Service Interruptus

Here we are, a few days into Chanukah, and I have a great Jewish story to share. It doesn’t have anything to do with the holiday, but who cares, really? A good story is a good story.

Let’s start with a little background for context. I have been on the board of my temple for what feels like centuries. One of the duties, nay, privileges, of being a board member is that we have the honor to sit on the bimah during Shabbat and other special services.  The bimah is like the stage of the sanctuary where all the religious stuff takes place, where the rabbi does his rabbiing and the torah ark is kept and a few chairs have been placed for board members or other recognized congregants. Even though it’s an honor and a privilege, few board members willingly sign up to take a turn. To be honest, it’s not my favorite part of being on the board, but once I am there, I am usually over my dread and rather enjoy myself.

Part of the reason why is our rabbi. I don’t know if other board members have this problem, but whenever I have bimah duty, something happens that makes the two of us crack up and spend the rest of the service trying not to laugh. Many a time he has caught me laughing at something I shouldn’t, maybe a person coughing, his voice cracking, him choking on water, that sort of thing. Who doesn’t want a rabbi with a sense of humor?

Last week, I was doubly honored to have bimah duty because I was the attending board member for a bat mitzvah. My family is friendly with the bat mitzvah family, and I was genuinely happy to be a part of their daughter’s special day. They decided to have a Havdalah service, an afternoon service that is sort of like the closing ceremonies for Shabbat. It’s a lovely tradition, especially in early winter, when the sunset occurs right at the end of services.

Bear with me. I am getting to the great story, I promise.

At our temple, the chairs for the board members are stage left on the bimah, and the far right wall of the sanctuary is glass with a lovely view of the setting sun. Less lovely is the view of the neighboring church. I always call it the Church of the Nazarene, which may or may not be its name, but close enough.  I don’t use churches as landmarks because to me, they are pretty much all the same. Some are more conservative (or crazy) than others, but in my southern town, we have churches on every corner like real cities have Starbucks.

This particular church is in full Christmas mode right now. They do a live nativity drive-through production, complete with animals and back drops and costumes and hastily constructed mangers and whatever else is involved in a crèche. Every year, they use the parking area on the right side of our building to store the animal trailer. It doesn’t interfere with our temple much, and we are happy to do it in the spirit of Christian neighborliness.

So here we go.

While the bat mitzvah girl stood at the podium to lead the congregation in prayer, the rabbi sat next to me as we watched her. I could see what was going on just outside the windows from my board member chair, and since I am easily distracted, I paid a bit more attention to that than the Hebrew prayers. I watched as a man dressed in ancient Bedouin attire led a horse down the hill to the parking lot.

I whispered to the rabbi, “Is that a horse?” He replied, “Just wait. There’s going to be a camel next.”

As the service continued, more people in period clothing walked back and forth behind the neighboring church. I couldn’t look away. I wanted to see the camel.

Eventually, we reached the Torah portion of the service. During a bar or bat mitzvah,  three generations of family stand in a line in front of the congregation and pass the Torah from grandparent to parent to child, symbolizing the sharing of Jewish teaching and values throughout the generations from ancient times to today. It’s always a precarious situation; Torah scrolls are pretty heavy, and grandparents and children are not the physically strongest of the Jewish people.

As the congregation stood and watched the ceremony, the dromedary camel made its appearance. Two people in traditional desert garb were wrangling it, but the camel didn’t give a fuck about the live nativity in which it was to participate. It struggled against its lead, flailing its head back and forth. In a show of defiance and anger, the camel reared up on its back legs, wildly thrashing its front legs in an attempt to make a run for freedom.  It finally gave up, defeated, and was led away to participate in the live nativity. I wondered if an unfortunate wise man volunteer was going to have to ride it. An angry camel doesn’t seem like a safe mode of transport, even for a biblical reenactment.

I continued to watch through the window, but alas, no other livestock appeared. After the Torah was read, the bat mitzvah girl gave her speech.

The rabbi again sat next to me and whispered,” I would like you to recognize my professionalism for not losing it with that camel.” I smiled and whispered back,” Very impressive. I doubt many people could maintain their composure.” “I’m worried about my car. I parked it in that lot,” he said. “Why did I park over there? I hope it didn’t take a crap out there.”

Now, I can’t be certain if that was what the rabbi whispered to me, as we were trying to be quiet. He may not have said that on the bimah, in front of G-d and everybody, but that’s what I wanted to hear.

The rest of the service continued without any animal distraction on the other side of the window. The bat mitzvah girl finished her sermon, kept it together during her parents’ speech, and beamed with pride when she was through. She was amazing.

The rabbi mentioned the camel’s appearance as he offered some final thoughts. He made a joke to the congregation that if they wanted to witness a reenactment of the birth of a Jewish baby boy 2,015 years ago, they could go next door after the service. From the pews, with the windows to the side, the congregation couldn’t really see what was going on outside. Not too many people saw the camel episode, so they didn’t have the distraction that the rabbi and I did from our vantage point.

Never before had I ever seen a distraught camel at a bat mitzvah, but I have to admit, it just added to the whole experience. To sit inside a modern building, listening to a child read from an ancient religious text, while on the other side of the wall, people dressed up in clothing that we assume was like that worn thousands of years ago, reenacting an historical event where people spoke the language she was reading, well, that’s some powerful irony right there. It also made for a one-of-a-kind rite of passage, and I was honored to be a part of it.

