When Someone in the Family is #TragicallyJewish

My sister sometimes texts my dad and me pictures of herself before she heads out to teach The Art of Perception. I’ve started to follow her lead – mostly to connect with them both each morning.

Today, our thread started with this photo:

Daddy: Good morning. Fetching, as usual. Off to minyan? L.D.

Me: Yup. How was the new rabbi?

Daddy: She conducted a lovely, low-key service. She is very effective & I think only good things about her. Have a good day. L.D.

Me: So, I should plan to come for YK?

Daddy: If you wish, but we have time to talk about it. L.D.

Me: Indeed.

My Sister: I just woke up. Why are we talking about Yom Kippur? I am going to have breakfast.


Me: 

Daddy: I dunno. JEH likes to get her calendar in order early, I suppose. Have a good day & stay cool. L.D.

Me: My temple already sent info re: tix and choosing services. I’d rather fast forward right to Columbus Day. (Yes, I admit this is not a terribly #TragicallyJewish statement, but it is true. I would rather attend services 50 weeks of the year and skip the HHDs entirely. Anyone else?)

Daddy: YK is not until Oct. 9. (I wonder if he knew that off the top of his head or if he had to look it up.) We can talk about it. Not to worry. L.D.

No Good Tweet Goes Unpunished

Today’s  Shavuot. As I have done every year for the past few, I’m participating in a collective social media effort to post enough tweets that include “#Torah” – pronounced “hashtag Torah” – that we “ tweet #Torah to the top ,” meaning it appears on the Twitter home page as a trending topic.

As far as I know, we have not ever achieved the goal. And this year, I’ve encountered a few stumbling blocks of my own…

Everything started out smoothly. Using  Hootsuite, a social media tool, I scheduled 80-some tweets to go live between 9 p.m. last night and midnight tonight. Because they appear as both tweets on Twitter and posts on my Facebook feed, I put this message on Facebook last night after two or three tweets had appeared:

It appears that all my #Torah tweets scheduled for the next 27 hours or so are going to show up in my FB feed.

For my FB friends who aren't familiar with Shavuot, it's a Jewish festival (The Festival of Weeks) that occurs seven weeks -- 49 days -- after the first day of Passover and commemorates the giving of the #Torah atop Mt. Sinai. According to legend, every Jewish person from every generation was there to witness the pivotal event in the life of the Jewish people. Today, the holiday is celebrated with late-into-the-night #Torah study sessions and dairy foods -- cheesecake and blitzes, most notably -- which serve as reminders of the Promised Land, which flows with milk and honey. It's also the season for confirmation, when young Jews (generally 16- and 17-year olds) who have continued their studies for several years after b'nai mitzvah commit to lead a Jewish life and help ensure a bright Jewish future.

OK, rabbi, cantor, and educator friends, did I leave anything out?

And then I went to sleep.

I awoke to this message from my sister, which she’d sent at 7:09 a.m.: “Why a million Torah posts?” It was followed quickly by this: “I just saw your explanation. You need to delete them. They filled everyone’s feed…message after message after message…”

Um, yes, that’s precisely the point.

Two hours later, when I hadn’t responded (because I slept in and then went to services), she sent another, less contemptuous message: “You look like a Jewish scholar who drank too much slivovitz and pressed ‘Post.’”

Meanwhile, in response to a tweet that appeared in my feed at about 1 a.m., a friend, who thought I was live-tweeting, commented with this: “Jane, I love you. I’m awake with you for at least an hour…” (I set her straight in the morning, sending a link to Hootsuite by way of explanation.)

When I returned from temple, I spoke to my sister and, concerned that I might indeed be looking like a schicker (Yiddish for drunkard), I reposted the explanatory message from last night.

Convinced all was then well, I was dismayed to receive another message late this afternoon – this one from a friend who, although not Jewish, is well-versed in Jewish holidays and traditions. She wrote: “I think you have been hacked… Twitter keeps giving the same status update over and over again…”

Yes, at that point, all the scheduled tweets had the same beginning – Blessed are You, Adonai, Sovereign of the universe who has… -- but ended differently. I responded to her with this: “LOL! They’re different. It’s Shavuot and I’m one of the people who is posting things with the #Torah hashtag to see if we can get Torah to trend in Twitter. Hope all’s well and you’re enjoying Ramadan.”

