I Feel A Bit Stagnant With My Faith...｜ vlog #3
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
151.65843
Summary
Jacob and I went to a wedding in Rhode Island, we celebrated Rosh Hashanah, and I talk about how I feel like I m stagnating in my faith and faith journey. I m not sure what to do about it.
Transcript
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You guys know I'm very open about my faith and my faith journey and one of the things that I've
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been thinking about a lot lately is I feel like I'm stagnating.
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One of the things I really like about vlogging that I've never had the experience of doing
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because I've never done regular vlogs before is that now I can just chat with you and tell
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you everything that's been going on over the course of the week.
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And I used to do that with my scoop videos, but I like this because it's a little bit
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So we can just hang out and I don't have to sit down and come up with topics to talk about.
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This way I really just get to chat with you, which is really fun.
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So I figured I would do it while I folded laundry because folding laundry is kind of mindless
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so I can chat with you while I do it and I don't feel like I'm not doing this process
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So I wanted to chat with you guys about Rosh Hashanah and the wedding that we went to.
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It was my first time in Rhode Island, so that was cool.
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And the wedding was in Newport, which is an adorable little town.
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It's on the coast and you're right next to the water.
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And there's all these really kitschy little shops, which I personally think are really fun.
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I know some people would feel like they were too touristy.
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I've talked about it on my channel before probably, that we always go to Irish stores.
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Whenever we come across like an Irish Scottish store, we always go inside.
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Jacob has some of that heritage and also we just love the culture.
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So Jacob was able to buy a new hat and he looks great in it.
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And I was really excited because it just, it's a great hat.
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And I bought a little baseball cap with an anchor on it, which I thought was really cute.
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And just a casual thing for me to put on, which is nice.
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But this wedding that we went to was at an old estate called Rosecliff, maybe Rosecliff Manor.
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You guys know that I love any opportunity to get dressed up.
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And we were there with Jacob's whole family, which was really nice.
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And then that led in to Labor Day and Rosh Hashanah.
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So Labor Day was really spent getting ready for Rosh Hashanah.
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It's also the time of year where we're judged to see if we're going to have a good year.
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And then that judgment is sealed on Yom Kippur, which is the big, fast Jewish holiday that you've probably heard of.
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And Rosh Hashanah is a really important holiday.
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We're hopefully making plans for a better year.
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We actually moved to Providence for the holiday because the synagogues in Newport still weren't allowing people into services who weren't members.
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So we had to find a synagogue in Providence that would be able to host us.
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I had some, I've been thinking about some things lately.
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And you guys know I'm very open about my faith and my faith journey.
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And one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot lately is I feel like I'm stagnating.
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Essentially, when COVID hit, synagogues closed down.
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And because we don't use electricity on Sabbath, we can't go to Zoom services.
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We weren't really able to pray with the community.
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And before that, when we were living in Omaha, we had gone to synagogue every week.
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And since then, we've just really not gotten back into the swing of things.
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And I think there's a part of us, because we don't really live in a big Jewish community,
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that's been like, okay, when we buy a house and when we move into a Jewish community,
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we'll start going to services and we'll keep more.
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And we keep saying, when this happens, we'll do this.
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It's just, it's not the best way to go about things.
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It's, of course, you have to take things slowly.
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You don't want to take a million steps forward really fast and then back up.
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But it's also important to take deliberate steps forward.
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And so Jacob and I had a really good talk before, actually before Rosh Hashanah started.
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And we just decided we're going to be more deliberate.
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We're going to think more about the practices that we want to start observing.
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And I kind of had forgotten leading into Rosh Hashanah that, you know, so much of it is about repentance.
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And then I got to the synagogue that we went to.
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And, you know, the first book I picked up on Rosh Hashanah said, you know, this is the holiday of repentance.
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And I felt like, oh my gosh, without even realizing, I feel like I've repented.
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And I'm really making a resolution this year to be more intentional about taking those steps forward.
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So I'm really looking forward to this coming Jewish New Year.
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I'm really excited that we're going to be practicing more, even while we're not in a Jewish community.
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We're going to try to take on more observances.
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And I just feel so much more confident and excited about my faith and about Judaism.
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And I think that there's so much that we have to look forward to.
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I'm so excited that things are open more now that we can go to services because we, in our area now, haven't had really a lot of access to that.
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So going to services for Rosh Hashanah in Rhode Island was amazing.
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We sing a bunch of songs and we say all of these prayers.
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You know, Jacob and I have talked about what does Rosh Hashanah really mean?
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Because I think a lot of the time we are taught through imagery as children what's going to happen.
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So you have to pray really hard so you're written in the Book of Life.
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But as a kid, Rosh Hashanah, for me, held a lot of fear.
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I was really afraid that if I didn't pray hard enough, God would punish me or I wouldn't be able to have a good year.
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And when I met Jacob, he kind of made me rethink things.
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And he said, you know, I think Rosh Hashanah isn't about if you pray hard enough, God will put you in for a good year.
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I think it's more about the idea that it's up to you to write yourself in for a good year by the choices you make.
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And by the things that you regret so that you make better choices.
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And when he said that, it made me feel so much more in control.
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It was so much more about my actions and how I could improve.
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And Rosh Hashanah is our opportunity to kind of have a reality check of, okay, this is the time.
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It's your chance to actually grow and make better decisions.
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It's not about, oh, if I pray hard enough, then maybe God will give me a good year.
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No, you get to have a good year if you make the right choices.
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And that was so much more calming and so much better for me as far as my faith and as far as my relationship to the holiday.
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And so now I really look forward to Rosh Hashanah because it's a time for me to rethink, okay, what did I do this year that I regret?
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And what did I do this year that I want to repeat?
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And what do I want to do next year that will make me even better?
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And I've just been getting back into the swing of things.
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Of course, we've got a ton more do-ish holidays coming up.
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So I will be sharing all of that with you guys because I do these vlogs every week.
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It's unfortunate that because we can't use electricity, I can't bring you along on the holidays.
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Yom Kippur is next Wednesday night into Thursday.
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So I will definitely let you guys know how that goes.
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It just means that getting back into the swing of work is really difficult because you don't have a routine
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So I'm going to finish up folding this laundry.
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I don't think I did such a good job of not staying distracted.
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And then I'm going to bring you along for some other things that I'm doing.
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I'm going to bring you along for some other things that I'm doing.
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And even though Jacob and I aren't totally observant, I try not to do actual work.
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So this is something I wouldn't do on the holiday.
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And tonight we're going to the rabbi's house for dinner.
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I just had a bunch of leftover squash and potatoes and stuff.
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So I put everything in the pot and then I blended it together.
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And then I put in some barley and some kidney beans.
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Maybe I'll come up with the recipe and I'll post it somewhere.
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If you're not already subscribed to my Substack newsletter, make sure to head over there so
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And if you aren't already subscribed to my channel so you can follow along with my weekly
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vlogs, make sure that you subscribe and hit that notification bell.
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Before I go, I should mention, I feel like this is an odd thing.
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So we have a swing set in our backyard and we don't use it.
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So we have the swings up and over and I don't know that it's actually that safe, but it looks
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So it's in the background now, but that's it for today's video and I'll see you guys in