Coffee Tawk - No Big Woof

 I met with my rabbi yesterday afternoon for coffee. My plan was to discuss some halachic concerns I have encountered since returning to attending shul every week. Like most of our conversations, I distracted myself by going off on tangents and sideways into rabbit holes. This is not bad with my rabbi, as I always learn something new from him; however, I didn't get to cover the questions I had prepared beforehand. 

The solution, at least the one I am trying now, is to type up a letter to the rabbi (using my trusty Royal Custom from 1964) and mail it to him via snail mail. Hopefully, this will allow me to stay on topic and broach some of the questions I might feel are embarrassing or difficult to discuss in person. 

The first letter is written and ready to drop in the post. It was almost atrocious to see how bad my typing skills have become over the years and how dependent upon spell-checking and autocorrecting I have become. 

It's Exhausting

 I am so exhausted. I'm exhausted by the world's response to the October 7th massacre of innocent Jews by Hamas terrorists. I'm exhausted by having to defend Israel's right to exist almost every day online. I'm exhausted from listening to Liberal friends supporting a terror organization while knowing the terrorists would kill them almost immediately. 

After another "Queers for Palestine" protest happened here in the United States, I heard someone say that Queers for Palestine reminded them of Chickens for KFC. It was tiring to see so many intelligent people on the Right fall for Trump's lies in 2016 and again in 2020. Now, it is exhausting to see so many otherwise intelligent people on the Left fall into believing the lies from Hamas and Hezbollah. The same lies that have been told for decades. 

Zionism isn't a bad word. Bad people have corrupted it and tried to change its meaning. Zionism is simply the movement for the self-determination and statehood for the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel.(1) That's it. 

With the end of the ceasefire in November 2023 and the resumption of hostilities in Gaza, Israel believes that over 132 hostages remain, including two children, although the IDF has confirmed the deaths of 18 hostages due to new intelligence and findings from soldiers in Gaza.(2)

Of the remaining hostages, 21 are believed to be dead. Israel counts the dead in its total hostage figures. Most of the remaining hostages are men, but the prime minister's office said 19 women and two children were still believed to be held.

This is what the protestors are supporting. Innocent people whose only crime was being Jewish. 

I'm exhausted, and I don't have anyone to talk to about it. Not intelligently. Not someone who would understand my point of view. 

The rocket alerts go off all through the day and night. "צבע אדום, צבע אדום" "tzeva adom, tzeva adom" code red, code red. I'm exhausted from hearing that alert go off on my phone all day, and I can't imagine living where I would have to seek shelter with every alert. 

I pray for the return of the hostages. I pray for there to be a lasting peace. I pray for Israel to have peace. 

But I am exhausted. 

In Every Generation...

 I was about to make my usual post about Yom Kippur and the High Holy Days. "Wow, it has been so long," or "Here's what has happened since my last update" post. I had a draft post talking about how happy I was that my daughter had started attending weekly services with me on Shabbat mornings and how excited I was because she had signed up for our rabbi's Intro to Judaism class because she wanted to learn more about her Judaism. I wanted to post about how my second-oldest joined us last week and how his sister called from the Uber on the way to Shul asking if I had a spare shirt because he didn't think to have one ready. 

I wanted to make posts about all of those things, but I don't know how to write those posts now. Last Saturday morning, Hamas started a rocket barrage, firing over 3000 rockets into Israel. Simultaneously,  Hamas forces broke across the Gazan border and murdered over 1300 Israelis. Approximately one hundred and twenty have been reported to have been taken hostage. This has been the bloodiest single day in Israel since its creation as a modern state. I read this is the bloodiest day for Jews since the Holocaust. 

During the attack, Hamas terrorists were continually posting to social media and other online outlets. It was almost as if they wanted to livestream their atrocities. I saw the video of them kidnapping a young woman from a musical festival. I saw them taking an 85-year-old woman hostage. Images have been broadcast this week of the bloody homes of Israelis. Babies murdered in their cribs. Entire families murdered together. Bodies charred from being burnt in the streets.

As Saturday came to a close and more and more atrocities came to light, Prime Minister Netanyahu declared a state of war with Hamas and vowed to destroy Hamas' ability to ever do something like this again. 

Governments around the world are showing support for Israel. The US has parked a carrier strike group in the eastern Mediterranean Sea to ensure no one else decides to take advantage of the situation. But already online, I am seeing there are student demonstrations defending the Palestinian cause. Social media is full of "Free Palestine" posts and comments. Almost immediately, there have been those posting denials saying that perhaps the atrocities didn't even happen.

Hamas continues to put its own citizens in harm's way to bump up their casualty numbers. They continue to put rocket installations in homes, schools, and hospitals. 

Defenders say this is just retaliation for Israel's illegal 75-year occupation.  This is utter bullshit. There could have been peace this entire time. Israel simply wants to exist; the Arabs want to exist and eradicate all Jews. There is a significant difference in those two desires. 

This week has been difficult to say the least, and my heart bleeds for those who have lost loved ones in this terror attack. 

וְהִיא שֶׁעָמְדָה לַאֲבוֹתֵינוּ וְלָנוּ שֶׁלֹּא אֶחָד בִּלְבָד עָמַד עָלֵינוּ לְכַלּוֹתֵנוּ אֶלָּא שֶׁבְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר עוֹמְדִים עָלֵינוּ לְכַלּוֹתֵנוּ וְהַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מַצִּילֵנוּ מִיָּדָם

And it is this (the Torah) that has stood by our ancestors and for us.

