Judaism

Temporarily losing my religion

Aug 232010

We’re not doing religious school with the kids this year and it’s the right decision but I’m sad about it. Both the kids are on board but both (well, Noah — Madison is reflecting sadness back at us but she’s pretty neutral) are sad about it, too.

It’s hard having kids in two widely different age ranges because our synagogue building is very small and so they stagger the classes. It means our Sundays are basically eaten up by taking kids and dropping them off. Last year it was from 8:30 to 1:30 (with an exchange of kids in the middle) but this year Noah would start going at about 3pm so we would have a four hour window in the middle of the day but that would be it.

So that’s part of it.

The other part of it is that being a member of the temple and sending both kids to religious school is really expensive and we don’t have it right now. We could get financial aid but it’s a process and we’re kind of overwhelmed with process right now (my school; Brett’s temp job, which is requiring a whole lot of bureaucratic hoop jumping to get on there permanently). Also maybe we are late for applying, I don’t know. Brett kept putting it off because he hates having to ask for it.

Brett and I talked about it over the weekend and we know that this school year will be busier than ever because I’ll be in school. And our Saturdays are already getting booked because of kid activities and now Madison’s soccer practice is on Friday evenings. (Argh.) (Plus side to soccer — we requested she be on the team coached by one of the dads in our local transracial adoption support group so Madison will be one of several black kids with white parents AND the coach is a really nice, laid back guy so she is VERY EXCITED. Obviously this totally outweighs the awkward practice time. Go Stingrays!)

Now for Noah, anything he does past bar mitzvah is gravy. About half his friends won’t be going but two of his favorites probably are so he’s sad about that. He also says that if he misses one year, he doesn’t want to drop back in next year. So for him, he’s feeling like this is the end of his religious education. (I am hoping that he doesn’t feel that way next year.) When we told him we’d still go to temple events — most particularly the Purim carnival — he was somewhat mollified. But religious school has been part of his life for eight years now and he values it and this is a real loss for him. What made him WANT to not go (because we presented the option and then gave them a choice and listened to them discuss it with themselves) is that if we don’t do religious school this frees up time (and money) to take some weekends away.

And that is the final part of this.

We used to take minivacations. We’d leave just for a weekend and stay overnight someplace quiet and come back refreshed. I want to take that tradition back up so that when school is hectic, we can get away. When we used to do them Brett would romp the kids (well, kid — we’ve only had one of these trips since Madison arrived) and I’d stay back wherever to work. The state park lodges are ideal for this. They have great big open areas with fireplaces and tables for working. There isn’t wifi, which is good if you need to focus (you can pay for it if you really feel like you need it). There are also pools and hiking trails and there’s a decent restaurant on site so you can park your car and forget about it. The scenery is always pretty. So we’d like to do that once in awhile.

This all sounds good and sensible and reasonable but just like religious school has been part of Noah’s life for eight years, it’s been part of my life, too, and I’m grieving it as well.

Noah and I talked about it at length last night and in a continued testimony to sharing feelings, once Noah felt ok to talk about how sad he was to leave, he was able to make a definitive decision about leaving. He just wanted to be reassured that he could choose to NOT go and still be able to talk about missing it. You know, he wants to be able to make a decision without us throwing it back up in his face if he gets gloomy about it. And don’t we all want room to be ambivalent? I certainly feel ambivalent. I definitely WANTED to take a break this year until the kids both agreed to it and then I got sad, too.

We’ve decided that we’ll try to take a day trip very soon in order to cement our decision and celebrate it.

Yesterday a boy, today a mensch

Judaism, Parenting, Pictures 21 Responses »

Jan 302010

Bar Mitzvah week

Judaism, Parenting 28 Responses »

Jan 252010

Noah converted on this blog. Not literally ON this blog but our conversion was a blog topic for the first couple of years that I was blogging. We converted when he was four and I was 31. It wasn’t much of a ceremony and we didn’t do the mikveh. This was because my rabbi, god love him, who almost didn’t convert me ‘cuz Noah wasn’t (isn’t) circumcised and because I couldn’t promise to circumcise future kids (moot point, as it turns out) said that anyone who didn’t believe in the mitzvah of circumcision would get nothing out of the ritual of the mikveh. I think he’s wrong there but I was so grateful to get converted that I let it slide.