Coexist Much?

Well, the kids have been back in school for less than a week, and already, religious intolerance is rearing its ugly head. Normally it takes a few weeks of getting to know each other before the teenagers let their true colors show, but when your true colors are patterned like a confederate flag, well, I guess you feel entitled to show them to everyone.

My family lives in the South, and like many southern communities, the majority of the residents in my town are church affiliated. Christianity here is bigger than college football, which is almost a religion of its own. And when I say Christianity, I really mean evangelicals, those lovely fundamentalists who feel the need to convert or condemn anyone who does not share their beliefs. They do an excellent job of indoctrinating their children with the righteousness and entitlement they feel that comes from their personal relationship with their lord and savior.

I’m not judging them. Everyone is free to believe and practice what feels right, as long as it doesn’t infringe on the next person’s set of beliefs. That’s where it gets a little hazy for some folks.

My younger daughter is in 8^th grade. She has been no stranger to the horrible comments lots of Jewish kids hear. Nothing makes the momma bear in me come out faster than having another kid tell mine that she is going to burn in hell because she is Jewish, but no matter how big the stink I make, another kid will step up to take a turn.  Since 8^th grade is her last year of middle school, most of the kids who know her already know she is a Jew and have shared their prophesy with her, leaving them free to aim it at someone else who isn’t white or Christian.

One of her good friends happens to be Muslim, and she began wearing a hijab this year. It was a very personal decision for her friend, who up til now had not covered her head even when her twin sister chose to a few years ago. These girls, who were born in the US and are therefore as American as the rednecks who harass them, have had to deal with terrorist jokes for their entire middle school experience. They have always risen above the comments and display a level of maturity and confidence that shows more about their religious beliefs then the so-called Christian students. One kid asked S’s friend why she started covering her head. She didn’t answer hi since it was none of his business, so he followed it up with asking if she was a Muslim. When she told him yes, he wanted to know if that meant she was from Islam. She looked at him with what I hope was as much judgment as he showed her and said, I was born right here in this city.

If it were me, I would have said yes. Yes, I am from Islam, you oblivious piece of crap. I happen to know for a fact that the seventh grade social studies classes were required to learn all the countries and maps of the world. I wonder where this future McDonald’s employee thinks Islam is located.

Meanwhile, over at the high school, my older daughter, E, was having her own religious experience. She has a much different approach to her Jewish identity than her sister. She doesn’t really give a shit what anyone thinks, and she is much less likely to be polite about it. Because she is less sensitive, she gets a lot more ribbing than her sister does, which she thinks is funny. Some of it comes from her friends but she gives it back as good as she gets it, so it’s all okay for the whole lot of them.

This week it wasn’t her one of her friends that was teasing her. Some dumb freshman, according to my sophomore child, was following her and another of her friends down the hall. They were having a conversation about the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur holidays next month, and the freshman behind her asked her if she ate Ramadan because she was Jewish. Let that sink in for a minute.

E gave him a look that should have made him throw himself off a rooftop, but instead, he continued to follow her down the hall shrieking “Ramadan” at her. Finally, she turned around and yelled, “Jesus Christ, would you cut it out?” The boy immediately stopped and was truly outraged. “You know,” he said, “that’s taking it too far. I was just messing with you, but you really shouldn’t say that. It’s offensive.”

She stared at him and then screamed,” Just shut the fuck up!” The hall erupted in great boisterous laughter because someone yelled the F word. He stopped following her, and that was the end of that.

Both my daughters still tell me stuff, and they each shared these stories with me. While they aren’t really the same at all, at the core they share the same level of ignorance. These aren’t little kids. These are kids who have had at least a small amount of book learning on world geography and different religions and what happens when we don’t accept and respect one another.  Do they pay absolutely no attention to what is presented to them in class? Do they watch no news at all, either on television or the internet? Is there no discussion of different cultures in their homes?

The answer to all of those is most likely no. Intolerance is easy when you surround yourself with your own kind. You go to school and church with white Christians. You wear your bracelet or your Forever 21 shirt with crosses all over it. You might have one black friend or know one smart Asian kid, but you don’t have them over to your house. If all you see is white and Christian, you expect the whole world to be just like you.  Well guess what, even in nineteen of the United States you are becoming a minority, never mind the rest of the world, so it might be time to rethink your position.

When I hear about people feeling their religious freedoms are being suppressed, it just infuriates me. There is no war on Christmas, but there is district testing on the high holy days. Nobody asks you if you are from Bethlehem because you are Christian, but my kids get asked all the time if they can say something in Jewish and if they come from Israel. There is no official religion in our country, yet our biggest holidays celebrate the birth and death of a guy who wasn’t even Christian!

Do me a favor and stop telling my daughters they are going to burn in hell, because guess what, we don’t believe in hell, so there.