For not only one (enemy) has risen up against us to destroy us,

but in every generation they rise up to destroy us.

But the Holy One, Blessed be He, delivers us from their hands.

Hanukkah 5783

 Wow, has it really been 4 years since I posted here? Four years ago feels like a lifetime. We survived two more years of the Trump administration, but that mess's fallout is still on the news every evening. Not all of us survived the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which I guess is still going on, but they don't post the death count on the evening news anymore. After 6.6 million worldwide and just over a million here in the US, many of us lost someone we knew. At a minimum, you know someone who had it if you didn't have it yourself. 

The Conservative movement of Judaism (we really need a better name) pivoted relatively quickly to allow remote minyanim via Zoom, Skype, or the similar (I haven't seen a Teams minyan yet). My synagogue, as well as many others, started broadcasting Shabbat services each week. I think the shul in Birmingham actually streams every service, including the two weekday minyan services. Now that things are settling down and mask mandates are lifting, I hope things will get back to somewhat normal soon, but it will never be the same. 

I think our daily minyan now has more regular participants than ever. Logging in for 20-30 minutes is more attractive to our older retired minyanaires than driving to shul in all kinds of weather twice a day. So if there needs to be a silver lining, I guess that is one. 

Last night we lit the 8th candle for Hanukkah. The secular year is slowly wrapping up. Things have changed a lot for me professionally, and I can help the synagogue more financially than before. I am about to go drop two years of membership dues on them when the office opens. 

I have a lot more going on that I want to post about but I'm still a little shocked it has been over 4 years since my last post. 

Yom Kippur 5779

We were fortunate in our area that the recent hurricane did not impact us at all. Originally the area was in a panic that a category 4 hurricane was heading straight for us and we were all doomed. The hurricane turned south and bashed the Carolinas with days and days of heavy rains.

For us, there was a light sprinkle after Kol Nidre services and then nothing for the rest of the week. I only attended services for Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur morning. My daughter was visiting and I chose to spend the afternoon and evening with her. We both successfully completed the fast together and then broke the fast together as well. It was lovely catching up with her. I'm still getting used to having three adult children.

Due to issues with my car I ended up taking Lyft to shul. I wasn't too happy about that and will try to get a new car soon to avoid the issue in the future. I don't like driving on Shabbat and yom tov in general and as I discussed last time, I will need to move to remedy this issue.

Once the car issues or living location is straightened out I will start going to Shabbat and as many minyanim as I can maintain. I think I've found where I want to sit each week and feel comfortable. Our shul has a series of beautiful stained glass windows all based on events from the Jewish liturgy and history. I sit next to "Jacobs Dream" and when I glance up I see "Joseph and his Brothers" in my field of view.

The monthly bulletin arrived in my mailbox this weekend. Mine was the most goyishe name in the list of new members, but at least it wasn't the only one. Pretty sure the list was pretty full of this year's conversion class "graduates."

It feels good to be back, but a lot of the same things that annoyed me ten years ago still annoy me. I prefer my cantors to be more "traditional" in the tunes and melodies they use and it looks like I'm not going to get that here for a while.

Another amazing thing is that a lot of the "kids" I remember being here when I first joined almost twenty years ago are now older than I was when I joined twenty years ago. The folks who were in their 40s back then are now the elder leaders in the congregation. That's just wild to me for some reason.

Hi, It's the Holy Days!

It seemed as if the High Holy Days came early this year, but as one online member of the /r/Judaism subreddit said, they're starting the same time as always, first of Tishrei. I guess the Gregorian months are late getting started this year. Either way, on the Tuesday after Labor Day I tore off the August page of my desk calendar and saw a month of highlighted holidays starting less than a week away.

This year I finally put together enough intestinal fortitude to confront my anxieties and contact the synagogue's office. I had a pleasant conversation with the shul's director and discussed the fact that I had indeed left a significant balance on my account when we stopped attending ten years ago. They were happy to give me a clean slate and start my new solo membership but I had to express my regret over the old past-due balance. It was agreed that if I felt morally obligated to address that balance I could make up for it by donating to the various charitable funds at the shul until it was "paid off" so to speak.

That conversation happened back in mid-August, and then I kept finding excuses not to stop by the office. That was until I saw that Rosh HaShanah was less than a week away. I quickly stopped by and dropped off my membership paperwork and picked up my tickets for Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. It was great catching up with the director as she was a friend of ours when we attended regularly in the past.

This week I tried very hard to keep Yom Tov properly. I set the lights on timers and attempted to do things correctly. I even put a small throw blanket over the television to remind me not to use it. More than that, I guess it was to remind me if I used the television I was making a conscious choice to do so.

I woke up early and took a Lyft to shul. This was a combination of thoughts. Not wanting to take up valuable parking space was one, but more importantly not wanting to get a ticket for my expired car inspection. Eventually, I want to move into the same neighborhood as the shul so I can walk every day. I've already made note of two nearby apartment complexes and a very nice house. The apartments I can make happen as soon as my current lease expires, but the house would take a good sized lottery win. Then there's the issue with the quality of the apartments not approaching where I live now for the same price. Maybe no one else will pick 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 on the next few lotteries.

I enjoyed Rosh HaShanah services well enough. I had my usual complaint that more people were there to catch up and have conversations than those who were there to pray. I did notice, however, that there were more empty seats than I ever remember seeing. My first year at High Holiday services here in 2000 was a packed house and we had to sit in the balcony. There were people on folding seats in the kiddush hall. This year there were maybe 10 people in the balcony and many empty seats in the sanctuary proper.

