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Chapter 1 - Getting to know Shabbat

Chapter One - Getting to Know Shabbat "More than the Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews." - Ahad HaAm What is the best way to begin one's Jewish journey? Why, by taking a day off, of course! Shabbat, the Sabbath or day-of-rest, is so essential to the Jewish experience that I can think of no other starting point, and certainly no better one, from which to begin exploring Judaism. How one goes about experiencing Shabbat, however, is not without some amount of controversy. But you will need to get used to that – you are, after all, dipping your toes into a tradition for which (polite) argument is practically a sacred act. Rule number one: if you know two Jews, you will get at least two opinions about the proper way to do something, and they may both be right. Judaism, at least in contemporary America, tries to make enough room under its tent for several different ways to uphold its many traditions. I'm going to walk you through the Sabbath
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Chapter 0 - Pre-history of My Jewish Journey

"Chapter Zero" - Pre-history of My Jewish Journey About two years ago as I write this, I was going through a spiritual crisis. Neither the religion of my upbringing nor any of the religions I had tried since was speaking to the deep inner needs I felt at that time. I had been raised in the United Methodist Church, which is known for doing a rather good job of meeting the religious needs of a pretty wide variety of people, and yet which I had drifted away from as an adult for a number of reasons that I will try to explain in this chapter. I could have done what many of my peers have done and simply walked away from the religious life entirely, but I would have missed the sense of identity and community and values and purpose and rhythm-of-life and getting-my-soul-fed that having a religion gave me. So I spent roughly 20 years of my life cycling through a handful of religions that each seemed to contribute some of what I needed, but that each also seemed to leave a part of my
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