Gelt Guilt

You think shopping for Christmas is a pain the ass? Try finding Hanukkah stuff in a southern town. I have spent more than eight nights looking for small gifts worthy of the festival of lights, and let me tell, it’s slim pickings here in the Bible Belt. I didn’t bother looking at Wal-Mart, because, really, that’s just a step above Hobby Lobby.  But I’ve covered Target, Party City, my local Publix, and nothing. All anyone stocks is menorahs and blue and silver garland. How many menorahs does Target think we need?

In my house, the fun never stops during the holidays because we have one of those so-called interfaith families. My husband abhors organized religion but loves Santa and decorations and presents presents PRESENTS!! So we do both holidays.  Not only do I have to capture the motherfucking magic of Christmas, but I have to honor those hard fighting Maccabees by finding small ticket items that can be doled out over eight nights. Consider yourself lucky that Christmas is but one day a year.

My family refers to Hanukkah as the socks and underwear holiday. We save the good stuff for Christmas morning, and I never objected because the only thing I remember ever getting for Hanukkah when I was a kid were those knitted slipper socks with the pom poms on top. It was the only thing my grandmother knew how to knit, and she made a new pair for each of us every year, whether we needed them or not. She must have bought a lifetime supply of the ugliest, cheapest yarn 1968 had to offer, so all the slipper socks were in stomach-churning   color combinations like avocado green and corn yellow or rusty orange and camel beige.

Hanukkah presents were easier to find for my kids when they were little because they were happy with any small thing, a bag of chocolate coins or a new wooden dreidel. Hell, that’s two nights covered right there. I could always find a paint your own dreidel kit or foam menorah craft to make my preschoolers happy. My daughters are both in double digits now, however, and they need another dreidel like I needed new slipper socks.  They have fancy dreidels and laser light dreidels and dreidels that play music (the ubiquitous “I Have a Little Dreidel”) and even a stuffed dreidel made for infants.

They also have plenty of jewelry. We have chai's (this has nothing to do with tea) and Stars of David and evil eyes, bracelets and earrings and necklaces, enough to wear a different one for each night of Hanukkah. The only thing that would further identify them as Jewish would be a yellow star sewn on their clothing, but I don’t think we are quite there yet in America. Seriously, how what do Jewish parents with sons do? They don't really care about Jewish star earrings last I heard.

Today, I went in a party store and found a small Hanukkah section hidden amongst the paper plates. Much to my surprise, they had cheap plastic headbands with blue glitter dreidels perched atop springs; I think their technical name is "deely boppers." These headbands were a find. I haven’t seen them on any crap party or Jewish themed website for the past ten years. When I checked out with my boppers, I asked the cashier if that section was the extent of their Hanukkah goods, and she nodded yes. The two women behind me in line gave me a knowing look, then a fake sympathetic smile, the kind you give someone you think about letting out in traffic but then drive by anyway since the coast is not clear in the other lane, leaving them to wait for another nice person. Sorry, the look said. Sorry you’re Jewish.

So far, I’ve got the deely boppers, a couple of dreidels, menorah sunglasses, and a Hanukkah themed Mad Libs book. Four nights down. I figure I will fill in the rest with lip gloss and nail polish and other worthless crap that young teenaged girls enjoy. I contemplated Thanksgivukkah shirts, since this is the last time for 70,000 years that the first night of Hanukkah falls on Thanksgiving, but really, it's not like they will have an occasion to wear them again. 

I know it’s not about the gifts. It’s about the time spent together, making memories, sharing experiences….blah blah blah. It’s totally about the gifts. If Hanukkah didn’t have eight nights of gifts and an unfortunate proximity to Christmas, it would go the way of other lesser Jewish holidays, those we cannot pronounce and therefore forget altogether. Ever hear of Shavuot? Exactly.

I get that Christmas is a big deal, both religiously and commercially, but just once, I would love to see more than one end cap that’s devoted to Hanukkah, when the rest of the store has its halls decked in red and green.  Can you imagine going into a store to find the whole place shiny with silver and blue, klezmer music blasting over the intercom, the greasy smell of potato latkes wafting in the air? Glade and Febreze don't come in jelly donut smell, ever.

And how about a t-shirt or some dreidel socks or underwear or pajamas or something new instead of yet another box of candles and some paper plates?  Besides, I always buy my paper plates on sale after Hanukkah, because, let’s face it, who doesn’t love a bargain? 

I wonder what would happen if I just didn't get eight gifts, or, rather, sixteen, because there are two of them. We lose interest by the fifth night anyway. Wax drips all over the counter, a plastic dreidel or two forgotten on the floor, the stench of old grease in the air. I don't even like jelly donuts.

Why are Jewish holidays so long? Nobody has the attention span for an eight day holiday anymore. We don't even take vacations for that long.  We rewrite history all the time. Why not change that ancient miracle so I don't have to shop for as many gifts? Then we'd have a reason to buy a new menorah, with room for maybe just four or five candles. 

After we do that, maybe we can work on one spelling of Hanukkah. Enough with all the K's and C's and H's.

Twitcher: Someone Who Likes to Watch and Study Birds

When I suggested to my family that we take a trip to Baltimore, I shouldn’t have been surprised that they didn’t all stand up and shout hooray. Baltimore is not exactly a top ten destination in America; in fact, it’s not even in the top fifty. But it’s my hometown and only an hour from Washington D.C., and I wanted to go. I wanted to visit my aunt, but I also wanted my kids to see some of the fun stuff that I remember from when I was a kid visiting my dad. Maybe they'd think it was fun too.

