I suspect that everyone has gone through an experience in which you felt resentful, angry or depressed about a past encounter with someone and found it hard to get past it. Someone close to you may have said, “Get over it! Put it in your past!
As a Jewish educator, I have encountered many situations in which Reform Jews of all ages – youth at camp or in NFTY, adults at URJ Biennials, and women at WRJ events – appear uncomfortable when it comes to “what to do” during worship services.
I now realize the real definition of “retirement” (which began this past July) is “time to go through memorabilia and look over your life!”
I have done just that, and, in the process, I stumbled upon a precious piece of my past.
Fifty-one years ago this week, I became a bat mitzvah. Fifty-one years ago, I read from the Torah, and the parashah was Tol’dot – the same words that we read this Shabbat.
Being a “saver,” I still have the composition notebook in which my rabbi had me work.