Jew Moment

Well, all's snowy and windy and cold in Lake Wobegon, my home town. . .Does anyone even get that joke? I'm in a hotel in Farmington, Connecticut, which I think is somewhere near Hartford maybe. There's like 8 or 10 inches of snow on the ground and I swear most of it is on our car. I will be back in Maryland for Tuesday, if only because Mother Dearest has patients to see. But I will be there!

We made pretty good time driving here on Friday, and the Shabbas dinner was the expected chicken soup and chicken breast and salad and I had a cheese sandwich from Cosi afterwards. It's really, really cool to be somewhere where people are really happy you're there. Lisa, the mother of the bar mitzvah boy, probably thanked us 15 times for coming.

Technically, Lisa and her kids and brothers and the rest aren't actually related to us. I mean, Lisa's grandmother, Ette, and my grandmother are first cousins or something like that, so we're really distantly relatede, but where do the lines actually fall, anyway? But we come to their events and they come to ours and we've more contact with them than with my dad's brother and sister. I guess that would make them family. After all, isn't there more to family than just blood relation anyway? *ponders* Dr. Berger, why don't you study that one after you cure Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, AIDS, and the common cold?

Zach, the bar mitzvah boy, did a fabulous job at the service. He can't sing very well, but he knew everything perfectly. The synagogue was very interesting. Many of the women were wearing tallit (including me) and one of the two rabbis is female. She gave the sermon, and it was amazing. It had to do with the difference between faith and blind faith, and it was just wow. Same strength of emotion as my rabbi's sermons create, but I agreed with her.

The lunch was the normal kind of thing. I'm perpetually either Ilana "the college student", though I'm not, or Ilana of the amazing bat mitzvah which they still talk about even though it will be five years ago this June. Why am I the fucking landmark, and I'm the non-believer?! And then the snow started, so we stayed in the hotel instead of going to the party so we wouldn't get snowed in at the JCC. Most of the family actually came to stay at this hotel after the party rather than driving home, so we all had breakfast together, too.

That's basically it. At some point I should write about what the female rabbi told me about women, tallit, and kipot, because it was very interesting, but perhaps later. Stephen, I want to hear your opinion.

Jew Moment

Well, all's snowy and windy and cold in Lake Wobegon, my home town. . .Does anyone even get that joke? I'm in a hotel in Farmington, Connecticut, which I think is somewhere near Hartford maybe. There's like 8 or 10 inches of snow on the ground and I swear most of it is on our car. I will be back in Maryland for Tuesday, if only because Mother Dearest has patients to see. But I will be there!

We made pretty good time driving here on Friday, and the Shabbas dinner was the expected chicken soup and chicken breast and salad and I had a cheese sandwich from Cosi afterwards. It's really, really cool to be somewhere where people are really happy you're there. Lisa, the mother of the bar mitzvah boy, probably thanked us 15 times for coming.

Technically, Lisa and her kids and brothers and the rest aren't actually related to us. I mean, Lisa's grandmother, Ette, and my grandmother are first cousins or something like that, so we're really distantly relatede, but where do the lines actually fall, anyway? But we come to their events and they come to ours and we've more contact with them than with my dad's brother and sister. I guess that would make them family. After all, isn't there more to family than just blood relation anyway? *ponders* Dr. Berger, why don't you study that one after you cure Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, AIDS, and the common cold?

Zach, the bar mitzvah boy, did a fabulous job at the service. He can't sing very well, but he knew everything perfectly. The synagogue was very interesting. Many of the women were wearing tallit (including me) and one of the two rabbis is female. She gave the sermon, and it was amazing. It had to do with the difference between faith and blind faith, and it was just wow. Same strength of emotion as my rabbi's sermons create, but I agreed with her.

The lunch was the normal kind of thing. I'm perpetually either Ilana "the college student", though I'm not, or Ilana of the amazing bat mitzvah which they still talk about even though it will be five years ago this June. Why am I the fucking landmark, and I'm the non-believer?! And then the snow started, so we stayed in the hotel instead of going to the party so we wouldn't get snowed in at the JCC. Most of the family actually came to stay at this hotel after the party rather than driving home, so we all had breakfast together, too.

That's basically it. At some point I should write about what the female rabbi told me about women, tallit, and kipot, because it was very interesting, but perhaps later. Stephen, I want to hear your opinion.