Treat......

Today's Fact brought to you by National Jewish Outreach Program


(I just love these emails...daily little bits of Jewish factoids to brighten my day!)


Rachel: The Great Romance
The story of Jacob and Rachel is as close to true romance as one finds in Biblical literature.

Jacob, the son of Isaac and Rebecca, went to the home of Laban (Rebecca’s brother) to find a bride. (In those days, marrying first cousins was not uncommon.) Jacob arrived at a well that was covered by a large stone. When Jacob asked the gathered shepherds if they knew his uncle, they pointed to a young shepherdess approaching the well and announced that this was Laban’s daughter Rachel. They also explained to him that they were waiting until all of the local shepherds arrived at the well to roll back the rock and distribute the water. Jacob immediately rolled the rock away himself and gave water to Rachel’s sheep. Laban agreed to let the smitten Jacob marry Rachel, if Jacob first worked for him for seven years.

When the wedding day finally arrived, however, Laban decided that it would be very embarrassing if his younger daughter, Rachel, were to marry before her older sister, Leah. Therefore, without any warning, he ordered Leah to don her sister’s wedding veil secretly and be wed to Jacob without his knowledge.

Rachel now faced a great dilemma. She could fight for her right to wed Jacob as promised, or she could expose the plot, humiliate her sister in public and bring great shame to the entire family. Putting her sister’s honor before her own, Rachel gave Leah the secret signs that she and Jacob had prepared in case of just such a likelihood, so that Leah could marry the man Rachel loved. When the festivities of Jacob and Leah’s wedding were completed a week later, Rachel and Jacob were wed and Rachel became his second, but more beloved, wife.

Ok love that story....!

I picked the name Rachael in one of those unconscious wonderful monuments...(see the very first post on this blog for the details) Yet despite not having put much thought into the name...it so fits my new wonderful life!

I spent much of the past weekend sunk into the past...the death of my former mother-in-law sent me on a personal history tour that was filled with many emotions. But today I am experiencing my grateful energy....the energy of mindfulness and gratitude for my current life.

Dare I say, despite much to be concerned about...(I will spare you the agony list!) I am more or less pleased with my life and the people who populate it!

To Anonymous

To Anonymous

I am not orthodox...but I try to hold the line on writing on shabbat...but I do read my computer on shabbat...when I saw your comment...which you will see , that I did post...I took a few moments to think about it....
You must know me I am sure..or why would you be anonymous and why would you be so condemning of me. Who ever you are, I want to say I am sorry for any pain I may have caused you.

no pain was intended...these were my feelings.....feelings and perspective can be problematic...and I am sorry

I had shared the post with my former husband for his review.....we talked about it...he had no issue with what I said about him....he did not mention any feelings about what I wrote about his mom...I have reviewed what I wrote and made changes to make it clearer.

when you see me at the funeral please try to remember I use this blog to work out my experiences and feelings. Hopefully you read some of the other things here to get an idea.

Life is complicated, relationships are complicated and divorce is very complicated...please consider all the shades of grey in terms of relationships, feelings and emotions. Of course I am sad about Dorothy...that is why I needed to write.

as for you...whoever you are, once again...I'm sorry

It's Complicated II Dorothy

Baruch dayan emet

My former Husband's mother died.

I was married for 20 years and was introduced to her a year or two before my marriage. Dorothy and I always had an interesting relationship...oh did I remind y'all my first husband was Jewish...and at that time I wasn't.

I married a secular Jewish man who one might use the label of "self hating Jew" to describe him. He has disdain for all things Jewish but to be fair he has disdain for most things religious. He would say he was biologically and or culturally Jewish but would call most ritual mumbo jumbo or voodoo.I carried the "Jewishness" of the family from a ritual standpoint for my daughter... I made sure she had connections to it and made my own attempts at home based events such as Hanukkah.

as I was saying, my relationship with Dorothy was complicated. I believe Dorothy was a product of her age and generation. In her time I think she was an ambitious woman who had dreams and aspirations that were slightly out of her reach, of course not due to her. She was smart, almost sassy and always had an opinion on any topic that might manifest. In some ways she was admirable for having carved and cobbled a life together out of the strands she was given...in other ways I found her difficult to get to know, at times she appeared to be not the most warm individual,but that could just be my perception. To me, she always felt as if there was a distance that could never be transversed.This could be due to the many difficulties she had encountered in her life.