Anyway, I may not have had a bris for my son and we may not have gone to the mikveh post-conversion but this bar mitzvah is a big deal for both of us. Noah has worked really really really hard — every single day with the chanting! — and both his tutor and our rabbi are very impressed with him. Terrific accent, terrific delivery and a beautiful voice.

I sit there during the rehearsals and I’m just so proud and so moved to see my son up there chanting his Torah portion with the rabbi’s hand on his shoulder.

So the bar mitzvah is Saturday and I’m kinda losing my mind between work and prep. We left a lot to last minute partially because I have never ever ever organized anything like this (Brett and I eloped for one — we don’t really do weddings in my family) and had no idea how much I should have done beforehand and partially because that was just the reality with the holidays and a new job and working two jobs at once for a little while. It’s just nuts. But good nuts. Because the party may be odd and mismatched and mostly full of goyim (starting with my husband) but they will be people we love and who love our son and there will be food and music (Noah’s play list seems to have a lot of disco on it — go figure).

Now I just have to get through the week to GET there!!

The most important thing I learned in Soc class

Feminism/Politics, Judaism 10 Responses »

Dec 142008

W.I. Thomas: “If people believe something to be true, it is true in its consequences.”

In other words, we act on our beliefs as if they were facts, right?

I think about this all the time because it helps me understand why other people hold as firmly to their beliefs as I hold to mine. It also reminds me how fallible my own “facts” might be.

I wish other people would appreciate this maxim as well — it’d save me a whole lot of useless arguments.

Now I’m an idealist (or so my frustrated but loving mother tells me), which means I’m more prone to this than other people. Like republicans — theoretically I understand how they could think the way they do but when it comes right down to it, I don’t get it. I feel the same way about lots of other stuff like, for example, showtunes. I say that I understand how you could not like musical theater but secretly I’m thinking that you just haven’t heard the right score. And what’s worse, if you tell me you don’t like musical theater because it’s so stagy and silly, I will nod like I’m totally understanding your point of view but secretly I will be plotting to send you a mix CD to convince you that you’re wrong. (I’d be planning to put Finishing the Hat and pretty much all of South Pacific — the original Mary Martin version — on it. Oh and some Jason Robert Brown. And Gershwin, of course. And have you ever heard William Finn’s Sailing? Because if you haven’t, I’d be thinking, you’re just talking out of ignorance.)

And see, that’s a problem. Because for all I know (and I should ask before I assault you with mp3 CDs) you grew up listening to showtunes because your parents are huge fans and as a matter of fact you haven’t talked to them for years because your anti-showtune stance is such a betrayal that whenever you get together all you do is fight and your mom says, “Anyone who doesn’t love Bernadette Peters’s rendition of Being Alive is no child of mine!” Maybe my hammering to enlighten you is more hammer, less light, you know?

I’m not going to let go of my idea that showtunes are way awesome and I don’t have to but I do need to operate with the understanding that people can listen to the exact same songs I do and come out of it with a different opinion. Because their true beliefs are just as true as mine are — even if they aren’t. And maybe I ought to be a little more respectful when someone says, “Yeah, I don’t like musicals. That’s just me.”

Now when it comes to stuff that’s just plain wrong — like I can believe 2 + 2 = 5 and I can act like it’s true all I want but I’m still gonna be wrong about it — there’s some point to having an argument with me but our discussion will be more effective if you come to it understanding how staunchly I’m standing in my convictions.

It gets so much stickier when people start arguing about showtunes with the same absolutes they’d bring to an argument about math, you know? When we don’t understand that some things — like politics and religion — feel grounded in fact when actually they’re grounded in faith. So we can start quoting studies and scripture but if the other person doesn’t buy into the premise of that study or the veracity of that scripture, it ends up being — you guessed it — more hammer less light.

Anyway. I was thinking on that today. No reason. Well, no reason I’m gonna blog!

FYI: Are you raising Jewish kids?

Judaism 5 Responses »

Mar 122008

The PJ Library

These good folks send Madison a free book about Judaism every month. Your kid must be less than seven to get in on the fun and you need to check that they operate in your neck of the woods. Some of them are good, some of them are not. I was happy to get What Makes Someone a Jew? even though it’s painful to read. (We stick to the pictures.) It’s aggressively multicultural but the rhymes are plain old bad so it ends up being unintentionally hilarious.

My favorite so far is Five Little Gefiltes because it’s intentionally hilarious.

They list all the books they send and you can see there are some great ones on there so hey! If you’re Jewish (or if your kids are Jewish) go ahead and sign up!