I feel like a bad Jew when the holidays of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah (actually, it’s one holiday, but I’ve already established that I’m an inferior Jew) come around, but this is one of those times when guilt should take a hike. After all, it’s a new year and we start again at the very beginning of the Torah (which, of course, is a very good place to start.)

But when I read stories like this about how Jews in other countries, in other times would suffer most anything to be able to dance with the Torah, the guilt creeps back. *sigh*

Being an American Jew in 2005 certainly isn’t hard like being forced into the Czar’s army, made to convert to Christianity and whipped with your own tefillin; it’s hard like trying to convince your kid how cool Chanukah is now that he’s old enough to notice that the f*in’ Christmas decorations are already out in the stores. No, it doesn’t make you bleed or leave scars, but it doesn’t instill a huge sense of meaning and purpose, either. And sometimes that’s hard, when I know Jews all over the world are dancing with G*d’s gift and I’m just trying to get dinner on the table. But really, I’m just glad to be here.

Anyway, I linked some good educational resources in last year’s post, but I found out this year that a prayer for rain is included in the official liturgy.

But — and this is a just a suggestion, rabbis — I think the wet people of the Southeast would appreciate it if y’all skipped that prayer this year, ’cause frankly, there’s plenty, thanks.

Instead, a mighty blessing going out to the Florida Jmerica contigency, from whom I’ve heard very little this week. Hope all is well, dry and safe.

I promised my son that this year, we would clear away the dog poop and broken glass and build a sukkah in the sad patch of earth we call our backyard. Bad Jewish Mother! Who designed a holiday to just sneak up like this when I’m still soaking the kugel dish from the post-YomKippur potluck?

I’m sure back in the agrarian days it was perfectly convenient to hammer together some sticks and a peek-a-boo roof and serve up a vat ofcouscous to the neighbors, but I’m notsomuch a “tool” kind of person, and those ready-made jobbies are too damn expensive. Combined with the worldwide lulav shortage* and the impossibility of finding an etrog at Safeway, it looks like Sukkot will go uncelebrated yet again at the Yenta household.

Unless we get to count making these delectable edibles.

Chag sameach best we can, right?

*Breaking news: JPost reports that one importer from Bnei Brak was able to bring 100,000 lulavs out of Egypt and break up the greedy cartel that was price-gouging the celebratory fronds. Talk about shaking ’em down!

This was forwarded to me via my brother-in-law, who got it from some old great-Aunt who probably doesn’t know what a blog is or that forwards are corny. I guess that’s why it’s cute.

L’Shana Tova (credited to Wayne Meisel, Regional VP B’nai B’rith)

May your hair, your teeth, your face-lift, your abs, and your stocks not fall; and may your blood pressure, your triglycerides, your cholesterol, your white blood count and your mortgage interest not rise.

May you get a clean bill of health from your dentist, your cardiologist, your gastroenterologist, your urologist, your proctologist, your podiatrist, your psychiatrist, your plumber, and the IRS.

May you find a way to travel from anywhere to anywhere during rush
hour in less than an hour, and when you get there may you find a parking space.

May this Yom Tov, find you seated around the dinner table, together with your beloved family and cherished friends, ushering in the Jewish New Year ahead. Continue reading →

Wishing you and yours the happiest and healthiest of High Holy Days.

Rosh Hashanah is the ultimate chance to begin anew, to ask Hashem to write us into the Book of the Living for another year. But I have this crazy idea that part of it is up to us; that God actually needs our help, prayers and actions to keep bringing us back. So I’ve made the decision to give up cigarettes tonight at sundown. ‘Cause why should the Almighty want to inscribe me if I keep smoking like a bad VW engine?

Hope the rabbi doesn’t mind gum-chewing in the sanctuary.

May your table and heart be full this New Year!

Do you know the old joke about what the difference is between a Jewish mother and a rottweiler? The rottweiler will eventually let go.
Universally known as neurotic, overprotective and wont to overfeed, the stereotype of the Jewish mother is a legend in our own culture and beyond. But can this image survive the modern age?
BellaOnline‘s Judaism editor, Paula E. Kirman, writes
that “the stereotypical Yiddishe Mama is probably a species that will not remain beyond another generation, as the face and makeup of Jewish families change and we are more used to living amongst non-Jews.”
It would be a shanda to lose this strong female cultural archetype, but Kirman may be right. This generation’s Jewish mamas may still push for their kids to be doctors and eat enough protein, but we have a difficult time picturing the 30-something American mamas we know dragging their kid home by the ears from the mall for wearing a mini-skirt.