Hi! It's me and I'm back. I know that it's been a while and the only excuse I have is that I've been kinda busy with my day job and my FUN job, which is acting. I'm choreographing a show and I've started rehearsals for a show that I am in, so I've been a gal on the go.
Anyway...
The Judaism class that I started in September is going very well and I'm learning quite a bit. And, guess what? I found out that I went to high school with the rabbi who teaches the class! I realized this when one day, before class, I recognized a woman who was walking past the classroom on her way to choir practice - turns out she was my 8th grade English teacher! The rabbi asked me where I went to school, and that's when we compared notes and realized that we went to the same high school. He graduated a year before I did but we had some of the same friends - we were even in a play together! Teeny tiny world, huh?
The class continues to be AWESOME. Besides learning about the expected, i.e., religious holidays, life events, etc., I'm learning a lot about Jewish history in regards to the Jewish Diaspora and Jews in Europe. For example, I did not know that King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella of Spain issued the Alhambra Decree on 31 March, 1492, which ordered that all Jews be expelled from Spain and its territories. Over 200,000 Jews were expelled and most fled to Turkey and Portugal. I was vaguely aware that Jews in the diaspora were known as either Ashkenazi or Sephardic Jews (probably because I'm a fan of Hank Azaria and he is a Sephardic Jew - thanks, Wikipedia.). I did not know that a yarmulke and a kippah were the same thing, but they are (they are both head coverings; yarmulke is Yiddish and kippah is Hebrew).
One class session discussed Jewish dietary restrictions. I am trying to practice this on the simplest level - no seafood and no pork, and no mixing of meat and dairy, which means no cheeseburgers (this is fine with me because I have never been a big fan of the cheeseburger). Any fish is kosher EXCEPT for swordfish - swordfish is treif (not kosher) because in order to be kosher, fish must have both scales and fins, and though while young, the swordfish has scales, it loses them later in life. I also learned that platypuses are treif, which is a good thing, because the platypus is my favorite monotreme and therefore is not in danger of being eaten by me if I find myself in dire straights in Australia or Tanzania. Whew!
I'm still attending services on Saturday mornings and staying after for Torah study (though as of next week, I'll be attending Friday night services because I have Saturday rehearsals from 10 - 4 ), which I really, really enjoy. I like that there is intellectual discussion about that week's Torah portion, how it may relate to a variety of things, religious and/or secular. I also like that multiple points of view are appreciated. The past few weeks, the discussions have been about readings from the book of Genesis, and while the stories themselves are familiar (the binding of Isaac, Rebekah at the well, the story of Lot), the discussions about them are fascinating. Example question: why do you think Isaac didn't think twice about letting himself be bound by his father for sacrifice? Why didn't Abraham balk at the idea of sacrificing his only son? I like it because it's OK to have an opinion and/or and idea about those questions from a humanitarian point of view. That's the point of Torah study - to study the text and the meaning behind the words.
So...my next personal project is Shabbat on Friday night at home. I'll let you know how that turns out.
Shalom ~
LL Cool J
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