Writing backwards...part II

Noted below, we capture events that bring us to now...which are the straws that break the camel's back.

Add to this two circumstantial things...both of which are substantive.

1) We moved 2 years ago. Maybe now it takes us as long as it use to, to get to the Temple. But...from where we are now, we simply have more choices than we used to.

2) Also, more trivially, relatively, some things manifested in this past year that have caused grief.

a) Although I had been not only active, but a co-chair for Religious Education in recent years, in this last year, this committee has gone from active to inactive to painful.

b) Yes, in this year our son will attain Bar Mitzvah. To the good...the administration we are part of did ask its members to consider, when their children would celebrate their coming of age, to consider including everyone in their class. But...this they did not do...very frequently...with our son. Who is at fault? Not the administration, in this case. Who to blame? I will say this. We had planned to invite everyone. But...with the pattern of having been excluded from so many, we did not hold to this. Yes, it was somewhat exacerbated by Evan's own lack of motivation to ask even many of his friends to come to his own Bar Mitzvah...but we would have been less supportive of this inclination if other families were more inclusive, I am sure.

3) This last point (above, about failing to get the clergy nor faculty to help me explore liturgy in substance) is really the more important. It does remain to be seen how this issue may be different in other places, but I know how it has been here at Temple Shalom.