It's Not Real Until I Say It Out Loud

With a new plan in place to chronicle the Sabbath of strictly observant Jews, along with some stories about how others celebrate it, I now need to kick into gear and get some expert interviews (rabbis or cantors) lined up. Unfortunately, this is probably the worst time of year to line up Jewish clergy for anything. The High Holidays (Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur) start this Friday, and are immediately followed by Sukkot (a week-long fall festival that involves building a temporary structure) and Simach Torah, the rewinding of the Torah Scrolls.

I'm such an extrovert, things don't become real for me until I tell somebody about it. So I'm at the lovely Takoma Park Folk Festival today, and see a few Jewish groups with their booths set up. I walk over and introduce myself, and start talking about my project, not exactly making things up as a go along, but more like articulating things that I would be doing, but just hadn't really thought of until the moment.

Got some good idea there, reminded of a few rabbis who would be good resources for this project as well as another documentary I've been thinking about (chronicling the journey of a convert).

Email is a good thing, and I'm sending out emails explaining my project, hoping to get names and emails of people willing to share their stories.