Last night I partied like it was 5769!

Don't worry kids, I did not “party” last night I was merely adapting a popular song for comical purposes of conveying what I did last night, which was I went to temple and partook in Rosh Hashana services at Kol Ami! I hadn't been to temple in a while, I know...bad bad Jew, but it totally was an amazing and spiritual experience for me. It made me contemplate my year, which has been one of some turmoil but in general has been great.

The temple that I go to is amazing, the rabbi is an amazing lesbian and the cantor is just to DIE FOR! His voice and the musical arrangements that he comes up with are just so moving and genius. My friend Rob, who got me into services for free offered to help me get a membership at our congregation (which is normally a very expensive thing) and I am definitely interested, the only thing holding me back is that I haven't officially converted to judaism. You see in judaism you're supposed to be your mother's religion and in Christianity your supposed to be your father's religion so I'm technically not supposed to have a religion at all. I went to church till I was around 10 or so, after which I could not handle all the hate that I heard from the priest, it confused me because my abuela (my mother's mother) was so religious and full of love, I could not understand why she belonged to such a hateful religion. I then learned that the religion itself isn't hateful, or at least it doesn't have to be. Anyway, I felt that judaism at least non orthodox judaism was far more welcoming than many other religions I have encountered, and the one I can identify with the most. I will most likely take a class at temple that is kind of an introduction to judaism and hopefully when I am done with school at Aveda, I will be able to fully take on classes to officially convert to judaism. I am by no means, a Torah thumper ( in fact I couldn't possibly quote you ANYTHING from the holy book) but I believe in this loving and caring God that I have been exposed to at Kol Ami, and look forward to growing not only as a man, but as a spiritual being.

It being Saturday, I will share with you a song that I had totally forgotten about till this fierce lady came out with her last album, and I went back to her older shit, I totally love this song, and would love sharing it with you, here is Robyn with “Show me Love”!

That's me in the corner, that's me in the spot light, losing my religion...

Alright, so the great thing about having a blog is that you can say things on here that you want to say in other places where it is really not appropriate to do so. Tonight, I wanna bitch about religion. I know a fun little topic that always garners all kinds of heated debate. The juiciest part is that it's not about religion in general, but about Christians. Specifically Christians at 12 step meetings. My issue is that sometimes the prayer that we pray out on is the lord's prayer...which is a Christian prayer, it really gets on my last Jewish nerve that people just throw it out there like it's a prayer everyone should know. I am more comfortable with the serenity prayer because it is a general prayer to God, I looked up the lord's prayer on Google and this is what it said:

The Lord’s prayer is a prayer the Lord Jesus taught His disciples in Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4. Matthew 6:9-13 reads, “This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'”



I mean how would people like if I chose a Jewish prayer and all of a sudden started going:


Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha'olam shegemalani kol tov.
Which translates into:
I praise You, Eternal God, Sovereign of the universe, who bestows great goodness upon me


I mean that prayer is equally if not more so appropriate for a 12 step meeting. But let's take my religion out of it and say someone wanted to recite a Buddhist chant, or a pagan one, or a Muslim prayer, or let's take it to the extreme and start saying a prayer worshiping Satan, how would they like it then? Then they would have to stand there looking like idiots quietly not being comfortable in their skin because they aren't saying the prayer everyone else knows by heart. Actually to be honest I do know the prayer...in Spanish, from my good ol' days as a roman catholic boy.


Padre nuestro que estás en los cielos
Santificado sea tu Nombre
Venga tu reino
Hágase tu voluntad
Aqui en la tierra como en el cielo
Danos hoy el pan de cada día
y perdona nuestras offensas
como nosotros perdonamos a los que nos offenden
y no nos dejes caer en al tentacion
y libranos del mal.

If I hadn't told you what I was saying you would have no clue as to what the hell I was speaking about, and you'd feel left out like I did so many times after converting to judaism. Oy! Anyway another thought occurred to me right as I began writing this, what must the poor atheists in the room feel like with the word God being so freely used in our literature. I mean it does say a God of our understanding, but I can't imagine how much like outsiders they must feel as everyone is reading off our sanctioned literature with God sprinkled all over it. Oh well, that is my little rant on religion for today.