Reinventing Yom Kippur Without The Middleman

Today was Yom Kippur - the Day of Atonement. I didn't go to shul (synagogue). For someone who comes from a very traditional (and sometimes orthodox) background, this is no small thing.

I felt guilty because I belong to a very small community that meets only for services on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur and its continuity relies on people turning up. Otoh, the community has evolved over the years with people moving away and new people joining every year. And they don't do it for me, they do it because it's important for them and they love the intimacy of a small community in someone's home. But I rsvped that we would be there and so I felt bad and I was too much of a coward to tell them that in the end I just didn't want to. 

I love parts of the services that involve uplifting singing of tunes that I've known my whole life. And the feeling of that final 'kaddish' at the very end and the long blast of the shofar when everyone has been without food or drink for 25+ hours and it's all over, is an amazing feeling of togetherness and achievement. 

But actually what did we achieve? For me the answer was that I lasted a whole day without sustenance and I managed to attend all the services throughout the day in full. Surely that's not what it's all about?

This year, after resisting it and distancing myself for a few years, I decided to follow my heart. In previous years I've had the excuse that DD gets bored and a bored DD prevents me from having any sort of meaningful prayer experience. But I had a place to leave her this year and anyway there are other children at the shul for her to go off and play with. Otoh, at almost nine, it's not a matter of finding her somewhere to be with other children to play with. She doesn't want to be out all day playing. For some of the time, yes, but she has things to do at home and she also needs her personal time. 

I have a problem with orthodox prayer in that the women basically go to watch. I didn't always mind about this as it meant I had it easy. I never had to learn the prayers or worry about being called upon to do something I couldn't do or hadn't practised. In recent years, however, I have felt differently. Yes women are supposed to pray but as they are not counted in the minyan (the quorum) and they sit at the back or in a viewing gallery upstairs, they might as well stay at home. I have no problem with the men going to do their thing but I don't need to be there to watch them. In recent years many modern orthodox communities have made carefully considered gestures to give women more participation in the services. I appreciate that in Judaism it's extremely hard to make changes but. (Nothing else, just but.)

Of course there are gender-egalitarian services that I could go to. So let's examine the nature of the services. The prayers are all in a book and everyone has the same book. You start at the beginning and you read, chant, sing, follow silently, stand, sit, bow, face eastwards, and generally choreograph your way through to the end in unison with the whole congregation. It's all prescribed, there is a lot of repetition within each service, and you do the exact same thing every week or year depending on whether it's a weekly Shabbat or a yearly festival service.

At the end of each service I used to feel virtuous because I'd gone to shul and that was the 'good' thing to do. Nowadays I'm left with a feeling of, "I didn't get to say anything I wanted to say." You can try tuning out to do your own introspection but you sort of have to keep one ear tuned in so that you join in with choreography. If you just sit there it's considered rude. Or ignorant. Or, worse, blasphemous. In a large shul you can get away with sitting at the back in a corner and reading your own book. I know some people do this for parts of the service they consider less important. But guess what? I can read at home. 

There are alternative services near me where they allot times in the service for private meditation and thought. This is nice because you get the community togetherness and time for your personal prayers. However, I decided to ditch the prescribed prayers altogether this year and explore my own relationship with God and atonement. 

It's not about being less Jewish. It's about being more meaningfully Jewish. It's about having a direct relationship with God rather than going through the rabbis. I admire the rabbis for their learned knowledge of the Bible and the ancient laws, just as I admire doctors for their learned knowledge of medical science. Much as your doctor will advise you towards better health, the rabbis also teach us that we have freedom of choice. Ironically the orthodox rabbis then proclaim that if you choose to do it their way you will be rewarded for the good, but if you choose a different way, you are wrong. I'm just not on that page anymore. 

This Yom Kippur I cut out the middleman and I spoke to God myself. I repented and atoned and I prayed for Israel and Jews everywhere and humanity in general. I sat on my balcony and thought deeply about a better approach to the year ahead and asked that I may be written in the Book of Life in order to carry through my good intentions. It was good.

Cleansing The Soul - R2BC

Here are my Reasons 2B Cheerful for this week. As usual I'm joining the R2BC linky with Michelle on Mummy from the Heart.

