Hey J crew, crew. It's just Mark here in my own basement. No episode this week. Everyone's on vacation. Josh is somewhere in the Mediterranean.

Stephanie's off somewhere. I don't know what Leal's doing. We're all just taking a

break from each other. But that didn't mean that I was going to take a break from

you. No, I thought that I would pop in and just share a story that I haven't found the right opportunity to share otherwise.

People always say how did you get the idea for starting this podcast and I always give some version of

well I was working at tablet magazine and I saw the podcast for the next big thing,

and I thought, wouldn't it be interesting if the readers could listen in on one of our

editorial meetings, if they could hear the kind of discussion and argument but also playful

joking that we have around the table at tablet magazine and and I decided to

put that into a podcast and people liked it and yada yada here we are and that's all true but it's not

really the deep answer I think people are looking for something more so So give me just five or six minutes,

and I want to tell you a story

that I've not been able to fit in anywhere else.

It's a story I carry with me,

but I've never found the right opportunity to tell it on the podcast and after I tell the story I'm

gonna ask for two favors of you one is that you fill out a survey and the other is that you give us some money

but listen to the story first and then you'll do what you want with my requests.

So here's the story. As a lot of you know I was raised in a fairly secular home.

It was a proud Jewish home nobody ever would have thought of denying our Judaism.

We celebrated Hanukkah, we celebrated Passover. I was aware of the high

holidays but we didn't belong to a synagogue so I never went to services on high holidays.

I went to cousins bar mitzvahs but I didn't have one. It was like a

...