To: Unorthodox Podcast
From: Molly Sroges
Fri. Oct. 21, 2022, 7:11AM
Listening to your episode "Raising the Roof," which I'm sure is old now, but every time Stephanie talks about seeing the holidays through Edith's eyes, I think of my personal experience. I'm currently attempting to navigate the process of converting to Judaism when the nearest synagogue is 90 minutes from my house and only has a rabbi once a month. Long story short, I took off work for the big Rosh Hashanah service, and again for the big Yom Kippur service. The service leader (who is not the rabbi. From what I understand, she is almost a cantor) made sure to chat with me a little bit on both days, since she knows I am trying to convert. On Yom Kippur the conversation went something like this:
Cantor: So this is your first High Holidays?
Me (stupidly excited): Yeah!
Cantor: What you think so far?
Me: I love it!
Cantor: Really?
She sounded genuinely surprised, like people don't normally enjoy High Holidays, so much as put up with them. And this was about halfway through Yom Kippur, so I thought of Mark saying how busy it is to prepare for the holidays, and I figured between getting things ready and leading service (and having done this a lot) she was probably a bit tired, even if it's something she loves and values. But I love attending religious services, and my first High Holidays was one of my favorites. It was literally was wonder-ful experience.
In unrelated news, but something else I keep threatening to tell ya'll about, my friends and I play RPGs (Role-Playing Games) once a week, and one of our player's characters cultivated a garden of sapient mushrooms to be his minions. A dice roll revealed there are 10 mushrooms total, and thus we realized that he has a mushroom minion minyan.
Thanks for reading,
Have a good Shabbas,
Molly Sroges