The moon over Jerusalem one night in August

1
Cleansing the soul
It's Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) tomorrow evening and all day Saturday. Lots of praying and self-reflecting, and general cleansing of the soul for the coming year. I love it that the day after Yom Kippur is Sunday 1st October - what a great date for starting everything afresh.

2
Wadi Qilt again
DD  has been invited to go to Wadi Qilt again tomorrow as there is no school. I didn't have to accept for her this time as she loved it last week and has been asking when she can go back. Once again she gets a fun day out and I get time to get things done.

3
Shutting Down
My summer course is finally finally coming to an end and we are being strict this year - after a few extension periods of course. I have warned the students that I will be shutting down the website for this course on Tuesday. I did it for last year's Year Course at the end of August (official final date was June 30th). So for the first time in seven years I will only be grading papers for one course when the new semester starts on October 15th.

4
Book Vs Film
We finished reading The Railway Children. DD read the last few pages to me as I couldn't see the page through my tears. We then had a grand viewing of the film on dvd. I have always loved that film since seeing it as a child and I've watched it a million times since - but not for a few years and not after reading the book. We were both a bit disappointed. As usual, the book had far more in it than did the film.

Having said that, the films do have added value in that it's wonderful to see the magnificent locomotives, the scenery, the costumes, and the magic, in the case of Harry Potter. So we forgive the films and enjoy them anyway.

Late Night Reader

We're reading The Railway Children. I'm reading it to DD, a chapter a night. We usually both end up in tears over it - it's that sort of book. Or maybe we're that sort of people. Whatever, we're loving it.

I've borrowed the DVD of the film but I won't let DD watch it until we've finished the book. This is the rule for good books. I read the whole of Harry Potter to her - all seven books - before I'd allow her to see the films. It took from June till October last year.

This week I borrowed the DVD of Free Willy. When I told DD I had it she asked, "is there a book of Free Willy?"
"No."
"Phew!"

Anyway back to The Railway Children. We read the chapter about Perk's Pride and as I put the book down I mentioned that the next chapter is, 'The Big Secret,' which we will have tomorrow night. DD begged me to read just one page of it for a taster. So obviously I couldn't stop after one page and she got the whole chapter.

We learned what the big secret was but only Bobbie had found out. DD was desperate to know if she told the others. It was now 10.30 on a school night and I was definitely not reading any more or discussing it any more tonight, despite DD's best efforts to draw me in. I left her to make herself comfortable and turn off the light.

After I'd made coffee and pottered about a bit myself, I looked in on her to see if she was asleep. The light was still on and I marched in to tell her to it was time for lights out and no more messing about. I found her reading the next chapter of The Railway Children. "I'm on the sixth line!" she announced proudly.

I've been waiting for her to pick up a book, a proper book that is, and read of her own volition ever since I realized she could. I wrote a post recently about her being bored into reading but until now it has been easy chapter books of The Magic Tree House ilk. I quietly left the room with her still reading.

"I read a whole page!" she cried from the bedroom a few minutes later. And later still, "two pages!" The clock 'struck' 11 and DD called out, "I don't believe it! I'm at the end of the fourth page! I love reading now. It's getting easier!"

There are some things, no matter how often you tell them, they have to figure it out by themselves.

Finally I heard, "What?! I have another 13 pages of this chapter!" I suggested, "perhaps leave it for now and continue tomorrow?" I went in to see if she was heeding my suggestion but she was already asleep with the bookmark neatly placed five pages into the chapter.

I wasn't going to blog today as I didn't really have anything to write about. :~)

The 'Camera-Hates-Me' Miracle

The miracle photo in which I look okay.

This is actually true. I don't look good in photos. It's a fact.

I am not lacking in self confidence in real life and I'm quite content with my facial features - good skin, cheek bones, etc... . Straight silky hair would have been nice but I'm happy enough with my thick 'Jewfro' curls.

But take a photo and I look.... well different.

It's not my imagination either. When I went for my graduation photos, I told the photographer, "you won't get a nice one, the camera hates me." He looked at me as if to say, "I'm a professional photographer. This isn't an instamatic camera I got for Christmas you know." I raised my eyebrows in reply.

