Jesus Saves...Moses Invests

I've mostly been an incidental Jew at work. I do what I have to do, but don't bring up religion for its own sake. However, I had lunch with one of my coworkers, and it turns out she's not so shy about religion. She's a pretty devout Catholic, about my age, and asked a lot of questions, not just about things I do, but about Jewish belief in general. I did my best to answer (although that is not always easy. Try to be Halachic and PC at the same time.), but it also begs the question- what are the limits? The conversation mainly stayed on me and Judaism, mainly because I was afraid to broach Christian theology. See, one of the reasons to keep religion personal is that their is often an urge not just to find out about other religions, but to react to them. How do I be respectful of the person of faith that is telling me about their sincere beliefs that I could pull apart with childish logic? I wouldn't appreciate somebody doing the same to me. But at the same time it seems like a crime to overlook the apparent emptiness of another's claim. I've just always been trained to question the illogical.

I decided to restrain myself. But I do hear a lot about Jesus this, Jesus that from some of the people here. They don't mind opening up. I don't know if they see me as a missionary target- or if my visibly religious exterior simply inspires some kind of harmonious spirit.

Either way, it's never a good idea to go around the office smirking.

Daylight Savings Time

Daylight Savings Time may be great for farmers, but it sure makes it hard to work and pray. When it doesn't get light until 7 am and is dark by 4 pm, you really have to squeeze in morning and afternoon prayers.

I try and pray in the morning after sunrise (the optimal time, as opposed to before sunrise), which really squeezes out all the flexibility I had before, since their is only one service in my area that meets this criteria. So much for breakfast.

And afternoons are worse. With services at 4:15 and getting earlier, I can't win. Sure, work is flexible. I theoretically can come in early (which conflicts with the previous paragraph), but that exposes me to being the "slacker" heading out early in the eyes of my coworkers, and sometimes it's just not realistic. There is a service at another office about 10 minutes away at 1 pm. That's actually proven quite good. I make the quick lunch escape, and I can stay as late as I need to. Which only leaves me working longer hours...

Yom Tov

Well, I just passed my first High Holiday season as a working man. Not too bad. I had no problem taking off for the holidays. Although they wouldn't let me miss another day, which killed any chance of going to Israel for the holidays (which would've let me take advantage of the numerous days I had to take off anyways). As if taking two days off every week is excessive!?!

But it is quite difficult getting caught up with everything that continued in my absence. I fall behind more every day it seems. I came in two Sundays (and one night after a holiday). I earned one comp day, but truthfully, in all, I'm just as tired from the days of celebrating as I would be from having worked.