When I think of songs that warm my soul, the songs of Shabbat come immediately to mind and heart. Lecha Dodi is sung on Friday nights – the song is a welcoming of the “Sabbath Bride.” Lecha Dodi was written in the 16th century by Rabbi Shlomo Halevi Alkabetz. I rather like this untraditional rendition of the song on YouTube.
Thursday Challenge theme is MUSIC (Guitar, Playing an Instrument, Things that make sounds, iPods, Sheet Music, Noisy Things,…).
Note: I wrote this post a year ago. And it sat as a draft in my WordPress until today. In honor of Ilana-Davita and because Raizy misses Ilana-Davita’s parsha post this week, I am now hitting ‘published.’ Please note that I never finished, but at the bottom you will see that I found a high school student who did.
And the life of Sarah was a hundred and seven and twenty years; these were the years of the life of Sarah.
One of the problems with writing about the parsha is getting it up before Shabbat is not always the easiest task, and one often has more time to review the parsha on Shabbat. So here’s a few more thoughts on the years of Sarah, before we turn to the parsha of this coming week, Toldot.
What’s the question about the opening pasuk, the opening sentence of the Torah portion? Unless you read Hebrew, you might think from the English that it only says “years” twice. However, it really says “shanah” or years 4 times. Since everything in the Torah is repeated for a reason, why so many years?
There is a midrash that goes with the story of Sarah. It’s like this:
When Sarah was 100, it was as though she was twenty in sin.
And when Sarah was 20, it was as though she was 7 in beauty.
So Rashi claims that we learn this midrash from the fact that the pasuk repeats the word “shanah” or year: 100 years, 20 years and 7 years. But the Ramban says no, we learn the midrash from the end of the pasuk, where it says “And these were the years of Sarah.” Because by Yishmael, it also has years repeated, but his years were not all alike.
About to go on a little journey by horse around Cold Springs Historic Village
Can you think of any famous journeys? I asked some friends, and we came up with these:
Journey of the Children of Israel from Egypt through the desert to the Land of Israel
Travels of Christopher Columbus
Explorations of Magellan, Sir Francis Drake, Lewis and Clark
Donner Party
The band Journey
The Travels of Benjamin of Tudela
Man’s travel to the Moon
Other space expeditions, like the tragic Challenger trip
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Exodus by Leon Uris
Marco Polo, Jacques Cartier, Vasco de Gama, Captain Cook
Commute to New York City every day
Odysseus, Jason
Hegira, the flight of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in 622 A.D
Byrd, Peary, Scott and Amundsen: journey to the Poles
Laura Ingalls Wilder – journey through the places she lived in the U.S.
Dorothy’s journey to Oz (and back to Kansas)
Bilbo’s and Frodo’s journeys in Middle Earth
Finding parking in New Brunswick, New Jersey
On the Road, by Jack Kerouac
Midnight Ride of Paul Revere
After 1948 many Jews fled Muslim countries – most went to Israel, some to France and to the U.S.
Journey of the 12 spies into the Land of Canaan/Israel
Around the World in 80 Days, Jules Verne
Pilgrims travel to America (as did later many others from Europe and elsewhere)
Lady Godiva’s 11th century ride through Coventry to protest her husband’s excessive taxation of his subjects
In this week’s parsha of Lech Lecha, God tells Avram (he is not yet Avraham) to go forth from the land of his birth and travel to another land. According to the commentator Rashi, one is liable to lose three things by journeying: a trip can inhibit the birth of children, decrease one’s wealth and lessen one’s fame (lose one’s reputation). So God blesses Avram accordingly so he will have many children, wealth and he will become a great nation (fame).
So do any of the famous journeys we mention fit into the three categories mentioned by Rashi? As a loss or as a gain? Can you think of any other well-known journeys? Do people lose children, wealth or reputation on these journeys? Or do they gain them?
So, 13 years ago my little guy came out like a cannon ball. No time for the doctor to show up, no time for the epidural. The nurses were in a panic; they thought they would have to deliver the baby (a resident at the hospital did). There’s a technical name for women who deliver babies very quickly. I can’t remember it – I just call it “cannon ball pain.”
And then the parsha (portion of the Torah reading) tells me that I’m going to deliver in pain. No kidding.
At least it wasn’t emotional pain, like that of losing my mother. Her yahrzeit (anniversary of her death) is tonight.
We are in the middle of celebrating the holiday of Sukkot, in which observant Jews around the world eat (some sleep) outside in little booths called Sukkot (singular = sukkah). With my son’s guidance, this post will teach how to create a sukkah decoration (recipes vary wildly from family to family – there are no set traditions for decorations).
