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L'shanah Tovah, everybody.
It only rarely occurs to me that LJ is a place where the people I know are mostly non-Jewish. For anybody interested, a brief description of Rosh Hashanah may be found here.
One of the most powerful aspects of Judaism for me is its emphasis on collective worship. We were brought out of Mitzrayim (Egypt); we ask forgiveness for an alphabetical list of sins that we committed, since as a group we've done them all. We call out together: Shema, Israel, Adonai eloheinu, Adonai echad -- Hear, O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is One. Though my personal favorite of the prayers is the one that roughly translates, "Holy God, open up my lips that my mouth may declare Your glory." We sing it -- in the Reconstructionist services we attend, there's a lot of singing, sometimes in English and sometimes in Hebrew, as well as some non-sung parts. I like the Hebrew best, because the very strangeness of it helps me focus more on the worship, and the English tends to try to track the Hebrew in ways that often seem less tuneful and less meaningful. Reconstructionists add the mothers -- Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah -- to the fathers -- Abraham, Isaac and Jacob -- who are often referenced in the prayers, which I imagine leads to some interesting discussions with young children wanting to know why there are three fathers but four mothers. But of course, if you're a Reconstructionist, you're likely to think that kids should know the facts of life early on, so I guess that's all right.
The cut-tag text, by the way, is a variant of one of my favorite cultural self-definitions, which I know as "two Jews, three opinions." This is related in my mind to the story of the Jew who's marooned on a desert island (like Lex, but probably neither as pretty nor as crazy, because after all, who is?) and lives there alone for over a decade. When he's finally rescued, he shows his rescuers the various things he's built for survival and convenience. There are two synagogues. Why two? "That," he points, "is the synagogue I go to, and that," he points to the other, "is the one I wouldn't be caught dead in."
It only rarely occurs to me that LJ is a place where the people I know are mostly non-Jewish. For anybody interested, a brief description of Rosh Hashanah may be found here.
One of the most powerful aspects of Judaism for me is its emphasis on collective worship. We were brought out of Mitzrayim (Egypt); we ask forgiveness for an alphabetical list of sins that we committed, since as a group we've done them all. We call out together: Shema, Israel, Adonai eloheinu, Adonai echad -- Hear, O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is One. Though my personal favorite of the prayers is the one that roughly translates, "Holy God, open up my lips that my mouth may declare Your glory." We sing it -- in the Reconstructionist services we attend, there's a lot of singing, sometimes in English and sometimes in Hebrew, as well as some non-sung parts. I like the Hebrew best, because the very strangeness of it helps me focus more on the worship, and the English tends to try to track the Hebrew in ways that often seem less tuneful and less meaningful. Reconstructionists add the mothers -- Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah -- to the fathers -- Abraham, Isaac and Jacob -- who are often referenced in the prayers, which I imagine leads to some interesting discussions with young children wanting to know why there are three fathers but four mothers. But of course, if you're a Reconstructionist, you're likely to think that kids should know the facts of life early on, so I guess that's all right.
The cut-tag text, by the way, is a variant of one of my favorite cultural self-definitions, which I know as "two Jews, three opinions." This is related in my mind to the story of the Jew who's marooned on a desert island (like Lex, but probably neither as pretty nor as crazy, because after all, who is?) and lives there alone for over a decade. When he's finally rescued, he shows his rescuers the various things he's built for survival and convenience. There are two synagogues. Why two? "That," he points, "is the synagogue I go to, and that," he points to the other, "is the one I wouldn't be caught dead in."
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From:
what's the connection...
From:
Re: what's the connection...
I doubt I would be observant enough for your father, either. It seems to me that American Jews are particularly likely to do the generational seesaw; maybe that's the hope of Reconstructionists, that there will be a balance so the kids won't know which way to go.