The Yom Kippur Affair.

Well, I feel like an ass. When Yom Kippur rolls around this year, I have some letters to write.

So it all started when I asked not to have one of the topics in my Islam class for my presentation day because it fell on Yom Kippur. I don’t know if you all have ever fasted, but I’ll be too busy chasing Pink Elephants out of my periphery to speak for one hour on religion as an anthropological category.

However, the prof thought I really needed to do that topic because it fits in with my (largely hypothetical and years-away) dissertation. So I got stuck with it. She mentioned something about changing the date, but nothing was settled.

Today after class, sick as a dog, I asked her, for stability’s sake, whether my presentation was still on the 13th. I just wanted to be absolutely clear on the date so I can fit it into my already tight-as-George-W’s-ass schedule. She, who really is a kind woman deep down, started to go ahead with arrangements to change the date. However, the topic doesn’t fit elsewhere, so she decided that she’ll just email everybody and change the class to Friday that week instead of Thursday.

Now, I know the teachings of Spock well enough to know that the needs of the many should outweigh the needs of the few- or the needs of the one in this case, which is much worse.

But she was already off and running. Now I am stuck feeling grateful but more than a little queasy at the thought of airing my religious laundry in the class. Besides, I think they all think I’m this ultra-faithful Jew from a long line of Orthodox saints. Yeah, no on that, good buddy. I am, in fact, a HORRIBLE Jew. Besides that fact that I don’t eat pig, I am pretty awful. Does it make sense to put out six other people for a holiday when I don’t generally even put myself out for things like, oh say, the SABBATH?!?

No.

So, OK, my left brain is telling me that being a good Christian is no requirement to getting Christmas off, but I am still riddled with anxiety over making a spectacle over myself. What was it that Jesus said about the Jews praying on street corners just so others could see them? Yeah, that’s how I feel.

So I have emailed her, after the thing has already become an issue, and told her that I just want to go ahead with the syllabus. After all, I will only be fasting for about 12 hours by that point, so I think I can make it. However, she probably thinks that I don’t mean it because I brought it up.

Oy.

I’ve sent the email, so I gotta just hope that it never comes up again.

This better count for atoning, cause I’m in hell.