One Friday night, I was at a local rabbi\’s house for Shabbat dinner, and he said to me: \”The Jewish Journal should be a newspaper that unites the different denominations of our community.\”
I\’m seeing someone. Let\’s call her Alison. We\’re dating. We\’re in that very gray area between being total strangers and celebrating our silver wedding anniversary. Three months into it and people are already asking when we\’re getting married. At this point, we\’re cautiously optimistic, still prefacing all our plans with the phrase: \”If you\’re still speaking with me,\” as in: \”If you\’re still speaking with me in two weeks, would you like to go to the theater on Thursday night?\”
If we\’re still speaking on Sunday at 9 p.m., you will generally find us parked in front of the television set watching \”Sex and the City.\”
In my family, death and funerals seem to inspire joking. Maybe it\’s discomfort, but it also seems to be a lack of concern and heaviness about the whole thing. No one in my family does much visiting of graves, and burials are apparently not deemed necessary.
It all begins on a Friday around sundown. You, theparticipant, are assigned to a family\’s house. Perhaps you arrive attheir doorstep, or maybe you meet them at Aish HaTorah\’s KabbalatShabbat services at Pico Boulevard and Doheny Drive and walk homewith them afterward.
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