Day 42. Sweet Year

Technically I shouldn’t be sitting here, blogging right now.  I should be in synagogue, because it’s Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year (now 5773).  The holiday started last night, at sunset, and it ends tomorrow evening, at nightfall.

I’m home by choice.

While I am spiritual (much more so since my trip to India), I am not particularly ‘religious’.  I never have been.  I am not an ‘observant Jew’ and don’t therefore, follow the laws, like keeping kosher, for example.  It is, in fact, the ‘laws’ that have always been the issue for me.  I am fine with ‘traditions’, but have a problem accepting that a set of restrictions and obligations must be observed, even if the reasons for them are no longer relevant.

So, to my mind, for me to go to synagogue one time during the entire year is hypocritical.  So here I am, at home.

When I was little my parents, who were not religious either, did give me a chance to make up my own mind.  They joined a synagogue and took me to the High Holiday (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) services for several years; until I said I didn’t want to go any more, actually.  They asked me if I wanted to go to the regular Saturday services.  They told me that I could go to