"Hoppy Pesach"

My place is clean, my chametz is sold, my matzah bought, what about you?

Ready or not Pesach is here!

Chag Sameach!!

Celebrating Chicago Style

Ok, so this week flew by. I cannot believe it was a weak ago that I was leaving on a jet plane for Chicago to celebrate my cousin Josh's Bar Mitzvah.

Sing it with me... "i'm leaving on a jet plane...."

I so love family celebrations that involve lots of family! I got to see Avi (big yay), Eric (big yay), and Andy (big yay).

And of course Ethan (yay again).

A celebration is not complete without some dancing. Aunt Suzanne can burn up the dance floor. (Eric can too).

Andy. RSIT. (Rock Star In Training).

Real men wear pink shades.

The Bar Mitzvah boy!

The five Strauss cousins: Lisa, Avi, Eric, Lori, Me.

What a great weekend to end a nice spring break, and now there are only 5 weeks of classes left. Um, wow.

Comfortable Where I Am

I am an observant Conservative Jew.

I feel like my experiences from grade school to this evening, in school, in college, in shul, everywhere have shaped who I am as a Jew. But, not just shaped also fortified my Jewish identity.

Being raised in Conservative home we celebrated shabbat weekly, went to shul weekly, celebrated holidays, went to shul on holidays. We studying Torah together, we lived Jewishly. As I was being socialized in other ways by how my family lived, I was also being socialized Jewishly.

However, at the same time another socialization was occurring, at school. I was very fortunate to go to a Jewish Day School. It had Modern Orthodox leadership but had students from all walks of Judaism: Chabbad to unaffiliated. There were times when what I may have been taught in my classroom was not exactly what my family believed or practiced. My family talked about this and I went along being firm in my Jewish beliefs. I was already proud of my egalitarian Judaism and practices that while I could learn about a more Orthodox approach, I knew how Conservative Judaism saw this practice and was able to respect others' views and continue in my practice.

Then I came to college. I learned about certain organizations who appealed to Jewish students who were less affiliated. I can see the goodness in these organizations teaching these students about Judaism, but I cannot accept what often occurs, from what I have seen. These organizations tend to affiliate with the Orthodox tradition. They teach the students according to their beliefs. These students, many of them who know no other way to practice, then seem to see that this way of being Jewish is the only way.

Please, understand I respect all Jews, of all denominations and practices. However, I lose a little respect when a Jew pushes their Judaism on another Jew as it being the only way to be Jewish. That is not being Jewish. NOPE, not at all.

I have plenty of friends who are Reform, or Modern Orthodox, Orthodox, and Reconstructionist. I respect their beliefs, and they respect my beliefs. That is great. That is how it should be. I can even talk about beliefs with these people, how we differ, how we are similar.

But there are times I encounter a person who meets me, and sees me standing in jeans, a shirt that may show my elbows, and they think that I do not know ANYTHING about Judaism. That is when I get annoyed. Respectfully annoyed. It is also when I start to drop casual hints that I do know what I am talking about Jewishly, in a polite respectful way. I try to show that there are many faces of knowledgeable Jews.

For many years I would say I wasn't an observant Jew and that I didn't dress tsniously. My mom spent years convincing me those were all lies! And now I agree, they were. I am an observant Jew. I follow many mitzvot and I strive to live in God's image. I do dress tsniosly. I make sure that I dress in a way that respects my body and shows others that I do. (Let's just say no short shorts and no midriff shirts in my closet!).

This may be one huge ramble, but I want to put it out there that I will never allow anyone to consider me to be a Jew of lesser value. I am the Jew I want to be. I am proud of how I am firm in my Jewish beliefs and that I work to have knowledge of my religion so that I can back up my beliefs with text. I am proud that I am so firm in my beliefs that when I encounter a situation like the one mentioned above I can recognize why I feel uncomfortable and I am so happy that my mother can support me and help me through frustrations like this.

Now on that note, I am going to planning the menu for shabbas and think about how I will juggle kashering my kitchen and studying for an exam in the same weekend!

I'd move to Australia, but....

I sorta feel like Alexander today..... and maybe I should go by middle name of Alexandra today....

It's jut been one of those days. Not massively awful, just a few too many icky things...

At one point this afternoon I was really ready to move to Australia....

What led me to have this urge? Well, it all began with my buying a new lightbulb. I was being very friendly to our planet and bought one of those fancy eco-friendly bulbs. Those ones that are great for the planet but contain some mercury which makes you handle them like an infant... Yeah, well, while standing on a chair trying to put this bulb into my pantry's light socket it slipped and went crashing down - and of course.... it shattered.

No good deed goes unpunished right? Yeah.... not easy to clean up, I managed. Could have been worse.... right?

Well, then while trying to do some laundry I had more icky experiences....I did the wash part no problem.... It was the dryer where I had issues. I went to go pick up my "dry" clothes and they were WET, not dry AT ALL.

All is well now, all is dry, and cleaned up.

And it's probably a good thing I am not moving to Australia, it's going to be winter there soon and here spring is on the horizon, so it has to get better, right? I hope so.

The Bell Lap

This is it....

The final lap....

6 weeks of class left.....

8 weeks until graduation!!!!!!!!

AHHHH!!!!!!!

This is nuts!

That is all.

Twas the night before spring break....

... and thoughts of amazement were running through my head.

How is it possible graduation is two months away? It seems like I began here just the other day!

My luggage is ready and waiting to go, home for a week to relax and lay low.

In the blink of an eye break will be threw, and I'll hit the books, I know what to do!

Time is flying! Happy spring break to me!