It’s Our Story
Last week’s Torah reading was mostly the story of Noah and the Flood. One of the more curious elements of the tale is what happens when the earth dries out enough for the animals and their human tenders to exit the vessel.
Bee Juice
My recent posts...After havdala ended last week’s Galeem (“waves,” our Sunday school), the usual joyful mayhem erupted in the lobby: Kids running down halls for a water bottle, a work of art, a lollipop; parents calling after them “Remember your ________!”; brief...
Welcome to”chol”
A couple days of magnificent weather have been a welcome respite from the bounty of precipitation during Sukkot and the closing festival days. This morning, we stored away our sukkah — unscathed by the nor’easter — for next year.
Kol Nidre – All Vows
My recent posts...kol nidrei, all MY vows? Rabbi Jonathan Kremer kol nidrei, all vows. ALL vows? All my vows? How can I possibly remember them all? Those silent frustrations: I swear I could... I said what? Well, I didn't mean it that way! The thick-as-mud silent...
A Moment of Hebrew
The summer of 1970, I was one of 250 teens in Israel with Camp Ramah. (Ellie was on the same program, but we didn’t meet then.) I got an outsized pleasure of riding an Egged public bus in Jerusalem and noting the sign over seats designated for the infirm or handicapped: מִפְּנֵי שֵׂיבָה תָּקוּם mipnay sayva takoom / rise before the elderly, an injunction from Torah (vayikra / Leviticus 19:32). Living Torah on a modern bus — awesome!
Another bus memory: The PA was playing a popular music station. A song ended and a fabulous baritone voice announced: וְעַכשָׁיו רֶגַע שֶׁל עִבְרִית v’aschshav, regga shel ivrit / And now, a moment (or minute) of Hebrew. We then heard how to correctly use the Hebrew word for “to iron” (as in all-cotton shirts or tablecloths): not לִגְהוֹץ lig’hotz, rather לְגַהֵץ l’gahetz. A lesson in everyday Hebrew on public radio on a public bus in Jerusalem — amazing!
The other day, Ellie was scrolling through Facebook and I had another regga shel ivrit. From a charming duet in Hebrew by a father and young daughter, a line sung by the girl popped out: “צָרִיךְ לְהִיזָהֵר מִן הַשְּׁבָרִים tzarich l’heezahayr min hashevarim / you must beware of the fragments.” שְׁבָרִים shevarim: fragments, shards, debris, pieces. In this case, shevarim caused by Iranian missiles.
Until that snippet of song, I’d know shevarim only as one of the “notes” when sounding the shofar. Shevarim there is meant to be somewhat mournful, akin to wailing, indicating brokenness. If shofar is the trumpet, shevarim is the blues.
Out of the mouths of babes.*
*Psalms 8:2 From the mouths of infants and sucklings מִפִּי עוֹלְלִים וְיֹנְקִים Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz suggests that the pure words of the very young can “represent a fundamental, basic strength that cannot be extinguished by adversaries, and they are a buffer against the waves of hatred that recur in every generation.”