Lacking Something...

I have been a very bad blogger.Beyond being busy with Patheos work and my personal thesis for my Masters, there have been a couple other things going on. This year the Omer was particularly poignant. The Omer is a time when you should be reflecting on your life and working on personal growth but amidst that, I was asked to pray the section Resh of the 119 Psalm. Long story short, when someone is sick you read Psalm 119 and since it is so long, you read the letters that correspond to their Hebrew name. Resh goes like this -

קנג רְאֵה-עָנְיִי וְחַלְּצֵנִי:    כִּי-תוֹרָתְךָ, לֹא  שָׁכָחְתִּי.	153 RESH. O see mine affliction, and rescue me; for I do not forget Your law.
קנד רִיבָה רִיבִי, וּגְאָלֵנִי;    לְאִמְרָתְךָ חַיֵּנִי.	154 Plead Thou my cause, and redeem me; quicken me according to Your word.
קנה רָחוֹק מֵרְשָׁעִים יְשׁוּעָה:    כִּי חֻקֶּיךָ, לֹא  דָרָשׁוּ.	155 Salvation is far from the wicked; for they seek not Your statutes.
קנו רַחֲמֶיךָ רַבִּים יְהוָה;    כְּמִשְׁפָּטֶיךָ חַיֵּנִי.	156 Great are Your compassions, O LORD; quicken me as is Your will.
קנז רַבִּים, רֹדְפַי וְצָרָי;    מֵעֵדְו‍ֹתֶיךָ, לֹא נָטִיתִי.	157 Many are my persecutors and mine adversaries; yet have I not turned aside from You.
קנח רָאִיתִי בֹגְדִים, וָאֶתְקוֹטָטָה--    אֲשֶׁר אִמְרָתְךָ,  לֹא שָׁמָרוּ.	158 I beheld them that were faithless, and strove with them; because they observed not Your word.
קנט רְאֵה, כִּי-פִקּוּדֶיךָ אָהָבְתִּי;    יְהוָה, כְּחַסְדְּךָ  חַיֵּנִי.	159 O see how I love Your precepts; quicken me, O LORD, according to Your loving-kindness.
קס רֹאשׁ-דְּבָרְךָ אֱמֶת;    וּלְעוֹלָם, כָּל-מִשְׁפַּט  צִדְקֶךָ.	160 The beginning of Your word is truth; and all Your righteous ordinance endure for ever.

So every night for 40 days, during my 49 day Omer, I prayed this psalm with a woman named Abbie in my mind. I don't know Abbie but her case has been well publicized of late. After undergoing fertility treatments to finally have children, the hospital screwed up and nicked her. She lost so much blood and is now a "vegetable." Her "husband" divorced her and took her triplets and will not allow her to see them.So I am davvening about myself and I am davvening about Abbie... and I realized any of us could be Abbie. It is so silly to say and I know everyone says it when something like this happens but we have to remember that every day is special. Every time I hug my dearest friend's 5 little girls, every time my brother and I go to the theatre, every time my dad calls me just because he is thinking about me. Those moments are precious.I have many, many, many friends who are pregnant right now, a few getting married and someone asked me, "Isn't it hard to be single and see your friend's finding happiness in relationships?" The thought hadn't occurred to me. Whether it is a friend I saw yesterday or I haven't seen for 10 years, I am genuinely thrilled for them and I love living it with them on Facebook or their blogs.Life is too short and those moments too precious to spend all your time being angry, sad, disappointed, or mad. So I had my Omer hibernation... and I will have my thesis hibernation for a while this summer (7 weeks to research and write... hair pulling begins... now!) but I will try to remember to enjoy something every day.Let me share with you what I am enjoying this week. Rashi's Daughters. If you haven't read this series, I highly recommend it. I am so enjoying learning Talmud while I read it, it has even changed the way I am approaching some of my education. It is a series to savor.I hope you find your enjoyment this week.P.S. Here's my everyday enjoyment! My beautiful faux nieces.

Who couldn't smile with these beauties in their life!

Pick Your Testament, It’s A Fact.

I was initially struck by the URL. RabbiDov.com/HateIsraelWeek... HATE ISRAEL WEEK?

