Shabbat

I've gotten increasingly nonreligious in the past few years. The more I read and the more I see the less the dogma and rituals make sense to me. Too many rules for too many strange reasons. There is also the smug attitude of religious folk that seems to say "I'm right and you're wrong".

Judaism does bring one thing to the table that I find very attractive; the idea of a day of rest. The Ten Commandments say "Honor the Sabbath and keep it holy" but Judaism has interpreted that to mean a day of rest. Now, of course, the Orthodox have taken that and made it a burden by the number of things that are prohibited and the torture that families have to go through to prepare for it. In our home we try to simplify it; no going to work, no homework, no radio, no computer, no shopping. We insist that everyone be home for a festive Friday night dinner complete with candles, challah, wine, and tablecloth. We allow some things that more traditional folks would frown on. We often watch a movie on Friday night, we'll use the phone and we'll travel to visit friends and relatives.

On Saturday mornings I'll sometimes go to synagogue. I enjoy the Torah reading but little else in the service. I find the repetitive nature of the service very annoying and the more I start translating the less I participate.

Yesterday, was a near perfect Shabbat. I got to sleep in and have a leisurely breakfast. I read the weekend newspaper and took a long walk through a part of town that I had never been through. In the late afternoon I even got to take a nap. In the evening we rented a move, Pumpkin which I wouldn't recommend. It was about a sonority girl who gets paired up with a guy for the Challenged Games and falls in love with him. Not a bad premise but the movie couldn't decide whether to be straight or satire.