Blogging On Rosh Hashanah: Thoughts On the Year Past and the Year Ahead

Damn blogstipation, it's been killing me this last couple of weeks. I'm so backed up with so many blog posts about so many big events that have been going on, I can't possibly even smoosh them all together cleverly (or not) into one post. The usual excuses apply: super busy schedule (including 2 plane trips) and general work-parent-work-parent overwhelm, plus I've been sick (still!) and so exhausted by the end of the days during the week that I literally can't manage to put two sentences together, spoken or written. But now (finally) I am on antibiotics and other bonus asthma meds and am feeling marginally better. And that plus a quiet Saturday night on kid duty while Josh runs out to a friend's birthday party equals finally time to blog!

Let's see, I think I'll make myself a list of the things I could/should/might (or might not) blog about:

Back To School Night
Wrangling The Whole Extended Family to CO for a Family Wedding
A Day Trip to LA and the Local Color I Found There
Isaac at 18 Months
Hanging Out With Old Friends
Sunday School, Fun For the Whole Family!
Now We Are Patrons Of The Arts: A Tale of Stained Glass Windows
Missing Poppa: Thoughts On the Cycle of Life

Yup, that's a pretty big and overwhelming list. I do want to write about all those things, but I think for tonight I'll do what they recommend you do when you're facing a big scrapbooking project (oh yeah, scrapbooking, I seem to vaguely recall that hobby….sigh…): start with what's current and worry about working your way back later.

So what's current? Well, today was Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the Jewish new year. Josh and I went to services at our synagogue last night and this morning. (Even though it's now been a year since we joined the synagogue, I still feel a bit weird saying "our synagogue". But more on this in a bit.) Since we got babysitters for both evening and morning, we actually got to pay attention to and participate wholeheartedly in the services--and let me tell you, I am grateful for that kind of time, it's rare in the life of parents with small children. We weren't rushed, we had nowhere else we were supposed to or wanted to be, we were able to just focus on the closing out of one year and the beginning of another, in the company of a huge community of people all doing the same thing. I felt like I got from services what I was supposed to: a pause, a chance to reflect and re-turn, to consider once again some of the big spiritual questions (those persistently pesky ones like "why are we here" and "who am I" and "what kind of life do I want, and how do I get there?").

More specifically, this year during services (unlike many a past year in my life), I didn't find myself bored, disconnected, or trying to amuse myself by focusing on anything but what was happening so I could just get through the required observance of ritual and go home. This year I connected with what was happening, more often than not. Even without the wake-up call of the shofar (it was Shabbat so they didn't blow it, which is too bad because I love that particular symbolic noise for a variety of reasons), I was paying attention. Maybe this has to do with the beginnings of a sense of ownership--of my own Jewishness, of my bona fide membership in this particular community of Jews, and of these particular rituals (brought on by repetition but cemented by enough rounds of actually paying attention). Maybe here as I look down the tunnel towards the end of my thirties, I'm just finally growing up (or at least into the next stage of adulthood). Whichever way you slice it, I find myself sliding slowly (oh so slowly) into an acceptance of, and even an anticipation of, a more spiritual, more Jewish life. The steps have been small--regularly celebrating Shabbat on Friday nights, the occasional holiday or event at the synagogue, a willingness to look at my own issues around "Jewish stuff" and not let the fear win. But they're there. I look back over the last year, and that's what I see: baby steps towards a more spiritually connected life.

Last night in his sermon, one of the rabbis basically threw down the gauntlet and asked us all to take on the practice of one mitzvah in this coming year, one way of deepening our spiritual practice. He said, among other things (and I'm paraphrasing wildly here…it was actually a very witty and well crafted sermon and I am not doing the whole thing justice at all), "I don't care which of the 613 mitzvot you select, but pick one and stick to it. See what happens." Now, there's a lot of them that I'll never be able to do, whether because they aren't possible in this day and age (e.g. not selling a Hebrew servant as a slave) or because I just don't believe in them (e.g. interfaith marriage or circumcision). And a good bunch of them are just plain picky or irrelevant, not to mention potentially offensive. But there are a whole bunch more that I certainly could pay more attention to, and here are a random few I think I might try this year:

Give charity according to one's means
Celebrate the festivals
Appear in sanctuary on the festivals
Do not bear grudges
Learn torah and teach it

So there it is, for the record. May you all have a sweet new year, a better year than the one before it--a year of life and of living, full of everything you need and most of what you want. L'Shanah Tovah.