Old Interviews With Leonard Nimoy About Judaism

Trek Clippings has a wealth of old articles about Star Trek--if you're a fan, you'll want to read them all! But these two gems about Nimoy and his relationship with Judaism caught my eye:

In 1967's Banned in Boston Nimoy talks about the prejudices he faced growing up as one of the few Jewish kids in his Boston neighborhood.

And in another article from 1967, Nimoy talks about his Orthodox parents, plus his own thoughts about observance, prayer and raising kids in Judaism. I especially liked the way Nimoy described his mom's relationship with God--she would even ask God to make sure her kids remembered to brush their teeth!

My Mom's like that: she calls for divine aid in any and all situations. And she's a nice Catholic girl, not a Jew, so apparently this trait crosses religious boundaries. She passed that trait onto me, for which I'm grateful. It allows me to bitch, moan and plead with God about everything...

Enjoy the articles!

It's Candlelighting Already?

It's time to light the candles? But I'm still worn out from Yom Kippur. Heck, I think even God's still worn out from Yom Kippur. All those prayers--over and over again. (Why say something once when you can say it twenty times?)

Don't mistake me; Yom Kippur was powerful. Sort of the way a punch in the gut is powerful...it can shock you out of your own skin and force you to open up your eyes. It really is worthwhile to be in shul the whole day. Still, by the time we reached that last silent Amidah I was done. I just closed my eyes and said, "HaShem, you know the words..."

And now we're back to Shabbat...so there are even more prayers to come!

Of course, it'll be a partially observant Shabbat for me, as usual. I'll light the candles and have a Shabbat dinner and make it to shul tomorrow--but I doubt I'll lay off the computer or the phone tonight. But right now I'm ok with that. Sometimes observance is a matter of baby steps.

Shabbat Shalom!

L'Shanah Tovah!

Happy New Year, everyone!

May you be sealed for a good year!

Who Shall Live...

Thanks, Geoff, for pointing this out: an intense, vivid depiction of a prayer said during the High Holy Days--this will make you think about the words!

~Shabbat Shalom~

Shabbat Shalom all!

Facing the Big Issues

As we're coming up to the High Holy Days--a time that really forces you to think about the big issues, including death--I couldn't help but be struck by the words of Randy Pausch. The professor's 'Last Lecture' will be much on my mind over the Days of Awe:

I Have Tefillin!

Yes, I ordered Tefillin--they arrived today. To the best of my knowledge, there's only one other woman in my shul who wears Tefillin, but I figure she needs company. (Ok, she's perfectly content with company or without it, but thinking that she'd like company provides me with an extra motive.)

To be honest, I've known from the start that I wanted to wear Tefillin. I like the idea of literally binding parts of the Torah to my arm and between my eyes. I'm guessing that's a pretty effective way of staying mindful of the Torah!

I'll be learning how to wear the Tefillin at the Sunday Minyan. In fact, I'll be learning along with the Hebrew School kids =P

We'll see how it goes...

~Shabbat Shalom~

Wow--a week has gone by since my last post here! I think that means it's time to slow down and take a deep breath...ok, that felt good.

Shabbat Shalom, y'all!




~Rose

~Shabbat Shalom~

I'm having a peaceful Shabbat dinner at home tonight. Then I'll try to lay off the computer at least a bit in honor of the Sabbath!

Actually, I'll have to. I'll be at shul tomorrow and then I'm getting together with a group of friends to play board games. So that'll force me not to spend too much time on line...

~Rose

~Reflections on Tisha B'Av and 9/11~

I have to admit that I had trouble feeling despair and horror at the destruction of the Temple this past Tisha B'Av. Don't mistake me: of course I mourned for the loss of life. And I understand that the destruction of the Temple (both the first and the second) must have seemed like a calamity. Few would have guessed, perhaps, that Judaism would not only survive but flourish.

The thing is, I have a hard time connecting to the whole idea of Temple worship. The Temple, after all, was a place of animal sacrifice. I hate the notion of slaughtering some poor animal as an act of atonement. Look, I didn't embrace my Christian heritage in part because I didn't want some nice Jewish boy dying for my sins. I don't want an animal dying for them either! To be honest, I hate even reading the sections of the Torah that deal with animal sacrifice.

Post-Temple Judaism insists on prayers, repentance and acts of loving kindness as a means of atonement. And that makes a whole lot more sense to me.

But yesterday, as I remembered what 9/11 was like, something of the unspeakable horror of Tisha B'Av got through to me. On 9/11 our whole world seemed to collapse as we watched the towers go down--in my area, right from our windows.

I'm not trying to weigh these different tragedies against each other--there's no point in that. But in remembering how shocked and shaken and terrified I was as the towers disappeared in smoke and debris, I can guess something of what our ancestors felt when their enemies turned the Temple to rubble.

And I'll try to carry that memory into next Tisha B'Av...