What is the world is Hate Israel Week? As I read, the good Rabbi made some insightful points, many similar to my father's arguments.
As it turns out, at UCI around May 5th of every year, the Muslim Student Union hosts Hate Israel Week.

Wow.

I know it is kinda the popular thing right now... talking about Israel as the occupiers and vilifying Israelis. But the reality is that it was not so long ago that Israel was hailed as an incredible country and garnered support from most of the world.

What I find so remarkable is the factual history that is always ignored. The fact that Israel is less than one percent of the region. That there are (and I quote from the article) "There are some 23 independent Arab Muslim countries.  There is only one Jewish country.  There are two countries for people of Korean descent. Two countries for people of Chinese descent.  A proud nation for people of Japanese descent. Even Mongolians have two countries: Inner and Outer." But Jews are not afforded that right? Even though we were in Israel before Islam was a twinkle in Muhammad's eye?

Despite the fact that we pray towards Jerusalem but all other conquerors refrained from seeing the importance of Jerusalem before this.

Despite the fact that Israel really does afford citizens of Israel (Jewish, Christian or Muslim) the same rights and even allows the people who sneak across the border to kill Israelis to have access to Israeli public services (medical, etc). But sometimes that border closes because when they let people in, those people come in to only kill innocent civilians. Or sneak across and capture soldiers. If Canadians were launching rockets into Milwaukee, wouldn't we close some borders too?

And despite the fact that the Palestinian refugee problem was caused by the Muslim states refusal to absorb their own people, as is the typical response when faced with the refugees of war...

Israel is vilified. It bothers me when people don't learn both sides of the history. I am fully sympathetic to the want and need of the Palestinians. I feel the pain of living under these horrible leaders, of thinking they don't have options, of wanting space of their own. But until bombs stop falling and suicide bombers stop being recruited and the Palestinian leadership stops saying "All or nothing, run the Jews into the sea." There can't be peace.

One of the most shocking things I have ever seen, with my own eyes, mind you, is a school book from Gaza and the West Bank... the math problem said, "If you have 5 Jews and you kill 3 of them, how many are left to kill?" Or the Sesame Street like TV show where the little girls and boys talk about becoming martyrs. That is not right.

Please, read this - A Few Thoughts to Ponder on the Occasion of the Muslim Students Union Annual "Hate Israel Week" at UCI

Social Media Experterie…

Yeah, I know that isn't a word. :)

I have been working on my Capstone proposal for the culmination of my Master's degree lately. It is do super soon... and I am just about to wrap up the proposal process. (Now I just have to cut 1000 words... yeah, I'm wordy, we know that right?)

I came across this article on Twitter. I was initially attracted to it because I am a HUGE Sarah Evans fan (I started following her years ago and was very impressed by her ideas). But the other really interesting thing about this article was that I was writing about this very topic.

Too many people calling themselves Social Media _____ (insert platitude here) - guru? expert? ideologue? evangelist?

Fact of the matter is... we are all still trying to figure out the best ways to use social media and inbound marketing. You can have it all figured out and then Myspace becomes "dorky" and Facebook is the new hot thing. Social media and inbound marketing is fluid and ever changing. None of us can really call ourselves experts yet... especially people who were tapped to be the social media point person BECAUSE they have a Facebook profile. Now, nothing against those people (because I was one of them and innovated SM for my organization because I was the only one familiar with it) but it take more than that to understand SM and how to use it.

In completing my Masters in PR & Marketing, one thing that surprised me was job definitions of PR people... one book said 50% of our job is research. There is an impression that you aren't working if you aren't typing press releases or making phone calls, the reality is that we must spend time on the internet and on these tools to innovate.

Here is the article that I was talking about - Is your social media expert really an expert?

I love their bullets... what do you think? My SM professor liked #24 particularly...

The Space In-between…

I have a blog to write... it's about intermarriage and the effect on kids and I interviewed a friend for it but really what's on my mind right now is this...

I live in a space in-between too many worlds.

Not good enough or well bred enough for this one.

Unsatisfied with that one.

Randomly falling into this or that.

UGH!

