Hello 2016!

Wow. Just wow. It's 2016, which is a pretty significant year in the life of this blog, because:

• This blog began in 2006.
• I completed my Reform conversion in 2006.
• I graduated college with a bachelor's of journalism in 2006. 

So, I think, I'll just leave that there. No long, reflective posts about what happened in 2015, because I really just don't want to think about it, and no forecasting posts for 2016. I think I've finally hit an age where I'm not into resolutions for the secular New Year, and I'm not into reflecting on life and loss and triumph or anticipating those things in the new year.

The only thing I can hope for in 2016 is that the world gets its #*!$ together and people stop murdering, hating, and judging one another.

Just think, we're in 5776 right now, which means we're a mere 224 years away from 6,000, at which point, if we haven't gotten our #*!$ together, mashiach (the messiah) will be forced to show up for the Messianic Era. Now that's a real (scary?) thought.

Happy New Year, folks.

Packing Away the Losses and Looking Forward

All roads have led us here. 

I've always been a big believer in the "no regrets" philosophy on life. I like to think that everything happens for a reason (cliche), that the big dude upstairs never gives us more than we can handle (Jewish cliche), and that no matter how craptastic everything in life seems, gam zu l'tovah (religious Jewish cliche).

On this point, a friend sent me a video of Oprah talking about how there are no mistakes, that all paths and decisions lead to the same point, a greater destiny in time that we can't always see or envision or understand, but that all of our choices, good and bad, land us at that same destination. I'm not an Oprah-holic, but she has a very good point appropriate for both a new year and my life right now:

"There is a supreme moment of destiny calling on your life. Your job is to feel that, hear that, and know that. And sometimes when you're not listening you get taken off track. ... but it's all leading to the same path. There are no wrong paths. There are none. There is no such thing as failure, really. Failure is just that thing trying to move you in another direction, so you get as much from your losses as you do from your victories. Because the losses are there to wake you up."

The other day the local afternoon radio show was doing a segment where they were asking callers what, if anything, they would hop in a time machine and go back and change. There were all sorts of stories, from people cheating with their best friend's significant others to not taking amazing job opportunities and losing out on millions and millions of dollars. I started racking my brain about the choices I've made in life and trying to decide what I would go back and change.

I thought about the moment I decided to stop working for The Washington Post. A dream job, my friends said. People would have killed for my job at The Washington Post. Should I have stayed? Should I have found a way to make the hours and loneliness work? Where would I be now had I stuck it out? My dream was always to live in New York City and work at The New York Times, and maybe that dream would have become a reality. I had connections, I had the skill.

I thought about the moment I decided to really end things with a long-term boyfriend, a boyfriend with whom I held an epic love story of distance and years and drama. What if I had stuck around in Chicago instead of leaving to go to graduate school, what if I had made a commitment to be there for the one-millionith incarnation of our relationship? I had loved him, I knew him, I'd committed years to us.

Oddly enough, those are the only two moments in my life that popped up as possible "go back and change it" moments. And in that same instance of momentary thoughts I considered my son, my husband, my Judaism, who I am now.

Had either of those moments in my life not occurred precisely as they were meant to, no matter how much heartache, pain, and fleeting regret I have about them, I would not be where I am today. I would  probably not be an Orthodox Jewish mother to a beautiful little dreamboat of a boy or a committed wife to a husband a million miles away doing everything in my power to keep our world afloat.

I've had a lot of losses this year. I could enumerate them month by month for you, but that would be a labor of looking back, not forward.

I want to focus on waking up, not the losses. This year's wake-up call is propelling me into 2015 with a sense of commitment to my marriage and my son, to knowing that my father is in the right place for him, to solidifying a plan to return to the land where I feel so at ease even when I understand nothing I read or hear, and to feeling more alive and trusting in my Judaism.

After five years of doing Jewish (I finalized my Orthodox conversion on January 1, 2010), I think I can handle this.

Here's to 2015, everyone!

Shana Tova!

It's funny that this time last year I'd just pulled into Denver after a quick divorce and really had all the time in the world to sit down and pen a thoughtful and pensive post about life changes, ebbs and flows, and HaShem's plans for me.

This year? I was busy cooking, cleaning, working, and trying to get everything perfect for the three-day Jewish version of "Eat, Pray, Sleep." (Two days of Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year, with Shabbat tagged on at the end -- oy!)

The funny thing is, basically every year of my life since I graduated college in 2006 has been something completely and utterly different. Whether it was my physical location, schooling, who I was dating, conversion, life's tumults ... something was always changing. I haven't had two years of fairly consistent anything in a long time.

So my prayer is for the mundane with a twist of excitement in the unexpected, as usual. I pray that this time next year, I'll have a happy little baby on my hip, a wonderful husband at my side, and a home where people come and go and it feels like home. I don't think it's too far out of reach, either.