Thank goodness for Caroline, a high school friend, whose gracious response to one of my many tweets today made it all worthwhile: “I have enjoyed reading these posts.”

So Much Anger...

Last Sunday, incredulous about something I'd seen, I put this post up on Facebook:

Ironic sight of the day: two medical professionals smoking across the street from NYU Langone Medical Center. Printed on the back of their sweatshirts? Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery. 

Really?!

A friend suggested I re-post it on the hospital's website or Facebook page. It seemed like a good idea so I added a brief introduction and posted this:

This post is from my own FB timeline, but a friend suggested that I also post it here, so I have. It's not a reflection on the medical center, but rather an observation about two of its employees. Nothing more:

Ironic sight of the day: two medical professionals smoking across the street from NYU Langone Medical Center. Printed on the back of their sweatshirts? Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery.

Really?!

The next day I received an email from Facebook that someone named Edward Leung had commented on the post. I don't know Edward Leung, but what a bitter, angry person he must be to have felt the need to write this:

Reflection of the employees? Just because a person smokes a cigarette, doesn't mean they're bad people. There's a lot more bad people who DON'T smoke. So... Why don't you take your idiotic sight of the day and blow a f***ing grip, b**ch.

Thankfully by the time I opened the email and clicked on the post, the hospital's social media staff had removed it, leaving only this other, now-meaningless post from Mr. Leung:

The ret**rd is strong with this one.

Thanks, Mr. Leung, for the poignant reminder of how unbecoming anger -- most especially unwarranted anger -- can be.  

How a Single High Holiday Tweet May Lead Me to a New Bagel Shop

Last week, unlike most others, was a multi-bagel week for me.

The first was my usual Shabbos bagel, enjoyed, as it is each week, during Torah study.

The second was my annual break-the-fast bagel. Layered with cream cheese, lox, and a slice of home-grown tomato, and washed down with the steaming coffee I'd been dreaming about all day, it marked the perfect end to a long, exhausting, and spiritually fulfilling day.

And then there were the bagel tweets.

ICYMI: I'm Blogging at ReformJudaism.org Today

In case you're not a regular reader of the blog on ReformJudaism.org, you may have missed my most recent post.

#BlogExodus: Tell (and Ask)

Like the butcher, I backed into the meat grinder this week and got a little behind in my work.  [Groan….] As a result, I’m telling a story that I should have told yesterday – not only because yesterday’s #BlogExodus prompt was “tell,” but, more important, because it’s a story that demands to be told.

ICYMI

In case you missed it, I'm the subject of today's inaugural "Featured Reader" column on the Quo Vadis blog.

Just another stop on the way to finding a niche in the wonderful world of pens and paper!

Thanks, Quo Vadis!

I Remember…

Last year, December 14 was Shabbat at the URJ Biennial in San Diego.

I was up early, eager to fulfill my Biennial responsibility as a Torah guardian.  In this role, I was responsible for carrying one of the many scrolls that would be used in the service from the storage room to the site of the service, keeping an eye on it throughout, and, afterward, returning it safely to the room where it would remain with the others under lock and key until it was returned to the local congregation from which it had been borrowed.

Today Was My Lucky Day

Today was a fairly typical day.  Until lunchtime.

That's when I received an email with this subject line:  Rhodia Drive ME Journal Giveaway Winners.

Included in the email was a link to this post on the Rhodia Drive blog.

How exciting to see my name listed as a winner...today truly was my lucky day!

I have some idea about how the Multimedia Enhanced "ME" Journal works, but I can hardly wait for mine to arrive so I can try it out.

Stay tuned for a full review...

Coming Soon: Tweet #Torah to the Top

Last night during Shabbat services, we counted the 45th day of the Omer, which means that Shavuot is only five days away.  Along with cheesecake, Tikkun Leil Shavuot study sessions, and Confirmation, Shavuot brings us "Tweet #Torah to the Top," an effort to get #Torah to "trend" on Twitter.  (Here's what I wrote about it last year.)

With that in mind, do not be alarmed when, this coming Tuesday, my Twitter and Facebook posts are early, often, and filled with #Torah.  Although those of us who participated in recent years have not been successful in getting #Torah to trend, perhaps it will happen this year.

