awfully fond of Yiddish words like shnoz and toucus.  So at some point, my friend invited me to come along with him to the house of one of his sister's new Jewish friends for a Tu B'Shevat Seder. I loved it – so much so that I still re

I've been working with my eldest for several months now on a lesson I learned back on Yom Kippur: that taking responsibility for your behavior is about more than just saying "I'm sorry," and yet it stops short of having to admit that you're a bad person.  That is to say, if you do something that hurts or bothers another person, Judaism says that you have to go beyond a huffy "I'm sorry!" apology to doing something that repairs the relationship, if that is at all possible. I have been trying to do this with some people in my life, with different amounts of success, and I'm not sure that it's always possible. But I have  gotten my son to turn around and think about how to make it up to me or another family member after being rude or hurtful. He once brought me a glass of water after he had made it take longer for me to mow the yard! Slowly, slowly, he's getting it. But he's missing the second half: that you don't have to go so far a