To everyone on the face of the planet who I've wronged in the past year -- please accept this meager attempt at an apology for misspeaking, misunderstanding, or just plain wronging.

So here's to my first year in Eretz Yisrael. It started out wonderful, got really, really rough, and has picked up since then. People say that this land tries with all its might to chew people up and spit them out, and I don't doubt the accuracy in that statement for a second. Judaism, as a whole, has a tendency of doing the same thing. You have to really want -- nay, need -- to be Jewish, to be all in with this fight for religion, peoplehood, identity, and culture.

Nothing here comes easy. Nothing.

Happy New Year. Shana Tova. Even if it's the absolute least you can do, eat those apples and honey with a huge smile on your face. This life is a gift. This life is all we have.

Let's start 5774 off right.

Goodbye, Goodbye 2011!

January 7, 2011 -- Before things got really bad.

Well folks, it goes without saying that 2011 was probably the worst year of my life on this here planet earth. That's 28 years and three months of life, folks. Alternatively, one could argue that it was a year full of incredibly painful lessons that one hopes will lead to a better, happier life experience.

A crippling depression that went largely unnoticed on this blog (what can I say, I put up a good front) that left me in the darkest place of my life. Being here, able to write this, is something that a year ago I did not foresee. Divorce. Leaving an academic program that left me unsatisfied. Moving more than halfway across the country. Falling back into a debt that I'd avoided for so long because life stopped and restarted. Watching my family fall to pieces and losing the right to be a daughter.

So much in such a short space. I wonder how I got here, why I got here, why I didn't fall into oblivion into the dark place that took me for so many months.

And then I remember the positives of 2011. I went to SXSW Interactive for the second time in March. I spent the best three weeks of my life in Israel back in June (save for the Shavuot incident). I ended up in Denver, where the air has given me a calm and peace that I haven't experienced in years. I discovered that the love that people say they have for me is genuine, that I do have friends, that I do have something to offer people, that I am more than the sum of the thoughts of those who have pushed me down.

There are people that saved my life, time and again in 2011. My Yiddishe Mama, The Gelt, Kate, The Rebbetzin That Redefines, Cesar, My Little Brother, and the list goes on and on.

I won't make resolutions or even goals for 2012, because if there's one thing that 2011 taught me, it's that life changes in the blink of an eye, whether we like it or wish to accept it. Maybe it's something that happens with getting older, but the instance of change hits a lot harder and leaves more bruises than it does when you're younger.

So here's to 2012. May there be only peace, light, and answers for us all in this new (Gregorian) year!

Get it!? Light! Lantern?! Come on! Happy New Year!
Photo from November 14, 2011 -- A happier Chavi!

---

Also, from 2011, my January 1 post that details my earliest "When did you know?" memories regarding my choice to be Jewish.

Pretending I'm Colombian

One of my best friends in the entire world is Cesar. He doesn't like being put in the public eye, and the fact that he even let me take a picture of the two of us during his Colorado adventures recently is a breakthrough (sorry, Cesar, I know I didn't tell you I'd be putting it here, but, you know, it's relevant).

Cesar was telling me about a tradition in Colombia for New Years that I think will be very therapeutic and cathartic considering how absolutely rotten 2011 has been for me. The tradition?

Burn Año Nuevo: An effigy on the name of the Old Year is made, which is called as Año Nuevo. It is tied up with fireworks, and at the point of the clock ringing twelve, it is burnt. Also, people write their faults, or any feared bad luck on a piece of paper and throw it in the burning effigy. According to beliefs, doing so ensures liberty from all past troubles, sins, and mistakes, as well as bad luck.

Evidently, people build full-size effigies of themselves, dress them up in clothes from the year, and burn them in order to wish away the craptastic things that happened. There's even a business for making small versions of effigies that are safe to burn on a balcony or in city spaces, so I'm probably going to go this route. I had some clothes I was going to donate that I don't wear or don't fit, so perhaps I'll make a little Chavi out of newspaper and dress her up 2011 style. 

Do you have any particularly interesting traditions for the Gregorian New Year? 

Well, I Guess it Was Good ...

To you, me, and the entire Jewish blogosphere. Let's drink to 2011 (and the rest of 5771, of course).

It's weird being Jewish. I don't mean that in the general sense (although sometimes it really is weird, like when you're waving that gigantic lemon and those twigs around), but in the sense that New Years is upon us and a whole lotta Jews everywhere are shutting down for Shabbat, not New Years. There will be no parties, and I'm sure plenty will go to bed before the ball drops or the clock strikes 12 (although I'm guessing a lot of people do that anyway). Booze might be had, and an abundance of food surely will be consumed, but that's just what Shabbat is about, right? Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow will come Y2K.

