Happy Jew Year: Part 3

So guess what? Today I went in with this terrible attitude like "uuuuugh this is gonna SUCK." Well guess what? Mara was running today's service. So I was like "YAY!!!" So guess what happened then?

We were hardly there AT ALL...

We just went around the synagogue blowing the same three shofar rhythms over and over and over until my ears practically imploded. You would think I would be happy, but I kinda wanted to take advantage of the fact that someone decent was running the service. And y'know what? On Yom Kippur, when I don't get to blow shofar at all, she won't be here.

THIS.

SUCKS.

Another reason that Jews are strong.

Happy Jew Year: Part 2

OK, so today I went in with this great attitude: "OK, since I'm in the 'Teen Service' this'll be bearable. And Mara (the awesome youth director) will run the service quick and dirty like she did last year and I'll survive."

NOPE.

Mara decides she's gonna go to the adult service and leave some 25 year old who has the mind of a 50 year old with his newlywed wife who are both obsessed with talking about how they just got married in July to run our service. And, DANG, they had no DAM IDEA WHAT THE HECK THEY WERE DOING. They told us how this was gonna be the "coolest service in the whole state."

Haha...haha...HAHAHAHA.

They were SO CLUELESS. I can't even DESCRIBE it!!!

.....I'M GOING TO DIE!!!!!!!!

And then my four o' clock dinner went exactly as expected: great food, crappy socialization.

Pure proof of how completely SUCKISH the Jewish holidays really are.

Happy Jew Year: Part 1

Well, as of tonight at sundown, the year 5769 began, according to the Jewish Calendar. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the calendar the is most commonly followed nowadays is the Christian calendar, since it kinda revolves around the birth of Jesus. Before him, though, everyone followed this calendar, so when the newfound Christians were saying it was the year 1, everyone else was saying "No, it's 3761!"

Anyway, for those of you who are like "Oh, I love holidays; this must be so much fun!" ...Think again. It's one of the top 10 most boring days in a Jewish kid's life. You sit in services for about four hours, and then you come home and you can't do anything. Then you go to your relative's house and sit around doing nothing there while your parents and aunts and uncles talk for forever, along with all your cousins, who are all grown up and in college if not beyond, so you've got no one to even hang out with. Then, there's the one good part: the food. If there's one good thing that happens on the New Year, it's the feast that your aunt prepares. Matzo ball soup, turkey, your grandma's amazing noodle kugel (if you don't know what that is, look it up), and of course, the meatballs-and-rice dish that she only makes once a year. Ah, the food is great...

Then you're so full that you just want to go home and sleep, but no! That would make too much sense! Instead, you are stuck at your aunt's house with nothing to do for another hour and a half. By the time you finally leave you feel like you're gonna puke, but you somehow make it home ok. By that time it's 10 o' clock and the day is shot.

Then, the next morning, guess what? YOU GET TO DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN!!! Who wants to be at school with your friends and jeans and the English language when you can be stuck in services for yet ANOTHER rousing four hours of non-stop Hebrew and sitting all dressed up?

So before you go up to a kid and say, "Oh, you're so lucky you get to miss a day of school for a holiday," think about what they'll be doing: you might change your mind.