Here's the problem, in a nutshell...

I didn't grow up an Orthodox Jew. I grew up in a family full of illustrious and talented Reform Jewish rabbis. Judaism was always my identity, my priority. But I never felt comfortable in the Reform movement. I mean, it didn't help that some of the adult leaders and rabbis were rude and mean and hurtful to me and my family for the simple reason of us being different. We never quite fit in. My dad wore a kippah and tzitzit all the time, we davvened on Saturday mornings, we kept Kosher and shabbis... not really the typical image of a reform Jew.

In fact, I remember quite clearly my Junior year of high school, at a large national convention where my father mentioned he would be davvening one morning and offered to teach the kids how to lay tefillin. Now, this is a basic ritual of Judaism and these kids had never encountered it. Before he could even start showing them how, a "big-shot" rabbi in the movement came rushing in and said, "We don't do that, we are reform Jews." Yeah, what does that even mean? I thought being reform meant you got to choose... I guess educated decisions are out and lemming-ness is in. I was sorely hurt by the reform movement. So much so that I realized that was not the place for me and I left, never to return.

I went on the hunt and found Chabad... a place where I felt I fit in. I studied and made friends, I davvened, I dressed along their guidelines and I finally came to a point where I was "a part of the crew." By this point in my life, it is time to think about getting married. Well, I don't fit in with the reformies (as I, and I alone call them... made that up, not a pejorative... just a nickname) but I don't have enough Chassidic yichus (pedigree or family background) to marry a Chabanik!

Well and then there is the horse of a different color which is my secular life... it revolves solidly around Judaism and how I practice it but I work in a secular office, I have non-religious friends, I don't live in Crown Heights, people! But marrying someone who is a secular Jew will be hard (i.e. kashrut and a Jewish home is so important to me and all the laws and mitzvot, learning and studying together... tahras mishpacha) and you can forget marrying a non-Jew. I am open minded and I know many people believe in interfaith marriages but I don't. At least not for Jews. There has been too many times in our history where people tried to destroy us and we survived... for what? To marry a Christian and have a Christmas tree? To force your children (if their mother isn't Jewish) to have to deal with conversion and think about the future generations because you couldn't be bothered? Or maybe you just didn't think it was important.

I don't agree with the way it used to be... women as commodities, selling them for the best or adjoining land. But in one sense that had it right. The marriage wasn't just about that second of passion or a physical attraction, it was about building lives for future generations... and that is why I feel it is so vital to marry a Jew and teach my sons and daughters the same thing.

Building on our heritage for future generations, thinking about more than ourselves, realizing that sometimes we want things we don't need. You want that thing you saw advertised on tv but really, you know you will have a brief love affair with it and then it will sit on the floor of your closet, unused, unloved, and unsold in a garage sale 10 years later. Just because something (or someone) looks cool, doesn't mean that it is the right fit. The easiest way out isn't always the easiest in the end.

I don't explain this often (enough?) to friends or acquaintances and frankly they are shocked when I tell them about this rock and hard place I am sitting between.  They think I am silly for narrowing down my pool of available men but I know it is the right thing to do... no matter how hard it gets... no matter how many times I am turned down for being to this or not enough that.

My children will thank me one day.

National Day of (Christian only) Prayer?

What if the National Day of Prayer meant we actually came together as a country, despite our differences and prayed together? What if we lived in a country where a kid like me wasn't bullied for trying to participate with the Christian kids in the National Day of Prayer... because I think jesus was a nice Jewish kid who was misunderstood?

So I there has been a lot of conversation about the National Day of Prayer and all that hoopla. Officially, today is the "National Day of Prayer." Initially, sounds cool, right? It's like National Badge Day where all the Panhellenic Sororities get to show off their membership to the world...

Actually, maybe it is more like badge day than I initially thought. The National Day of Prayer, it turns out is pretty exclusive. Now on one hand I was a proponent because I felt it was cool, get everyone from every religion to pray for peace and safety and health on the same day. Maybe we can all realize we are the same, no matter what language we use to speak to G-d (Allah or God or Hashem etc...)

Uhm. But that is not the case.

