"If you think you have a lot to atone for, you should meet the Westin family"

If they can't ake that joke, they should stay away period...c'mon! What would Shecky do?

There's nothing worse than a Jew with a bad sense of humor. I mean, the whole selling point for our race is pretty much the humor, which oddly enough usually stems from a self-deprecating place (see Sarah Silverman or any other Jewish comic worth their weight in motzah---->speaking of which, for anyone not in the know, Edison Diner: best motzah ball soup in the world. Read about as one of Lin-Manuel Miranda's favorite dishes and since I'm such a good Jewish boy I had to have me some soup this past trip and went there - and three more times, in a one-week period. Oy vey. Sorry for the tangent, folks!). Um...yeah.

>and since I'm such a good Jewish boy<

Then what are you doing posting on Kol Nidre?

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Kol Nidre services ended at my Shul at 8:15 PM.

And what have I done since I got home? Surfed BWW.

I'm a really bad jew....but regardless: I thought the ad was pretty funny.

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I am a Conservative (but I lean towards Orthodox on some issues like intermarriage and Reform on some issues like abortion and homosexuality) Jew, but I have NEVER heard of abstaining from electronics during Yom Kippur. It is morning here in Russia, and I'm not going to services for a few hours (St. Petersburg Chabad!). I am a practicing Jew and I HAVE NEVER NEVER heard of abstinence from electronics on Yom Kippur, as long as you're not bringing your iPods and cellphones (well, turn off the cellphones) to services. As for the ad, I don't see why that'd be offensive. AND YES, A FEW MONTHS AGO I WAS ORTHODOX, BUT I'VE GONE THROUGH SOME CHANGES! I realized that Orthodox was a trap for me, and that I was letting religion dictate my life. I'm still religious, I just don't identify as Orthodox anymore. For a while, I felt that because I am a descendant of the B'aal Shem Tov (he's my eighth great-grandfather; or eight-times great-grandfather), it was an obligation for me to follow in his footsteps. But, I realized that I don't need to do that, and I think my ancestor would want me to have a happy life, and honestly, I wasn't happy being Orthodox. I was miserable.

I didn't go to Kol Nidre last services last night, only and ONLY because I was so tired of the traveling that I had to do the day before that (9 hours of travel time; ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn; bus from Tallinn to St. Petersburg that was 7 hour ride), and by the time I checked into my hotel I just fell asleep and Kol Nidre services would have been near the ending, also, I wasn't so interested in going out in a city that I'm not that familiar with trying to find the Chabad center. I'll be heading for the synagogue in a few hours (it's 7:13 AM right now), but last night, I was just too tired to. Also, my Russian is not as good as it used to be and there's still a lot of anti-Semitism in Russia, and going to the concierge asking about synagogues might not be such a great idea. I looked it up on the computer and I know where I'm heading. I think I'll have to take the Metro (ugh), but it's a thrill for me to visit synagogues in other countries wherever I go. The only countries that I've been to where I didn't visit any synagogues are Portugal, Croatia, Greece, Aruba, Dominica (there are none there), Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Curaçao (well, I saw the outside of it, but they were in the middle of services when the ship docked in Willemstad, and they wouldn't let us in; beautiful synagogue, though), Bahamas, Mexico, Honduras, and Turkey. I have been to synagogues on 6 continents now, and while I don't ever travel to places just to see synagogues (well, I did go to Ulm just to see the Synagogue when I went to Stuttgart in December to see "Wicked"), but it's nice to see synagogues when you travel. I was shocked that there were Chabad centers in China, Japan, and Thailand, but I went to Shabbat services in Shanghai (by an all-European, Canadian, or American clergy, though), Rosh Hashannah services in Tokyo, Yom Kippur services in Bangkok, and I went to a Sukkah in Hong Kong. That's not something you hear everyday (I went to this lovely sukkah in Hong Kong). Oh, I've also been to a Seder in South Africa!

I have never heard of that in my 23 years of being Jewish. My grandmother writes on Yom Kippur and she is ORTHODOX! I also have other Orthodox cousins who write (I think they do, at least. I'm not with them at all times, though). How was abandoning your people the best decision of your life? You could have just gone to a different denomination of Judaism, you know. We lost 6,000,000 in the Holocaust, and we're losing Jews everyday to intermarriage, Atheism, and Christianity. Normally, it's vulnerable ones like college students (because they don't have their parents looking out after them all the time, and they are really confused with their life sometimes and just kind of mixed up and lost and they are trying to find something) and the elderly (because they feel like they just want some happiness in the short time that they have left). Clearly, you don't have relatives who were in the Holocaust, and you are probably not from a very religious family or a family of Rabbis either, or you would not abandon your culture/heritage/people. A lot of Jews don't practice, but most of them don't TOTALLY give it up, like how you are. Do you ever think about the Holocaust? What do you think about that? You probably don't think much of it, because you think they all should've been Atheists anyway.

bwaylvsong,

i'm sad to hear that your temple did not place importance on kol nidre services. it is a beautiful, somber service which sets the tone for reflection and atonement.

I've always found Hineni to be one of my favorite prayers, only heard on Kol Nidre.

I know the Frum in Toronto won't even use the Shabbos elevator in a Jewish affiliated hospital during Rosh Hashonah even NOT pushing a button just paticipating in the cars movement was/is too much for them.

Also, being atheist wouldn't have saved anyone from the holocaust. Lots of my relatives had Jewish blood in them, but were actually atheist and weren't practicing jews, but were still rounded up and killed. And if you really want to take up the whole argument about not having relatives in the holocaust and then only being atheist, she lost over 70 relatives, and she's atheist as they come. And to be honest, I think she's likely to know a lot more about it than you.

i don't think it's fair to question someone's personal choices. in some regards, i can see how the holocaust itself can make one question god.

in the world we live today, with so much knowledge, technology, and science, there is still so much killing in the name of god, i can see how someone who believes in logic and fact could see an absence of divinity.

i love judaism, but when people use religion in place of logic, or have absolute blind faith, it becomes more of a problem than a solution