Stay tuned...and plan to join us!

Gotta Love That #jewishgeography

This past Friday afternoon, I took the train from New York to Metuchen to be with my father for Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur at my home congregation, Temple Emanu-El in Edison, where he retains a membership that goes back more than 40 years.  Although I arrived at about lunchtime, our first stop was the cemetery, where my mother is buried near her own parents:

A check-in at Beth Israel Cemetery 

Cemetery in Woodbridge, NJ

Having lovingly placed our stones and a few flowers on the graves, we were drained.  Our next stop was a quick bite to eat, close to home:

A check-in at Somerset Diner

Diner in Somerset, NJ

Following this check-in, I proceeded to have a conversation with @JewishSpecialEd, an online friend who was helpful to me a few years ago when I wrote this article, and more recently has written for the URJ's blog.  

Our conversation started when she tweeted this at me: 

@JanetheWriter You are around the corner from me! Where will you be for services, if going? #GmarHatimaTova

I tweeted this back at her:

@JewishSpecialEd Grew up in Somerset. 12 Webster Rd. off JFK Blvd. Temple Emanuel-El, Edison--home cong.

Because it was just a few hours before Kol Nidre, we resumed our conversation last night and it continued today:

@JanetheWriter Small world. I grew up in Scotch Plains. Temple Shalom in Plainfield my home cong. Hope your holiday was meaningful.

@JewishSpecialEd Smaller world...I was with Jody, Daniel and Rachel L******** at break-the-fast tonight -- at Jody's parents' house!

@JanetheWriter Holy moly! Was Matt home?? Loving #jewishgeography

@JewishSpecialEd No...with a WRJ family in P'burgh. I also am loving #jewishgeography!

@JanetheWriter So now we can plan to meet “in real life” at #Biennial13, right?

@JewishSpecialEd Absolutely! It's the only way to close the #jewishgeography loop. Look forward to it!

By far the best addition to the conversation, though, came from @RebeccaSchorr, a mutual friend whom I knew online for a long time before we met in real life.  She chimed in a few minutes ago with this:

@JanetheWriter @JewishSpecialEd loving this convo #jewishgeography

Yup...gotta love that #jewishgeography!

Let the #Torah Tweets Begin

For a people with just one God, we Jews sure do a lot of counting. 

Three patriarchs, four matriarchs, six days of creation, eight nights of Hanukkah, 12 tribes, 40 years in the desert, 70 years in a life--80 if we’re really robust.  You get the picture…

In less than 10 days, we’ll reach Day #49 in the counting we’ve been doing since the second night of Passover.  Known as “counting the omer,” (an omer was a measure of barley used in ancient times for sacrificial purposes) we Jews literally count each and every day for seven consecutive weeks--from the first day of Passover all the way through to Shavuot, the pilgrimage festival that commemorates the giving and receiving of Torah atop Mt. Sinai.

On May 14, which is erev Shavuot, we will have finished counting the omer and (some—and hopefully many—of us) will begin “tweeting #Torah.”  Begun by Reconstructionist Rabbi Shai Gluskin in 2009, tweeting #Torah was designed to bring Torah to as many people as possible with a secondary goal to see #Torah trend in the top 10 on Twitter during the day.

Using hootsuite, tweetdeck or other social media tools, it’s easy to schedule tweets for the overnight hours—especially if you start now, lining up a few each day—and, later, to watch the flurry of #Torah tweets and retweets scroll by on the screen.

Here are a few of the #Torah tweets I’ve contributed to this effort in past years:

So many Jewish books open on my desk in prep for Tweet #Torah to the Top that I look like a real yeshiva bucher.

Behold, how wonderful it is for people to dwell together in unity. #Torah

Mah Tovu: How fair are your tents, O Jacob, your dwellings, O Israel. #Torah

Blessed are you Eternal our God, Sovereign of the universe, who has made me a Jew. #Torah

Thus the Eternal blessed the seventh day and called it holy. #Torah

Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses--whom the Lord singled out, face to face. #Torah

I’m certainly no Pollyanna, but Tweet #Torah is fun, easy, inclusive, and, most of all, does, indeed, bring people to #Torah and #Torah to people.

I hope you’ll join us in this year’s effort.  Although we can't count on it, wouldn't it be great if #Torah was a top 10 trend?!