That Time of the Month Again

I’m not going to be around much this week due to that crazy deadline thing that happens every month, but I must share the following tidbit from Friday night’s Tot Shabbat service:

webkinzIn what I know to be a well-intended effort to connect with the youngest members of our synagogue, the rabbi announced that there would be a Hebrew baby naming for the children’s Webkinz at the next Tot Shabbat. (For those of you blessed with ignorance, Webkinz are stuffed toys that have their own online identities that allow their young owners to waste loads of time on the computer, kind of like a Beanie Baby version of porn.)

While I marvel at the rabbi’s willingness to reach out to the kids and keep it modern, this conflicts with my own belief that synagogue needs to be a respite from the massive wave of materialism I fiercely defend my family against, especially that category known in our home by its scientific term, Cheap Sh*t From China. But thanks to our friends with whom we always spend Christmas Eve, El Yenta Boy has a Webkin. In fact, Santa brought it. So now my child is having existential angst as to whether his fluffy piece of crap manufactured by underpaid peasants is Jewish or not.

I started stewing in my pew a little bit as I am wont to do when self-righteousness gets the better of me, but I had to let it go when a little boy piped up from the back:

“Is there going to be a bris, too?”

It’s just a funny world, people.

5 thoughts on “That Time of the Month Again

  1. So, it’s a stuffed animal that has a code you use to care for a virtual stuffed animal, thereby neglecting the actual stuffed animal? I guess it’s good that it makes the kids happy but I don’t get it. Luckily, by the time my son is old enough to care, these “Webkinz” should be gone.

    Oh, and that little boy rocks.

  2. Ya, Johnny, I’m with ya. I constantly have to remind my son that we have an actual, LIVE dog that needs to be fed, walked and loved, so maybe he could get his little tushy off the computer and attend to her?

  3. We went over to AA for the Tu B’Shevat “family havdallah” & built worm farms … we now have five pet worms (rt) … how do you know of their girls or boys?

  4. I thought that I remembered that El Yenta Boy got the DVD from Sandy, but looking back, that was the previous Xmas. Which is worse some blue CSFC or a snake?

    Webkinz being the Beany Baby version of porn…could be, but I hate to warn you, it only gets worse in the upcoming years. Sorry. Try to keep it real and say what my mother used to tell us boys, “Go outside, it’s a nice day.”

  5. Dan, I thought worms were unisexual.

    Yep, wikipedia says: Worms are hermaphrodites (both sexes in one animal) but can cross fertilize.

    Unisexual wasn’t the right word but I had the right idea.

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