After a grueling nine hour drive, we arrived at my aunt’s house in Pikesville, a predominantly Jewish area of the city, around dinner time. While we waited for her to come home, we sat in her living room and relaxed. My older daughter, E, looked at the front window and announced, “Hey, Mom, there’s an orthodox Jew walking down the street.”

Now, before you get all bent out of shape, remember that my family lives in the Baptist-centric South. It ain’t every day we get to see an orthodox Jew. We are members of a reform Jewish temple and the girls attend religious school, but we don't know anyone who keeps Kosher or speaks anything other than dirty Yiddish words. You might also want to remember that we as a family aren’t known for our subtlety, filter, or tact.

We all plastered our faces to the window to watch this man in his black suit and large-brimmed black felt hat walk down the street. All except for my husband, who isn’t Jewish, and also has a better filter. He sat politely on the couch, ignoring both the Jew outside and us, the Jews inside.

“Look, there’s another!” S, my other daughter, screamed excitedly.

At almost precisely the same time, doors up and down my aunt’s street opened and out walked dark suited men, some in beards, some not, some in felt hats, some not, all in dark suits, and all moving quickly with a purpose.

“What is going on? Where are they all going?” S asked.

“It’s Friday evening,” I said. “Where do you think they are going?”

“Oh, that’s right, to synagogue.”

“It’s like the Exodus,” E said.

My aunt arrived home soon after and discovered us on the couch,  all still facing the window and watching like it was a television show.

“What the hell are you all doing?” my aunt asked as she walked into the room. “Why are you staring out the window?”

“We’re Jew watching!” S announced.

“Don’t say that!” my aunt said. “It sounds horrible. Besides, there will be even more tomorrow morning.”

“They aren’t being rude, “I told her. “They’re just excited. We all are. It’s not every day we get to see orthodox Jews flocking towards shul.”

“Well, it happens here all the time.”

She put down her things and gave us proper hugs and kisses. The sun set and we went about our evening, having dinner and getting settled for the night.

The next morning, my aunt got up and started making breakfast for all of us. “Bagels okay?” she asked me. “I have lox and whitefish salad too, and some cream cheese.”

“Oh, I wish you didn’t go to all that trouble for us,” I said cautiously.

“You don’t eat lox, do you?” she said.

“Um, no.”

“And the girls, they don’t either?”

“No, they don’t,” I told her. "Neither does my husband."

“Well, then whitefish salad is out of the question. I wish I had known before I bought all that fish.”

“Me, too,” I said. “We just don’t get exposed to a whole lot of real deli food in our town. We do have a good bagel shop, but that’s about it.”

We put the bagels in the oven to warm them and went in the living room. Sitting on the couch, watching the morning walk to services, were my children.

“What are you doing now?” my aunt asked them.

“We’re watching more Jews,” said E.

“Can’t you say something else? You make it sound like you’re at the zoo,” she said.

I noticed the plethora of bird feeders in my aunt’s yard. “Maybe they can say they’re bird watching?” I suggested.

That’s how I made it worse .

For the rest of the day, the Sabbath for many of the residents of my aunt’s neighborhood, the orthodox Jews enjoyed visiting each other and the beautiful weather outside. Women in wigs or with covered heads, their many young children around them, walked along the sidewalks, their husbands greeting each other warmly. The children ran freely from yard to yard, playing in their old fashioned clothes, the boys in yarmulkes, the girls in skirts and dresses.

And every time we happened upon another family, one of my girls would yell,” Look! A bird!”

By Saturday afternoon, my aunt had had enough. “Look, girls, you need to be more tolerant. They aren’t bothering anyone. It’s their day of rest. Sure, they might dress funny or walk in the middle of the street, but they have their own customs, and you need to not criticize them.”

“They are being tolerant,” I tried to explain to her. “They are thrilled, actually. These are girls who are one of maybe three or four Jewish kids in their entire school. They can’t fathom a whole neighborhood of Jewish people, let alone Lubavitch orthodox ones. They aren’t being prejudiced. For them, it’s like a trip to Israel. You get to see them every week. This is a once in a lifetime experience for the girls.”

At which point S shouted, “Look, a whole flock of birds!”

If you asked my kids about their trip to Baltimore, I bet they would talk about the orthodox Jews before they mention anything else. And isn’t that what travel is all about? To see new sights, meet different people, and have new experiences? If we wanted to see a bunch of people driving to church on Sunday, we would have stayed home.

Over the Rainbow

I have sixty rainbow colored personalized yarmulkes on my kitchen counter, and I have no idea what to do with them. In addition to those kippah, I also have a box full of rubber duckies shaped like unicorns, with rainbow manes. And about 45 brightly colored programs. These are all the extra items left over from my daughter’s bat mitzvah last weekend. Her theme was “rainbows and unicorns,” which in addition to being a teenage girl’s dream, is also the gayest party theme ever.

