Chanukah - 2nd Night

I just finished lighting my 2nd night's Chanukah candles. Today's Chanukah activity was going to shul. I don't usually go for services. I'm sure you are wondering why and I suppose one could say it's a conglomeration of reasons amongst of which is the fact that I struggle with formal prayer as it is. Additionally, my shul is quite small and rarely are there women; or very few. That is of course unless it's a "big" holiday. And so, I almost always go to my rabbi's home for Shabbos dinner or to a friends, but never to shul. On Saturdays I often "think" about going but rarely make it. But today, for whatever reason, I had a desire to go, and so I went.

For the first hour or so I was there, there were no other women of course, which leads me to the second reason I don't think I love davening there. With no other women and it being a Chabad shul, I am the sole person on my side of the mechitzah (men and women sit with some sort of barrier between them). It's lonely over there. There is nobody to ask the page numbers of, nobody to stare at, it's just weird. I suppose it's good for staying focused but I can't get past the fact that I see Judaism as a community based faith in every aspect so praying alone feels alone. Eventually the rabbi's wife showed up (also a friend of mine). Her greeting to me was, "I'm impressed to see you here". You see, I told you I rarely go. I wasn't sure if I should be embarassed or proud that I was there. Either way, it's good I was.

Ironically, today's parsha was about the story of Tamar and my rabbi, oops, kept calling her Tamara when he was discussing it. Someone on the men's side said, "Is she over there?" because our new mechitza is quite solid, can't even sneak peaks to the other side. (I don't like the new mechitza and was happy to learn that they are replacing the frosted plastic like windows (the mechitza is wood) with one way windows so the women can see the men but the men can't see the women. How sneaky!)It was funny and we all got a good laugh, especially after I chimed in, "How ironic I come on the parsha of Tamar". There are no accidents right?

And so, that is my second day/night of Chanukah. Tomorrow's festivities include a Chanukah party at shul. Monday I will be doing the Chanukah book meme to help a fellow Jewish blogger out. So check back for that Monday. My goal, just a little personal one I made, was to honor Chanukah is some way each day besides the lighting of my menorah. So far so good...and I hope your's is too!


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