Earlier this semester, Soni started a weekly “Souljourn” to explore that religious diversity, bringing students of different faiths to churches of different faiths, from Hare Krishna to Tao to Pentecostal.

On Sunday about 10 a.m., four Wiccans, a Buddhist, a Sufi and an agnostic filed up the rickety stairs to the balcony of the Virgin Mary Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Hundreds of congregants filled the pews, many men wearing suit coats, women wrapped in gauzy white scarves. They chanted joyously with the choir in Amharic, tended restless children and clapped the deep detonations of the kubaro drum.

Hello! It’s called Ash Wednesday! Hello! Joe’s a Roman Catholic. Pretty good chance he’s gonna get some ashes.

But here’s where there may be some excuse: Since they were in the UK they may have been dealing with the time zone difference. Yes? Maybe? Or just clueless?

It gets “worse”. Fully story here.

Oy.

The old man with the Santa Claus beard pulled a black yarmulke from the trunk of his Cadillac and limped across the street.

Hundreds of people had gathered outside an old synagogue in Boyle Heights for a program that looked back at the days when the neighborhood — now overwhelmingly Latino and Catholic — was the center of Jewish life in Los Angeles.

Oh my! Another Advent! This year, as in past years, the stack of Advent books is on the table. “Next year in Jerusalem” – “Next Advent these shall be read”! Here’s the list:

Watch For The Light: Readings For Advent And Christmas. This has readings from some of my favorites (C.S. Lewis, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Henri Nouwen, Madeleine L’Engle and a ton more)

Advent of the Heart: Seasonal Sermons And Prison Writings 1941-1944. This is a collection of sermons and prison writings by a German Jesuit priest martyred by the Nazis in 1945.

Advent And Christmas Wisdom From Henri J.M. Nouwen: Daily Scripture And Prayers Together With Nouwen’s Own Words (Redemptorist Pastoral Publication) and Advent and Christmas with Thomas Merton (A Redemptorist Pastoral Publication). Reflections from two of my favorite authors.

Christmastide: Prayers for Advent Through Epiphany from The Divine Hours
. I’m more accustomed to doing my own Offices although I’ve used Tickle’s The Divine Hours off and on (but mostly “off”). This collection provides a quick and convenient collection of prayers and short readings (no juggling required) for Offices through the day and night.

The “lady” – actually there are two of them – is quite tall. As tall as a library shelf. So, over 6 feet, I gather. I have to admit I did enjoy the little dog at her feet. That was cute!

A little late! I did celebrate. But I wanted to share two things.

1) The traveling rabbi who comes to your office to blow the shofar!

2) This poster. I think it’s over the top cool.

May our names continue to be inscribed in the  roll book of learning.

In a report on Indonesia, the Economist makes the interesting point that urban Muslims in Indonesia are actually more likely to be drawn to more austere, fundamentalist versions of Islam than their rural counterparts. The rural Muslims prefer religious practices that blend Islam with elements of Hinduism and indigenous faiths that were practiced there prior to Islam.  No generalizable point here, just an interesting observation on how complex matters of religion and culture can be.

When I was introduced to the ritual, the honey cake was carved out in the shape of a Hebrew letter – that my learning for the school year would be sweet.

Since the new school year kind of coincides with Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) it’s a perfect match.

Other variations:

A large piece of paper with the Hebrew alphabet on it. A dot of honey was under each letter. You dip your finger in the honey, lick it, and then trace the letters.

And a apple with honey on it.

Below is a little info I found on About.com. I never did anything this elaborate or “official”. At one point when I was a new Gator, probably 1988 or so, I gave serious consideration to converting to Judaism. (Long-ish story for another post.) This book almost sealed the deal: Julius Lester’s Lovesong.

See a You Tube clip of Lester in my next post.

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(The following is excerpted from http://judaism.about.com/od/shavuot/a/shav_golinkin.htm)

And the rabbi puts a little honey on the slate and the child licks the honey from the letters with his tongue. And then they bring the honey cake upon which is inscribed “The Lord God gave me a skilled tongue to know…” (Isaiah 50: 4-5), and the rabbi reads every word of these verses and the child repeats after him. And then they bring a peeled hard-boiled egg upon which is written “Mortal, feed your stomach and fill your belly with this scroll… and I ate it and it tasted as sweet as honey to me” (Ezekiel 3:3). And the rabbi reads every word and the child repeats after him. And they feed the child the cake and the egg, for they open the mind…

Prof. Ivan Marcus devoted an entire volume to the explanation of this ceremony (Rituals of Childhood, New Haven, 1996). Here we shall only stress that this beautiful ceremony includes three of the basic principles of Jewish education:

First of all, one must commence Jewish education at a very young age. In a fourteenth-century illustration of this ceremony in the Leipzig Mahzor, one can see that the children are three, four or five years old, and this was also the custom among oriental Jews in modern times. A song by Yehoshua Sobol and Shlomo Bar relates that “in the town of Tudra in the Atlas mountains they would take a child who had reached the age of five… into the synagogue, and write in honey on a wooden slate from *Hebrew letter* to *Hebrew letter*. From this we learn that we too must begin the Jewish education of Israeli children at a very young age when their minds can absorb much information.

Secondly, we learn from here about the importance of ceremonies in the learning process. They could have brought the child into the “heder” and simply begun to teach, but that would not have left a lasting impression upon the child. The intricate ceremony transforms the first day of school into a special experience that will remain with him for the rest of his life.

Thirdly, there is an attempt to make learning enjoyable. A child who licks honey from a slate and who eats honey cake and a hard-boiled egg on the first day of class will immediately understand that the Torah is “as sweet as honey”. From this we learn that we must teach children in a gentle fashion and make learning enjoyable in order that they learn Torah with love.

http://judaism.about.com/od/shavuot/a/shav_golinkin.htm