The theme started out as one of my typically weird dreams. About a year ago, we started thinking about what kind of party E, my now 13 year old daughter, wanted for her bat mitzvah. I had a dream that her bat mitzvah was a rainbow carnival. We had rainbow colored things everywhere, and carnival games and snow cones and corn dogs and a cotton candy machine. We even had a tent with a freak show, the freaks all dressed in rainbow colored costumes. I told E all about my bizarre dream. She said, “I don’t know about the carnival, but I kind of like the rainbows.” And that’s how she picked her theme.

Parties don’t require themes, exactly, but it sure makes it easy to go over the top if you have one, which I did. I ordered monochromatic floral arrangements and table cloths. I ordered a balloon arrangement shaped like a big rainbow arch, with white cloud balloon clusters at the base; one side even had a giant Mylar unicorn head poking out of it. I ordered rainbow cupcakes that were decorated with rainbows, displayed on a rainbow arch. I ordered three cases of rainbow cookies. And if the cookies and cupcakes weren’t enough, I also had a huge glass bowl of Skittles, so if you were in the mood, you could also taste the rainbow.

Now, three days later, the only person tasting the rainbow is my husband, because in addition to the yarmulkes and the programs and the rubber ducks, we also have a gallon sized plastic bag filled with leftover Skittles. Every time he walks through the kitchen, he grabs a few, and then complains about how he can’t stop eating them. I’m just glad they aren’t M&M’s. For the record, I hate Skittles. They could sit on my counter until the apocalypse and I still wouldn’t eat one.

I did manage to send a half a case of rainbow cookies home with my sister’s family. The rest are going bad in my fridge, along with a few dozen pounds of mac and cheese, succotash, chicken fingers, and squash casserole. It all tasted so fabulous on Saturday. Now just looking at it makes my mouth flood with saliva, and not in the good way. We did donate a portion of food to the soup kitchen, but even the soup kitchen doesn’t know what to do with fifteen pounds of peach poppy cole slaw. You know what starts looking like a melted rainbow three days after a party? Fifteen pounds of peach poppy cole slaw.

We had a fabulous party, really we did. And everyone seemed to be enjoying the heck out of themselves, dancing and eating and chatting and laughing. Everything looked beautiful without being excessive. It wasn’t like we hired Elton John and flew everyone to Vegas. But still, there’s nothing that makes you feel like you wasted money like watching your balloon lady pop all of the balloons in the parking lot after the event. We got to see that while we loaded eighteen floral arrangements in the car. Eighteen. Even the cats can’t eat that many floral arrangements.

So what to do with my yarmulke collection? The standard response was “make them into a quilt;” a bunch of people jokingly said that to me as I carted them out of the temple. Is there anything less snuggly than a quilt made of cheap satin beanies? Plus, when I think of satin throws, I think of satin sheets, and when I think of satin sheets, I think of cheap sex. I don’t want to think of cheap sex on a quilt made out of my daughter’s bat mitzvah yarmulkes, in bright gay rainbow colors.

I can’t exactly donate them either. If Goodwill won’t take my old booster seats, it sure as hell won’t take gently used yarmulkes. Who is going to buy them anyway? They were used for maybe an hour and a half. Now what? Send them to an impoverished nation? I doubt a third world country has a use for them either. Plus, the idea of a bunch of men wearing a beanie with my daughter’s name on it is kind of weird, don’t you think?

Which begs the question: If I can’t find a use for my old yarmulkes, what happens to all of the leftover bar and bat mitzvah yarmulkes in big towns like New York City? There are probably more yarmulkes in NYC than there are Jews to wear them. And don’t tell me to Google what to do with them because all I found was a bra made out of yarmulkes, and it didn’t exactly look supportive.

If you can think of a use for them, for any of that stuff, then let me know. Otherwise, I’m going to start scratching out her name and writing in her sister’s. Hopefully, no one will notice when it’s her turn in a couple of years. Maybe her bat mitzvah theme can be recycling. In addition to hand me down clothes and shoes and underwear, only the gently worn ones, she can have a hand me down bat mitzvah too. I’m sure that will make her feel really special, don’t you?

Just a Few Words

I need to be writing a speech right now. Speech writing is a first for me, as will be the speech giving that follows it. The subject is one I know well: my daughter. The occasion? Her bat mitzvah, a mere month away. My daughter, E, also has to give a speech, one which she is already finished writing, by the way, as if she has lots of free time to be writing speeches, in between her Hebrew tutoring and seventh grade homework and guitar and piano lessons and ridiculous amounts of texting. Then again, she had the guidance of the rabbi, a man who gives speeches weekly. Me, I got nothing.

Well, that’s not entirely true. What I have is twelve and a half years’ of memories of my daughter, and one strict admonition: don’t say anything that will embarrass me, Mom.  Don’t say anything inappropriate, Mom. You have to say this in front of the rabbi and my friends and my grandfather, Mom. Don’t scar me for life, Mom. It’s not that I want to say the wrong thing, it’s that I can’t help myself. It’s my super power.

When I sit down to begin my speech, I think about all the wonderful things about my kid. Then I think of the stories to illustrate it. Then I just think of stories. All the hysterical things she has said or done over the years, a small lifetime of inappropriate anecdotes. I can’t tell any of those on her big day, in front of everyone she knows, all those people who have come to show their love and support as she becomes an adult, responsible for her own actions, her deeds and her words. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me; I never had a bat mitzvah, and look at how I turned out.