I thought the judge who decided it was unconstitutional was kinda right but hey, here's nice idea for everyone, get them praying to whatever. I've heard many Jews say it's not a day for us, their reasoning? We pray (or are supposed to) three times a day, one hundred prayers daily. Right we don't need to stop what we are doing to pray. But we can all come together, right?

Uhm. No. Guess not.

Maybe my idealistic brain was running away with my compassionate heart. Clearly, that is not what is happening here. The point is to exclude non-Christians. Just like that event in high school called "See You At The Pole." Remember that? One day a year they met at the flag pole to pray. Yeah, I made the mistake in my tiny, overly Christian and overly anti-Jewish town (where I went to high school) to try and join them for the praying at the pole. I was purposefully excluded from the circle and told I wasn't invited to participate... unless I accepted jesus. Cool. So pretty much National Day of Prayer, or at least as it is nationally organized, is just these kids grown up.

Their mission? (From their website) "The National Day of Prayer Task Force’s mission is to communicate with every individual the need for personal repentance and prayer, mobilizing the Christian community to intercede for America and its leadership in the seven centers of power: Government, Military, Media, Business, Education, Church and Family." 

Vision and Values? "In accordance with Biblical truth, the National Day of Prayer Task Force seeks to:

Foster unity within the Christian Church

Protect America’s Constitutional Freedoms to gather, worship, pray and speak freely.

Publicize and preserve America’s Christian heritage

Encourage and emphasize prayer, regardless of current issues and positions

Respect all people, regardless of denomination or creed

Be wise stewards of God’s resources and provision

Glorify the Lord in word and deed"

Now, they have to have an official statement about their "Judeo-Christian" values and that anyone can organize their own thing but this is how they organize. Well interesting. So this is the leading lobby for the National Day of Prayer. No wonder other people's views are being ignored. It is only their voices that are being heard. Guess it can get pretty confusing when you say, on your website, that you are the "Official Site" of the 59th Annual Observance of the National Day of Prayer.

So I get it, we pray everyday but wouldn't it be cool if we had a national voice too? And wouldn't it be cool if kids like me were allowed to join the prayer circle? And wouldn't it be cool if kids like me weren't asked to leave the lunchtime bible study at their public high schools because they are "confusing" the other kids and making it hard for them to learn the "truth?" (Yeah, that really happened... I guess 14 was too young to have interfaith conversations...)

Ah well... guess in my dream world.

A Guide to the Jewish Year… and the Jewish people

My friend posted this on Facebook and I thought... damn, that's true... well, sometimes! :)

A Guide to Jewish Holidays: Purim is for alcoholics.
Pesach is for obsessive compulsives.
Shavuot is for insomniacs.
Lag B'omer is for pyromaniacs unsatisfied with Hanukkah.
Tisha B'av is for depressives.
Rosh Hashana is for those obsessed over dying.
Yom Kippur is for anorexics.
Sukkot is for the homeless.
Simchat Torah is for those in the happy stages of bipolar…
And people wonder why Jews invented psychoanalysis.

Remember the Omer!

I really love the Omer... okay, rather, I have a love hate relationship with counting the Omer. I love the spiritual lift I get, but I sometimes get annoyed at one more thing to do before sleep... hence why I need to count the Omer nightly.

I use a wonderful book that asks you questions and gives you great thoughts for each day that relates to the sepherot (like the chakras). Here is their online version for week 5 - Meaningful Life. The book is called “Counting the Omer – A Spiritual Guide” by Rabbi Simon Jacobson.

Check it out!

(Originally posted at the Jewish Portal at Patheos)

Organizing Nerd Alert!

Okay, I must rant for a minute.

So my friend over at CasaCullen has gotten me all inspired to spruce up my wee home. I've enjoyed planning out many projects and (so far) executing a few.

One thing I always go round and round about is organizing my stuff... Shoes, sweaters, clothing, books, movies, etc.

And then I got an email from my heaven/hell... The Container Store.