After quite a few takes on his digital camera (so he could see the results instantly), quite a few more than he'd taken of any other graduate, he had to admit defeat. We got some passable photos but they didn't look the way I looked in real life.

At my nephew's Bar Mitzvah we posed for family photos. Then my sister said that the cousins could have family photos on their own and she'd send them the photos. I posed with DD who was a toddler at the time. We never got any photos. "They didn't come out well," was the reason given.

Two summers ago a friend invited her close friends to a picnic for her birthday and she hired a professional photographer to record the event and as gift to her friends. It was a lovely idea. My heart sank and I let the photographer position us and do what she wanted. I wasn't hopeful but she gave me a whole speech about it being her job to make me look the best I can look and how she'd trained for this. I'd heard it all before but you go along with it because it can't hurt.

Sure enough, a few days later we were presented with a CD of DD looking great and me looking awful. In all our group photos I look awful too. I found one photo of me at the ALEH dinner and I cringed with embarrassment. When DD and I try to take selfies she looks at each one and suggests, "you could crop yourself out if you want to." I regret that there are very few photos of DD and me together as she has grown up because I look so awful in them.

Also okay(ish) but miles better than usual.

It wasn't always like this. I blame Mr ~!@#$ our family dentist for taking out too many teeth when I was a child. Who knows I may have had a Hollywood smile but for that. And I agree that if I lost a ton of weight that would probably help too. I've thought of having cosmetic treatment done on my teeth but they're good teeth and basically straight - so I'm reluctant to play around with them when it's not essential. And a friend told me recently that her fabulous smile had cost her 36,000 shekels (about $10,000 - although if you say it in pounds it doesn't sound so much).

Then last week DD brought home a list of options for special lessons they will be having at school on Sunday afternoons. There are some really nice choices - History of Art (theory and practical), Capture The Moment (photography), A Trip Around The World (not literally), Gardening and Farming, Animal Care, DIY, and more.

DD was very taken with the idea of capturing the moment. I said she could take photos on my phone to see if she had a talent for it. She snapped away while I did some posing for fun. "Hmmm," she said, "it seems I do have some talent." I laughed and took a look at her efforts.

Reader, I was gobsmacked! She'd taken two of the best photos of me I've seen in about a decade. I used one of them for my facebook profile because the old one had DD aged four, and she's now far from four. So far about 30 people have 'liked,' including the friend who when I had to post a profile photo for the Times of Israel Blogs, messaged me with, "couldn't you find a better photo?" The answer was of course, no. If I'd been able to take a better photo I'd have posted it - obviously. (Its a bit embarrassing actually as I'm more of a "READ ME!" facebook person than a "LOOK AT ME!" facebook person. I put up the photo because I needed a new photo, not to get complimentary comments - are they just saying that to make me feel good?)

So I'm giving you my two new miracle photos. DD has asked to be in the 'Capture The Moment' lesson and I've said she can stop learning for tests or doing any homework as she's obviously going to be portrait photographer when she grows up.

Friday Night Is Games Night

Friday night has become games night in our house. We are not strictly orthodox about keeping Shabbat but we do celebrate by lighting candles and eating a festive meal; and we don't do ordinary things like work, laundry or cleaning.

You can see from the photo that tonight's games were Mastermind, TAKI (like Uno) and Rat-a-tat Cat!

Other options are Mancala, Kalooki, Backgammon (Shesh Besh), Rummikub, Frustration (though we are growing out of that one), Set, Othello (Reversi), and Triplica (I hate this card game but DD likes it).

We take our games night seriously. Whilst we don't have a green baize games table, we do have paper and a pen for keeping score and of course drinks and nibbles.

We need some good board games like Monopoly and other classics but we have a dilemma. If I buy them in English she can't play them with her Israeli friends. And I don't want to buy them in Hebrew. I think her friends are just going to have to be good at English if they want to play at our house.

As DD was looking for a game this evening she noticed that we also have some large (1500 pieces) puzzles in the cupboard. "When are we going to one of these big puzzles together?"
"In the winter on a rainy Shabbat when we don't want to go out all day," I replied. We are looking forward to it already.

What are your family's favourite games?

