A season of firsts
This high holiday season was new for me in many ways. Â It was my first away from my family, it was the first time I fasted without drinking water, and it was also the first time I didn’t go to services during the day on Yom Kippur. Â This last one, and a related concept I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, are what I want to talk about here.
As anyone who’s done it knows, praying is not a simple concept. Â It’s a big category within the religion (as in it encompasses a lot of practices and ideas), and there are a myriad of opinions about every single aspect of it. Â When, how, where, and why you should do it, and so on.
Like many Jews, I’ve always had a complicated relationship to prayer. Â I was raised religious, but without much connection to a synagogue. Â Although very nice, the shul in our town never excited us that much (I think I’ve talked about my struggles with this a bit in a previous post), and I’ve looked for other options for a long time. More »