I can spend hours there, picking out new storage ideas and then I finish, realize I will not spend $30 on a rack to organize my scarves and $25 on another lunch solution, put it away where I got it (because I worked in retail and that concept is seared in my brain) and walk quickly to the exit to prevent myself from coming up with another (costly) storage idea. I am fortunate to have a dear friend, Zeina, who has helped me see outside the (expensive) (but useful) (plastic) (storage) box. She always has great ideas on how to do things cheaper.

Anyway, back to the email. This email was aimed right at my weakest weakness... Shoes.

The headline was - SASSY Shoe Shoe Storage on SALE! Yeah. I knew I was in trouble from the minute I read it. I scanned the image and found the perfect solution for my shoes and in the milisecond it took me to click the image and get to the webpage, I said to myself (very fast) "Self, you KNOW its going to be like $8 per thingie and you KNOW how many shoes you have." Then I told myself not to be silly... it can't hurt to look.

Drop Front Shoe Boxes - regularly $6.99... on sale for $4.99... awesome. Cool. Give me... wait let me count... oh... roughly... 25 or so. WHAT?! Do we realize that comes out to $124.75 (I used a calculator, don't judge... I was a theatre major)!!! And why does this stuff have to be sold individually? What woman, in her right mind, only owns ONE pair of black heels (or brown, or silver, or red, or yellow... yes I said yellow)?

So yeah. I love them. They would be just perfect for my closet and mountain of shoes but I don't have $124.75 to throw around willy nilly on shoe solutions... So back to my Zeina I go... for an "on the budget" idea... and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Not kidding. She makes the best PB&J in the world. For reals.

Protesting with Prayer

A certain so called "church" group was in Denver last weekend. I am not going to mention their name because I do not believe in giving them free publicity to fuel their hate. I was going to go to their protest and all the counter-protests and I was going to video tape it and take pictures for Patheos. And I was going to write about the experience and the hate these people spread. I was really motivated to go and write about it.

Of the like 20 places they were going to protest, 15 of them were Jewish locations. They have some really horribly hateful things to say about Jews.

And then the day came that they were going to be here, the first day, and I thought, you know, it's rainy out and they were going to be all the way up north in Boulder and they weren't hitting too many Jewish groups that day, it was mostly high schools and churches and I was FAR south of there at work that day... and I was thinking, oh well, maybe I'll go tomorrow.

And I looked at the schedule for the next day and it was the beginning of the sabbath, it was Friday. I thought, I should go... but then I thought maybe I won't go, it's the sabbath. I'm not going to go before the sabbath and I have to work that day... maybe I just won't go.

And then I looked at their protest schedule for Saturday and it was pretty much exclusively Jewish organizations that they were protesting. Not just protesting but they were planning to be outside before Saturday morning services and during the service. While people were praying, they wanted to disrupt the prayer. And I thought to myself I should go, I should go, I should go and videotape it and see what's happening. And I then thought to myself, nah, you know, it's the sabbath and I don't like to work on my Shabbat and I don't like to videotape or use electronics on Shabbat.

Why am I going to put myself out and watch these people protest while people are praying?
Could the best protest that I could participate in be davvening, praying, myself?

And I never ended up making it to any of the protests or counter-protests, though I completely support the people who got out there a stood up for love and not hate. We have a really phenomenal group of people that got out there to all of these sites and stood up to these people and counter-protested their hate. But you know, I realized these people who are full of hatred don't deserve my energy or my thoughts or any sort of positive energy that I might exude or throw off of my being, that they would receive by them being in MY presence.

I can't say that we can totally ignore them because sometimes that just isn't right but I won't be writing about them beyond this blog entry and I certainly won't be mentioning their name.

But I will be praying that that their message of hate dies soon.

(Originally posted at the Jewish Portal at Patheos)

Masters Degree and Final Capstone

Hey all -

So I am in the depths of hell that is the research proposal for my Master's Capstone (kinda like a thesis).

My topic revolves around social media measurement. Currently, I am working on the proposal but once I get into the actual paper, I am hoping to reach into my digital network and get advice or opinions from you all.

Some of my twitter followers have expressed and interest in the process and so I will be blogging about it here. If you are interested in following my process, I will be tagging these posts with the tag - Capstone.

If you are not interested... well... sorry. ;) I promise to keep up my odd and varied posting.