I fear this is part of the Conservative erosion I keep reading about and not limited to our shul. Already we have had to combine forces with our sister shul from across town in order to maintain a daily minyan throughout the summer. It appears this is a long-term arrangement and I see several flyers for joint programming events between the two congregations. It would make me very sad if we ended up having to merge congregations at some point (especially if I end up buying a house within walking distance of the shul that ends up being shuttered).

For whatever reason, I was set upon with overwhelming anxiety all night and only slept for about two hours. This lead to me just not feeling up to attending on the second day. I really wanted to go but I didn't feel adequately rested until about noon. I stayed home and tried to do some reading.

To make matters worse, we currently have a hurricane heading our way. The stores were a madhouse over the weekend and I failed to get supplies before Rosh Hashanah started and had to wait until the end of the second day. That's when I found out that my office was going to be shut down in preparation for the storm for the next few days so this will be a week at home.

I don't know why people can't understand my "out of office" message telling them I was off for the holiday. This obviously goes back to the differences in how Gentiles and Jews observe their holidays. More so, I guess, how the non-religious don't observe. When I say I will not have access to phone or email it means I will not have access to phone or email not "I will not have access unless you call at least six times."

Hopefully the storm will not be so bad and hopefully, I can get back on track with blogging more often. New year, right?

New Embassy, Who Dis?

An American president finally kept a campaign promise and moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem, and it had to be Trump. Nixon opened up diplomacy with Red China when he was president. Some argue it was one of a few good things to come from his corrupt presidency. I wonder how history will view this decision by Trump.

Of course there was immediate reaction from the Arabs living in Gaza. There are protests at the border and many people have been wounded or killed. The loss of human life is always regrettable, especially when it could be avoided. There are multiple generations of young men sent to their graves by old men making poor choices based on hate that was passed down to them. When troubles like these happen I am always reminded of a quote attributed to Golda Meir, "Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us."

Apart from the bloodshed at the border, what this week will again show us, as Jews, is that we are not truly welcome by either side of the American political spectrum. It is an ugly truth I have seen time and time again just in my lifetime, not to mention historically.

The Liberal Left do not want a strong Israel, if any Israel at all. The current trend on the Left is to cast Israel as the oppressor and take the side of the poor, down trodden Palestinians. Regardless of the historical reality of the situation and the 22 Arab states that surround Israel and would happily wipe Israel off the map. The Left is quick to ignore the Palestinian rockets coming from Gaza and only focus on the Israeli response to those rockets.

The Religious Right fully supports a strong Israel but deep down doesn't want the Jews. For them a strong Israel is another step in the return of their messiah. While some on the Right see the advantage of having a friendly democracy in the Middle East, many others are guided by their faith and messianic dreams. Once their messiah comes back the Jews will either convert or be cast into Hell with the Muslims and other non-believers.

Where does that leave Israel? In order to secure its borders and survive as a nation Israel takes support where it can get it. At the moment that means taking it from the American Right. That means overlooking the American Right's big tent full of Religious fundamentalist, White Supremacists, and End Timers. If Israel was to turn down this support, how long could Israel last as an island of democracy? Where would there be any other help?

More and more anti-Israeli outbursts in Europe are shown to actually be anti-Jew. Their are Nazis marching in American streets. Jews are afraid to identify as Jewish around the world. And through it all we survive, but for how long?

On top of it all we have to worry about Jews hating Jews. "You're not the right kind of Jew" or "You're not actually Jewish." Religious Jews arguing amongst themselves, secular Jews allowing their leftist ideas get in the way of supporting Israel. Maybe we need the Arab threat to keep us from fighting each other. Maybe we need the anti-Semitic threats around the world to remind us that without a strong, sovereign Israel we have no safe place to live long-term.

This is a long, rambling post today. I should have taken more time to research, spell check, and outline a draft. This was just raw feelings put to a page. 

Momma Always Said Kosher is as Kosher Does

As I try more each day to be more mindful of my Jewish observance level I find eating in restaurants to be more and more difficult. While I do not keep strict kosher when eating out, or at home for that matter, I have tried to work my way to that point.

At present I don't buy any prepackaged food to bring home unless it is marked as kosher by a recognized certifying agency. When I'm out of the house I eat "kosher style" and avoid pork, shellfish, and mixing dairy with meat. That is becoming more problematic as time goes on to the point I have started ordering fish or chicken and avoiding beef now.

Today I had a hamburger with lettuce and tomato and as soon as I bit into it I felt sick. Knowing the grill where the burger was prepared was probably covered in pork grease still makes my stomach turn. It seems that beef is now going to be off the menu as well and I will be sticking to chicken, fish, and salads while I am out and about.

I don't see chicken lasting much longer, at least not regularly prepared chicken. I have held for a long time that chickens don't give milk so why the restriction, but it is becoming harder for me to maintain that stance.

As crazy as it might sound to a younger version of myself, I can see restricting myself to a vegan diet while out and about. I'm not sure I will get to that point anytime soon, but it is not as unimaginable as it once was. 

As Long as We Remember

Today is Lag B'Omer but for me the significance of the day forever changed 18 years ago. It was the day before Lag B'Omer when my grandmother (A"H) passed away. I flew back home for the funeral, dealt with the racism of my uncles toward my mixed race daughter, and returned home. I haven't been back nor do I have any plans to ever return.

