Family Issues

It just keeps getting busier and busier for me lately. I'm trying to keep up with studies, a play, work, love and social obligations, For those of you who don't know I'm in a play called "Shadow Lands" you can get more information about it at TrinityStreetPlayers.com it would be a great support if you could come and show your face there. Make an effort to reserve a seat if you can.

Otherwise my LJL class continues unabated, as well as my journy into living a jewish life personally. I lit the Shabbat candles this friday, and am getting a little better with my hebrew pronunciation. I am dedicated to trying to learn the hebrew alphabet in the next three weeks so I can go to the Torah Trope class that Rabbi Olshien is conducting for sunday school fairly soon. My journal entry suggestion says to "write something you would like to include in your Rosh Hashanah ritual" and frankly I've never done anything for Rosh Hashana other than go to a service once years ago. So I suppose this year I'm looking forward to everything I can do, the wine, the apples and honey, the Shofar, everything. I am pretty unhappy that I'm missing the class on Rosh Hashana it means I'll need to do all my own research without much help. My one regret going into all of this is that I do not have any jewish friends. I would really and truly like to have a jewish friend who is capable of showing me the way and the ropes for everything. Someone who I can share this with and who knows more than I do.

I feel more than ever a need to talk to a counselor. Once more my mother and I talked about my conversion, she cried this time. And talked about how much this decision would hurt my grandparents, and how much it hurt her. She told me that she felt as though she had failed me as a mother. It really hurt me to hear those words. I want her support and love. But this is why I didn't tell her for so long.
I am starting to read my assigned book for this semester "The Sunflower" It's about a prisoner in a concentration camp being called in by a dying SS officer who wants to absolve himself. So it's about forgiviness. The first part is simply the story the second part of the book is scholars and other learned and spiritual individuals reacting to it. I think it will be a good story, and hopefully I'll post my report to this blog.

Shalom