A sweet New Year to all!

This past weekend was Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.

Here in North Carolina my celebration of Rosh Hashana has been quite different than the way I celebrated for most of my life. I never missed holiday services, on both days, we walked to temple, never driving, spending the remainder of the days at home with family. Having fun, lots of laughs and great food.

While living in NC, my holidays have been vastly different. One year I did actually get to enjoy dinner with some friends. My daughter was about 7 months old, so it's been that long since I actually *celebrated.* We enjoyed ourselves, and I got to have a little taste of a Southern holiday. My hubby wasn't at dinner with us, he may have been away on business ..? So it was weird for me, celebrating with no family around.

I couldn't begin to remember what we did last year, but this year I decided that I wanted to go to services. Perhaps I was feeling somewhat spiritual, perhaps I just wanted to connect to my heritage? I don't know what it was, exactly, but I wanted to find a place to go to feel like I was observing the holiday, at least in some way.
So I went to the reform services at Duke University. And there they were, the Jews of NC! I would say that there were about 90 people attending, not counting those attending the conservative service upstairs in the sanctuary. It was quite unusual, and I felt kind of old, being that most of those in attendance were students at the school, but hey, I was there, and that was what mattered most.

Anyway, the service was pretty nice, I was able to follow along as most of it was in English, and I don't read Hebrew, so I felt comfortable and at ease. And then, uhm, there was a guitar. Now, if you're not familiar with temples in NYC, there are usually NOT guitars in the building, let alone played during the service. But there was one. The singer had a really pretty voice, and she sang the prayers beautifully, but I couldn't help but smile thinking of my father and brother. They would have been laughing. It was unusual to me, and yet, I tried to participate anyway, just to remain a part of the experience.

We were supposed to go to an apples, honey and challah play date on Saturday afternoon, but my daughter has been sick all week, and on Saturday she was still pretty goopy. So we missed out on that, but at least I had gone to service, and felt like I had been an observant Jew. But there was something missing ... something I NEEDED. Something to help me feel closer to home. And I kind of got that, but I'll write about it tomorrow! Sorry ... I almost NEVER tease, but I'm tired, so I've decided to stop for tonight. L'Shana Tova!

Note: I found this image on Photobucket and am trying to track down who to give credit to for creating it.

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