Simchat Torah and A Mass

I shared last week that my family and I practice Judaism. My daughter attends a Catholic school for Pre-Kindergarten. It's a sweet little school in Memphis, that I can say without reservation, is AMAZING. She has a classroom full of sweet children, a teacher who loves her, a principal who loves her and a clergy full of priests and sisters who all seem to enjoy getting to know her, too. It's a great choice. And one that many of my friends and family were surprised we made.

On Sunday we celebrated the holiday, Simchat Torah. It's a beautiful holiday in which Jews all over the world, rejoice that they have completed another year of Torah study and read all 5 books of the Torah; Genesis, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, Numbers, and Exodus, and roll the Torahs in the synagogue back to the beginning. 

The holiday is spent eating, drinking, blessing the Torah, singing and dancing around the synagogue, spot reading various passage and making sure that the entire scroll of each Torah is loving looked over to places needing care. It's one of the loudest and happiest holidays we have. And we just celebrated it early this week.

Today, my daughter shared in a completely different celebration. The Guardian Angel Mass. To be honest, I was unfamiliar with such a thing. I have heard of Mass, primarily in reference to Christmas, but never regarding Guardian Angels. I googled. Here's a link to what I found. The best I can understand from this is that the children are told that the Guardian Angels are watching out for them and the parents are saying they will help the Angels. Sounds pretty good to me. 

I have to be honest, it just doesn't sound too bad. I like to think that my mother is somewhere watching over me, my sisters, our family and my children. It's oddly comforting. Especially given the day I had yesterday! Though Judaism does not teach directly that our loved ones are around in the form of Angels, we have some references throughout many texts that G-d has sent angels to watch us, share messages and help guide our lives.

I got asked if I was sure that this was the right choice for our family. To be fair, you can never know for absolute certainty that anything is "right". But it seems to be a good fit. My daughter comes home and explains prayer hands, "the father, the son and homey ghost" and tries to tell us about "Her Mary full of grass". It's cute for now. I know that at Christmas we will be learning more about the Nativity. 

But I also know that each night when we sit down together for dinner, she is the first to ask about saying or singing the Hamotzi, our prayer over the bread said before we eat a meal, and encourages her siblings to do the same. She loves to go to services at our synagogue and is IMMENSELY jealous that she is not yet old enough for Sunday School classes. 

So is it the right choice for our family? Time will tell.

But it's right, right now.