I included many different blogs, whether you submitted your photo or not. If for some reason you do not want to be included (or I incorrectly attributed a photo to you when you may have used a stock photo), please let me know. The links on the images go to the post; the link on the name goes to the blog.
Now for our featured attraction, a beautiful article written by a Highland Park teen:
Seven years ago my mother decided it was high time we children had a dacha, a summer cottage, just like she did in Ukraine…And so we found a private bungalow in the Catskill Mountains — just around the corner from the lake and crowded Russian colonies, giving us both a social life and some relative privacy. The rather spacious two-bedroom cottage, which we would return to every year, with a large kitchen and lovely deck to the side, at first seemed small, compared to the suburban proportions we were used to.
And it wasn’t just the bungalow that was strange; at first we felt like we were dropped onto an alien planet. We had seen these loud babushkas and their Gucci-parading daughters on trips to Brighton Beach, but never in such large doses. Mornings, we were awakened by the eccentric Russian sculptor’s rooster crowing from across the street. Evenings were spent gossiping over tea and sunflower seeds and listening to the latest imported pop from Moscow.
Read the whole thing, on her mom’s blog or in the Jewish Week.
Enjoy a bearded lady and supermarket mouse at Benji’s What War Zone who presents Haveil Havalim #188, the blog carnival with the best of the Jewish and Israeli Blogosphere.
About the photo: I couldn’t find funny, so you will have to settle for weird. The blurry photo of my marigolds (orange and yellow) and zinnia (pink) was taken as part of last week’s Thematic Photographic theme of blur.
Once upon a time there was a little boy who didn’t like kreplach (a kreplach is a Jewish wonton). So his mother decided she would take him in the kitchen while she made the kreplach. First, she prepared the dough. “What are you making?” asked the boy. “You’ll see,” replied the mother. Next she rolled out the dough. Yum, said the little boy. Then she cut the dough into squares. Mmmm, said the child. She took some meat and placed a bit in one of the squares. Yum, yum, said the little boy. She folded over one corner. Mmm, continued the boy. She folded over the next. The boy looked on with expectation. She folded over another corner, then the final corner.
Next we will visit Mrs. S. at Our Shiputzim, who seems to love posting about her construction. I enjoy her sense of humor and friendliness.
Finally, the Babysitter (who has been blogging for a while about babysitting on her blog The Babysitter Writes) started a brand-new blog, The Jewish Side. Good luck with it!
If you feel like passing the award onward (I always recommend a bit of hakaras hatov, recognition of good, in one’s life and blog), here are the rules:
1) Add the logo of the award to your blog
2) Add a link to the person who awarded it to you
3) Nominate at least 4 other blogs (I changed this to four; two are fine, really!)
4) Add links to those blogs on your blog
5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs (or via email)!
Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures
יִשְׁרְצוּ הַמַּיִם, שֶׁרֶץ נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה
In this week’s parsha, Breishit (Genesis), we get short lists of what was created on each day. On Day 5 God created something called sheretz. What is sheretz? According to Rashi (see a post of mine on Rashi) it is “creepy crawly things” (my words, not Rashi’s). So what are these swarming beings, these beings that Rashi explains as “not high off the ground”? Among the flying creatures, he has the zvuv, the fly. His examples of crawling or slithering creatures are ants, beetles, worms, weasels, mice and snails. And he adds “and the like”, so I looked in Vayikra, where sheretz is also mentioned in connection to kashrut (none of these creatures are kosher), and Rashi there has wasps, mosquitoes, grasshoppers, snakes, scorpions, centipedes, and the word escharbot in Old French, which sounds an awful lot like escargot to me. I find it curious that he has mice and centipedes grouped together. But I suppose if they had invented the microscope in 10th century France, paramecium might be on this list, too.
I also read a piece by Rabbi Abraham Twerski about the parsha. He related the following story:
There was a 96-year-old resident of a nursing home who had not spoken a single word for over a year. No amount of cajoling could get her to speak. It was assumed she was suffering from senile dementia.
