On December 17th, Ima on (and off) the Bima posted a Chanukah giveaway.  She was giving away copies of Bruce, Bruce the Chanukah Moose.  I entered twice (once by posting a comment and a second time by tweeting the contest).  The next day, Ima notified me that I had won.  It was my first online giveaway win ever!  A few days later, B informed me that a package had arrived for me.  I ripped it open and inside was a copy of the book (along with a CD with music based on the book), 3 bags of chocolate gelt and a dreidel.

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I’ve already read NHL the book, played the songs for him and played dreidel with him using the gelt.  He begged to be able to rip open his coins and eat them, but I told him that he couldn’t play with them if he did that.  (Empty foil wrappers don’t count!)  I let him eat a couple, but most were saved for future dreidel games.  Thanks to ImaBima for everything!

Last night, we had our traditional Christmas meal: Chinese food.  First, we ate out at a Chinese buffet.  After engorging ourselves on Chinese food (and sushi!  yay!), we stopped by a CVS that we saw was open on the way to the restaurant.  We walked through the aisles casually shopping.  The store’s manager came over and wished us a Merry Christmas.  Normally, this is where B or I reply "Happy Chanukah" to gently inform the person that we don’t celebrate Christmas.  It’s not that we’re highly offended.  It’s more of a reminder that December isn’t solely Christmas territory.  For whatever reason – full bellies or the nice way he said it – we decided not to respond in our usual manner.

NHL, however, replied: "Happy Chanukah.  We don’t celebrate Christmas.  We celebrate Chanukah."  I was so proud of him at that moment.

Then he proceeded to inform the manager that we were heading home now to light the candles ("Have Chanukah" in NHL’s terminology).  Then he decended into "stream of consciousness talk" where anything that popped into his head came out of his mouth without any regard for other people lacking the references NHL was making.  We were leaving by this point and tried to keep NHL quiet on the way out.  The manager was nice and didn’t seem annoyed by NHL’s ramblings.

After we got home, I called my parents to see how they are doing.  When I told him about the CVS event, he told me about something my nephew did.  Apparently, he told my sister to light a fire in the fireplace just in case Santa came down their chimney.  When I was a kid, I’d do the same thing.  I knew Santa wasn’t real, but just in case he was and just in case he mistook our household for one that celebrated Christmas, I wanted to "inform" him that we didn’t.  I guess I wasn’t one for subtly.

We don’t have a chimney/fireplace in our house, so we won’t be carrying on this tradition at home.  I don’t know if my sister told him the story or if he came up with it on his own.  In either case, I’m so proud of my nephew for carrying on a Christmas tradition.

Yesterday was Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.  Two nights ago, B stayed home with the boys so I could go to Temple.  Usually, I sit with B’s family (aunt, uncle, and grandmother), but when I got there, I couldn’t see whether they were in their usual spot.  It was also so packed that I didn’t even know if there was an open seat by them.  I wound up sitting in the back all by myself.  It wasn’t bad, though, because I had some time to pray and think.

I was thinking about my A Self Divided post when I came upon the following line in my prayer book:

Will You open our prisons
Release from us shackles of habit?

Suddenly, something occurred to me.  My "religious side" (as I put it in my last post) wasn’t clinging to the six hour rule over valid religious arguments, but out of habit.  I have been following that rule for about two decades and changing something that you’ve done for that long, it’s hard to change.

Now, I value change.  I happen to think that it isn’t "flip floping" when a politician changes his position provided he does so based on new information.  I also think that religions need to be able to change as the world changes.  In my opinion, many of the reasons behind certain religious rules no longer apply in today’s world and should be done away with.  Yet, how could I expect my religion to change if I was unwilling to change?  Unfortunately, I (like many people) often find it hard to change.  I cling to old practices far longer than I should.

Case in point: When I was in college, I decided to grow a beard.  It was ugly, didn’t match the rest of my hair for some odd reason, and made me look over 30 years old.  All my friends were candid about how awful it made me look and tried to get me to shave, but I persisted.  Finally, I decided to shave it off.  Good thing, too.  B hates facial hair!

When I first began following the 6 hour rule, I was in Hebrew School.  I was told that it took 6 hours for meat to digest in your stomach and that was the reason for the wait.  However, when I recently looked into reasons for waiting between eating milk and meat, nothing mentioned digestive durations.  So I really shouldn’t hold onto 6 hours simply because "that’s the way I always did it."

This doesn’t mean that I’m about to ditch all of my religious beliefs.  I still believe in many of them.  This particular one, though, had been vexing me for some time.  Deep down, I knew that I should move to waiting 3 hours, but I was afraid to change.  I can’t say that I’m entirely fearless now, but I’m willing to make the change and see how things go.

Habit can be a strong force to overcome.  Are there any things that you do completely out of habit?

It’s hard, but I’ll admit it.  I’m split in two.  On one hand, I’m a pretty scientific thinker.  I love reading about new scientific advances, am a big fan of using the scientific method, and don’t want Intelligent Design taught in science class.  On the other hand, I’m pretty religious.  I keep Kosher (to some degree), I observe Shabbat (mostly), and I go to Temple (during holidays).  I value both aspects of me, but they can often go to war with each other.

For example, I wait 6 hours from eating meat until I’ll eat dairy.  That means if I eat a hamburger at 7pm, I can’t eat a piece of cake made with butter until 1am.  This wait has resulted in me becoming a near-vegetarian.  When offered the choice between a piece of meat and the possibility of dessert, I go for dessert nearly every time.  Not that I regret this, mind you.  I’m not the biggest meat-lover around.  I’m happy using tofu/soy substitutes instead of meat.   However, it can complicate things sometimes.

Some people think I should tone down this wait time.  Her uncle, who is also religious, only waits 3 hours.  My parents (who aren’t religious, but who attend an Orthodox temple) know many Orthodox people who agree with the 3 hour rule.  So why do I wait 6 hours now?  Mostly because I was brought up that way.  In Hebrew School while growing up, I was told that one shouldn’t mix milk and meat.  In order to prevent meat and milk from being eaten during the same meal, a wait time of 6 hours was initiated.

Apparently, however, there are many different philosophies of how long you need to wait.  In Russia, Jewish communities set the wait time as 6 hours.  In Europe (Germany), the local Jewish communities set the wait time at 3 hours.  It all depended on how their meals were structured during the day.  The Germanic Jews were more likely to eat a meal between Lunch and Dinner and so could wait 3 hours before the next meal hit.  The Russians waited from Lunch until Dinner.

So where does that leave me?  Undecided (much to some people’s annoyance) for many months.  I’ve looked up the reasons behind the wait and found that I agree with some and don’t agree with others.  Even the ones I agree with, however, might be satisfied by a 3 hour wait.

So why not simply change?  If I’m going to be fully honest, it is for two main reasons:  1) I’ve been doing this for almost two decades now so a shift this major is quite a big deal.  2) I’m afraid of the Slippery Slope – that is, I’m afraid that this "minor" change will lead to more changes to (or pressures to change) my religious beliefs that I’m not prepared to make.

My scientific side has analyzed all of the arguments and has come to the conclusion that a 3 hour wait should be fine.  My religious side reads that the actual rule is "greater than 5 hours" and is only willing to yield to a 5 hour 1 minute wait.

So here I am stuck going over the same issue in my mind over and over.  The same arguments for and against.  I’m in a Red Queen’s Race and I can’t figure a way out.

Has anyone else ever experienced a split like this?  (Doesn’t have to be religious/science based.)  How do you come to a decision in a situation like this?