I actually didn't realize that New Years fell on Shabbat this year until last week, and I wasn't as depressed as I'd thought. I mean, my family had a very specific New Years plan when I was growing up. Mom would cut up various meats and cheeses, she'd make cheeseball (not the kind you're thinking), various dips, and we'd sit around noshing for a few hours on what we liked to call "Picnic" food. My mom would make the kids a non-alcoholic Pina Colada and my dad an alcoholic Margarita (the only alcohol he'd consume all year). We'd eat, watch the ball drop, then go to bed. That was our tradition since, well, forever. When I started dating Tuvia, I opted to hold on to bits of this tradition but making the Pina Colada alcoholic and choosing either meat or cheese as the cuisine of choice. Last year we did some cheese and crackers with veggies and dips, as well as chips and dip. It was really great, and it connected me to that childhood event that so defined New Years for me. And Tuvia was more than happy to play along.

This year, however, what to do? We can't run the blender on Shabbat, and by the time we eat (after all, Shabbat starts around 4:30) and try to bide some time, we'll be tired by 9 p.m. Will it be worth it to stay up until midnight not watching the mayhem on television? Not seeing the ball drop? I mean, Snookie of Jersey Shore fame will be going down in a ball, too! This is life-altering stuff, folks. And it will all take place behind the darkened screens of hundreds of televisions while Jewish families get their Shabbat on.

It seems stupid. Maybe it's not such a big deal. But isn't it? There are four New Years for Jews, and one of them is coming up -- Tu b'Shevat, aka the Jewish arbor day -- on January 20, 2011. But it's not a ball dropping, Pina Colada drinking kind of holiday. It's a "respect the trees" kind of holiday. I get that. But I can't help but feel like I'm missing out not watching the gaudy experience of Times Squarers every where.

But I shouldn't complain. 2010 saw a lot of really amazing things for me for which I've already belabored the points. What I didn't mention, however, is how incredibly well-read this blog has become, and that, for me, is a huge blessing. The nearly 14,000 page views a month (my eyes are popping out of my head right now) doesn't get me anything in revenue, but it does bring me a lot of interesting things to think about and write about, and it does suggest tiny little hugs at the rate of about 500 views a day (except on Shabbat, of course, you guys are serious). And, you have to remember, the goal of this blog is not money-making: It's people making. The goal here, is to light a fire under all the souls I can. And this year has done that. My most read and commented-on posts have all been written this year, 2010. (Check out the list over there on the right column.)

I never thought this blog would become as respected as y'all think it is, and it's a huge compliment to me. I wanted this blog to be a place of truth, surprise, and story-telling. I wanted my readers to see that I'm a real person, saying real things, expressing real emotions about real events in my life that mean something to me. The motto, I suppose, of this blog, is that "I cannot tell a lie -- to a fault." Sometimes that might be good, sometimes it might be bad, but for better or worse, it's me.

So thank you all, for an amazing, explosive 2010. I only hope 2011 brings more awesomeness and what you want to see and hear from me. And, of course, might 5771 continue to be as stellar as it has been all along. I hope to resurrect some old topics from 2006-2009 that y'all might have missed out on, but those things are so much about who I am now. I also hope to tell more stories about how I got to where I am and how I even came to Judaism in the first place. It didn't all happen in a vacuum!

And with that, I say, happy (Gregorian) New Year, everyone. Eat, drink, and be oh-so-merry!

5769 + 2009

Live from the desert of Judea, I give you the most awesome Birthright group ever, including the bus driver -- Mashiach -- in the front there. It is with this photo that I say HAPPY NEW YEAR as 5769 is now joined by 2009.

I demand a year of peace, progress, and peaceful progress. Shanah tovah!

Hear ye hear ye, 2008.

It's now 2008 where I am. Half the world has been here already, and that's okay. I can hear shouting and cheering from my little studio apartment here in Chicago, where I chose to spend the New Year watching television, crocheting, and soaking in the path up until about 5 minutes ago. So we all get a little reflective post, right? Well, I rang in the year not watching the ball drop but listening to Hellogoodbye, which is sort of appropriate, wouldn't you say?

2007 wasn't a bad year for me, really. In fact, it was a really great year, because I figured out a lot about myself and who I want to be -- and perhaps more importantly, who I do not want to be. I made some serious life and career decisions, not to mention moving half-way across the country from Washington to Chicago. I got involved in a stellar project that is sparking personal growth (Jewsbychoice.org) and became more dedicated to this blog, my project begun nearly two years ago. I've grown Jewishly, grown spiritually, grown emotionally and definitely grown mentally. I'm still a nitpicky editor who loathes the fact that this paragraph (and that first sentence in the paragraph) began with a number and not words. I still remove the commas in sentences where the fragment after "and" does not make a complete sentence. I'm still me, and that's what's good about the new year. And G-d help me, I still use the serial comma.

