Fast

157 people list me as a "friend" on Mindsay. That's a lot of people who read (or pretend to read) my blog posts.

So I decided to do a little experiment regarding who's been reading carefully or not.

In my entry entitled They're stealing our holiday I wrote this:

Asarah b'Tevet is a Jewish holiday which literally means "the tenth day of [the Hebrew calendar month of] Tevet." Because of the juxtaposition of the Hebrew (lunar) calendar against the Gregorian (solar) calendar, this day sometimes falls in December and sometimes in January. This year it will be observed on January 10, 2006.

Hold on -- it gets better...

The people at Target don't care enough even to wish me an "easy fast." (Actually, I prefer a slightly longer greeting, "I wish you an easy and meaningful public fast on this tenth day of the Hebrew month of Tevet, a time of comfort to your community." But "Have an easy fast" would have even been fine. ) For them, it's more important to bow down to atheism and secularism than to recognize *gasp* religion.

So -- that was today. Asarah b'Tevet. A lot of you folks joined the bandwagon and reacted positively to my initial cause. But I wanted to see if my Mindsay brethren and sistren have memory endurance -- that is, would they remember to provide the proper greeting on this solemn day?

As I mentioned, 157 of you count me as a "friend" and probably have read my blog a few times.

And how many of you gave me the appropriate Asarah b'Tevet greeting cited above?

Only 153 of you.

I won't embarrass the four of you who, whether out of ignorance, spite or just plain forgetting didn't offer me the proper greeting. I won't have any excuses. It's simply not acceptable.  I expect far, far, far more from you folks than to accept anything less than 100% participation. We're a community and we're supposed to support each other.

Which is why I'd like each and every one of you to determine who, exactly, didn't issue the proper Asarah b'Tevet greeting. And punish them mercilessly. In fact, besiege their homes! That would be fitting considering Asarah b'Tevet is about a siege around Jerusalem!

And once you're finished with that, besiege Target! I saw NO Asarah b'Tevet decorations up whatsoever, nor did I see any appropriate merchandise. (The only exception being the "Hug Me! Spongebob" which kind of forms a siege around a youngster's shoulders.)

And for you four who didn't wish me the Asarah b'Tevet greeting and think there's still time? Too late. The holiday is from sunrise to sundown. It's over. Finito. You lost your chance until next year.

For those of you wondering -- I fasted for a while. Had a pop-tart before the sun came up, and then fasted until about 3:30ish when I just felt so blah and semi-conscious that I got myself a Starbucks latte. (But it was kind of like fasting because they used skim milk.) Perhaps I wouldn't have had this uneasy, tired feeling if I had full participation from all of you.

Finally, to sum things up -- you know who rocks? perrye.  There's a blogger who knows what deserves the highest priority...