ruffboijuliaburnsides:

maelace:

badwolflupin:

so proud to belong to a religion where it is legit to throw hard candy at the heads of your relatives on certain occasions

Story Time!
Our aufruf happened to coincide with the shabbat that our synagogue was hosting this ‘promoting religious understand’ women’s group thing. So in addition to the normal crowd there’s about 25 Muslim and Christian women. Before services (well, really during pesukei dezimra [the first part of services], because for Christians the idea of services that start at 9 and go until noon is just A Bit Much), they met and kind of got the rundown of ‘this is that happens in a synagogue service’. So, talking about carrying around the Torah, and what kippot and talit are, that kinda thing. 

So now fast forward to being in services. My husband and I were also cooking kiddush lunch that day (because this was our compromise to me wanting to cook the food for the actual wedding), so we had the second to last aliyah so that we could zip right back to the kitchen. What this means is that by now, the exchange group has a pretty good idea of what aliyahs look like; you go, you say a blessing, the reader reads, you say another blessing, and then the next person goes.

Except that as soon as my husband and I finish the second blessing, the usher folks start passing around these baskets of candy. And meanwhile the rabbi is talking about us, and so I’m looking Anywhere Else, because This Is Embarrassing, so I notice that some of the exchange group ladies are eating their candy, oh, haha, that’s funny. So the rabbi finishes her bit about us, and then everyone starts singing mazel tov. 

And. And everyone starts pelting us with candy. These ladies had been seated near the front, so candy is suddenly soaring over their heads from behind. And the children, who the ladies had not noticed, because they had all been brought up from their classes for this, but were being quite in the back of the sanctuary, streak up to the front and descend upon us like a plague of candy seeking locusts. And some of our dearest friends and family have decided it is their goal in life to pelt us in the face. As One Does.

And that is the story of how the women’s religious exchange group decided that they should start going over the Specific Order Of That Days Service at their little sharing shindigs, to Prevent Cultural Misunderstanding.

This is exactly as delightful as I thought it was gonna be. XD