We’ve actually had our Christmas tree up for a week already. I posted about it on facebook and managed to apparently ruin Thanksgiving and Christmas simultaneously. It seemed like half of the people who commented were full of rage that someone could dare to put up a tree before Thanksgiving. The horror! And the other half were mortified that I dared to admit that I wasn’t really thrilled about hanging some of the eyesore ornaments that had made their way home from school. First of all . . . I . . .

I did a juice cleanse last week with Nekter, a local juice bar. I’ve been to this juice bar a few times – I’m actually a big fan of fresh veggie juice and they’ve got a great acai bowl as well. I tried one of their 5-day cleanses in January. I’d recently watched the movie Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead in which a severely overweight man with a chronic disease goes on a juice fast and basically heals himself.  (If you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s eye-opening.) I had a great experience with . . .

What I Want You to Know is a series of reader submissions. It is an attempt to allow people to tell their personal stories, in the hopes of bringing greater compassion to the unique issues each of us face. If you would like to submit a story to this series, click here. Today’s guest posts is written by Rabbi Laura Baum and Rabbi Carrie Vogel.   Carrie One day last year, I was in one of our 4th grade classrooms, filling in for a teacher who had called in . . .