I’ve seen this time and time again. A Catholic boy, a Jewish girl, and instant attraction. I don’t know what it is, really. Maybe it’s the forbidden fruit? Opposites attract? Or maybe it’s something we just can’t put our finger on. And I’m no stranger to this either. For a long time, I only dated Catholic guys. And when I visited Italy – forget it! I’d be just fine living in a villa with a Catholic husband and my Jewish beliefs.

Just the other day I was watching the reality TV show Millionaire Matchmaker where the client came in and said he felt very strongly about his beliefs, and wanted only someone who had just as deep a connection to Jesus Christ as he did. Well, lo and behold, a Jewish girl walks in and that is thee girl he wants. He wouldn’t even budge.

These types of chemical attractions, though I don’t have data, are undeniable and far and wide. What is it that attracts the two faiths so often? And so what if it does happen?

More recently, a more tragic story on the news shows a Catholic-Jewish divorce where the child has become the pawn of religious warfare.  Using the child to spite one another through church and synagogue “kidnapping” being brought back and forth between religions has caused a lot of trouble for this couple on raising their child.

Often times, when it comes to interfaith marriage, the biggest concern is about the child – how will the child be raised? I’ve heard stories of non-Jewish mothers who refuse a briss, or Jewish mothers who refuse a baptism.  Are these rituals the basis for whether to get married or not? How much does the future child play into deciding whether to say I do, or I don’t? Is this ridiculous Catholic-Jewish attraction a test to see how strong we stay in our faith? If so, that sounds mean.

What do you think? Are you in an interfaith relationship? Do you have these kinds of concerns? If so, how do you decide to pursue or stand back?

I’ve heard in the past about some fanatic church-goers who show up to funerals, to communities of gays, blacks and Jews, and protest their existence. I’ve ignored this news as ignorance, almost laughable. Recently, these same folk showed up outside a Jewish music festival to protest, what else, Jews. Is it just me, or is this ultra bizarre? What kind of faith teaches their members to be racist, full of hate and narrow-minded? And then to go out of their way and march it out? Is this a kind of faith anyone should belong to?

If you don’t believe yet how outrageous this group is, visit their home site, Domain Name: http://www.godhatesfags.com. I cannot make this stuff up.

And here is a photo of a Westboro child holding the signs…

Honest to G-d, it hurts me to even put this image up.

What do you think about this group? Honestly. Is there room for hate and bigotry in religion? What’s their deal? Maybe someone can fill me in.

So I hear it’s lent time. My best friend gave up chocolate (I could never!). I was thinking about the idea of food in Judaism and how it plays such a huge role — especially around laws of kosher and holidays. More recently in the Jewish tradition, a popular movement to become vegan has developed.

Blogs such as The Jew and the Carrot and heeb ‘n’ vegan have formed a loyal following, and many Jews request vegan as opposed to kosher restaurants (because vegan eating actually is kosher).  Plus, one of my interviews at The Jew Spot Chloe Jo Berman runs an incredible site about vegan living called Girlie Girl Army.

To be honest, despite all this excitement, I never jumped on board. I did the vegetarian thing before until I found out I can’t have gluten, so meat it was. When I did it though, it was more out of experimentation than an ethical, moral reason. But now, reading up on why it’s ethically immoral to eat animals (I promised myself I wouldn’t read this but did anyway!) I’m kind of thinking us human creatures are pretty heartless when it comes to the animal world. Am I exaggerating?

Is this movement also taking place in the religious world at large? What do other religious communities say or do around the ethics of our food? Should we think more about the food we eat and serve others? Is that a religious obligation?

I’d love to hear what Busted Halo readers think about this. Comment below.

When I was in middle school hanging out by the local shopping plaza, I saw these two kids (a year younger than I) riding their bikes around. Don’t ask me why, but I had this sudden urge to talk to one of them. Just that one. But I had nothing to say. He was younger, I never seen him before, and he was with his friend I was with mine. So I just kept walking, and looking back every now and then as if making sure he’s still there; Okay.

