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Shavuot was yesterday! Happy isru chag!
Except that a lot of people say that Shavuot is today too. I decided a couple years ago to only count Shavuot as one day. But that year I had off of work for the second day anyway, and last year the second day fell on Shabbat. For many years before I started observing holidays the way I do now, I was school-age. So today is the first time I've ever gone to work on a day that nearly all American Jews (among those who have even heard of Shavuot) consider a holiday. It was weird: my walk to work takes me right past my synagogue, and I passed a few people headed there, all decked out in their dress clothes and kippot. Saying chag sameach ("happy holiday") to me. But I was walking the other direction in shorts and a t-shirt.
The holiday itself was nice. For the first time ever I fulfilled the tradition of staying up all night studying, deciding at the last minute to head over to SJCCBA's thing rather than drive down to the DC area. So for the first 11 hours of the holiday I was at this really friendly synagogue that I'd been to a grand total of once in my life before. I got there around 7:30pm, we started morning services at about 4:35am (first permissable time), finished a bit before 6:30am, and went back to Brett & Sam's to crash for a few hours. It was quite a good time, except that I'd argue that 1:50 isn't quite enough time to enjoyably do holiday morning services. I seem to be a magnet for too-short services lately. But the learning was all good (to the extent I was awake enough to pay attention), especially the session about how to set up a Jewish calendar for a hypothetical Mars colony. (BZ, we need to talk.) Shavuot is still my favorite holiday, and this year's was another good one.
Anyway, here I am now, at work. Whee. Maybe I should've just taken the extra day off anyway.
Except that a lot of people say that Shavuot is today too. I decided a couple years ago to only count Shavuot as one day. But that year I had off of work for the second day anyway, and last year the second day fell on Shabbat. For many years before I started observing holidays the way I do now, I was school-age. So today is the first time I've ever gone to work on a day that nearly all American Jews (among those who have even heard of Shavuot) consider a holiday. It was weird: my walk to work takes me right past my synagogue, and I passed a few people headed there, all decked out in their dress clothes and kippot. Saying chag sameach ("happy holiday") to me. But I was walking the other direction in shorts and a t-shirt.
The holiday itself was nice. For the first time ever I fulfilled the tradition of staying up all night studying, deciding at the last minute to head over to SJCCBA's thing rather than drive down to the DC area. So for the first 11 hours of the holiday I was at this really friendly synagogue that I'd been to a grand total of once in my life before. I got there around 7:30pm, we started morning services at about 4:35am (first permissable time), finished a bit before 6:30am, and went back to Brett & Sam's to crash for a few hours. It was quite a good time, except that I'd argue that 1:50 isn't quite enough time to enjoyably do holiday morning services. I seem to be a magnet for too-short services lately. But the learning was all good (to the extent I was awake enough to pay attention), especially the session about how to set up a Jewish calendar for a hypothetical Mars colony. (BZ, we need to talk.) Shavuot is still my favorite holiday, and this year's was another good one.
Anyway, here I am now, at work. Whee. Maybe I should've just taken the extra day off anyway.
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