She was a great woman. She took me in as an infant and raised me as her own. Growing up with her on the farm, isolated from the world except for my time at school everyday, gave me a unique perspective on life and shaped me into the person I am today.

We were poor by any definition of the word, but we always had food on the table. I always had clean clothes for school, patched as they may have been. She taught me that we can survive through the darkest times. She taught me to always look for the brighter tomorrow.

I am who I am because Granny raised me to be me. So I light the candle every year on the day before Lag B'Omer and I remember. I remember because I hold in my heart that you are never really gone until the last time someone speaks your name, until no one remembers you. So I remember. 

Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right

I finally called my synagogue about renewing my membership. I called a week ago. It was around 4:00 PM, I had meant to call earlier but I had a day full of meetings. When I explained to the receptionist who I was and what I was calling about I was told that the person I needed to speak to had just walked in but they couldn't talk to me at the moment and she'd call me back when she had the time. I made sure they had my updated contact information and they hung up.

I'm sure they knew who I am. During our brief discussion I had mentioned I wanted to make sure there weren't any outstanding charges from our previous membership. The receptionist was able to pull up the names of my ex-wife and oldest son on the computer. So they have an idea of who we are/were.

Was it the Irish surname again? Did that throw her off? When she mentioned my ex-wife and son, I said, "Yes, that's my ex-wife and oldest son." Since my son still had his mother's previous name (which is passably more Jewish than mine) did the receptionist think I was the non-Jewish ex-spouse asking about membership? Is that why she and her co-worker are ignoring me? Is this what the kids call "ghosting"?

I'm more than a little frustrated by all of this. I'm hoping the office staff are truly busy and mean well, but unfortunately my mood lately has me thinking the worst of others.

If I wanted to be petty, I'd call them back and mention that the Conservative movement has been going through a few decades of implosion and they should be jumping at the chance to add qualified members. Maybe I should check out the Reform congregation just down the road from me, or the Modern Orthodox shul downtown? Both are considerably closer to me. Of course I don't think I would be happy with the Reform level of observance and I'm sure the Modern Orthodox wouldn't be happy with mine. So here I am, stuck in the middle with you.

Haters Gonna Hate

Of course, me being me, I choose to become more outwardly Jewish at the same time anti-Semites are choosing to become more public with their hate. I mean, why should being Jewish be easy, right?

When the FBI released its annual report on hate crime statistics for 2016, it showed that 54% of religiously motivated hate crimes were aimed at Jews. We're obviously not alone on the list and sadly, coming in at second, Muslims are victims of over 24% of reported hate crimes with the dubious distinction of increasing by 19% from the last report.

It always stuns me that there is so much hate for us when we barely make up less than 2% of the United States' population and 0.2% of the world's population. The total population of Jews on planet Earth has not yet reached its pre-Holocaust number.

Sometimes it's as if remembering that we Jews are still here and hated makes the mainstream uncomfortable. When the Nazis marched in the streets of Charlottesville there was far more emphasis on the anti-Black hate than the fact torch-bearing Nazis marched down US streets chanting "Jews will not replace us." Please don't take that as me trying to diminish Nazi hatred of African Americans, it appears Nazis have enough hate to go around. But it seems that anti-Jewish hate, for the most part, takes a back seat despite the hate crime statistics that show we are not forgotten by the haters.

The media has noticed a few instances of politicians with their passive anti-Semitism. From disgraced former judge in Alabama, Roy Moore, whose wife basically went with the old-time favorite of some of our best friends are Jews when she proclaimed at a political rally, "One of our attorneys is a Jew. We have very close friends that are Jewish." Granted it was later revealed the "Jew" she referred to was actually a messianic Jew, so there's that.

More recently, District of Columbia Councilman Trayon White made a stir. First, by claiming the Rothschilds control the weather after a surprise snow flurry in mid-March, and again a month later while visiting the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and making some questionable comments. The story seems to be in progress as some are claiming his comments came from a place of honest ignorance and a desire to learn that were manipulated into a "gotcha" moment by a Washington Post reporter.  While that may be the case in the second event, it doesn't explain his recent donation to Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam for an event where Farrakhan made his own recent anti-Semitic remarks. Granted, it should come as a surprise to no one that the Minister Farrakhan holds anti-Semitic views, considering his track record on the subject.

My hope is that Councilman White's disturbing comments come from his honestly not understanding anti-Semitism, but if that's the case it's troubling for other reasons. A recent survey revealed that two thirds of millennials didn't know what Auschwitz is, and 22% said they hadn't heard of the Holocaust or weren't sure if they had.  Those are disturbing numbers but explain why so many young people, like Mr. White, don't understand why this is such a big deal.

I get it if it's an honest moment of "I didn't know that" but my gravest fear is that it become, "I didn't know that and I still don't believe it."

The FBI hate crime statistics referenced at the beginning of this post were for calendar year 2016 and were released in November 2017. It will be interesting to see the numbers for calendar year 2017 when they are released this November. 2017 was the first full year of the Trump administration being in office. Sadly I expect the bad numbers to go up for everyone.

A Rosenstein by Any Other Name

Some days are better than others. Most days I don't even think about it, but then it gets shoved in my face and that's all I can think about. I'm talking about my surname, in all of it's Scots-Irish McGlory.