Rosh Hashana So Far So Good - R2BC

Today is the first day of Rosh Hashana which started at sundown last night. DD and I continued with our new (from one year ago) tradition of doing tashlich with soap bubbles. We sat on the balcony and blew away our sins and bad habits from last year and we promised to try harder for better habits this year.


DD: I'm going to try to not lose my temper and scream at you. (Me: thank you.)
Me: I'm going to try to go to bed earlier and get up earlier. (I got up this morning at 10 but it's a process.)
DD: I'm going to do important things like homework and shower, before television.
Me: I'm going to do the dishes in the sink and prep my lessons for the next day, in the evening and before social media time. (I did the dishes last night.)

And so we went on....

I tried to capture the bubble blowing on camera but Rubbish Photographer struck again. Then we did some selfies which were equally rubbish but I posted a few on the right sidebar because DD is almost nine, not four as she was in the previous thumbnail.

We ate some of the Rosh Hashana menu with symbols - salmon for a year of being sameah (happy); peas and sweet potato (afuna  and batata for akuna matata) to have no worries, fruit salad for dessert for a sweet year, and we drank our apple juice spritzers through the last two straws (the shop didn't have any at 1.30pm and no time to go to another shop) for a suck-cessful year. I wanted to make a salad out of a whole head of lettuce for the head of the year but the shop had also run out of lettuce.

We played Taki, Set and Kalooki until far too late. We have established another tradition that Friday night is games night. (I know it wasn't Friday yesterday but Festival evenings are similar to Friday nights.)

We got up late this morning - I felt bad about not going to synagogue as it's a small community which only exists because enough people do make the effort to go. We will go tomorrow as we're going to friends for lunch afterwards. And we heard the shofar blown (all 100 blasts) as the next door neighbours had private blowing on their patio. Then, throughout the morning as men came home from synagogue and blew the shofar for their womenfolk who had stayed at home - I''m guessing but there are shofars blowing all over the neighbourhood atm. I think we're covered.

Friends are coming here for an early dinner tonight. I took a big white fish out of the freezer and I want to make some sort of baked fish dish. I've never baked fish before (except for salmon) so I'm off to find a recipe.

So far, and 18 hours in, it's been a good year. :~D

I'm linking up with Michelle's Reasons 2B Cheerful on Mummy From The Heart.

The Gift Of Wadi Qelt

Tonight is Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. It's a two-day festival but this year it finishes as Shabbat comes in so actually it's three days straight of eating, socialising, praying, eating, sleeping, and did I mention eating? If you do the whole lot religiously, which we actually don't, that's the equivalent of six Christmas dinners at home and a number of smaller refreshments (like cocktail parties without the cocktails) at synagogue after the services.

We only accept invitations or make a big meal for once a day. However, that's still a lot of cooking and cleaning for me and DD was home because the schools are off from today. This is good because otherwise I'd be at my school, but difficult because she gets bored.

At 8.30 this morning we got a phone call from DD's BFF. Would DD like to go with them to Wadi Qilt. She wasn't sure. She's a bit of a ditherer and she worries in case it's going to be a difficult hike. It's not, it's a gentle stroll through the riverlets to the waterfalls and natural pools at the end. I accepted for her.

So off she went in her swimming costume, wearing my old sneakers - we threw her old ones away and she wasn't going to ruin her new sneakers walking through the water. This caused me to ponder on two things. 1. Decluttering is not always so brilliant. And 2. my daughter has almost the same size feet as me. (I knew this as she already takes my socks and this summer I bought us the same size socks).

I had five hours to shop, cook and clean. So I did go shopping because the supermarkets are going to be closed for the next three and a half days (from 2pm today). Then I spent a lot of time on the computer, and then DD came home.

Luckily she fell asleep on the sofa this afternoon and I did get some cooking done. And some laundry, and some grading  papers for college. Not as productive a day as intended but then it never is these days.

DD had a wonderful time. I think one of the greatest gifts you can give a single mother is to take her child out for a few hours before a major festival or weekend. We both appreciated it very much.

I wish everyone a wonderful, good and sweet year (Shana Tova Umetuka) whether you're Jewish or not. 

(I joined the Country Kids Linky at Coombe Mill with this post.)