Once, a long time ago, during the start of the whole Catholic Church pedophile scandals, I was at an art show for a good friend of my husband’s. I didn’t really know many people at the show, but fortified with a glass of wine, I began making small talk with some other people who were friends with my husband’s friend. We went from subject to subject, you know how you do at a party, where one person tells a story which reminds you of a story, and then your story reminds them of another funnier story, and it becomes this Jenga game of top that stories that eventually has to crash.

Tthere I was, talking to these people, and they told a slightly risqué but funny story that involved sex and religion. It reminded me of a similar but more horrible one that I read in the paper, so I told them about it. A priest had molested an altar boy by convincing him that fellatio was a form of the Holy Communion. When I got to that part, which I consider the punch line, the entire room went quiet.  It was like something out of a movie, where time stands still. My words hung in the air for all to see, to remember, to imprint on their minds, until they evaporated into the ether. The couple with whom I was speaking looked at me like I took a dump in front of them, not just any dump, but a dump on the baby Jesus. Turns out they are Catholic. Go figure.

E doesn’t know that story, but she’s been around me enough to know that she should be a little concerned about what might come out of my mouth. Plus, I’ve got the goods on her. With that kind of power comes great responsibility. How am I supposed to write anything about my child and not tell a single story involving a body function or a bad mood? Am I capable of relating a story that doesn’t somehow contain sexual innuendo? She’s an adult now, according to Jewish tradition, so none of it is lost on her, and if you don’t believe me, just say balls or nuts in front of her, for any reason at all, and you tell me if she doesn’t laugh. She hasn’t ever seen any, yet instinctively, she knows to laugh at them.

So I’m stuck. I have lots I can say about this marvelous child of mine, but keeping it clean? I just don’t know. I’m much better at keeping it real. And by real, I mean really wrong.

Can I Get an Amen?

Are religious services supposed to be somber, serious affairs or fun for the whole family? People should enjoy themselves when they go to church or temple, but more like a good time at an interesting lecture and less like at a drunken frat party. It’s tough for my family to find an appropriate balance.  One thing I know for sure, though, is that you should not distract the rabbi from doing his job.

My twelve year old daughter, E,  is rapidly approaching thirteen, and the date of her bat mitzvah looms over my head like one of those cartoon rainclouds. She has been learning Hebrew since she was eight, but now it’s crunch time, and with one month to go, she is eating, drinking, sleeping, and generally obsessing over her big day. One of the things I do to help her prepare is to take her to Friday night services on a pretty regular basis so she can be very familiar and comfortable with everything.

It’s not easy to go every Friday night; I like to do things on Friday nights, and going to sit for an hour and half to pray in a language I don’t speak isn’t usually high on the list. I have told our rabbi before that if we could switch services to Sunday morning, more people would want to go, but he just laughs like he is pretending that’s funny. Since we have been going regularly, however, my daughter and I have made it fun. It’s nice to spend some time alone with each other, no phones, no television, no iPads. We sit calmly and sing along for about the first five minutes, but after that, we lose interest and get slap happy.

It usually starts with us finding bad words in the Hebrew-to-English transliterations. There’s a “tush” in there and a “shit” or two, although they are pronounced like “sheet.” And since our cat’s name is Moshe, a good Hebrew name, we enjoy the many references to him. Whenever the rabbi strums his guitar, one of us will lean over to the other one and whisper, “I feel a song coming on” or “I didn’t realize this was a musical.” Then we get the giggles. It doesn’t matter if whatever we laugh at is even funny. It could be the way someone’s pants are tucked in their crack or a seriously unusual singing voice booming behind us. Whatever it is, funny or not, we start that silent laughter that involves lots of body shaking and tear streaming.

Recently, we attended Friday night services together on a night that a local college group came to observe, like they were on a field trip to the zoo. We generally try to be very welcoming and, there’s that word again, appropriate, so they can study us Jews in our religious habitat. The rabbi took a little extra time to explain parts of the service, but overall, it was the typical Friday night worship scenario.

Friday night services follow a general pattern. We start with a call to worship, then some we are so happy to be here together praying and singing, followed by the Thank God It’s Friday blessings. We take some time to honor the past, pray for peace, and remember the sick. After that, the rabbi reminds us to take a moment for silent prayer.

While the congregation meditates, the rabbi usually drinks from a water bottle he has tucked away in the podium, because all that singing and praying can really parch one’s throat. But that night E and I were there along with the college group, the rabbi choked on his water during the silent prayer. This wasn’t one of those little coughs; it was full blown violent gagging and choking with no breathing.  E and I immediately started cracking up, not because the rabbi was dying in front of us but rather because of the irony of loud choking during the silent prayer. I covered my face with my Gates of Prayer book so he couldn’t see me laughing, although if he looked at my daughter, he would have known. I have no doubt the whole pew shook from our laughter.

We knew he saw us laughing because he began laughing too, laughing and choking. I raised my hands up in the air, since I am of the belief that raising your hands while choking is the best way to make it stop. The rabbi was then choking and laughing with his hands in the air.

“Touchdown!” I whispered to E. At least I hope it was a whisper.

“Raise the roof!” she said back to me. I laughed.

