Let me ask you something: Does keeping up with being Jewish ever stress you out?

Leading a Jewish life this week feels a constant run of obligations and activities instead of a creation of quiet reflection between attending synagogue services on Saturday (led by the middle schoolers, which was awesome, especially the Adler kid’s d’var torah), teaching Shalom Schoolers a lesson on the Tower of Babel on Sunday (we built a head high edifice out of blocks and knocked it over six or seven times, then ran around shrieking gibberish), attending board meetings for the Chanukah party at the JEA and the local Jewish newspaper plus beginning to panic about Chanukah lists (the whole mishpocha is chipping for Rebecca, the Jewish American Girl doll, which including Shabbat accessories, should count as three nights. Hope Little Yenta Girl will be cool with underwear and socks on nights five, six and seven.) I can’t imagine being more observant – the regulation Passover cleaning would send me over the edge for sure, yo.

Taking on tasks until I’m overwhelmed by might be hereditary. My mother, the author Marcia Fine, has a new book out, Stressed In Scottsdale, the third in her screamingly funny series about life amongst the rich and self-absorbed. Her main character, Jean Rubin, has become something of an alter ego now that Jean has her own blog, and though it’s not exactly autobiographical, the “stressed” part certainly parallels Mom’s jump into the social networking world: She’s Facebooking, y’all.

Which means now I have to stress about the appropriateness of my status updates. Although, if my own mother is blogging about sex emporiums, maybe I needn’t worry about dropping an F-bomb or two.

Go check out JeanRubinBlog.com and see how you compare on the stress-o-meter!