DID I MISS ANYTHING?

                                                     

DID I MISS ANYTHING?

A Bat or Bar Mitzvah is a right of passage, a ceremony commemorating the beginning of religious responsibility for  Jewish girls or boys.  My Bat Mitzvah took place when I was 12 (the standard age for girls). My brother had to wait for his Bar Mitzvah until he was 13.  The reasoning is that girls mature earlier than boys.

My Bat Mitzvah took place on a Friday night in a room downstairs from the main sanctuary in the Conservative synagogue in my hometown.

I remember wearing a party dress and a lace doily on my head.

I shared the evening with another girl who wasn't my friend but whose birthday was close to mine. She and I took turns chanting the same Haftorah.  

We couldn't use the microphone because Shabbos, the Sabbath, had already started so only those who were seated near the front of the room were able to hear me at all. Later on, we each read a speech that neither of us had written for ourselves.

Last Saturday I went to a Bat Mitzvah  at an egalitarian Conservative synagogue. Not only did the girl wear a party dress, she had a prayer shall covering her shoulders.  And she had a turquoise yarmulke on her head.

The service took place in the main sanctuary. It was Shabbos but the microphone was in use. The Bat Mitzvah girl chanted a Haftorah in addition to reading from the Torah itself well. Later, she read a speech that she had obviously written for herself.

My granddaughters go to a private Hebrew Day School in Israel. From what I understand the girls become Bat Mitzvah as an entire class. They don’t wear prayer shawls but they perform for their entire school.  

I've told you about three different Bat Mitzvahs.

Was one really better than another?

Or were they just different?

Which one was the best?

It all depends on your perspective.

FEEL FREE TO SEND ME YOUR INPUT.

True colors?

When my nephew dyed his hair blue a few years ago, I couldn't understand how his parents let him do that.
But times have changed.
 "Are your parents okay with the colors of your hair, I asked the orange, yellow and turquoise-haired cashier at the locak dry cleaner.  She seemed to be about sixteen,
"As long as I stay on the honor roll, clean my room and have a good job, they don't care what I do with my hair," she smiled.

Root Canal or Not, What are Friends For?

          I thought my dentist was a friend.  After all, my husband and I had often vacationed with them.  When they suffered a severe loss in their family, we were there for them every day.  Their older son even asked me to buy some toilet paper so they wouldn't have to bother.

          During my last tooth cleaning, I told my dentist about some sensitivity in one tooth.  He checked but found nothing wrong.  When the sensitivity grew worse, I went back and was told that there was servere decay in that tooth and that I "might" need a root canal. Before being permitted to schedule a follow-up visit,  I was told to sign a paper either agreeing to the root canal or refusing it.  I didn't like being forced to make that decision so I took the paper with me and went for a second and third opinion.        As it turned out, I did not need the root canal,  just a new crown after the decay had been removed.  My dentist performed the procedure as if it had been his idea in the first place.
       Unfortunately, the temporary crown fell out so I called my dentist who suggested I use denture paste to keep the temporary in place until his office opens again in 3 days.  He warned me that this paste may sting  and said I should remove the temporary crown every night.  
       If he were just a dentist and not a "friend," I would have accepted this.  Then he said that most patients don't want to "inconvenience" him for something so minor unless I told him it is an emergency. I always thought that friends are people you put yourself out for, even when it's inconvenient.  I said it's a discomfort, not an emergency and of course I didn't want to "inconvenience" him.   (His office is only a few miles away from his home.)

Do you think I need a new dentist?  

Write or Wrong?

I decided to give up writing this blog many months ago because I didn't think anyone was reading it.  But when my younger daught-in-law asked me about something I had written, I realized that I had at least one reader.  And then I sat back and realized how many blogs I read without writing a response.  

Also, what's wrong with writing for ourselves, even if no one else reads it?  

Too Busy for That

"What does your son do in Israel?" an acquaintance asked me a few days ago.
"He's a Talmudic scholar," I told her.
"You mean he sits at his kitchen table with a lot of books and reads all day to himself?"
"He studies at a kollel, a yeshiva for married guys.  He and his study partner learn together and debate any issue that comes up."
"Isn't he a little old to be spending all that time doing that? When's he going to share all that wisdom he's supposedly gathering?
"I'm really proud of him.  Judaism wouldn't be the vibrant religion it is today if it weren't for people like him."
Crossing her arms tightly across her chest, she said, "I think he's just selfish."
"Are your sons religious?" I asked, trying not to let her get to me.
"My sons are not the least bit religious."  She sounded proud.  "They're too busy for that."

HOW MOVING

My older son and his family are looking to move to a different apartment so that they'll have more room.  Their present apartment has 4 bedrooms.  Whenever we visit them we stay in the 4th bedroom which is the playroom.  We don't mind.  But the kids do need a place to play.  What really impresses me is that my son and daughter-in-law are so concerned about our comfort that before they seriously consider a new apartment, they describe it to us to make sure we'd be comfortable there.  My husband and I keep telling them that whatever works for them we are certain will work for us.  After all, they live in Israel so we only visit them 4 times a year.

WHERE IS SHE GOING?

I just received an email from a friend I haven't seen since junior high school.  I always thought she was Jewish.  Maybe I was wrong.  She wrote that she attended synagogue with her father when she was a kid.  She later did transcendental meditation and started reading eastern philosophy.  Next she became a "secular humanist" and then later was baptised into the Episcopal Church.  She went on to earn two graduate degrees from Yale Divinity School and soon became a Buddhist.  She now follows Chrisitan Mysticism.
I can't help wondering where she is going with all this.   What is she looking for?  And will she know it when she finds it?