When he regained his composure, he continued services as though nothing happened, making his way through the Torah portion and the sermon with relative ease, punctuated by a small cough or two.

Usually at the end of services before we have refreshments in the social hall, the rabbi offers a priestly blessing over the congregation. He raises his hands overhead and forms the Hebrew letter “shin” with his fingers while reciting a prayer. You know what that looks like if you’ve ever watched Star Trek. Remember Spock and his Vulcan salute, with his four fingers held in a V, two fingers and two fingers? Well, that’s a Jew thing. The rabbi does the Vulcan salute/priestly blessing every week, and whenever we are there, my daughter and I too raise our hands in salute, mostly because it hurts a little between the middle and ring finger, and because it’s funny.

When the rabbi’s hands went up, so did ours. And for the second time that night, the rabbi could not continue because he couldn’t stop giggling. Yes, giggling. He would start again and then have to stop, a little Hebrew, a little laughing, while we were sitting in the pew, laughing along at this inside joke while the other people in the temple tried to figure out what had gotten into their spiritual leader. There was a lot of turning around in seats to see what was so funny, and it was us.

We did offer our apologies after services, and the rabbi seemed cool with it, like he usually does. He knows us, so it’s not like our cutting up is a surprise. The only surprising part was that he didn’t tune us out. “It’s his job to be the rabbi, for Christ’s sake,” I told E. “We have to make more of an effort to control ourselves. We can’t be making the rabbi laugh while he’s up there doing his thang.”Our rabbi has assured me that he is glad we have a good time at services. He’s probably just glad to have some live bodies paying attention, even if we are paying attention to the wrong things.

Bad Karma on Yom Kippur

I must have some things to atone for over the past year. And I did choose to not go to services last night, which I based on the amount of rain relative to the amount of exhaustion and general blah I was feeling. So it seems only fair that I experience some things out of my control this morning as a reminder of some sort, possibly of Murphy's Law, which I assume is the English equivalent of a good dose of Jewish guilt.

I skipped the gym today, so I put on some jeans and a cool shirt to take the girls to school. MJ got me this shirt, a long sleeve flowy yoga garment the color of a nice claret. And since I am solidly in my fast, I felt willowy and lithe and so I put on this shirt that normally makes me look like a red globe grape. I loved the shirt, and MJ for buying it for me. She did so because she knew I would never treat myself to something like that, since I tend to shop the clearance rack at Target for a taste of funky on a budget. And she thought it would look good on me. And I am pretty sure she also thought if it didn't fit she could keep it for herself.

When I got back from my school run, my husband K was still home, late for work even by his standards. I came inside and he was standing there with a wad of paper towels in his hand. "Did you or the girls spill something over by the back door?" he asked. "Nope, no one was over there. Why?" "I was going to check the locks and I noticed some wet spots on the floor. But it doesn't smell." Not yet, I thought. Wet doesn't just mysteriously show up on the floor. We walked over to the place where he had cleaned the floor moments before, and the cats followed us over to inspect as well. "You sure no one spilled a drink over here?" He took his wad of Kleenex to the trash can in the kitchen, and I stood there thinking, no one drinks pee for breakfast, knowing that piss is the only possible explanation for the strange puddle.

And for confirmation, Yoko sort of squatted right in front of me, mere inches from the floor vent, and strained to produce another accident while I watched. "It's pee," I called out to my husband. "I'm watching Yoko do it again." I stood there to let her finish. No point in chasing her, as then I would have a trail of pee to clean instead of a reasonably well contained leak. She sat there for a while, obviously not enjoying the process or the audience. "Do you think you can take her to the vet this afternoon if I make an appointment?" I asked K. "I guess so," he answered before rushing out the door.

I called the vet's office, hoping for an after lunch appointment. Instead, they wanted her right then, for an all day observation and potential urine collection. Good luck with that one. So I tucked Yoko under my arm and carried her to the garage, where her cat carrier is stored. She thought she was finally going to see what was behind that door we always step through, but then she spied the box, her arch enemy, and the fight was on.

Shoving her into that box was like lacing a giant squid in a straight jacket. Arms and legs I didn't know she even had shot out and blocked the opening of the carrier, and she hooked onto anything within reach with her little switchblades. We wrestled for about a good five minutes before I finally shoved her in. I am not convinced one of her limbs wasn't lost in the process, but I am sure she can regenerate at some point in the future, probably when she will have to be put back in the carrier to come home. She hissed at me but I ignored it. I put her on the front seat and backed out of the driveway before I realized she got me, that I was hit. My palm and the side of my right hand were a little shredded and bloody. We didn't speak the entire way there. Once inside the vet's office, I gave them Yoko's information and story while she tried desperately to claw her way out of her cage. I was more than happy to pass her over to the vet tech.

When I got home, I went upstairs to take a shower. That's when I saw the holes in my brand new couture yoga shirt. That bitch on wheels sliced my shirt open in three different places, and I wore it in public, looking like her crack whore owner. A series of bloody scratches peeked through the holes, adding to the overall sex-for-drugs appearance. That right there is why I shop Target and not Haute Look. Because I manage to fuck up the good stuff the first time I put it on. Somehow I have a hard time believing things like this happen for a reason. Why today? Why that shirt? Why now, when Yoko has never had a bladder infection in her life? I can only assume it is my fault, that I must deserve this because of some transgression I committed. If not, then it is further evidence that sometimes life sucks. Or that it's just a shirt, and get over it. I'll let you know if I figure that out. Right after I pay the vet bill.