One of the volunteers, a young girl of 14, was assigned to sit with this woman. The old woman looked out the window, totally ignoring the young woman’s efforts to engage her in conversation or in an activity. Nothing could distract her from looking out the window.
After an hour, the young woman had just about had it. She arose to leave, but couldn’t help asking, “What are you looking at?” The “demented” old lady looked at her and smiled, “Why, at the light, my child.”
Rabbi Twerski’s comment about this story is that wisdom is often thought of as a kind of light, and most people need to have a practical application in order to value wisdom. But this woman seemed to enjoy looking at the light because … because she enjoyed looking at the light.
So what does this have to do with the insects and mice and weasels? Many of the photo bloggers whose posts I read (or look at, to be more accurate) seem to enjoy photographing these little critters. And this old woman enjoyed looking at the light. And I enjoy looking at the sky and flowers because… because I do.
Herb Garden Outside Kfar Blum Kibbutz Hotel Dining Hall, Israel
The best of the Jewish and Israeli Blogosphere:
Baila hosts Haveil Havalim #187.
And Eric hosted Haveil Havalim #186 (my apologies to Eric for getting the link up this late; it’s been a busy week).
JPix is a carnival for Jews and their pictures, it doesn’t necessarily have to be that ‘joyous expression of art’ which photography can capture, it doesn’t have to be just about photos of Eretz Israel, though they are most welcome. It’s not even about communicating some deep spiritual meaning in a long photo essay, although that’s all right, too. It’s about two things: You’re Jewish and you have photos you want to share, whether they be family, historical, artful, funny, quirky. It’s about sharing.
And anybody in the whole wide world with internet access can enjoy the JPIX carnival.
So, if you are preparing for the upcoming holiday of Sukkot, write up a recipe. Write up your menu. Photograph your Sukkah. Photograph your lulav and etrog. Photograph your kid’s (or some other person’s kid’s) Simchat Torah flag. Draw a picture with crayons of a sukkah, and post that. Describe the vast quantities of food you have eaten during these holidays. Post a food joke. Thank you!
Wednesday morning I did this little watercolor of an arava leaf (you might recognize it as a willow leaf, its name in English). It is one of the many natural symbols in the upcoming holiday of Sukkot, which starts on Monday night, Oct. 13. I actually was only looking at one leaf, which I painted a few times on the same piece of watercolor paper. My son planted a little willow branch in the backyard this year, and I was afraid if I took off more than one leaf off the little “tree”, there wouldn’t be much tree left. My other son agreed that I should put some compost around the edges of the little plant. It certainly has been getting enough water, as we’ve had rain on and off lately. Maybe I’ll photograph our little willow for another post.
Black-Eyed Bean Salad
I wanted to have all the simanim (food symbols) on the table for the first night of Rosh Hashana. I got really close. I just forgot the dates. Oooops. Only my husband missed them, as he’s the only one who likes dates.
In the past, I would say to my husband a few days before Rosh Hashana, now, what are the special foods we need to get? And he would mention maybe carrots and beets, and we would say a yehi ratzon on the carrots in the soup. When I was growing up, I don’t remember doing the yehi ratzon prayers at all. In fact, my father, who joined us for most of our Rosh Hashana meals, thought we should save the pomegranate for the new fruit, which one does on the second night of Rosh Hashana. My husband pointed out that we had eaten pomegranates within the last year, and one is really supposed to say the shehiyanu, the prayer for something new, on a fruit that one has not eaten in the past year.
So this year, because I did all this research on the simanim (thank you, readers, for your encouragement along the way as I posted various foods), I was the expert.
Back to the first night…so we have all these simanim on the table. With the help of Mimi’s Israeli Kitchen, I made the black-eyed beans (peas?) into a bean salad. She used: “seasoning it with a little chopped onion and a handful of mixed, chopped, cilantro, parsley, and celery tops. Lots of fresh lemon juice, to balance the earthy taste of the peas (which are really beans, but never mind) – salt and white pepper.”