Ingredients:
1 creative, artistic mind
paper
1 box of markers
1 pencil for initial sketch
Clear contact paper for laminating
First my son drew the initial sketch with pencil. Then he painstakingly colored in the drawing:
The spaceships have no religious significance. The Hebrew says “Brukhim Ha’Baim” – Welcome to All Those Who Come, which is a common greeting to put at an entrance to a sukkah. You can see those words on the front of our sukkah at the bottom of this post.
When the drawing is complete, one cuts some clear contact paper slightly bigger on all sides than the drawing. Then one cuts one more piece of contact paper the same size as the first. Carefully peel off the backing and place the contact paper on both sides of the drawing.
Here is the drawing hanging in our sukkah. There are also a lot of red apples in the sukkah; my son made a game for our guests of “count the apples” – he claimed we had 50 apples pictured in the decorations.
Here is a photo of the sukkah from further back. Unfortunately, this may be the last year of this sukkah. My husband says it takes too long to put up (he created it himself), and it is also not big enough for hosting guests. So we may get a new one, probably a pre-fab that is easier to put up.
Do you have any decorating traditions?
For more photos with a little or a lot of red, visit Ruby Tuesday:
Rutgers New Jersey Jewish Film Festival 2009
I’ve been busy like crazy for the past week putting the Rutgers New Jersey Jewish Film Festival online. So here’s my challenge to you: if you click on the screenshot above or on this link: http://bildnercenter.rutgers.edu/film to visit the festival and see the list of films, can you guess which film I would like to see? I would also be curious about which films you would like to see, whether you live in Central New Jersey or not. FYI, on the page of Valentina’s Mother is a trailer of the film.
Hope you enjoy the blue buttons. It took several Rutgers staff members for us to have those buttons. Just saying.
Sukkah 2008; painting of grapes in the corner
Batya has done three blog carnivals this month, and her final one is the 46th edition of the Kosher Cooking Carnival. Some of the highlights include Zwetschgenkuchen, the relationship between solet and semolina, and whether it is better to have insects and or insecticides (I’ll take the bugs, thank you very much – no insecticide for me – soap sometimes can drown aphids, that’s as far as I get). We mostly get bees in our sukkah; I think the nastier bugs have gone South by the time Sukkot comes.
As this coming week is Sukkot, I suspect many of you celebrating this upcoming holiday are (again) meal planning and cooking? What’s on the menu? I’m hoping to make an apple pie, and I also plan to make strawberry cashew pudding (another recipe from Klara). The pudding, if all goes well, will become a post, too.
A new Torah was dedicated on Sunday at Congregation Etz Ahaim, a Sephardi Orthodox synagogue in Highland Park, New Jersey. Sephardim read the Torah with the Torah scroll in an upright position, whereas Ashkenazim read the Torah scrolls placed flat on the bimah (raised platform). So the Torah cases of the Sephardim are made out of fancy metal, and the Ashkenaz ones are typically embroidered cloth.
The happy occasion was in honor of a bat-mitzvah; the bat-mitzvah girl conducted the dedication, along with her grandmother. It was a lovely community affair, and children were in attendance, including some who got rather sleepy (such as my daughter) because the ceremony was happening at their bedtimes. When they brought out all the Torah scrolls, the children woke up, with all the lively singing and dancing.
Pomegranate, watercolor on paper, 2008
This is a re-post of my pomegranate painting I did last year. The pomegranate has many seeds; some say there are as many seeds in a pomegranate as there are mitzvot in the Torah (613). Well, years ago, my brother and I counted the seeds of a pomegranate one afternoon. We put the seeds in bowls spread across the table. Then I reported back to the teacher that indeed this pomegranate had way more than 613 seeds. His response: “Did the pomegranate grown in the Land of Israel?” I responded no, as it probably grew in California. Anyway, it is customary to eat a pomegranate on Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. You can read more about the symbols for Rosh Hashana in last year’s post.
For more images with a little red or a little of red, visit Ruby Tuesday:
Three Squash, watercolor on paper
This coming week is Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, and it is traditional to put certain symbolic foods on the table (see my post from last year about the simanim). Yesterday I did this watercolor of three squashes (or simply ‘squash’ – looks like the plural can be with or without the ‘es’).
What to do with squash? One of my friends said she will make my squash into a delicious squash soup. Will she share the recipe? Hmm. I could chop up the zucchini and saute it with onions, fresh garden basil and a bit of tomato. The little pumpkin, I told my son, is too tiny for a jack o’ lantern, but I told him we could buy a bigger one for that purpose for Sukkot (holiday in three weeks). I will probably make a stuffed squash for Friday night.