Invariably when introducing myself to a group of strangers there will always be one person who notices the disparity between my kippah and surname. Without fail I will get one of the following:

• Raised eyebrow (usually the minimum) 
• "Where do you daven/go to synagogue?" (more rare, but I think it's to check if I'm actually Jewish.)
• "Oh, is your mother Jewish?" (Not that I know of. Why, what have you heard?)
• "Oh, I didn't know that was  Jewish name." (Yet here I am.)
• "McSurname? What's with the yarmulke?"(Jews wear kippot, I'm a Jew.)
• "McSurname? Where'd the yarmulke come from?" (The Sisterhood gift shop at my shul.)
• "Did you convert to get married?" (No, actually my ex-wife converted after I did.)
• "Oh, so you're not really Jewish." (!קוש מיין אידישע טאָכעס)

I've thought about changing my legal name for many years. Recently I came across the name "Meyer" and it seemed like the perfect surname for me. I am of Scots-Irish and German heritage and "Meyer" is the one magical name that appears in Irish, German, and Jewish families. I'm sure I'd get past the bologna jokes eventually, but best of all I'd stop getting conversion shoved in my face and being made to feel "less than". 

I've mentioned this to my kids and ex-wife and they're of the mind to ignore the haters and keep my last name. I guess in a sense they are right. My issues with my name are mine and I shouldn't care what people think. But should and do are different words. I do let it bother me and I don't know how to get past it. On one hand I want to be bold and have a "deal with it" attitude. Any problem with my last name is your problem, not mine. While on the other hand, I feel like changing my surname would be the final step in shedding off my old life, albeit a quarter century after the process started. It would be the final embrace of my faith and people. 

But tomorrow I will wake up with the same name as today and I'm sure someone will raise an eyebrow or two and I'll still be Jewish at the end of the day.

And so it goes.

Stalled Journeys

Another year, another Pesach. It has been well over a year that I have been trying to reconnect with my Judaism. As can be witnessed by the dates of the posts here, documenting the journey hasn't gone that well either.


I've been wearing my kippah every day since Hanukkah 5777 (December of 2016, in case you don't want to check hebcal.com). This year my self-challenge was to start wearing tallit katan every day. That has been more of a challenge, but oddly enough it has had more to do with laundry and body heat than presenting as Jewish. Granted I generally tuck-in and don't wear the tzitzit out yet, or at least not out when I'm out. That's still a point of trying to avoid מַרְאִית עַיִן (marit ayin) and me doing something un-Jewish with my tzitzit out. Unlike covering my head with a baseball cap and going incognito, having a bunch of white strings tangling at your waistline is a little more obvious that something is up.




As for reconnecting with my community, I tried to start going to morning minyan again. You may recall last Pesach Sheni I decided to try to make the jump back into regular attendance. I spoke with the rabbi about rejoining the congregation and things seemed to be going okay, up until the next festival. Shavuot is a major festival on the Hebrew calendar but, from what I've ever witnessed in the local Conservative synagogues, it's not one of the "popular" holidays. It should be up there with Pesach and Sukkot. It celebrates G-d revealing the Torah to the nation of Israel at Sinai. I made a point to attend services that day and I regretted it.




I felt so out of place the entire time. It started out well enough I got a good seat, I got to be the magbiah and lift the Torah. Then, like an idiot, I accidentally mansplained what page we are on to the lady sitting next to me. Which wouldn't be so bad except I recognized her from my conversion classes 18 years ago. She and her husband had been friendly with my ex-wife and I back then but I guess we all drifted apart after my family moved away for awhile. I wanted to eat my shoe. 




After the service, I stepped back into the minyan room to grab my jacket and accidentally overheard the rabbi speaking to the elderly couple who run the daily minyan about how to handle a situation with a schnorrer. Were they talking about me? Were they talking about one of the other families who had joined us from a nearby smaller congregation? I had attended about a month's worth of morning minyanim but I had not yet spoken to the synagogue office about renewing my membership. I had been sure to drop a ten dollar bill in the tzedakah box each morning I attended (when most folks were dropping a dollar or a five spot at most). I felt mortified. 


At the luncheon after services I was relegated to sit with the other oddball non-member families at the table farthest from the rabbi. I had an overwhelming sense of not belonging. All of this on top of recently being outed by the rabbi as being a convert. To him it appeared to be an off hand comment, a fond memory from my conversion. We had joked at the time this was Conversion 2.0 as I had previously converted through the Reform movement and this was the "upgrade". But that was almost twenty years ago and I still hated being reminded of my conversion. 




It is my understanding that you shouldn't bring up a convert's past in general conversation. I'm stuck with a very obvious Scots-Irish surname that already causes plenty of people to raise an eyebrow and say, "I didn't know that was a Jewish name." To which I generally reply, "It is now" or "it's always been my name" as a deflection. I hate how I am immediately treated differently by Jews and non-Jews when it gets out that I converted. "Oh, so you're not really Jewish" has been heard from both sides and I honestly can't say which one bothers me more. 


Instead of addressing all of this with the rabbi, I did what I usually do and retreated inward. I just stopped going to minyan. I never called the front office about membership. I retreated back to my home version of Judaism. I have spent the last year watching videos about Jewish observance and reading as much as possible. I have two bookcases overflowing with Jewish reference books that I used to dig into every week. I'm thinking more and more about starting Daf Yomi and kick myself for not having this rejuvenation of Judaism before the current cycle started (August 3, 2012). I know I want to study Talmud, but I'm not sure if doing Daf Yomi isn't just an excuse for me to buy the Talmud set. (Side note, the set sold by Artscroll would look beautiful on my bookshelf but for $1800 I will likely just keep using Sefaria.)


