{"id":27116,"date":"2017-12-01T03:29:30","date_gmt":"2017-12-01T11:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=27116"},"modified":"2017-11-29T23:33:05","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T07:33:05","slug":"immersed-in-judaism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2017\/12\/01\/immersed-in-judaism\/","title":{"rendered":"Immersed in Judaism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Abigail Pogrebin, author of My Jewish Year: 18 Holidays, One Wondering Jew<\/em>. (photo from Abigail Pogrebin)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

A few years ago, author Abigail Pogrebin spent an immersive year studying the Jewish calendar and attempting to observe it. She chronicled her experience in a column in the <\/span>Forward<\/em> and, subsequently, in the book <\/span>My Jewish Year: 18 Holidays, One Wondering Jew<\/em> (Fig Tree Books, 2017). On Nov. 19, she was in Winnipeg for the city\u2019s Tarbut Festival.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI did not approach this as a gimmick,\u201d she told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cIt was really a sincere stab at an understanding I never had, which is the origins for all of these chaggim<\/em> [holidays] … and also, not just the origins, but the underpinnings, because these are obviously … human-created milestones that have endured for thousands of years. I wanted to understand both how and why they were conceived \u2013 what they\u2019re supposed to mean for us today, not just to our ancestors. I definitely had a hunch that, for something to have endured for as long as it has, it has to resonate wherever you are in your life \u2013 at least for a large swath of people who live by this calendar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pogrebin recognizes that there is a segment of the population that adheres to it simply because they inherited it, without questioning. Yet, for many people, Jewish observance, particularly of holidays, is a deliberate choice.<\/p>\n

Pogrebin grew up in New York City. Her mother, writer and activist Letty Cottin Pogrebin, was instrumental in promoting women\u2019s rights in the 1970s, and her writing includes analyses of what it means to be Jewish and female.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was not someone who celebrated nothing before this,\u201d said Abigail Pogrebin. \u201cI had sort of the five or six tent poles of Jewish holidays in my life…. I grew up with Shabbat…. It wasn\u2019t enforced, but it was observed when we were together as a family. I went to synagogue on the High Holidays. We had always lit the menorah for eight nights, and I went to two seders back-to-back. Then, also, the feminine seder, which was a tradition that was started in mid-1970s by a group of women, including my mother.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, those were the basics that I\u2019d grown up with. But, obviously, I was missing the majority of the signposts of the Jewish year. It bothered me that I didn\u2019t know [them]. I also wanted to experience them in a way that might lead me to more meaning in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"book<\/a>As examples of what she learned on her journey, Pogrebin said she had never understood before that the process of atonement and introspection needs to start far in advance of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the month of Elul, we\u2019re supposed to do what is called, in Hebrew, cheshbon hanefesh<\/em> (accounting of the soul). And, when I asked various rabbis how I might go about that, because there\u2019s not a clear blueprint for observance, quite a few suggested taking the middot<\/em> (characteristics) and breaking them down, exploring one a day. So, I chose to do that for 40 days leading up to Yom Kippur.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did this with a friend, a study partner, essentially. So, my friend, Catherine, and I took these 40 middot that a rabbi had posted online. One day, you\u2019d do anger, another you\u2019d do courage, another envy, another humility.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the women went through the days, they aimed to look at themselves as deeply and honestly as they were able and to write their reflections on each characteristic at the end of each day.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time I got to synagogue on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I felt like I was in a very different zone for reflection,\u201d said Pogrebin. \u201cOn Yom Kippur, I went to a mikvah<\/em> [ritual bath] for the first time, and that was extremely meaningful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pogrebin spent Sukkot in Los Angeles, interviewing four rabbis in two days, with each one discussing a different aspect of Sukkot that she never had understood before.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne emphasized the fragility, the impermanence of our structure, and our shelters in our lives,\u201d she explained. \u201cHow resonant that is today, with natural disasters and poverty, and all kinds of things that should shake our foundations, both literally and metaphorically.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother talked about the fertility, the imagery that is in Sukkot \u2013 the shaking of the lulav and etrog, which was much racier than I ever understood. Another talked about agriculture, and the land and connecting \u2013 reconnecting with the earth in ways we don\u2019t do in other times of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother rabbi talked about wandering, the importance of being lost and being comfortable with being lost; embracing the idea of the most important lessons and reckonings when we don\u2019t know where we are going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pogrebin also mentioned Yom Hashoah, which commemorates victims of the Holocaust. According to her, not many people know when it takes place. \u201cI think it\u2019s just not in the fabric of how many of us were raised, but it seems to me to be a crucial holiday, even though it could never be adequate to mark such a vast and devastating history and persecution,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to B\u2019nai Jeshurun, which is a Conservative synagogue on the Upper West Side that, in partnership with the JCC in Manhattan, does something called the naming of the names, where they have this book from Yad Vashem … devastating lists of families who perished. Starting at 10 p.m. and going all night into the next day, people tak[e] turns reading those names,\u201d said Pogrebin.<\/p>\n

About how the yearlong experience has changed her and her family, Pogrebin said, \u201cIn a way, it\u2019s changed completely and, in a way, it hasn\u2019t changed radically. I\u2019d say it\u2019s changed completely in the sense that I don\u2019t look at time, relationships, obligations, the same way anymore. I think, if the holidays do anything, they are constantly reminding us to ask ourselves who we are in the world and whether we are doing what we could be doing to alleviate someone else\u2019s suffering or pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pogrebin is always looking for ways to bring the lessons of her journey into her day-to-day life, to make them come alive in a way they didn\u2019t for her when she was a child.<\/p>\n

About the book, she said, \u201cIf one wants to understand the arc of the year, you will. It\u2019s not that there are not people who might disagree with this or that, but it was researched and tested with people who live this and teach this at a very high level. So, it\u2019s not just Abby saying it to be true. It\u2019s me putting on my journalist hat and making sure when I explain something that it\u2019s definitely rooted in scholarship. I hope … it\u2019s an enjoyable and entertaining book.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people who read it are coming along with me and my experience with the holiday for the first time. They are also getting, I think, a fairly thorough template of what a Jewish year involves and demands. I think that, whether you\u2019re Jewish or an interfaith family that wants to explain or introduce \u2026 some of these holidays in your own home and you\u2019ve never done them before, it\u2019s absolutely a door into learning how.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is something magical,\u201d she said, \u201cabout not just living by someone else\u2019s clock, but by an ancient roadmap\u2026. I think there\u2019s something very powerful about embracing … whether it\u2019s Judaism or any religion, what it imposes on you, in terms of [laying out] what you should be thinking about besides your own needs and wishes \u2013 to me, that\u2019s an important takeaway that I think other people should explore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rebeca Kuropatwa<\/strong> is a Winnipeg freelance writer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abigail Pogrebin, author of My Jewish Year: 18 Holidays, One Wondering Jew. (photo from Abigail Pogrebin) A few years ago, author Abigail Pogrebin spent an immersive year studying the Jewish calendar and attempting to observe it. She chronicled her experience in a column in the Forward and, subsequently, in the book My Jewish Year: 18 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[7648,6433,218],"class_list":["post-27116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-abigail-pogrebin","tag-jewish-life","tag-judaism"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}