The Weekly Portion

Dear Friends,

The Hard Taco song for June is called “Our Time Together.” No matter what you think of it, I'll still probably do another one next month. So stop acting like you're the one in control here.

I attended a couple of bar and bat mitzvahs in the last few weeks. 10/10 would recommend. The less you know about Jewish services ahead of time, the better. Sit through a bar mitzvah and you will feel like a transfer student at a Martian preschool. The room is full of books, but they are backwards and inside-out, and the head Martian is the only one who can read them. He or she keeps motioning for you to stand up, sit down, bend your knees, kiss a book, or get on your tiptoes. Sometimes, the head Martian covers their own eyes for a few seconds, and then shouts "Amen," which I assume is Martian for "peekaboo."

And then there is the endless chanting; lilting nonsense, often with a call-and-response element. The words are gibberish, but they are repetitive. Or almost repetitive, like they are saying "One, two, three, eyes on me," and the room responds, "One, two, eyes on you."

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