A few minutes later this kid got hit by a car crossing the highway by the shopping plaza. People started running to his side, cars stopped, and at that point I was the furthest one away. My friend and I went over and saw a helmet on one side, a smashed bike on a completely different side.

Why did I have this ridiculous urge to talk to a complete stranger? Why didn’t I just say hi, anything, that would stop him for just one second before he got onto that highway?

I bring this up now because right by that plaza, for years, were flowers, stuffed animals, and crosses in his commemoration. But recently, when I drove past after not driving past for a couple of years, it was basically all gone with the exception of a few dried up flowers and a cross left over. Where did it all go? Why did people stop putting flowers there? Does the family still think about that day every single day?

I don’t think about that day every day. But I do every time I pass that post. It’s a memory for me at least of how I could have saved someone’s life if I just listened to myself a little more.

How many times did we have a gut feeling, or an intuition, and didn’t go with it? What if we could be saving someone’s life every day if we just said what we felt, did what we knew was right, followed the journey we were meant to follow? That day changed me. It breaks my …

Did you read Sunday’s Modern Love column this week in the New York Times Style section?

A woman on a yearlong voyage studying the Prophet Jesus in Islam rendezvous with a French novice monk. They feel an immediate connection to one another, but can they fall in love? Author Stephanie Saldana writes a great piece on this experience titled “Signs, Wonders and Fates Fulfilled.”

I’d love to hear what you think about this column. If you have stories about yourself or a friend who turned back from becoming a nun, priest or monk for a different kind of love, a romantic love, I’d love to hear! I’m sure the rest of us would too.

Can anyone here reading this post fathom the idea of turning off their phones, laptops, and putting away the car keys for one night and one full day every single week for the rest of their lives? This 25-hour cleansing period sounds like some sort of reality show experiment, and I wasn’t willing to sign up to try it out. But I was looking for a way to meditate and self-reflect in Judaism, and there it was — Shabbat. Just that, a 25-hour resting, meditative period. I loved it.

Shabbat, for those who never experienced it, is not something that is purely a Jewish concept. It is in biblical text that G-d created for six days, and on the seventh He rested. The Jewish religion took this idea very literally, and every Friday to Saturday sundown religious and cultural Jews alike stop. They just stop and put their lives on hold for a little bit. The outcome? Well, try it out and you tell me.

How to observe a Shabbat: Borrowed from www.SabbathManifesto.org.

1. Avoid Technology

2. Connect with loved ones

3. Nurture your health

4. Get outside

5. Avoid commerce

6. Light candles

7. Drink wine

8. Eat bread

9. Find silence

10. Give back

Tonight, Shabbat starts at sundown. If you’re inclined to just take a break, do some self-reflection, have a get together of friends and loved ones, try it out. Let me know how it goes.

As much as I’d love to be eloquent when it comes to speaking Torah, it’s difficult when one, such as myself, slacks reading the holy text, going to Torah classes or synagogue. But, with my love of email and all, I get my dose of inspiration through the newsletters of my favorite rabbis. One of these is Rabbi David Wolpe who recently wrote a post about just this, yearning to learn:

Knowing where to find information is not the same as possessing it. Each fact we learn is arranged in the matrix of all we already know. One who knows how to Google “Shakespeare sonnets” cannot be compared to the one who has memorized Shakespeare’s sonnets. The latter carries the words with
him. The former is an accountant of knowledge; he knows where the treasure is, but it does not belong to him.

Real education instills a desire for knowledge, not merely the tools to acquire it. We are shaped by what we know and what we yearn to know. The Talmud tells us that as a young man Hillel was so desperate for words of Torah that he climbed on the roof of the study house to hear the discourses of his great predecessors, Shemaya and Avtalion. Noticing the darkness, they looked up and saw the young man on the skylight, covered with snow. The rabbis rescued Hillel, washed and anointed him, and sat him by the fire.

“If you want to build a ship,” wrote Antoine de Saint Exupery, “don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the sea.”

