Words by Ted

So I haven't blogged in a while. I'm not sure how I feel about it and I could produce a list of excuses, some valid, some not. Either way, it's a new year so we all get a fresh start!

Last week a friend of my mother's was staying over our house. A family member of hers had passed away and the funeral was in Jersey. Since she lived in Delaware, she stayed over for a few nights to get everything straightened out and so she didn't have to travel far for the service. She was having a host of other family problems as well, which I won't get into, but let's just say she was having a really bad week.

The morning of the funeral, as one can imagine, the mood in the house was somber. As her, her husband, and my mother were getting ready to go to the service and funeral, I was getting ready for work and the library. She called up to me from downstairs, "Hey Teddy, would you mind if we said a Mi Sheberach before we go?" For those of you that do not know, the Mi Sheberach is a prayer you say for someone who is sick or is in need of uplifting of some sort. It is a powerful prayer, one of the few that I find personally meaningful and have a spiritual connection to. Thanks to Debbie Friedman, her version has become a staple of almost every Reform and Conservative synagogue's liturgy (Click Here to hear a version of the song).

So I sang the version of the hymn I know. I could hear my mother's friend crying downstairs and when I went down there to give her a hug, I saw how emotional it had made her. 

After everyone left and I was on my way to work, I started to think a little bit more about what had just happened. My mother's friend is more strict than I when it comes to practicing and I am positive she knew the song. Her husband as well I'm sure was familiar with it. She did not need me to lead her through the song, she could have sang it on her own had she wanted to. Clearly though, she did not. She turned to me, a man who she has seen grow up from birth, to help her. It's difficult to explain in text what this meant to me.

From this experience I have learned three things. Firstly, the power of words. Anyone who has watched the news recently or kept up with the bullying scandals around the country (most notably that which occurred at Rutgers University) knows just how harmful words can be. Alternatively, they can be just as uplifting as destructive. I cannot imagine what my mother's friend is going through, but I do realize that the "thank you" I received after singing that song was heartfelt and sincere. Those particular words, if only for a moment, brought some relief to a women who was suffering drastically. Second, I was reminded just how much I've grown up in the past two to three years. This woman has seen me through all the stages of life, even those in which I am not that proud of. For her to reach out to me shows me just how much maturing I have done recently. 

Lastly, and most importantly, it reaffirmed for me, once again, that Jewish leadership is something I want to be a part of my future. As a Jewish Studies major and someone involved with the Jewish community, I regularly get asked "Jewish questions". They range from questions about history and philosophy to halakhah and practice to my own beliefs about God. Personally, I love answering them. I love talking about the thing I most passionate about. However, this situation was a bit different. I provided for someone an experience, a meaningful, impactful, JEWISH experience that helped them in some way. Whether is was to help her cope or simply a distraction for a moment, I provided for her the experience she wanted and needed at that particular moment in her life. It felt good inside to help someone, an adult who has known me my whole life, and who has helped me so many times before. One should never wish the death of a loved one on anyone, but when that situation does arise, always remember that sometimes words (or in this case a song) can mean all the difference.

Holiday Time- by Maya

Hello everyone!! Apologies for Ted and I being lame again this month...we were both busy working on our applications for HUC! Ted's is in and mine is practically done! Very exciting.


Anyways, in my return to blogging I want to discuss wintertime in the United States. Immediately after Thanksgiving (and sometimes even before) we hear Christmas carols everywhere we go, see pine trees spring up all around us, and even experience different cups at Starbucks. It seems as though winter time and Christmas time have become practically interchangeable. Usually I am indifferent to the Christmas cheer all around me- I feel like its not completely my culture, that I am a separate entity from it since I don't celebrate the holiday that drives all of the excitement. This year, I allowed myself to engage a little more than usual with this phenomenon. I realized that, despite being slightly uncomfortable because I got the feeling I was supposed to celebrate Christmas just because it was wintertime, I like the concept of holiday cheer. Its ok to be happy for no reason, to rejoice in ones good fortune and think about all the good things in ones life, and if the season of Christmas is what motivates people to do so, who am I to judge? I feel like during the time between Thanksgiving and New Years, people smile more, and are kinder to strangers. Things seem to have magical airs about them. While in previous years I automatically associated all of this with a holiday I don't observe, this year I allowed myself to get caught up in it too. It can be a wonderful time of year, even if I don't believe in Jesus.


