Be a better Jew

A couple weeks ago we had a Jewish baby naming ceremony for Little Miss. Even though a special ceremony for girls isn’t “traditional” (only for boys) I felt good about how this connects our family to Jewish tradition and the Jewish community. And I was happy to be able to share our new daughter with friends and family. The ceremony & reception afterward were a huge success!

Went to High Holy Day services again this year, as I do every year. I don’t belong to a synagogue so I went with Friend K to hers and was welcomed warmly by her friends there. The High Holy Days always serve as a motivation for introspection and continued growth for me. It always serves as a strong reminder of why exactly I included in my personal mission statement the goal to maintain ties with Judaism to ground me in morality and community.

This year, what struck me (by way of some of the prayers and sermons) was that I have become a little withdrawn from the outside world. I have been spending the past few years focusing a lot on personal growth (as evidenced by all my 43T activity.) There’s nothing wrong with that, but while I have been making all sorts of progress on avoiding certain sins like jealousy, arrogance, deceit, etc., I have continued to engage in the sin of indifference to injustice. (It’s kind of an eye-opener to think of indifference as a sin rather than just “laziness”, but Judaism considers it so.)

I generally avoid watching/reading news on worldwide current events, because they’re often so depressing. But one of the sermons on Yom Kippur discussed the fact that we often blind ourselves to these things, avoid thinking about them, because we think there’s nothing we can do about them. But as we’ve heard time and again, “one person can make a difference,” and the sermon almost has me convinced :-)

In addition, I haven’t really gotten involved in my local community. Part of it is that I feel like I’m not settled down yet, so why put in the effort to integrate myself into the community when I’ll just be moving soon anyway? For me, meeting new people and doing new things really is a big effort. But, now I know I’ll be moving really soon (like, in the next couple months, hopefully) so maybe this attitude can change soon.

Now I feel like I am approaching a state in my personal growth where I almost “have it all together” and can afford to focus attention outward. So, my hope / goal for the next year is to focus on the following aspect of my personal mission statement:to seek a positive impact on my world, my community, my friends, my family, and myself.

a few friends came, but my brother was the only other Jew there. I am glad that I managed to keep up with my Jewish traditions, but not doing so well in terms of connecting with others in the Jewish community.

I think it will help if I send out invitations more than a week ahead next time, so at least my Jewish friends won’t already have seder plans.

I’m putting a reminder in Google Calendar right now.

Will have to remember to pick up some challah and say the blessings.

Also, Purim is next week so maybe I should make some hamentaschen this weekend.

Totally forgot about Shabbat dinner/blessings this week. I was thrown off by the fact that I had the day off from work…

last Friday, and managed to catch the second half of the Shabbat service while I was at it. It’s comforting to know that I can go to any given reform synagogue and recognize most of the elements of the service.

I talked to my friend K, and she said that if I were to start looking for a synagogue to join, she’d be willing and interested in coming along with me to check them out. I ought to take her up on that.

This goal is currently titled “be a better Jew.” It’s not really what I mean by this goal, but it will have to do right now. If I sit around all day trying to think of the right title I’ll just end up never adding anything to my list, and that would be no good.

What I really mean by this goal is something along the lines of encouraging myself to connect with my Jewish community and practicing some of the meaningful traditions, like Shabbat, and creating new personal rituals where the traditional ones don’t really seem to fit. I am not so much concerned with the religious aspects of Judaism (i.e. God), but more with the spirituality, cultural richness, and the Jewish value system of community, learning, healing the world, and so forth.

My addition of this goal to my list was triggered by a number of things. First of all, I was invited last week by a friend to last night’s Shabbat service. When I was sick on Tuesday and I didn’t have any new novels sitting around the house to read, I was inspired to read some of my Jewish-themed books. I feel like my life has been lacking a little direction lately, lacking many of the Jewish values. The last item is also why I added the goal to write a personal mission statement.

Later I’ll come back and expand a little on what I intend to do with this goal.