
I had the strangest dream last night. I was at work, doing my job as usual, when Boss-Man summoned me to his office in his most serious voice. When I got there, he said, "Ms. C------, your rabbi tells me you haven't been a good Jew lately." I said something like, "What the hell? I am so a good Jew! Rabbi W would never say that about me!" And just then, Rabbi W walked into Boss Man's office. Our conversation went something exactly like this...
Rebecca: Rabbi, how can you say I'm not a good Jew? How have I not been a good Jew?
Rabbi W: You haven't been following all 613 mitzvot.
Rebecca: What are you talking about? Nobody follows all 613 mitzvot! You don't follow all of them! [Which is true, by the way. Most Jews don't.] Even God probably doesn't follow all of them!
Rabbi W: Well, Rebecca, when I converted you, you agreed that you would follow all 613 mitzvot.
Rebecca: That was never a condition of our agreement, nor was giving Han to this bounty hunter! [Points at Boss-Man]
It was so weird. I'm not sure what it means that this dream came on the night between my birthday and Yom Kippur.
Rebecca's been in go-mode since 8:30 this morning. After biking to and from work, I drove over to Grandma's house for dinner. She had spaghetti and cheesecake for me for my birthday. Then I had to pick up a few groceries, then I drove to the temple for Yom Kippur evening services, which lasted two hours!
One member of our congregation who'd been ill suddenly fainted away in the middle of the Kol Nidre! He was really pale, and I was pretty freaked when I saw him go down. (He turned out to be okay, but he had to leave early.) Just a few minutes before, Rabbi Z talked about how back in temple days, the other priests tied a rope around the high priest before he entered the Holy of Holies, in case the intensity of the moment made him drop dead. At the end of services, our temple president addressed Rabbi Z by Rabbi W's name and never even noticed.
Right now, I've got a Shirley Temple movie playing (Poor Little Rich Girl - I'd been wanting to rewatch it) and eggs boiling on the stove, for the devilled eggs I'm making tomorrow for the break-the-fast meal. And I know what you're thinking: "Rebecca, you think you're going to be able to fast all day when you have to make devilled eggs and have leftover birthday cake and six birthday-gift lemons in your refrigerator?" (Mom and Grandma both hit the same lemon sale and gave me lemons for my birthday. For as little time as they spend together, they sure do think alike about some things.) Hey, I said I would try. I never said I would succeed.
For any Jewish readers who might be attempting the fast too, T'zom Kal!