The above was written by Rabbi Wolpe. Of course, he could say it better than I could. The moral of the story for me was, before we feel guilty for not doing the things we feel we are supposed to do to get closer to G-d, let’s think about why we want to get close to G-d in the first place. Then maybe we’ll take the steps we feel are right to build that relationship.

If you would like to read …

Two Fridays ago, I packed my bag with some of my cutest sundresses and SPF 15, and set flight for the Virgin Islands. Little did I know I’d experience one of the holiest places I’ve ever been to. This place I now call Heaven on Earth never drops below 72 degrees, even in the middle of the night. The sun is always shining, and people are always smiling. You can even swim among the sea turtles in the middle of their waters, and see more star than sky at night. I was blessed to have been there.

Nothing makes me happier than seeing people who know they live in G-d’s creations. “This is yours,” said one taxi driver. It is, isn’t it? Almost every few roads we passed had a church, or fences with graffiti saying “G-d makes everything alright” or car decals that say “Reliance on G-d = success.” It’s as if everyone there doesn’t question G-d existence, but knows He exists because it’s just too gorgeous a place to have been created by random.

Instead of falling in love with my tan (got an awful sunburn) or prancing around in sundresses (wore mostly t-shirts and shorts), I kind of just hung out with G-d instead – in the form of water and sand, sunlight, positive people and energy, sea turtles and birds, and even, a synagogue.

Hidden way upside a hill in St. Thomas is a gorgeous synagogue with sand floors and lots of sunlight, all in its original form dating back to 1833. See photos below.

It’s always amazing to find meaning sitting in the middle of history, or some of the world’s most beautiful beaches. If you can’t find G-d at home, maybe it’s time to take a trip. G-d doesn’t sit still. Why should we?

I’m getting ready to set sail for the Islands in a few days, and I couldn’t help but ask myself the question: If I were stranded, what three things would I want with me?

To my surprise, the answer was not so difficult – a Trader Joe’s food market, a Barnes & Noble bookstore (with a Starbucks, of course) and a really rad, super adventurous guy to share my time with. That, to me, was more like an ideal life situation than a survival hypothetical. I thought it was too easy. So I tried to think harder but the answer didn’t change. What I didn’t ask for, even after reevaluating, was a Bible or a synagogue. How come?

If you were on an island, all by yourself, what three things would you want with you? Would you ask for a Bible or Church, or both? And if so, why? What would you sacrifice in its place?

I’ll be thinking more about my answer while I’m sipping daiquiris in the middle of the sand. I look forward to hearing what you all say when I get back.

Tonight is Shabbat, and I’ve been thinking about how to prepare. I’m not making a big fancy dinner, or going to synagogue. But I want to do something to feel that I am part of this tradition dating back to Genesis.

Every Friday night, Jewish women who observe the Sabbath light two white candles and say a prayer. In Hebrew, they pray to G-d for their family, their house guests, for Shabbat and are given time to silently add anything else on their minds. I remember the first time I tried it on my own. I tried really hard to remember the Hebrew by heart, but couldn’t, so I read it instead. I prayed for a non-Jewish friend who was going through a hard time. Then I stopped and said Amen. The coolest part about it was that it wasn’t about me. I felt I had power to tell G-d what to do and who to look after. I also thought about how if thousands of other women are in their homes saying the same prayer at the same time as me, G-d has to listen. It was amazing to be part of something like that.

Since then, my prayers have gotten longer and longer. One time I prayed for half hour for everyone I could think of. This prayer is typically two minutes in length to start off Shabbat.

In my previous post “Hey G-d, call me,” I wrote about how I couldn’t find inspiration to get back into the flow of growing Jewishly; spiritually. As a writer, sometimes you write when you’re inspired. Other times you write to get inspired. Tonight, I’m going to light candles after not having done so in weeks. I hope, and I almost know, it will be my way of breaking the ice with G-d and saying hey, can we talk? I have spiritual-block. I’m looking to get inspired.

How many of you have a tradition that brings you closer to G-d, even if it‘s yours only? I’d love to know about it. Maybe even try it out myself.

Stay tuned here for my next …