Right now I'm back at my parents house, sitting in the backyard in a lawn chair and soaking up that fine, golden Californian sun. There is a glass of cold apple juice to my left. This weekend was my cousin Jordan's bar mitzvah, so my parents, cousin Aya and I all flew down to San Diego on Friday for the event.
On Saturday morning the parents and I had the honor of doing an aliyah, saying the prayer before and after the reading of the Torah, in front of the whole congregation. We watched some YouTube videos to practice, but it was still every man for himself up there. To be perfectly honest with all of you, I nailed that shit. And my parents were excellent back-up mumblers.
What gets me down about religion is the notion of God. I cannot and never have been able to wrap my head around the idea that there is a God. In fact, the idea has become rather repulsive to me. Flying home on Sunday I thought about it more up there in the clouds. All these songs and prayers sound so good to my ear when they are in Hebrew. I love the soulful tunes, they bring tears to my eyes, but once I read the translation it's all kaputt.
Praise God this and that. It freaks me out. I am more likely to subscribe to the kind of religion where there's a god for your soap dish, one for your garden, one for the rain and one of the laundry machine. While I wouldn't call myself a pagan, I do think it makes more sense after all.
Today I went back to my high school and talked to the well-behaved seniors about what I do in my job. They were sweet and much more mature than I expected. Very interested in how you kill rabbits and what you do to get the fur off. Is there a trophy for surviving 2 public speaking appearances in one week? If so, I deserve it.
No comments:
Post a Comment