Here’s my bean salad ingredients:
Black-eyed beans, soaked overnight and cooked in a crockpot
Chopped red onion
Chopped fresh parsley
Fresh lemon juice
Some olive oil
Salt and pepper
I was considering making a beet salad (Mimi made one: “some thinly sliced onion, salt, pepper, a little cumin, olive oil, a little sugar, and vinegar”), but as time didn’t allow (I was chaffeuring kids to play dates and art class in between cooking and doing a little of my web work), I just made steamed beets and cut them up.
What to do with leeks? Mimi posted a delicious leek tart (same post); I decided to incorporate the leeks with my chicken soup and with my roasted chicken with apples and mushrooms (I stuck one leek inside the chicken). I had more leeks than I needed, as I bought two sets; the first set of leeks didn’t look so good, and I had to go back to the supermarket on Monday morning anyway, so I bought a fresher set of leeks. The not-so-nice leeks are now resting in my compost pile which will hopefully be decomposed by next spring and will provide a new spot for growing tomatoes.
I made stuffed squash for the k’ra, the siman that can be a gourd, squash or pumpkin. I used Mimi’s stuffed artichoke post for inspiration on the stuffing. Hers had more ingredients; I had chopped meat, onion and spices in mine. I added chopped fresh ginger, too.
For the carrots, I went for simple. I liked the idea of cutting the carrots like coin-shapes.
Do you think I put a fish or lamb’s head on the table? I did the same thing I did last year, which was cut a piece of gefilte fish into the shape of a fish head and use a bit of cooked carrot for the eye.
Finally, I did one “joke” of a siman, which was to steam a “head” of broccoli.
The problem was, it was late, we were all tired, and my eldest son only liked the pomegranate. So after doing the apple dipped in honey (my daughter had us doing this one at every meal), we ate the pomegranate. It wasn’t nearly as juicy as ones I have eaten in the past. I bet the ones in ALN’s backyard taste better.
Next we ate the gefilte fish. Or five out of seven of us ate it. It turns out there is a special yehi ratzon for fish, separate from the “head and not the tail” one — “she’nif’reh v’nir’beh ki’dagim” (that we be fruitful and multiply like fish).
At this point, we just started eating the rest of the meal. Did we say any more of the yehi ratzons? I don’t know, but everything got eaten, at any rate. I enjoyed the meal, and it didn’t last nearly as long as a Pesach seder.
Lorri writes a beautiful blog called Jew Wishes. Her posts are heart-felt, as well as being well-written. She reviews books, films, cookbooks and gives general information and insights on Jewish topics. I particularly liked her post on repentance (with two film recommendations), where she writes:
Pent up anger and other emotions lead to an unhealthy state of mind, external presence, and physical being, and it distorts our lives. To forgive is also to repent, and to repent includes forgiveness. Repenting for our unhealthy attitude towards another person must include forgiveness for what we feel that person has done in order to hurt us.
As this doesn’t sound like a classical interpretation of teshuva (repentance), I would love to do more research on teshuva and emotions to find out if I can reconcile the traditional approaches with this more emotional approach. Hopefully, more on this topic soon.
It was a nice surprise to wake up this morning to find she had awarded me a blog award! As I have just given out this award to five of my favorite mommy bloggers (attention: ALN, SuperRaizy, JugglingFrogs, Baila, and Hadassah), I’m going to wait until after the holidays before I do anything with this one. But Lorri did have the rules on her post, which I neglected to include, so I’m going to include them here, in case my mommy bloggers feel so inclined to send the award onward ho to some other deserving bloggists:
Here are the rules:
1) Add the logo of the award to your blog
2) Add a link to the person who awarded it to you
3) Nominate at least 5 other blogs (I changed this to five)
4) Add links to those blogs on your blog
5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs!
FYI, comments are NOT closed. If you ever see that, it is a mistake. I don’t know how that happens! Please let me know if you see comments are closed on a post.
Views From Shiloh
19’s an Odd Number
Before the Jewish holidays, Lorri of 
In this week’s parsha, Breishit (Genesis), we get short lists of what was created on each day. On Day 5 God created something called sheretz. What is sheretz? According to Rashi (see 
