Torah Geek

"Altar Smoke" by Isaac Brynjegard-Bialik   I have a confession: I am terrible at keeping my car clean. Every so often I pull the car out of the garage and give it a thorough cleaning. Like any good Californian, I keep an emergency kit in my car in case of earthquake or fire — but I am really bad about cleaning and updating it. During my most recent cleaning I discovered that my emergency kit still contained diapers and long-dried-out baby wipes — my children are now 15, 17 and 19 years old. It seems that the only emergency I was equipped for was one that included time travel. I enjoy having a clean car, but I am not a big fan of doing the actual cleaning.  "Altar Flame" by Isaac Brynjegard-Bialik However, cleaning is what today is all about. Yom Kippur does not actually mean “Day of Atonement.” We often translate it that way: “yom” as day and “ki-PUR” as atonement… or if we are trying to be clever as a “Day of At-One-Ment” — but that’s not really wha...

"The Thicket" by Isaac Brynjegard-Bialik In San Jose, California, there is a small museum set in a beautiful garden; the front of the building is guarded by an army of ram-headed lion sphinxes similar to those found in ancient Thebes. It is the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, and inside there is a replica of an Egyptian tomb which you enter down a dimly-lit flight of faux rock stairs, designed to create the illusion that you are climbing down into an ancient pyramid, not a museum basement. Life after death was a paramount concern of the ancient Egyptians, and the tomb is a testament to all the measures they determined one could take to ensure a happy afterlife. The ancient Egyptians believed that whatever you depicted in your tomb would come true after your death, so every luxury imaginable was either placed in the tomb or painted on the walls.  The main room of the tomb was painted with a mural of the Egyptian Book of the Dead and depicted what the afterlife of the...

Last spring my friend Portlyn talked me into lifting weights. At first I said no. I am not a gym person and it is so far out of my comfort zone I can barely see it from here. I do not enjoy exercise, I don’t get that endorphin rush that  even casual athletes talk about, but I know it is good for you and Portlyn persisted and so I eventually gave in and called the gym. The first time I walked in the door I wanted to turn around and walk out again. It seemed that everyone around me knew exactly what they were doing: what to wear, what kind of water bottle to have, where to stand and how to move… Everyone looked like they had a purpose, whereas I had no clue and I was sure everyone could tell that I didn’t belong.  I was so uncomfortable that I could feel it on my skin, that sense of unease that everyone was staring at me and finding me lacking. I did, in fact turn around, and there was my friend, blocking the door and reminding me that nobody was looking at me o...