But all of that and I haven't been back. I feel like I am a huge disappointment to the rabbi but at the same time I'm scared about my status as a convert. When he retires or (G-d forbid) passes away, who will remember that I am a Jew? Who will count me at a minyan? Will I be counted as a Jew in any other congregation I visit? I'm already worried enough that I'm pretty sure I can't make Aliyah to Israel due to the requirement of being active in a synagogue or community for the past year. Not that I am thinking of making Aliyah anytime soon, but it has always been a little reassuring knowing we have a safety net. 


Long story short (too late) I want to be more engaged in my Judaism. I am progressing in my daily observance at home. I took offense at a statement that probably wasn't about me and let it wreck my year. 


Now what?

Pesach All Over Again

Wednesday marked Pesach Sheni or Second Passover. It was established by G-d for those who were not able to bring the Passover offering at the proper time due to ritual impurity. One month after Pesach there was a second chance for those who missed it the first time. From this origin story the day has become known by some as a day of second chances. That's what I decided to use it for this year.

I tried on Tuesday evening to get to shul in time for the evening minyan but the joy of rush hour Hampton Roads traffic made a 20 minute trip take 45 minutes and I missed it. I decided I would be there for the next morning's minyan.

It had been a long time since I had sat in morning minyan. You may remember from my previous post that I had not been to shul since the Sunday after parsha va'eira 2009. If my calculations are correct, that would have been January 25, 2009. The twins would have been almost five and my college freshman daughter would have been ten. Losing all of that time hit me hard when I made the realization of how long it had been. So many lost chances to share my faith with them as they grew up. So many lost chances to get them involved in synagogue life. To make the idea of not going to shul every week as alien to them as going at all is to them now. I wept. Every realization like this leaves me feeling horrible about myself. It piles on top of the growing mound of feeling that I've done yet one more thing to screw up my kids' lives.

Oddly enough, I was like a kid trying to go to bed on Christmas Eve. I tossed and turned all night, my anxiety levels were through the roof and it didn't help that I had missed my stomach medication for the past two days so the acid reflux was in full effect. Finally I got up at 4:30 AM and started reading. I reviewed a few videos on wrapping tefillin, because even though I've been wrapping every morning since my new pair arrived, and I have already spent several evenings and Sundays reading blogs and books and watching videos on the right way to wrap, I was still anxious about doing it in public and possibly getting it wrong.

I showered early and left with more than ample time to spare. When I walked in I recognized a few of the regulars from the old days. Still sitting in their same seats. I went to my regular seat in the back row to put on my tallit and tefillin and felt sad to see the empty row. The back row is where I'd sit with the old Russians and assorted אַלטער קאַקער and we would grump and grouch about politics, the weather, and the young wasting their youth. Now the row was empty. I had read about each of them passing away over the years. I had gone to several of their funerals and stood unnoticed in the background. I had visited their graves and left pebbles on their gravestones.

I finished and took a new seat on the second row. One of the regulars recognized me and we caught up a little. I had to bring him up to speed on the marriage ending, the kids growing up and all that had happened in the last decade or so. There were a few re-introductions to the new gang of אַלטער קאַקער on the side seats. I knew a few but I always try to be polite when someone meets me again for the first time. Plus I can respect an introduction that begins, "Listen, kid, you gotta tells us your name or it will bug us all morning and then we'll bug you all morning." Once my name was out, due to its Scots-Irish origin, many of them remembered me.

Minyan began and we davened. It felt good. I was anxious about making a mistake, but for the most part it was muscle memory. We finally got new siddurim in the minyan room. It's nice that we have the Siddur Sim Shalom for Weekdays now to replace the aging Birnbaums. Aging? I guess I should say ancient. In either case, it was a nice upgrade and made davening a little easier due to my rusty Hebrew.

After the service I said my goodbyes and went to work. After lunch I sent the rabbi a text message asking for some time to speak with him at his convenience. He called back a few minutes later and we caught up on times passed and discussed how I was to go about restoring my membership at the shul and attending services regularly. The rabbi, my Rabbi, is one of the few people on Earth whose opinion of me I worry about with any seriousness. I have always regarded him to be a wise man, an intelligent man, and a man of honor. I have caught myself on numerous occasions feeling completely overwhelmed by his mind, and this is a rare feeling for someone as arrogant as myself. I am rarely jealous of other's intelligence but it was almost routine when I was around him. I remember once seeing one of those funny door signs that said, "If you're the smartest person in the room, maybe you're in the wrong room." I wanted to get back to the right room. The rabbi and I had a pleasant telephone conversation and I said I would see him at a future service and we could talk more at that time.

When I walked into the minyan room Wednesday morning I had a feeling I haven't felt in years. I had the feeling I was home.

Wrap It Up

This year has been a year of renewal for me. I have taken on the challenge of becoming more observant in my Judaism this year, but that wasn't necessarily my going in option in January. In my last post I discussed how I decided to start wearing my kippah every day. I know years ago when I was first attempting to be more observant one of the things that kept coming up was that kippot were not Biblically mandated but tzitzit and tefillin were and that it was better to take up the obligation of tefillin than just a kippah. It had been a long time since I had laid tefillin regularly.

My tallit bag holding my tallit and tefillin had been on the bookshelf in the bedroom for a couple of years. It would get moved occasionally when we needed space for something. Each time I moved it I would feel the pang of guilt that I should be going to synagogue each week or, at the minimum, I should be using my tallit and tefillin every morning and praying.