I think one of the things that helped me gain this insight was that Hanukkah fell during Christmas this year. When people wished me Happy Holidays, I could genuinely thank them instead of feeling weird that I had no holiday but had to smile and wish them the same anyway. Plus, when strangers wish me Merry Christmas, I can genuinely say "Merry Christmas to you", as I want them to have a nice time even if I won't be stuffing a stocking or waiting for Santa. 


However, something funny happened to me this year: three of my friends, one of whom is a very close friend of mine, wished me a Merry Christmas, two in response to a mass text  I sent out to all my Christmas-celebrating friends, and one on his one accord. While strangers wishing me a Merry Christmas is slightly weird but not unexpected, friends who have been aware for years that I'm Jewish wishing me a Merry Christmas was downright strange and uncomfortable. These are friends who know I want to be a Rabbi, and have even been present when I've led mini Shabbat services. These particular Christmas greetings only heightened the feeling I get each year when I feel like society expects me to celebrate Christmas just because its winter, and because the majority of the population celebrates it. When I wrote back to them stating that I don't celebrate Christmas, they responded with Hanukkah greetings instead. While that was nice because it was indeed Hanukkah at the time, what happens when the two holidays don't fall at the same time? I didn't mean to be rude or make them equally as uncomfortable as I was by telling them that I don't celebrate, but it just felt really weird to accept well-wishes for something I wasn't doing. It also feels weird that a large portion of the population, which, in all fairness, doesn't know any better, equates Christmas with Hanukkah just because they happen to fall at the same time of year. But that's not a problem that can be easily solved with a text message.


Moreover, I happened to be visiting my Grandma in Florida at the time, and my family and I were invited to Christmas dinner at my mom's cousins' house. These cousins happen to be Jewish. However, their entire house was decorated for Christmas, complete with a tree, lights, and even Santa and reindeer-themed place-cards at the table.  (If they served ham for dinner I was going to walk out, but luckily it was turkey).  For me, this crossed the line from making me uncomfortable into making me sad. Not only do members of my extended family not consider themselves Jewish, but they celebrate Christmas! My fourteen year old cousin (who, sadly, did not become a Bat Mitzvah last year), was talking to me about the holidays. "You celebrate Hanukkah, right?" she said to me. "I celebrate Christmas. But I celebrated Hanukkah once, in like third grade". I didn't even know how to respond to that. I wanted to tell her how she's Jewish, how there's so much in her heritage that she was missing out on, but I was so shocked at this that I couldn't think of how to respond.  Its the same way I feel when I see Jewish friends of mine not really care about the holidays, or about going to synagogue. That's why I'm so insistent on showing my friends how meaningful my religion can be for me, on doing Shabbat with them and discussing all the holidays. I want to show them that religion doesn't have to be words on a page, but can be a way of life, a set of values, a community, and a consistent force to ground you throughout life. (Can you tell I've been writing application essays about this stuff?!?)


Anyway, at the party, happily,  they did have a menorah, and asked my brother to light it. I helped him, and lead the blessings. It turned out that everyone my cousins had invited was Jewish, and they all knew the blessings even better than my cousins did! One of their family friends even requested that we do the Shehecheyanu, so I led that too. That made me happy; at least my cousins associated with Jews, even if they didn't act like them! 


I don't really know what to take away from all this, but I'm glad I can take a step back and reflect on it. As a (hopeful) future Jewish leader, experiencing these situations, while uncomfortable for me at the time, gives me an even wider range of occurrences and lessons learned that I can use for my personal edification and potentially teach about one day. This year, I strove to continue the process of balancing the holiday cheer all around me, with maintaining my Jewish roots, being open-minded to the culture I live in while holding on to my interpretation of my religion. And isn't that what Reform Judaism is all about?