Here it is again. And this time, it's mutual. Oh no.

Tomorrow is Rosh Hashana, 2015. And lately, my husband Evan has been having a sort of existential crisis. It's so very familiar to me. I could laugh, because I recognize it so well.

He's been meditating, and doing yoga. He's been finding spirituality there in ways he didn't before. I didn't do anything - this is all him.

And, we're here in Gaithersburg, MD, where we joined a temple, and celebrated our second daughter's Bat Mitzvah this past April. Temple dues are expensive. We got involved in this temple. The kids go to religious school and they actually like it. Our oldest two work there too. And, as a family, we all participated in the Purim musical - which was fun.

But things have changed for Evan. Now he's been telling me he isn't interested in belonging to temple because he thinks it's a crock. He thinks religion is a crock, and spirituality is about a connection that comes from inside. I agree with the last part. But not so fast...

I am telling him the same thing that I kept saying in my previous blog posts here. We need to consider the kids. And there's something else to consider - the world, and our history. There are places in the world, and times in our history, where our people weren't even allowed to practice Judaism. They weren't allowed to go to temple, to get together and keep traditions. They even fought for the right to do that. They practiced in secret to keep the traditions alive, and pass them down to their children. We are blessed that we don't have to do that. We have the freedom to practice as we choose, where we choose. If we decide not to, if we demonstrate to our children by our actions or our words that this is not important to us, then somehow we dishonor those who fought so we could enjoy this freedom.

Today, our oldest daughter, age almost 16, asked if she could skip temple tomorrow to go to some social thing with her friends. I said no, we need to go to temple. She said, "Why? It's stupid and boring! You and dad don't really want to go, do you? If I go and sit through stupid, boring services, can I go afterward? We hardly go to temple anyway!"

Oh, the questions. They echoed in my own head, and I had to think about how to respond. I said she needs to go with us. That we are Jewish, no matter how often we go to temple. And that this is one of the times we are going. She will go with us. As far as afterward, I need to think about that. We aren't doing anything with family. I can choose to make some traditional foods and we can have a nice dinner together. But that doesn't really involve the afternoon activities for her, I guess.

And I also know that  Yom Kippur is coming again. The same feelings of hypocrisy are facing me this year as they have since 2012. Only this time, I'm reasoning with Evan to try to get him to not throw this all out in front of the kids.

I'm still not happy with any of it, either. I don't want to fast. I know Evan doesn't want to fast. We don't want the kids to see us not fast. We don't want to be fake. We don't want them to start rebelling against being or practicing Judaism.

The High Holidays have started to become about being stuck. And so that's where we are this year.