As we approached Pesach the urge to lay tefillin was growing stronger with each morning. It was almost as if they were calling to me. Finally, the Sunday morning before Pesach, I took my tallit bag and siddur downstairs to daven shacharit. Unfortunately it had been almost 8 years since I had taken my tefillin out of the bag. As I unrolled them I could hear the black paint cracking and peeling off the retzuot and batim. I thought I had kept them safe over the years but apparently the humid summers here combined with being tightly wound and stored away was too much for them.

It was a shame see them in such shape. I remember how hard it was to save up the money for such a basic set back in February 2001. They were the cheapest set available from the "Source for Everything Jewish" catalog but they were like gold to me when I got them. I remember struggling to get the shel rosh knot adjusted to fit my head, and having to adjust the shel yad knot to accommodate my being left-handed. I remember feeling so self-conscious the first few times I wore them to morning minyan at shul. I was terrified that someone would point out I was doing something wrong. And I remember the horror I felt the first morning someone told me I was wrapping the wrong arm (I wasn't, he just didn't know I was a leftie).

For eight years I was consistent with laying tefillin each morning. Some mornings were more difficult than others, especially when I was still in the Navy. I have laid tefillin around the world and in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. I remember having to get really good calculating zemanim to adjust for my location. Thankfully the U.S. Navy was very keen on keeping up with sunrise and sunset.

It felt like a punch to the gut to see them like this and to think that I had let them get to this state. I immediately went online and started researching a new set. I finally settled on a pair that were within my budget but also very nice. I ordered two new tefillin bags, one for the new set and one for the old set. They had always be stored in one of my tallit bags but now I felt everyone should have their own. I decided that I wouldn't get rid of the old pair but instead I would set them aside and someday have them repaired. Perhaps when the tefillin set is repaired and once again certified kosher, I will pass them down to a child or grandchild.

The new set of tefillin arrived on the second evening of Pesach and the first day I could use them would be the first day of Chol HaMoed. I spent the evening looking up the rules of tefillin and making sure I was okay to daven with them on Chol HaMoed. I also spent a good amount of time looking up how to wrap tefillin. It had been so long since my last wrap I had forgotten how. Thankfully Internet is much more fleshed out in 2017 than it was in 2001, and I was able to find instructional videos for many, many wrapping styles. Granted, finding the finger wrap for me was a bit difficult and I recall finding out how to do that was tough the first time as well.

So now I have a new set of tefillin. The retzuot are still stiff and dig into my arm each morning. Some mornings I forget to put them on, some mornings I rush out the door and feel guilty that I didn't wear them. Most mornings I feel like I'm doing "Jewish" wrong and I'm skipping a prayer I should be saying or saying a prayer I should be skipping. But I'm spending time online learning more about tefillin than I've ever known before. I may even dedicate a post or two and share some of what I've learned.

The next big step is returning to shul. Remember when I took out my tallit and tefillin that Sunday before Pesach? There was something else in the bag. It was a program from Shabbat services. The week's parsha was va'eira and the year was 2009. The following Sunday morning when I went back to daven and pick up my tallit bag is the last confirmed time I was in the shul. So I need to make some phone calls and re-establish some lines of communication. But I guess that will be another blog post.

I Got It Covered

One of the things I've tried to do this year is become more observant. Due to a lot of issues with basically my entire life falling apart and being rebuilt, a lot of my day-to-day Judaism fell through the cracks. You can go back and see the beginnings of it in some of the older blog posts here. It was the same old story of unemployment, dissolved marriage, foreclosure, move on, meet someone new, start getting better, new job, new life. Regardless of the details of how it happened, it happened. Over the course of the past two years or so, something kept gnawing at me. I was putting my life back together, I was getting to a good place again but I was leaving something out.

I had to sit and examine my new life. The answer was obvious. As I went through the process of rebuilding my life I was subconsciously leaving out Judaism. If asked I would readily identify as a Jew but I had not attended a service in well over 5 years. My youngest children hadn't been to synagogue more than a handful of times since their upsherin when they were three years old. I had transitioned from someone who loved going to synagogue and worrying about having Jewish grandchildren to someone who occasionally felt a pang of guilt on Saturday afternoons if he saw a Jewish reference on television. This was not who I wanted to be and more and more the guilt and the emptiness grew in me.

After recognizing the problem not much changed for me. I went through every day pretty much the same. Along the way I started paying more attention to what I ate. It slowly evolved from ordering the bacon double cheeseburger to no bacon, to no cheese, to ordering the tuna sandwich or getting a salad. Slowly I started trying to schedule less on Saturdays. But I still felt that something was missing.

One of the first things I had to address in my own life was to stop being the resident "Uncle Tom" Jew for my goyishe boss. I had allowed an environment to grow around me where I would offer mild protest or chidding over borderline racist or anti-semitic remarks but never rock the boat too much. I was fast becoming a self-hating Jew on the road to assimilation and I had to bring it to a stop as soon as possible. But once you let a situation like this get established it is very difficult to fix it or stop it. The attitude of "why is it a problem now but it was fine last week?" or the inference that you are the problem for being a hypocrite.

As we all struggled through the ordeal of the 2016 Presidential Election here in the United States, I was becoming more aware of the news. Racial incidents seemed to be on the rise, anti-muslim opinions were openly voiced on social media, and the foul smell of anti-semitism started to waft in from the political fringes. I know all of this has been here for a while and, for the most part, has always been a part of our lives, but lately it felt as if people were being more bold with their statements.

