Poker Night

In following with my attempts to expand my social network and participate in more Men’s Club events, I attended last night’s Men’s Club Texas Hold ‘em Qualifying game thingy. There were only five of us but it was really nice just hanging out with the guys and playing poker. Even nicer was the fact that I won!

I am many things, but a poker player is not one of them. I fully believe in beginner’s luck now. Granted I didn’t win anything other than bragging rights and a seat at the finals, but I finally won something. And I got to hang out and drink soda and stay up late.

Geez, I’m a real dork. I need to get out more.

Haircut Day

Today was the Twins' Upsherin. Honestly some days it seemed like this day would never get here.

Although the boys looked cute enough when their hair was pulled up into little puffs, I had long since grown tired of explaining to people that they were little boys (yes, both of them; yes, I know their hair is long; yes, they are adorable; no, we’re just waiting until they are three…) and I’m sure that their Mother and Grandma were well past tired of having to comb it out every day to keep it from becoming a tangled mess.

Due to the miracle of mixing my Scot-Irish genetics with their mother's African ones the kids have a really beautiful type of hair that is totally unlike anything either of our families are familiar with, and oddly enough except for the twins, no two of them have a hair texture that is identical to the others. Son One is has dark thick curls that look more Hispanic than anything else, while Son Two’s looks are as African as his mother’s, Daughter has this mass of dark brown curls that turns to this odd Shirley Temple-like collection of curls when freshly washed and then the Twins have this light-brown, tightly curled, angry hair.

So, in any event, the big day finally arrived. We gathered our friends and family in the Temple library and had the first Upsherin our Conservative shul has ever had. Ironically this is also the same room that the Twins' came to for their bris. I told the rabbi the next big shul event for the Twins shouldn’t include any kind of cutting or they might think there was a pattern forming and try to avoid the place.

My little men are growing up so fast. They amaze me at how different they are from each other and other times how much the same they are.

Blood Drive

Today was our big blood drive with the American Red Cross. While the blood drive was going on I helped put together our shul’s new sandbox for the playground. I would have liked to have given blood, but due to some of the countries I visited while on Active Duty I can no longer give blood.

This disappoints me more than you would think. Before I joined the military I gave blood every time I was able to do so. I remember when I got my little gold pin for giving my first gallon. I still have it locked away in a box somewhere, but now I don’t like looking at it. It just reminds me that I can no longer give. Giving blood was the one thing that I could do for free and help so many others.

So I built a sandbox.

Of Sinners and Saints

Being of Scot-Irish descent I grew up in a home where St. Patrick’s Day was a major holiday. As I came into my Jewishness I gave up the major Christian holidays right away and with little or no thought. Christmas and Easter were easy to give up as I had waned in my observance of them years before and had got them out of my system so to speak. The two holidays that caused the most problems for me were St. Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day.

From early in my dating career I tried explaining to potential significant others that as a Jew I could not in good faith celebrate a day that commemorated a Christian saint. Most were fine with this idea, but a few came to the first February 14th I didn’t buy anything and the problems would arise. No chocolate, no jewelry, nothing. We would go through the usual rounds about St. Valentine’s Day being a secular holiday and it being “Valentine’s Day” instead of “St. Valentine’s Day," but I wasn’t going for it. I had heard the same arguments for Christmas and to some extent Easter early on in my Judaism and I applied the same reasoning to not celebrating those dates. As a rule I do not commemorate Christian holidays for any reason, no matter how secular the day has become. No Christmas, no Easter, no Halloween, and no Valentine, period.

Then, in one of those rare convergences of the Hebrew calendar and the Civil calendar, more rare than Hanukkah and Christmas aligning, more rare than Pesach on Easter, in 2003 St. Patrick’s Day (17 March) was the same day as Taanit Ester (the Fast of Esther) and Purim started at Sunset! My two cultures were merging into one festive alcohol laden event. Needless to say my date was upset when she found that I had even noticed that the two days coincided (and would not again do so until 2049). Years of being depraved of chocolate and precious gems in February turned this lovely woman into a Banshee. How dare I even think of drinking a drop that night?

“What” she asked me, “is the difference between the two? You won’t celebrate Valentine’s because of its tenuous Christian connection, so what is the difference?”

I had but one answer,

“Beer”

Careful Which Meetings You Attend

My family have been members of our Temple for almost seven years now and in all of this time I have never joined any of the clubs or committees. The kids' mother has been a member of the Sisterhood since just about day one, but due to work commitments and exhaustion I just never participated in anything other than the regular religious services.

This year I decided to make a change. This would be the year that I finally joined the Men’s Club and started building my own social network at the shul instead of depending upon my daughter’s circles of friends. So I took the Daughter to Sunday Religious School and attended the morning minyan as I do each week and met up with the Men’s Club President afterwards. I told him about being a member of the shul for several years, etc. etc. and by the end of the meeting I had not only joined the Men’s Club, but I was also appointed Secretary of the Men's Club and invited to make inputs on the Sukkah project and join in on the sandbox project.

After the meeting I came to realize that the wives and mothers are the real political power at our shul. None of our projects interfere with theirs, none of our fund raisers can interfere with theirs, and we tend to move heavy things for them. Okay, fine by me. So nothing has really changed but now I get to pay membership dues.

