Inscribed in the Book of Happiness

Yesterday was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year.  (Today might be also; depends on how you keep track.)  Yelena & I decided not to go to services this year.  I know, surprising, right?  This from the guy who wears a kippah, keeps kosher, and blesses God three times a day?  Allow me to explain.

 Our congregation is Mission Minyan.  It's not even a congregation by most standards; they have no building and no rabbi.  (Well, there is a rabbi who shows up, but he's not "the Rabbi.")  So they call themselves a "minyan," which loosely translates to "prayer group."  But Yelena & I are madly in love with MM; it's got the same warmth, spirit, and sense of unadulterated joy that we experienced in college at Hillel.  We spent years looking for a congregation that has those things.  There are a good half dozen temples in San Francisco, we were even members of one for a couple years, but none ever compared to what we had at Hillel.  Until we found Mission Minyan.

Yes, Mission Minyan does High Holiday services.  No, they don't have childcare.  And Nathan is way too young to sit still for a four hour service.  So, we could do what we usually do for Friday evening services: take him into the next room and try to keep him quiet.  But that's not terribly fun for him, and it's not fun for us either.  The new year is supposed to be about communing with God, not resenting your small child.

The solution: We took the day off as a family and went to Tilden Park in Berkeley.  We had a picnic lunch (purchased at Berkeley Bowl) and then went down to the lake and held our own tashlik ceremony, then blew the shofar.  My sister Sarah joined us, and she recited the shofar calls for me.  After that we bent to Nathan's desires and went to the petting zoo, where Nathan got to feed the animals (using celery from our local organic box).  The day was cooler than expected, and high fog rolled into Wildcat Canyon while we were at the park.  As we got into the car to leave, the wind blew golden leaves down around our car.  It was the most spiritual, most meaningful Rosh Hashanah I've had in a long time.

Do I think there's a place for the traditional prayer service?  Of course.  I can't wait until Nathan is old enough to sit through a real service.  But in the mean time, we've created our own ceremony that's just as meaningful for us.  I hope we do it again next year.

On our way home, we passed by UC Berkeley and witnessed a robbery in progress: a girl got her phone stolen.  We stopped and helped her out.  I called 911 and then gave a report to the officers.  The poor girl had been on her way to a chemistry midterm.  By the time we left, the cops still hadn't found the suspects, but I gave them my information in case they need me for anything else.  I feel bad for the girl, but I'm glad I stopped to help.  Prayer is a mitzvah, but acts of kindness are an even bigger mitzvah.  There's nothing I'd rather do on Rosh Hashanah.

When we got home, we ate apples & honey, and then I finished patching a Drupal module.  This is part of my effort to increase my qualifications as a web developer.  Turns out this stuff is hard; not only are Drupal modules written in PHP, but to edit an admin page you need to use the Drupal forms API.  Uploading a file has its own quirks, too.  Not to mention that I was editing someone else's module, so I had to learn how they did things first.  A month ago I didn't even know PHP.  (Or the Drupal forms api, or javascript, or python for that matter.)  I finished it at 2 am, and submitted the patch this morning (after getting Nathan ready for daycare).

What better way to start the new year?

PS: I just noticed that the font I use on this website uses an old-fashioned ampersand which looks like the original Roman "et:" &.  XD