Went to see Yours, Mine and Ours the other evening, when Seth was working late. Not as good as the original version but better than I expected from the reviews. A bit sappy but overall good/light fun. Watched the original Sunday afternoon while cleaning (threw out 3 bags of junk mail and useless other stuff -- Yeah me!).
The synagogue had a guest rabbi this week; he's been there before and the plan is to have him come (from NYC) once a month. I'm really hoping it all works out, as I really like his dvrei Torah. At the lunch afterwards, he pointed out that even Rashi, in his commentary on last week's parsha (weekly Torah portion) has no idea what one verse means or what we can learn from it. So (among other things) the rabbi drew the lesson from that that if even Rashi, possibly the greatest Torah scholar of all time, didn't understand everything, that we can plod along, with the goal of increasing our understanding, rather than expecting to know/understand everything at once (or even ever....)
Side note: A very different attitude from some places I've been before, where there might be lip service given to not understanding everything God does, but in reality people expected have everything clear anbd defined. In one case, I remember hearing a man who had been a Christian for a couple decades say that he wouldn't change any decision he'd made since becoming a Christian; I wondered if that meant that he hadn't grown at all since his initial awakening.........Not an attitude true of all Christians, I know, but way too common in the circles I found myself in.
A man we had known in OYM died late last week. Seth made arrangements to go out to Ohio for the funeral. I might have liked to go, but he didn't ask and the arrangements were basically made before I got home Friday night. Overall, probably better that I stayed home; it was a marathon trip, plus I got a fair bit done around the apartment on Sunday. Seth did get upset when I said to give the man's daughters A hug from me, as he has a hard time understanding how I can still care about the people I know from OYM even though I'm at a different place spiritually now.
In the midst of our discussion Saturday morning, he made an interesting comment -- that I've broken my commitment to OYM. Guess I didn't know that joining a meeting was a life sentence......... In my view, staying active in a congregation with which I no longer am in unity is worse than any breaking of a commitment by leaving, but I guess it is yet another way he and I will need to agree (or not, in his case.....) to disagree.
Finished up reading a biographies of John Winthrop and Genghis Khan this weekend. Also managed to read a couple interesting books (such as this on blogging and this on the Korean language), plus I started a book called Yiddish Civilization, which shows great promise. Another book worth reading -- especially if you are of an academic bent with a warped sense of humor [which my friends insist describes me......] -- is The Great Latke Hamentash Debate, a series of 'lectures' from the debates held at the University of Chicago over the last six decades over which pastry is superior. I laughed out loud in multiple places during that one.
No comments:
Post a Comment