I have two goals here. One is to thank each and every one of you. Even my new followers and friends. I treasure you all honestly I do. I don't just say it to sound nice, I really do mean it. I love your comments and e-mails. They make me smile. And even though I suck (very much so!) at the whole answering back part, I am grateful for you and the time you take out to read my blog and to write me. And I promise, I will get better at replying back. On my honor! I do read other blogs too but I have a 3 year old ball of hyperness and a 7 month old attention whore and it doesn't leave me a lot of time to comment, reply or farm even. LoL
Which brings me to goal number two. Justine. She is my gorgeous, insanely funny, and awesomely witty, and all around perfect bloggy slash facebook friend slash fellow farmville addict. She has written me many times and I have slacked. Mega slacked shall I say. But she has asked a few questions about me that I suppose could be on other people's minds. I hear them often actually. So I thought today I would divulge a little further into Beckie and dish some more. Yay! *Claps hands*
I am Jewish. I am also a Christian. How on Earth is that possible?!? Well as some of you know (or don't know) To be Jewish, the major part of it is *drumroll* your mother must be Jewish. It's passed down through the mothers. (Go mom!) So my mother is Jewish. So am I. Our family is originally from Poland (No Pollock jokes please) We are also a little Russian. Yes I am part Polish and Russian. I wonder if they have a drink for that? (White Russian. Black Russian. Polish Russian? Haha? No? Okay then...) Anyways. So my great-great-grandfather escaped the Holocaust with my great-great-grandmother to immigrate to New York. When she was pregnant. There, my great-grandpa (the one who just passed away) was born. The first of my family to be born in America. (That makes me 4th generation American) From there, my Great-Grandpa grew up, met my great-grandmother (who was also a Jewish immigrant) and had my grandmother, and my great aunt and great uncle (is that what they are called? Whatever...) And of course my mother came from there and ta-da! Me next! Yay! (I have totally skipped a lot of boring family history, don't mind me...)
Growing up, weekends were my favorite times of the week. Not because school was non-existent on those days, but because we actually spent them with family. I was the favorite being the eldest daughter and got to spend all weekend, every weekend with my grandma. My Nana. And from her house we'd go to Temple and to my Bubbie and Papa's house (Great grandpa and grandma) (Bubbie is Yiddish for Grandma PS) So I did some time in Temple. Got promised a Bat Mitzvah (Bat for girls, Bar for boys) and got the lovely chats from my Papa about how I was going to grow up and marry a nice Jewish boy and have lots of Jewish babies (Remember My Big Fat Greek Wedding? Picture that with Jews instead...)
Well it wasn't very long until my Bubbie passed away. I was nine. Everything ended there. My family was ripped apart due to feuds with everyone. People were not so happy anymore and my wonderful weekends weren't so wonderful anymore as my visits with my Nana (grandma) were stopped. Wah-wah, spoiled little girl wasn't spoiled anymore, right? I know pathetic. Anyways...(LoL)
So when I moved up to Montana after high school, I lived with my cousin Adam and his wife and two kids and babysat for them and worked two jobs. I got saved then. I knew who Jesus was thanks to my great aunt on my dad's side, because when I lived with my dad during 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade, she took me to church with her. I think I was too young to really know and understand then. So when I was 20, I got saved. My life back then was pretty much at a stand still. I never wanted to meet a guy (Had my heart broken then) and all I wanted to do was work and save my money for whatever (No goals then either) and didn't really care about anything (probably depressed back then) and honestly, once I got saved, life finally started clicking.
Now that I have children I have begun learning more about my background. Learning more about the Jewish religion and customs and how I can be both. I choose to embrace both you see. I live for Jesus but I also try to incorporate as much of my Jewish background as I can. Messianic Jews are probably what you would call us if you really got down to it I suppose. I don't. We go to church and Sunday school and yet I observe some of the practices that the Jews do. Hannah has been named which was pretty neat. The Rabbi gave her her Hebrew name (Hannah Elisheva bat Rivka) which means Hannah Elisabeth, daughter of Rebecca. Ignacio will have his the next time we go down to California again. His will be Daniel Issak bar Rivka, which means Daniel Issak son of Rebecca (Daniel was my Papa's name both Hebrew and English so my son will be named after him). His English name obviously isn't translatable. And we have Hanukkah and other holidays. It's pretty neat and I'm very proud of my heritage. I just needed to embrace it more and learn how to combine both without sacrificing one or the other.
So. Justine, my friend, this was dedicated to you. Hopefully it helped explain something if not all of it. I tried, LoL!
And to the rest of you, I hope today isn't too politically chaotic. I'm finding humor in it in any way possible because humor is what saves us! Well, saves me at least. Lots of love and Happy monday to you all!
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