Post-election Thanksgiving dinner with the extended family went about as well as could be expected when you're a liberal Jew who supported Bernie and then Hillary, and the extended family are nominally Christian Trump supporting conservatives. The hours of conversation about how Trump was already fixing America a full two months before being sworn into office was more than enough to make the trip a bucket of fun for all involved.

I felt something inside of me pushing back and demanding to be heard. I was not the person I wanted to be, or needed to be. I had allowed one person and one set of bad choices lead me down a road that took away something in my life that gave me peace. I had to get it back.

Sometime in mid-December, as the holiday season approached, I wore my kippah to work. I didn't do it the next day and a fellow manager asked me why not. I explained that I used to wear it all of the time years ago but due to work and trying to get back on track with my career I hadn't felt comfortable wearing one. That was only part of the truth. The other part was that I had let my life falling apart let me become a bad Jew and I didn't have the strength of character to represent the tribe anymore. We all know the old trope that if someone is rude in public, he's just rude; but if someone wearing a kippah is rude in public, then it is proof that all Jews are rude.

Part of why I chose to take off my kippah the first time was my own shame at not being a good Jew. Part of the reason I couldn't put it back on was my own cowardice and the fear of being pushed down again. But now I was a manager. Now I could make sure that no one was pushed down.

So I started wearing my kippah, on and off in mid-December but over the holiday vacation season and starting everyday during Hanukkah, I wore my kippah and I haven't taken it off since. Early on there were a few glances, hushed comments, and awkward questions but that wore off as we all moved into January and the new year.

What changed because of my kippah? Internally I felt way more guilt or shame when I walked into a non-kosher restaurant. Early on I made a point to keep a baseball cap handy to hide my shame. Luckily Chicago won the World Series, so I had an excuse to always have my Cubs cap handy. Externally, at work at least, I started noticing that certain people were talking to me more. I was a new manager, but I was also openly Jewish. Now I seemed to be father confessor to some, therapist to others, and champion to the downtrodden. If you work at my office and are a minority, live an alternative lifestyle, or belong to any other "non-Old White Man" group then we have most likely met and had a conversation or two.

I know there are more important things I should be doing to increase and improve my observance level but this was just the first step. Or perhaps, better put, this was the first rung on my ladder of increased observance. There's more to the story and more rungs on the ladder have been climbed, but we'll talk about those in upcoming posts.

New Decade, Who Dis?

So it's been 7 years, 11 months, and 18 days since my last post here. Glad I got in before the 8 year mark, that would have been embarrassing. While I'm at it, I just also noticed that it has been 10 years, 2 months, 26 days since I started this blog. In either event, so much about my life has changed in that decade but we'll get to that in time.

For the time being the thing that is bringing me back to this blog is my Judaism. If the majority of my early posts here are any indication, I generally used this as a place to discuss my ongoing journey into Judaism. I've recently started back on the path of observance and needed a place to journal about it. As usual, I'd rather keep names and specific locations out of the mix to protect the innocent but the topics here don't quite fit the other blogs I maintain.

That all said, I don't know how much I'll be writing here but it will be a work in process.

Of Angels and Demons

Friday night I went to see "Angels & Demons". I enjoyed both of Dan Brown's books and other than Tom Hanks' hair in "DaVinci Code" I have enjoyed both movies. Before I left work Friday I mentioned that we were planning on seeing the movie. A Catholic coworker made a comment about my coming into work Monday and making comments about now knowing everything that's wrong with the Catholic church and how he didn't want to hear it. I calmly mentioned that I knew there were problems with "Mother Church" long before watching these movies or reading either book. It takes more than a silly little book to change my opinions on things. Apparently it also takes more than a silly little book to start a major world religion, but that's another post.

On Large Hadron Disappointments

Well it's Wednesday and we're all still here. While I was hoping to go in my sleep this morning at 3:30 AM I instead awoke to the screeching of my alarm clock. Yes, I guess deep down I'm glad that the world continues and the Earth wasn't swallowed up in a man-made blackhole of doom, but I'm not sure how I'm going to cover maxing out all three credit cards and telling my boss what I really think yesterday.

Note to self: in the future make sure the world is ending before setting "Plan:Endtimes" in motion...

"Muse"-ings

I sit staring at a blank sheet of bristol. I've done this before. All I have to do is move the pencil in a certain manner and it produces a faint grey line on the paper. After a few moments these lines appear to become pictures of a sort. Soon I go back over these lines with a nib pen dipped in india ink to preserve the ideas formed by these pencil markings for all time. Yet for the past few weeks when I sit at my table I just see a vast blank page that refuses to change.

I seriously don't imagine this to be writer's block, or at least not in its common form. It seems to be more of a fear or dread based blockage. I want to write and draw but then I start thinking about tomorrow and the day after. Will I be able to maintain this, and if so, then for how long? Do I want to start up the comic strip again, I know I won't be able to maintain a daily or even three times a weekly, so why even start.

But I have to start. Something deep inside of me cries out to be expressed. But what is it? I don't have a story to tell, do I? Where do I even begin if I do have a story? Well, I guess there's always the begining but that's lame. Oh well never mind.

See what I have to deal with? It's like this all the time. My mind takes off and while I am not able to think of a good place to start a story, I am able to sit and fabricate a story in my head that has my comic strip leading to the fall of Western Democracy and assorted plagues throughout the undeveloped world. I need an outlet for all of this energy, but all of that potentential energy fails to become kinetic.

So I sit. And I stare. And I never begin again.