Erin Go Bragh, L’Chaim and Hail Ostara! It’s spring, and in Yentaland, that means a mash-up of celebrations that all seem to lead to the bottle. (Leprecohen t-shirt available here.)

Those of you still peeling yourself off the carpet are well aware that yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day, and if you were in Savannah, you may still be peeling yourself off the pavement. Savannah’s legendary St. Pat’s festivities are the second largest in the nation—the parade was FOUR AND HALF HOURS LONG—and hundreds of thousands of people come to the city to tumble around River Street carrying plastic cups of green beer. It sounds horrifying and potentially disastrous, yet somehow it all manages to be a nice family event (if your family doesn’t mind lots of boozy hugs and kisses from strangers.)

Saturday night ushers in Purim, the Jewish holiday where Queen Esther gets her due and us normally-teetotalling Jews are literally commanded to drink until we can’t tell the difference between cursed Haman (the bad guy) and Mordecai (the good guy.) This could mean two glasses of wine or an entire keg of Pabst Blue Ribbon; it’s really between you and your liver. Personally, I usually stop when I can’t tell the difference between El Yenta Man in his Vashti costume and the President of the Sisterhood.

And then we have the Spring Equinox on Sunday, the actual midpoint of the earth’s turns; whatever calendar/religion/heritage you identify with, you can’t deny physics. Some of my fabulous NoCal witchy friends honor the celestial event with a wild, skirt-swinging ritual under the stars, lots o’ homemade mead and a feast of eggs to symbolize rebirth. I don’t know too many Savannah pagans, but I’s gots a trunkful of Stevie Nicks goddess wear and extra chicken eggs…

It’s no accident that so many cultures usher in spring with a party, right? Most of us humans spent a winter of cold toes and bleak scenery, and now that the sun is shining a little and the flowers are bursting, we just want a little hoop-dee-doo—whether your poison is cheap beer flowing from a keg on River Street, a few sips of Manischewitz in the synagogue sanctuary or just the clean night air of Sunday’s giant full supermoon. You don’t need alcohol to feel how much nature wants to party: Just take a deep breath and you could get schnockered just on pollen right now.

The key during this week of indulgence is PACING. Obviously. And leaving the driving to others (thank you for a lovely bus ride downtown yesterday, Chatham County Transit!)

The really fabulous thing is that all three celebrations require costumes of some kind—my thrifted green hippie skirt is gonna get a lot of wear.

A Blessed Blarney chag sameach to all!

Oh, and just because no one really listens to enough Jim Morrison, here’s “The Alabama Song,” just ’cause. (Especially for Aminta.)

One of the many things I appreciate about Judaism (which is longer than the list of the things I don’t appreciate, promise) is that we have a whole holiday dedicated just to trees.

Tu B’Shvat celebrates the “New Year” for our leafy friends and the emergence of the first blooms of the new cycle. Some of you are looking out the window at your spouse dressed up as the Michelin Man shoveling snow out of your driveway under spindly, very bare branches and thinking “Man, Jews are whack. Clearly it is WINTER and nothing is going to bloom for MONTHS so stop teasing me, you crazy woman.”

Sorry for tormenting the snowbound among you, but this holiday commemorates the new foliage in the Land of Israel, a place that may know much strife but is mostly spared the hell of freezing over. It began as a way to mark certain tithes in ancient times, but has evolved into a call to stand up for environmental causes and take the time to appreciate nature.

You people in the snow, you can appreciate nature from the window and by joining us in some indoor fun:

Snacking on pomegranates, figs, olives, almonds and other exotic fruits is a traditional way to celebrate Tu B’Shvat. Some folks bring more meaning to the noshing with a Kabbalistic seder and wax spiritual over the gifts from the trees (just make sure the fruit isn’t wax, blaach.) The Jewish Hostess has some gorgeous centerpiece ideas to add color to the table.

While enjoying the earth’s bounty, don’t forget to send some cash to the Jewish National Fund to help reforest the lands scorched in the Carmel fires last month.

My favorite way to ring in this green new year with the kids is with an enthusiastic reading of The Lorax by Dr. Suess and The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. Both these books drive home the message that the great green things outside are more than just scenery—that not only do we need to appreciate the food and oxygen they provide, but that we have a responsibility to protect them. May we all raise children who “speak for the trees.”

Though important and hopeful, those classics are a teeny bit sad, so I recommend singing “Tu-Tu-Tu Tu B’Shvat Tu-Tu” to the tune of “Duke of Earl” to lighten the mood if the little ones get teary when the Lorax floats away—it always helps me. Which reminds me, the title of the post sounds fabulous when sung over Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus.”

To add a little glam to your Jewish Arbor Day, rock Yontifications’ stupendous holiday earrings—little leaves and pomegranates, so precious!

Since I’m an obsessive treehugger anyway, I’ll probably be giving a few inappropriate squeezes to my favorite live oaks in the neighborhood. I was planning on doing a fancy full moon dance around our broccoli plants, because no matter how old I get, I cannot get over how the crowns look exactly like little trees.

But guess who left the chicken coop open a few weeks back, leaving those tender greens at the mercy of the violent pecking of five hungry hens? Let’s just say El Yenta Man may be appreciating Tu B’Shvat under a bush in the front yard.

Chag Sameach, y’all!

Yo, Geltdiggers! Remember last Purim when the meshuggenehs at Oh Nuts! helped the Yenta host a supersweet giveaway at their online store? Well, mah friends, since a game of dreidel is pretty lame without chocolate coins, it is ON again for Chanukah!