Superman Attends Megillah Reading

Purim was especially fun for me this year as it was the first year we have been able to attend as a family since my time in the Navy and the arrival of the twins just a few years ago. In times past I’ve been away from home and missed out on many of the holidays so this makes any time I get to spend with the kids more special to me. This year Son One and Son Two (influenced I’m sure by advertisements for “The 300”) went dressed as a Spartan and a Persian, the Daughter went as Hadassah, and the Twins were both Superman. When they are a little older, I will try to explain the Jewish connection to Superman and how Siegel and Shuster were sons of Jewish immigrants and how they based the story of young Kal-L on Moshe being put in the basket to save his life.

This year we had an early service for the younger kids, which I think was a great idea over what we’ve had in the past. It was nothing too formal (if any thing about Purim can be considered formal). Rabbi, in his trench coat and fedora, holding an impromptu microphone was giving interviews to costumed visitors in his role as reporter for the Shushan Times.

At one point we rolled out the Megillah and all the parents held it up down the middle aisle as Rabbi read from it (paraphrasing into age-appropriate English). As he was reading Twin #1 saw the two rows of grown-ups holding the scroll between us and started striding down the middle as if he was a king (or Lord Vader) with his cape gently billowing behind. Twin #2, however, spent this time jumping off the step to the bima. At the end of the young children’s service the kids' mother took the twins home and I stayed with the older kids at shul and we sat through the actual Megillah reading. I was surprised that Son One stayed with me throughout the entire service instead of needing to “go to the bathroom” (which years ago I deciphered to mean “hang with his friends in the atrium”). Son Two, though, decided he needed to “use the bathroom” early on and was mortified that I had the gall to come out to the atrium and remind him where he needed to be.

Tents and Ladders

When I first starting looking into the Conservative Movement with my wife and going to conversion classes with her our rabbi made the analogy of observance being like a ladder. Over time you could take on a new observance and take another step up the ladder. Slowly over time you would become more observant and not burn out by trying to take on too much at one time. Since then I’ve heard this analogy made by others and I have heard the idea behind it expressed in different ways. Whether it be “baby-steps” or “one step at a time”, or “small bites” it seems to be a plausible way to get to a goal that seems overwhelming without becoming overwhelmed.

As time went on I began hearing and reading about the idea of a “big tent”. Somehow the Conservative Movement would produce policies and accept decisions that would create a “big tent” under which Jews with diverse beliefs, interpretations, and practices would find shelter and Conservative shuls would serve as the catch-all synagogues for those with beliefs in the grey area between Orthodox and Reform. In my opinion, this has created one of the greatest problems for Conservative Judaism. We almost invariably describe ourselves as in-between Orthodox and Reform, or by what we are not, instead of defining what we are. Judging by the CJLS decisions and the various practices of Conservative shul I have visited there is no clear consensus as to what we are or what we believe. Emet ve-Emunah presents a nice statement of the principles of faith for the Conservative Movement, but even there much room is left for interpretation.

I read with interest many posts and articles concerning the Cohen Report on the JTS survey concerning the recent CJLS teshuvot on same-sex unions and gay ordination. I was really interested in the results of the survey regarding Observance of Shabbat and Kashrut. Actually, I was shocked by some of the results. The survey focused on Clergy (Rabbis and Cantors), Professional Leaders (educators, executive directors, etc), and Lay Leaders (congregational presidents, USCJ board members, congregational board members, etc).

Within any religion it seems that the clergy and leadership will always be somewhat more observant than the laity, but it seems in Conservative Judaism there is a wider gap (almost a chasm) than with other branches of Judaism. While the Cohen report does not address the observance of the membership[1] it does address the ritual observance of the clergy and leadership.

It shows that a large number of respondents don’t believe Torah was written by God or by Divine inspiration. A quarter of the rabbis responded that Conservative Judaism should stop pretending it is a halakhic movement. And the responses concerning Kashrut are even more surprising. After reading the report I am surprised anyone in the movement considers Conservative Judaism to be halakhic. When I talk to lay members of synagogues I visit and self acknowledging Conservative Jews I am consistently surprised at how many consider themselves to be “good Jews” and leading a halakhic life while ignoring some of the most basic rules of halakha.

I am nowhere near perfect, nor am I anywhere close to where I want to be in my level of observance, but I recognize that I am not living up to the standards set by HaShem at Sinai and that everyday I wake up trying to do better.

I guess I have to change my position and acknowledge that without serious reforms Conservative Judaism cannot survive much longer. I can see no way for the movement to continue forward while it tries to apply the “big tent” principle to faith. Either the Conservative Movement needs to accept that it cannot accommodate every possible belief and interpretation or accept that it can no longer claim to be a halakhic movement.

I had a discussion with a gentleman at morning minyan last week about halakha and personal observance. He said he felt he was more than Conservative but less than Orthodox. I guess in some ways I agree. I just feel Conservative Judaism could be a viable alternative to Orthodoxy if it would just draw a line in the sand and say this far and no more. Yes, we would lose members; yes, some shuls would have to close, but Judaism would continue and eventually shuls would start to grow again and with a membership that was educated and observant.

Perhaps we need another Ezra to stand up and lay down the law, so-to-speak.

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[1] see “Jewish Identity and Religious Commitment: The North American Study of Conservative Synagogues and Their Members, 1995-1996” edited by Jack Wertheimer for an excellent discussion about this observance gap.