Bat Mitzvah

We are just over 5 months from my oldest daughter's Bat Mitzvah. We are in the heat of the battle between balancing the spiritual with the party. I think that she is actually doing a better job than me. Although she complains whenever I tell her she has to study, she is doing great. As part of her service she has to write three different "speeches." Again she has floored me with the insight and maturity that she has shown in the drafts that she has put together.
I am sure that the anxiety will only ramp up as we get closer. It is nice to know that she is well grounded and hopefully that will help us all.

As an aside, we went to one of her friend's Bar Mitzvah last weekend. He had invited some of his friends that attend a different synagogue. These kids were the rudest kids I have every seen at a religious service. They were talking, playing grab ass, etc. I finally had enough and told them to be quiet twice. The third time, I told the "ring leader" to move over by me. He said "no". I could have killed him. My thoughts were how to subdue him without making a scene or any more noise. It was awful. Of course then I felt even worse because of how mad I got during a service. I could not enjoy it until I forced myself to focus and get something out of it.
It was the old "He made me fell that way," but i chose to feel differently.

Purim

Today begins Purim. It is the standard Jewish story -- they tried to kill us, they failed, let's eat - with a small twist. In this story, the hero is a heroine. Esther shows great courage - physical and spiritual - to save her people. It is one of the harder right vs. easier wrong tales. She probably could have lived a very comfortable life as the Queen even if the plot to kill the Jews had come to fruition as her heritage was a secret from the King, but she chose to put it all on the line (literally) to save her people. It is a lesson we could all learn from for today.

Land of Israel

In the Bible, God refers to the Promised Land (Israel) as the land of milk and honey. I think that it is interesting that these two foods are chosen. The are the only two food that we eat that do not require destroying life. (Salt may be a third, but that would be a stretch in my book). So if the land is supposed to run with these foods that do not require any life to be destroyed to eat, maybe it is saying something about the land itself. Maybe we are all supposed to enjoy and take part in the land without destroying life.

I know that this sounds somewhat idealistic and we have significant history to overcome. If this is an valid interpretation, maybe we should all take it heart.

Profile

For those that would like to know a little bit more about me. Washington Jewish Week did a short profile on me. They do this every week on various people in the DC are Jewish community.

Here is the link:
http://washingtonjewishweek.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=10066&SectionID=4&SubSectionID=&S=1

What is in a name like Moses?

I just finished reading the Book "Who Wrote the Bible" by Richard Friedman. It was a very interesting read. Do not think that it is an anti-religious, Bible debunking book. It is not. It really helped me understand the book and where it came from. It actually increased my respect and interest in the Bible.
I was always brought up that Moses wrote the Bible as it was dictated by God to him. This Moses guys was something else. In fact at the end of the Torah, it states that there will never be another like him to reiterate this point. One of the big Moses questions that I have is this. Why did God not change his name? For all of the previous forefather, when God makes a covenant with someone or they commit their lives to him, he changes his name e.g. Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel, etc, but here comes the biggest Prophet of all time and he gets to keep his name. A name that is not even Hebrew, but Egyptian. The Talmud alludes to some stories that there were previous predictions that Moses would come along and free the Jews and lead them to Israel. These predictions do not give any names (one of the big critique of Christianity's use of the Jewish Bible to predict Jesus as the Messiah).
If anyone has any insight into this mystery about Moses, I would welcome the feedback.