It's a new Hebrew month!
For those who don't know, Jews follow a whole separate calendar based on the lunar cycle, with 12 distinct months in the year (like Gregorian, except we're in the year 5783). I say distinct, because each month has its own holidays and theme, and therefore its own unique energy. Each first day of the new moon/Hebrew month is called Rosh Chodesh ("Head of the Month"), and it's a special day to contemplate the theme of the month and how it relates to your own personal life. There's even distinct prayers to say on this day!
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Any Ramy fans in the house? I want to talk about Season 3, which premiered on Hulu September 30. What Vanity Fair calls a joyfully miserable comedy follows an Egyptian American on his spiritual journey to become a better Muslim, but keeps slipping up.
I'm talking about this show because of the way Ramy Youssef, the star and writer of the show, portrays Jews in the latest season. I was going to write about Sukkot this week, but Kanye West had other plans for me...
By now, you must have heard about Kanye West's antisemitic tweet about going "death con 3" on Jewish people, and his Tucker Carlson antisemitic rant. In summary, he promoted Jew hatred to his following of 30mil people (double the amount of Jews in the world), Jamie Lee Curtis got weepy, Bella Hadid's birthday was ruined, white supremacists cheered him on, and his company was dropped by JPMorgan Chase. What a week. I don't want to give him any more attention. I'm writing about this because I want to use this as a platform to talk about the importance of calling out antisemitism. Here in NYC, I usually go to my Modern Orthodox shul. Why MoOrth when I label myself as reform? That's for a different blog post. Also, I just made up MoOrth - sounds like an abbreviation for a birth control pill! But sometimes I dabble in other shuls. And then regret it.
This Tuesday night/Wednesday was Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar where we fast and atone for our sins. It's a pretty serious holiday. This year, I went to two services that couldn't have been more different from each other.
In 2022 I also began this blog, because as you can see, I have a collection of Jewish experiences spanning 20 years which I've been soaking up like a Jewish sponge. That should have been the name of this blog: The Jewish Sponge. My Jewish circles are many a Venn diagram - the Olympics logo if you will - and I've been at the center of them all, whether I planned to be there or not: the far-left, the far-right, the Zionist, the spiritual, the Orthodox, the self-loathing, the self-loving, the Israeli, the Indian, the ex-Hasidics. Once I even found myself at Chabad headquarters on Simchat Torah - talk about losing and finding yourself again! Anyway, there's always more self-exploring to do. I hope you enjoy reading about it as much as I enjoy writing about it. |
AuthorMiranda documents her Great Jewish Journey. ArchivesCategories |