All you need to do win $25 to spend on serious nom noms is this:

Go to the Oh Nuts! Chanukah page. Find the tasty item that incites the most drooling. Come back to THIS POST on Yo, Yenta! and leave a comment in the comments section with the name and the URL of said tasty item. Got that? Pick it, tell me about it here.

Social media maniacs can also go to the Oh Nuts! Facebook Page and become a fan. Post on the wall your tasty item, the URL and be sure to tell them Yo, Yenta! sent you. You can also follow @ohnuts on Twitter and tweet your little heart out with something like: “Geltdiggers! Win Chanukah gelt from http://www.yoyenta.com/?p=3373 RT @ohnuts.”

Winner will be announced Dec. 1 before the sun goes down and the candles are lit!

Yes, I know it’s a little early for well-wishing for the Month of Elul, which begins at sundown on August 10.

Elul is last moon cycle before Rosh Hashanah, and it’s traditionally a time for reflection before the new year, a chance to inventory our sins so we can present ourselves in humble repentance on Yom Kippur.

Considering my personal alphabet of arrogance, blasphemy, crabbiness, doubt, egregious sarcasm, flagrant self-pity, gross ineptitude, haughtiness, ingratitude, jealousy, know-it-allness, laziness, mouthiness, nagging, obnoxious, prude when I should be pervy and vice versa, quick to judge, rude, shallow, too loud, unkind, verbose to the point of indulgence, yellow-bellied cowardice with zero-tolerance for these qualities in others, I should have started repenting LAST month. (I know switched from nouns to adjectives in there, so let’s add grammatically inconsistent to the list.)

While there are plenty of traditions associated with Elul, my favorite way to remind myself to pay better attention to my behavior is signing up for
Jewels of Elul, a short, thought-provoking nugget of wisdom sent to your inbox every day of this month written by someone smart, famous or both. Even if you’ve kept your sinning to a minimum this year of 5770, the Jewels are always good entertainment: Sign yourself up here.

The reason for these early Elul tidings is that the Yenta will be offline for a couple of weeks. It’s finally time to collect Yenta Boy from summer camp, and the family will be heading to the mountains for some non-electric navel-gazing. I look forward to a whole necklace of jewels to contemplate when I return!

Raised as a Reform Jew by an ardent feminist, it was drilled into me that I could grow up to be anything I wanted. An astronaut, a doctor, the President — whatever (though I’m sure an underemployed freelance writer slacker mom wasn’t what my highly accomplished mother had in mind.)

Schooled as I was in the sections of the Equal Rights Amendment, I didn’t study a lot of Torah; Reform Jews in the 70s read Marlo Thomas’ Free to Be You And Me to their daughters instead of the Pirkei Avot. I didn’t yet know the marked differences in the assimilated American lifestyle of my family and the daily rituals observance performed by Orthodox Jews or the separation between men and women in all facets of home, prayer and work.

I met my first female rabbi back in 80s (She was young! She played guitar! She didn’t have hair growing out of her ears!) and I figured any Jewish woman could become a rabbi as long as she stayed in Hebrew school and liked to wear robes, but that’s not true for the stern patriarchy of the Orthodox: While women are revered, most of the men in charge don’t believe women should study Torah, let alone teach it. I never really considered becoming a rabbi (it’s a calling, and the phone’s never rung) but I like to think if my family had been more religious, as contentious as I am, it would have been my first career choice.

While women have been ordained in the Reform and Conservative Movements for decades (the photo is of the first ordained female rabbi, Regina Jonas), Orthodox women have continued to be rejected by the religious governing body. However, some have pushed firmly through the objections of the fathers and studied at yeshiva with the aim of serving as spiritual leaders in their communities. The Jewish Feminist Orthodox Alliance, led by the completely awesome Blu Greenberg, maintains this issue as its focus. Greenberg is the first Orthodox woman to reconcile tradition and feminism, sits on the boards of Hadassah and Lilith magazine and probably knows more about Jewish law than any guy rabbi I’ve ever known.

Last week, JOFA was shot down again, this time over the term “rabba.” Perhaps JOFA’s supporters thought this new, feminine form of “rabbi” would soften minds; it’s a title already used to delineate women ordained in the “more flexible” faiths. But the president of the Rabbi Council of America insists that to “confer ordination on women is a breach of … our tradition, and it is unacceptable.”

Greenberg is undeterred, spinning the RCA’s ruling into something positive: “On the one hand, I do feel the disappointment [of] women who have worked for a title and a certain certification … but I also feel, in the context of this entire enterprise, it’s going to work in their favor. Ultimately we have to keep our eye down the road, as well as on today.”

Keep on’, Blu and the rest of y’all — with your clear knowledge of halacha and determination, you’ll wear ’em down eventually.

However, as much as I support JOFA, my feminist ear actually does not love the gender-specifying quality of “rabba.” It’s been years since the debate over gender neutral job titles has evolved into socially accepted, politically correct language that describes the job without pointing out gender — we don’t say “waiter” and “waitress” anymore; it’s “server.” Don’t you call the person who brings you a can of Coke on a plane a “stewardess” — it’s been “flight attendant” forever. “Rabba” sounds cutesy, a pet name, and I think these educated, pious, women have worked too hard for respect and equality to have to feminize their title.

But I’m not Orthodox, and I don’t know jack about what it’s like to be told I can’t be something because I’m a woman.