The No-More-School Blues

You know how, when you were a kid, you couldn’t wait for the end of the last day of school? How that last day you could almost taste the summer as the sun stretched through the classroom windows? That moment of pure joy when the bell sounded and you were done with class for months? That moment that looked kind of like this?

That didn’t happen after our last “Exploring Judaism” class. Instead, there were tears. 

Israeli Couscous Summertime Salad

Ahhhh, summer!

I never do this–please forgive me–but I need to take a minute. Between the recent trip to California, a doozy of a week at work, and an imminent week-long vacation to the above-pictured Cape Cod (yay!), I’ve got a lot to take care of right now.

I know. Excuses, excuses. I’m not one to normally make them.

The Bat Mitzvah of My Dreams

When Steve became a bar mitzvah, he had a fever of 102 and a sore throat. After he deliriously gave his d’var Torah, hugged his family, and danced awkwardly with his fellow 13-year-old classmates, he went home to bed.

Exhausted and nauseous he lay there, too sick to move.  When his older sister barged into his room and announced that she was going to open all of the presents he had received for his bar mitzvah, he couldn’t muster a fight. He could only watch, through glassy eyes, as she tore open the wrapping paper and flung his presents on the floor.

Oh, The (Sacrificial) Things We Do For Love

Guest post! This week, Steve is guest blogging here on Convert Confidential.  It was also his turn  to give a D’var Torah in our “Exploring Judaism” class.  Trust me, you’ll want to read on.  

Without further ado, here’s Steve… 

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I have given two D’var Torahs (or is it D’vars Torah?) in my life, but I have only written one.

Speaking of Moses

This week in ‘Jew School’ it was my turn to give a d’var Torah on the week’s Torah portion.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had to make a formal presentation to a group of people. Though in recent years I’ve weathered job interviews, meetings with high-level administrators at the universities I’ve worked at, visits with board members, and fundraising-asks with alumni, the last time I can remember practicing my public speaking before a large group of people was back in college.

Haman’s Hats and the Quarter-Life Crisis

I didn’t always love my life in San Francisco. There was a period of time when I lived there and thought that I was never going to adjust, never going to “make it” in the Bay Area or in adulthood or otherwise. There was a period of time when I lived there that I wondered, like Joan Didion in “Goodbye to All That,” where is the schoolgirl who used to be me.

I am talking here about a period of time–about two years into the five years I spent in San Francisco– when things weren’t going so well for me. I had quit the first job I’d taken out of college in order to start another job, which I thought would be more in-line with my life’s goals, whatever they were. Big mistake. 

Shabbat Shalom (Hey!): A Real-Life Story

When Steve and I were first seeing each other, I helped him break Shabbat.

On cold December Fridays, while he was home on break from college, Steve and I invariably wanted to meet up. I’d make the three-mile drive down Commonwealth Avenue to Steve’s neighborhood, park about a block away from his parent’s house, and shut the car off.  There was once a time that I hadn’t turned off the car (I’d just sat there idling, listening to the radio), and a police car pulled up next to me to ask if everything was OK, so from then on, I sat in a cold parked car. (Have I mentioned that Newton is one of the safest cities in America?)