Celebrating the Holidays
Fruits for the holiday
The holiday of Chamisha Asar b’Shevat or Tu b’Shevat is not mentioned in the Torah but makes its first appearance in the Talmud, where it is called Rosh Hashanah l’Ilan (New Year of the Tree). Jewish literature of the sixth…
Variations on latke tradition
With all the oil used for frying Chanukah potato pancakes – otherwise known as latkes, in what we think is Yiddish, or as levivot in Hebrew – they may be considered an unhealthy food. Yet, each Chanukah, many of us,…
Festival of light & song
Chanukah lights on Agron Road in Jerusalem, 2012. (photo from Djampa) History tends to repeat itself or, as Sholem Aleichem put it, The Wheel Makes a Turn. In this story, he wrote about Chanukah, depicting a proud Jew lighting the nine-branched…
Celebrate helping & helpers
The Ninth Night of Hanukkah begins, appropriately enough, on the first night of the holiday…. Dad has brought pizza for dinner and Max and Rachel and their parents eat it among unopened and partially opened boxes in their new apartment.…
Evolution of the Jewish calendar
Rosh Hashanah greeting cards (above and below) from the author’s family’s collection. The cards are almost 100 years old. The translation of the one in which people are walking is “Into the synagogue.” It is signed by Chaim Goldberg, a…
Celebrating world’s birthday
(photo from pikist.com/free-photo-vqamg) One of the many names of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is Yom Harat Olam, the birthday of the world. It is the day on which our tradition says the world was created. Before we can…
Reboot helps take stock
Reboot’s annual 10Q annual reflection project, which sends participants a question a day for 10 days will return for the 13th year this month. But, with the challenges, grief and fear of COVID-19 weighing heavily on the world, this year’s…
The danger in certainty
Like many of you, I approach the New Year and Yom Kippur with a heavy heart. Ashamnu. We have sinned. Much is not well, not as it should or can be. Our communities are filled with anger, fear, hatred, pain,…
A history of sweetness
(photo from pixabay.com) Although beekeeping as an occupation is not mentioned in the Bible, bees are mentioned four times, honeycombs are referred to eight times and honey is referred to 26 times. Archeologists actually have discovered proof that there was…