Challah Back, Y'all!

I bought my girls a toy last week from the Judaica shop at my temple. Already this is sounding very out of character, as I am not one to frequent Judaica shops, but I had fifteen minutes to kill, so I moseyed into the coat closet sized room and looked around. And there it was, amidst all the mezuzahs and seder plates, a doll that my daughters have been coveting for months: Challah Baby. Challah Baby is a bread shaped doll, in the same way that a bowling pin with a face drawn on it is a doll. She is more of a loaf with a head, a couple of braids, and a bread cloth, or blanket, swaddling her loafiness. And she is not just loaf shaped; she is also the color of a golden egg washed crust. She looked delicious, and I can see why my daughters craved her so. So I bought her. I explained to my girls that they had to share her, as there was only one left at the shop. They agreed they could handle that, and so we drove home from temple, in love with each other and our new addition.

I expected her to have a fresh yeasty smell when we took her out of her cellophane bread bag, but she just smelled like cotton doll. S thought she was the perfect Jewish toy and held her carefully, then checked her label to see if she was from Israel. "Made in Indonesia!?!" The fact that Challah Baby was from some South Pacific archipelago, most likely made by hands younger than hers, did not lessen S's love. Next was E's turn to cradle her. She carefully rewrapped her in her crusty bunting and immediately worked out a schedule of who gets to sleep with her on which night. I reminded them that they had to share her, and left them to hash out the joint custody arrangements.

All went well the first couple of days. I said goodnight to S the first night and told her to not get crumbs in the bed. The second night was E's turn, and as I went into her room for good night kisses, she was rocking Challah Baby in her arms, softly singing the Hamotzi to her. Apparently, she had a pretend bath in honey and was now tuckered out.

Tonight, however, custody talks fell through. E decided to alter the arrangement, requiring hand washing before handling Challah Baby, then proclaiming that the party in possession had sole guardianship for a period of no less than 24 consecutive hours, and finally that supervised visitation was no longer an option. S, who is in first grade and not her first year of law school, retaliated by crumpling into a mass of tears in her octopus bath towel, naked and red faced. I stepped in, going straight for drama, which egged them on further. "If you two can't work this out, I can always cut her in half and you each get a piece. Jesus, it's a doll! It doesn't even have legs!" I am pretty sure some of that happened once in the Bible, or at the very least, an episode of Veggie Tales. E actually stopped and thought about this option, but S, more like the true mother, was willing to relinquish her claims. My husband decided I caused the situation to escalate and made his own fair and just decree, at which point I went to my bathroom and began inspecting my adult acne and wrinkles.

I know, I know, that's what I get for only buying one doll. But it was the only one they had. Because it was half off. Yes, I am aware of what it looks like when you buy things on sale at the Judaica shop. But I am pretty sure that is the real lesson in King Solomon's story.

Total Whino

I went to Total Wine the other morning, 9:45 to be exact, to pick up a few bottles of kosher wine for Passover next week. I hoped they would have a better selection than the usual Manischewitz or Mogen David that I could buy at the grocery store, not that there is anything wrong with either of those, at least not after the first two glasses. Unfortunately, even Total Wine has its limits, and it had the usual square bottles along with the new fangled "cream" white and red concord wine http://www.manischewitzwine.com/products/Products.htm, in a trendier curvy bottle. I selected one of each and got in line to check out.



One can learn a bit by studying the other people buying wine on a Monday morning. I stood behind two other people in line, and while I waited, I glanced over their selections. The guy in the front of the line held a box of wine in each hand, by the convenient built in handle grips. He made a big production out of how much he saves by driving all the way to Total Wine for all his boxed wine needs, as clearly he was a value conscious individual. He left, happily swinging his boxes, eager to get started on them, probably while still in the parking lot.

The woman in front of me was also pleased with herself, since she was able to find an entire case of her favorite drug of choice, white zinfandel. I was surprised she could not locate it at her grocery store, as she too made a special trip all the way to this wine superstore. She had the look of a woman who secretly drank cheap wine like it was water, hiding it before noon in an elegant colored iced tea glass. And then I looked in my own cart, with the two giant jugs of kosher wine, both under ten dollars for the large size, never a good sign. I smiled to myself. I was no better than the rest of the lushes in line.

When it was my turn to check out, I started to laugh. The cashier asked, "What's so funny?" " I was amused by the wine selections in line this morning," I replied. "I bet it must be frustrating to sell such crap wine while surrounded by all these wonderful choices." He sighed, "You have no idea." "Well, in my defense," I said, " I am buying this for religious purposes, not for actual enjoyment." "Yeah, right," he added, handing me my receipt and my bag.

I think the four questions on the first night of Passover should be reworked to include this one: On all other nights, we enjoy pinot or a nice cab, but why on this night must we endure Concord grape and blackberry, the jelly makers? Maybe I'll bring it up with Elijah when he swings by for a little nip on Saturday.