Happy 5772!

My place puts the donation tabs right on the ticket, from $100 to $50k. Not kidding. I base my donation on the president's speech, if he or she makes eye contact and it's entertaining and makes me laugh at least one, I'm in. The dullards reading off a notecard, zip. Plenty of other ways I can donate to the cause.

But to Ragu's point, I was raised strict conservative: no driving on the holiday, no writing, no telephones. Yet in keeping with the true chinese menu of the faith ('I'll take this and this but not that, okay, some of that but not so much of this...') we'd sneak into my grandmother's shul because my parents refused to spend money on something they could get for free. We also kept kosher, but with a set of plates for shrimp and/or anything with accidental bacon bits.

 

This is dead-on nails. It's also the reason why I've let my temple membership lapse and why my 97-year-old father is doing the same -- at a temple he's been a member at for nearly 60 years and a temple he and my late mother used to run the youth group.

I'll never forget one Yom Kippur sermon from our longtime rabbi. It was basically taken from the Book of Gambino, which I didn't realize was a part of the Old Testament.

It was a brazen shakedown and demand for everyone to donate more money this next year. My outspoken aunt was so irate that at our break-the-fast, she nearly broke dishes and wouldn't stop talking about how inappropriate this was.

This also neatly explains why this MOT is lapsed, because that's what my recent experiences with a wonderfully warm and inclusive religion have become -- nothing more than a constant money grab.

 

My experience differs a bit, there was always an overt asking for money but the sermons were always about the same thing: "They're going to destroy Israel and they are coming for the Jews which means you."

 

Same and same.

 

Same and same.