Some things will never change.

So my hopes for 2008 are that it will be a year where I really get back to me, where I keep working on becoming who I was meant to be. I'm not going to stop or settle or change my mind this year, I'm going to get back to school and start on the path that will lead me to self-fulfillment in so very many ways.

Oh, and as for that banner up there, I just wanted to remind everyone that Google will own 2008. Be prepared!

So to you friends (and the occasional foe), be well, and may your 2008 (and the rest of 5768) be a blessing filled with light, reflection, and peace.

Shalom!

May you be inscribed in the book of life.

It is said that not fasting on Yom Kippur is better than fasting without purpose. (The fast is introduced in Leviticus, as we are told to afflict our souls and practice "self denial.") It is on Yom Kippur that even most secular Jews take part in services and fasting -- but what is the meaning of such a fast for the secular Jew? On that note, what is the meaning of the fast for a practicing Jew? Is it to suffer? To wilt and wither for but a day? The haftarah (from Isaiah) for Yom Kippur reads:

They say: "Why is it that we have fasted, and You don't see our suffering?
We press down our egoes ... but You don't pay attention!"

Look! On the very day you fast you keep scrabbling for wealth;
On the very day you fast you keep oppressing all your workers.

Look! You fast in strife and contention.
You strike with a wicked fist.

You are not fasting today in such a way
As to make your voices heard on high.

Is that the kind of fast that I desire?
Is that really a day for people to "press down their egoes"?

Am I commanding you to droop your heads like bulrushe
And lie around in sackcloth and ashes?

Is that what you call a fast day,
The kind of day that the God of the Burning Bush would wish?

No!

This is the kind of fast that I desire:

Unlock the shackles put on by wicked power!
Untie the ropes of the yoke!
Let the oppressed go free,
And break off every yoke!

Share your bread with the hungry. Bring the poor, the outcasts, to your house.
When you see them naked, clothe them;
And from your own flesh and blood don't hide yourself.

Then your light will burst through like the dawn;
Then when you need healing it will spring up quickly;
Then your own righteousness will march ahead to guard you.
And a radiance from Adonai will reach out behind to guard you.
Then, when you cry out, Adonai will answer;
Then, when you call. God will say: "Here I am!"

So then, it is not suffering that this day entails. Physical starvation is merely a path to open up the mind and soul. The fast is not a black fast as on Tisha B'Av where we mourn the great tragedies of the past, but a white fast. While on many fasts we afflict the body while fasting, it is on Yom Kippur that we afflict the SOUL. It's sort of solemn, but we greet one another with gemar chatimah tovah -- tidings to be inscribed in the book of life for good. The goals are light, teshuvah, reconciliation.

I can understand perhaps why Yom Kippur is so widely practiced among secular Jews. It is said that 95 percent of Israelis fast on this day. I just have to wonder whether it's really SPENT the way it's meant to be spent. That goes for secular Jews and religious Jews, really. It seems that for many, going to synagogue on the High Holidays is this forced requirement. It's just expected. That's what makes me want to avoid shul on the High Holidays, despite the absolute importance of the days. I'd rather be surrounded by 10 people who genuinely soul search than hundreds who are there because it's just what we do. On that note, why don't more Jews really dedicate themselves to understanding the day, it's meanings and gleanings? I find myself ever more frustrated as the days go on here in Chicago at my super large synagogue. I miss my small community. More importantly, I miss knowing that people care; that it's more than just going through the motions. But I will be in synagogue tonight and tomorrow, thinking of the transgressions of all of humanity, not just myself, and hoping that even those whose hearts are not there, are not present, and I will think on them.

I had a chance this year to ask forgiveness from someone who I had hurt so very deeply more than a year ago, but that whom I hadn't been able to ask for forgiveness prior to last Yom Kippur. The pain carried on through this past year, so I felt it was sufficient to ask, and I am glad that I did. I can't express how light I felt when he said he forgave me. It's as if all the sins -- big and small -- are transformed, only through that one granting forgiveness. Now, and perhaps for the next year and beyond, I must work on forgiving myself. Is it wrong to go into the Yom Kippur fast having a continued heavy heart? Forgiving oneself is perhaps harder than asking forgiveness from those that have been wronged -- and this I have learned, and continue to combat.

Shanah tovah tikatev v'taihatem!

שנה טובה!

Yes, it's the new year. I have a lot to say about services last night at my local synagogue (which we joined, largely so that we could get High Holiday tickets and wouldn't have to pay 200-400 bucks a pop), and a lot to say about why it caused me not to go to services this morning.

Stay tuned. And may your new year be blessed and filled with all of the sweet things that life has to offer, and may every day that you live be holy and healthy!