Yet over my tenure as daughter-in-Law...the first daughter-in-law...(there is another, daughter-in law...I experienced this as complicated as it can be in most families) I did much care taking. Yet no matter how long I was in the family I think in a mostly unconscious way, I felt I was labeled as the "other". Even at times when it was clear she was having much difficulty with my Jew from birth daughter-in-law counterpart (this in the beginning of her entry into the family...). I was still the non-Jew.(of course this could have been my own "stuff"!)

I have a number of memories but one of the most lasting was our Passover ritual. It was difficult to get the family to decide when we would gather. I most often would insist on the appropriate nights, first or second... but the difficulties would mean sometime yes and sometimes no. She had hagadhs from the 50's or 60's they had Elsie the cow on them!...and every year she would precede to ask/tell me what was happening at the Seder table. may I add not in the most affectionate way!...not mean mind you, just very practical...20 years of this...as my daughter got older it became a game between us as to when Grandma would educate me on all things Jewish. In fact I was the one who wanted to "do" Passover fully with some spirituality....clearly I was not supported in this endeavor.

Once the divorce word crossed our collective lips (my husband and me)I never saw her or his family again.It is important to note that I hold the land speed record for divorce. Having uttered the word in January, entered mediation in February we had a completed agreement by the beginning of May. That part of my life was disappeared they all were gone not to be seen again....that is until Dorthy became sick.

Over the past year the lung issues she had been dealing with for many years had finely been labeled Lung Cancer. as she and her family struggled with choosing the right directions, I had a far off sideline seat. My former husband and I now have a respectable amiable relationship. We are not sharing holidays and hanging out together, but we can talk, share in events that are important to our daughter and in general be ok with one another. Then as it became clear to me, (I used to work as a social worker in an oncology department) that Dorothy would not find her way to a remission, closing this chapter of my life seemed important.

I ended up seeing her during one of her last hospitalizations. It was somewhat awkward. My new found Jewishness was a major part of the conversation. One thing she said did make me smile. she said "you were always more Jewish than all of us."

so now Dorothy is of blessed memory...
Hamakom y'nachem etchem b'toch sh'ar availai tziyon ee yerushalayim

Woman of the Wall in the Post

http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=194099



400 world rabbis ask police to protect Women of the Wall

By MELANIE LIDMAN
11/05/2010 03:27

Kotel’s rabbi: I call on them to behave according to the customs of the area and not to insult the sensitivities of the other people praying.

More than 400 rabbis from around the world have signed a letter asking Jerusalem police to protect women at the Western Wall who want to pray and read the Torah together, one year after nursing student Nofrat Frenkel was arrested for taking out a Torah in the women’s section of the Western Wall Plaza.

Frenkel is a member of the Women of the Wall organization, which advocates for women’s rights to perform religious actions, such as wearing prayer shawls and reading from the Torah, at the Western Wall.

The letter, organized by Los Angeles Rabbi Pamela Frydman, asked the mayor and police chief of Jerusalem to “immediately institute and enforce a zero-tolerance policy against attacking women in any way whatsoever, including throwing chairs and feces-filled diapers and other objects at women who pray together.”

The letter, co-authored by 28 rabbis, has also been signed by close to 500 other individuals and organizations from various Jewish denominations across the world, bringing the total to over 900 signatories. It was also sent to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky, along with other prominent politicians.

“It is extremely important to us that there always be a place for haredi men and women in a way that is comfortable for them and in accordance with their understanding of Halacha,” said Frydman, who is the director of the Holocaust Education Project at the Academy for Jewish Religion in Los Angeles, and was ordained through the Jewish Renewal movement.

“But it is equally important for us that those of us who are Modern Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and Renewal that we have a place where we can pray in accordance with our understanding.”

Jerusalem Police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said that the police would respond directly to the authors of the letter.

“The Women of the Wall are welcome, like every Jewish woman, to come to the Western Wall,” Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich, chief rabbi of the Western Wall, told The Jerusalem Post. “It is forbidden for anyone to harm them, as violence is totally forbidden at the Western Wall. Together with this… I call on them to behave according to the customs of the area and not to insult the sensitivities of the other people praying.”

Another police source pointed out that the women were arrested after engaging in activities that were forbidden by Supreme Court decisions.

“On the one hand, they’re breaking the law, and on the other hand, they’re asking for expanded protection in order to break the law,” said the police source.

On Monday, when the women mark the new Hebrew month of Kislev, Nofrat Frenkel will lead services to mark the one-year anniversary of her arrest. She was arrested after attempting to bring out the Torah in the main women’s section, which is against the law.

