I have to say that I just don’t understand why Rosh Hashanah is celebrated for two days. I know the history,  and how difficult it often was to determine when the New Moon appeared and therefore when the holiday should be celebrated, and I know the rabbis of old determined to keep it a two day holiday even after the calendar became certain. But that is all I know. I don’t know why that decision was made (i.e., was it unanimous or more of a 5-4 decision), but I do know that, if you follow the Torah, one day is all you get.

Of course, I wonder about a lot those rabbis agreed upon. The best example is taking the Torah prohibition of boiling a young goat in his mother’s milk, and deciding that means you can’t eat chicken with cheese. I just don’t understand it.

There are those, of course, who say that their reasoning does not matter, it’s a matter of community agreement. You want to be part of the community? You abide by the rules of the community.

I understand this perspective. I just don’t agree with it. I think the tent should be bigger than that. (I could expand this discussion to cover my view of American politics, but won’t.)

That takes me to Rabbi Alexander’s sermon yesterday, or at least to one part of it. In olden days, there were two rabbis whom the Talmud always poses as against each other on ponts of doctrine and practice: Shammai (always the loser) and Hillel (always the winner). A good teaching tool, if nothing else.

Rabbi Alexander gave an example (as a lead-in to his sermon, which had a different major point) of three different non-Jewish individuals who first turned to Shammai to seek his aid in converting to Judaism, and whom after being rejected, turned to Hillel who converted them on the spot. Of course, since then, the rabbis have made it more and more difficult to convert to Judaism. I think this is largely because they don’t want to convert people who will eat chicken with cheese or celebrate Rosh Hashanah for only one day. I have long disagreed with this restrictiveness, and now that I can point to Hillel on my side, I must wonder why, in this case only (and without attribution, of course), Shammai apparently won.

Okay, let’s move from the mundane to the even more mundane.

Donald Trump has gone full bananas. After telling 65, 000 people in Arizona, “I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them”, today he told members of the United Nations that their countries are “going to hell” and told NATO members that they should shoot down errant Russian planes. He then met with President Zelensky and then spun around six times and, while still dizzy, issued an X that said that Russia was a paper tiger, Ukraine should get back all their lost territory “and maybe a little more”, and that the US was going to turn over weaponry to NATO with no strings attached. All I can say to that is, I wonder what he will say tomorrow. Probably just the opposite.

In the meantime, the government will “shut down” on October 1. The Congressional Republicans emulated the Texas Democrats of this summer, and left town, to return too late to halt the shut down.

In case you forgot, the Republicans had proposed a 6 or 7 week extension on their terms, and refused to talk to Democrats about certain of those terms the Democrats want to modify. After they left, Democratic leadership asked for a meeting with Trump, which was scheduled. Today, after spinning around six more times, Trump decided not to meet. Who will be blamed for the shut down? And what will Trump try to do during the shut down?

At any rate, whether or not I understand it, it is still Rosh Hashanah. So, celebrate if you wish. But if you are like me, don’t despair. I hear more holidays are on their way.