wind and stuff

Impressive winds last night. At one point I woke up to the sound of the metal cover in the (decorative) fireplace in the bedroom rattling around. In other words, wind was coming down the chimney with enough force to do that. I've never heard that sound in my bedroom before.

Note to future self: when you buy your next car, make sure it weighs as much as your current one. (They make 'em out of plastic now, so it might not.) This morning's winds were still strong enough to push my car around. (Low-profile, but small.) And wow -- hail! In November! Little hailstones, but hail nonetheless. It was kind of neat, from an indoor vantage point.

This morning at services a couple of the guys asked me when I'm going to lead the service. I said I need to learn the service better (that is, the chazan's part), and that I'd actually tried to buy a copy of the siddur but Pinsker's doesn't carry it. So Joe told me to borrow one; I was concerned that they didn't have enough to lend one out, so he picked one up, turned to the "donor" plate in the front that has his name on it, and said it was ok. Gee, I guess they're serious. :-)

A bug in our infrastructure code is preventing me from effectively debugging my application. The relevant developer should appear any moment now with a workaround. I hope.

learning experience

A post in a community for Jewish converts (and converts in training) raised this question: the poster has a disabled sibling and has in the past been the person who accompanies said sibling to church on Christmas. (The rest of the family is in the choir.) Is this behavior permitted, required, or forbidden of a Jew?

Much of the feedback so far weighs in on the side of "required -- family is family". Someone cited honoring one's parents (the source of the request), and a couple people mentioned protecting a life (the sibling is apparently in real danger of injury without someone there).

I, on the other hand, am leaning toward "forbidden", though "permitted" is a possibility. Definitely not "required", though.

The issue is complex. While the sibling needs a caregiver, that's a service that can be hired -- so there's no apparent need for the poster to do it personally. Of course it's important to honor one's parents (this comes up a lot in text), but the talmud also teaches that if a parent asks you to transgress the Torah, you must decline (Bava Metzia 32a). This raises the question of whether attending another religion's worship service -- on its second-holiest day, to boot -- is avodah zara, forbidden worship. Is it enough if you don't intend to worship? What if you don't participate? What if you don't listen? That is a complex question with varied answers depending on circumstances, ranging from exactly what will take place to the strength of your own Jewish education and commitment, and you really need to ask your rabbi for a personal ruling.

I think the experience of facing this issue is valuable for the conversion candidate, actually. As a member of a minority religion (that sometimes faces hostility from others), sometimes you are going to have to make choices between your religion and your family/friends/society -- things like this, or resolving Shabbat issues with your employer, or various other matters. Finding out how you will handle those choices before it's "too late" -- before you convert and acquire new obligations -- seems useful to me.

I assume that most conversion candidates face some sort of religion-vs-world-at-large test during the process, but I don't actually know.