“It was the global support we received that put the wind in our sails,” said Frenkel in a statement. “After my arrest, Jews in both Israel and the Diaspora understood that we have to win this battle by foot.

Men and women, from all sects of Judaism, have arrived monthly to pray with WOW at the Kotel and insist on their right for freedom of worship.”

The Women of the Wall has also started a campaign asking women around the world to send photos of them reading and holding Torahs, in order to illustrate that this is a worldwide movement. They have collected more than 4,000 photos.

“Israelis have given up on the Wall,” said Anat Hoffman, chairwoman of Women of the Wall and the executive director of the Israel Religious Action Center, who was also arrested at a Women of the Wall event six months ago. “They feel uncomfortable there... People have made them feel as if they’re not coming home, but trampling on someone else’s place. There are territorial behaviors, saying, ‘Wear something different,’ ‘Move from here,’ ‘Move from there.’” Frydman is currently leading a delegation to Israel of around 20 people, both men and women, to support Women of the Wall and attend Monday’s Rosh Hodesh service.

“There’s a saying, ‘Respect comes even before Torah,’” Frydman said. “We believe it’s important to respect the haredi way of worship, and our way of worship as well.”

I Am Not A Sheep

I had heard about the famous/infamous Pew Trust Forum poll. The take away I remember was that most folks didn't know about their own religion, never mind the religion of others. Additionally I remembered Jews and Atheists did the best. In fact my Rabbi even rolled that information into one of his sermons. So when today I saw on a friend's facebook post a link to their site and a with a mini poll/survey I went right to it!

http://features.pewforum.org/quiz/us-religious-knowledge/index.php

How much do you know about religion?
And how do you compare with the average American? Here's your chance to find out.
Take our short, 15-question quiz, and see how you do in comparison with 3,412 randomly sampled adults who were asked these and other questions in the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey. This national poll was conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life from May 19 through June 6, 2010, on landlines and cell phones, in English and Spanish.
When you finish the quiz, you will be able to compare your knowledge of religion with participants in the national telephone poll. You can see how you compare with the overall population as well as with people of various religious traditions, people who attend worship services frequently or less often, men and women, and college graduates as well as those who did not attend college.

now go take the test...then come back here and keep reading

I took the test and the results for me, raised Catholic, a Buddhist Unitarian Universalist who converted to Judaism, were predictable, I got all the answers right. I am not proud of this nor surprised by this, but what did shock me was how simple it was. They do a wonderful job of breaking down their data so that you can see who got questions right and wrong broken out into many different categories. I feel dismayed about the polls results. These questions were basic, nothing jumped out as esoteric or overly challenging.

And once again, my own experience with this quiz pointed out my unique conundrum....even though I do not believe I need reminding, but there it was....I fit nowhere near any majority and or any mainstream demographic group.

I spent a good amount of time when I was younger lamenting my plight of perpetual outsider when it comes to how I view the world...the shorthand I came up with was "I am not a sheep." I tend to go out there on my own, searching and questioning. But that can be a dangerous place to be and would think there is some protective energy with being just like all the other sheep. but anytime I attempted to put on sheep clothing, my true nature shown and I was found out.

So far, I must say ,the synagogue I am calling home has accepted my non sheep self. In fact in some ways I think they find it interesting. I bring life experiences and organizational experiences that can be a positive addition to our shull....I feel at home organizationally but more to the point I am home religiously and spiritually.

Vacation in Italy

Right after my husband and I broke our Yom Kippur fast we left for Italy and spent 18 days exploring the country!....But it has been crazy since our return and it has been hard to get back into the swing of things....including getting back into the blog thing..none the less I thought I would start to post some of my "Jewish Themed" photos from this grand adventure....

ok....now for those of you who don't know...this is Vatican City....the place where the Pope lives...
and yes I went in...I went into many churches.....I know, not Orthodox of me...but I truly believe I went into these places because of art and history not to worship and or pray...

and look what I found in the floor of former living quarters of the popes! There were a whole bunch of them!

This is the Synagogue in Florence

more photos tomorrow!

Gemar Chatimah Tovah

I am wishing all Tsom Kal.....

I am truly inspired! I have been in a good space and have been able to channel kavanah....hopefully when my stomach starts to grumble and I start to feel a bit dehydrated I will be able to continue to find that higher place.

Last night we had a synagogue board meeting. Nothing unusual in that...but the Rabbi in a few moments before we got into it talked about our theme...or better yet our aspiration...."Aim Higher"

Weather in prayer or service our aspiration is clear to aim higher...I am wishing all the same...to find a place in their hearts and homes to aim higher!