Twilight Zone
My recent posts...Twilight Zone בֵּין הַשְׁמָשׁוֹת Bein hashemashot, literally, between the suns. בֵּין הַשְׁמָשׁוֹת A twilight zone of time, or rather, out of time, between one day and the next. Our sages of old used this concept to explain certain miraculous...
When to Pray Yizkor
My recent posts...My edited comments from this past final day of Pesach. Ellie’s mom, Julia Helfman, died on her 95th birthday, December 24, 2025. This was the first Yizkor service Ellie feels obligated to attend. She said, “I’m now a member of a club I was not eager...
Timing
It had become a Kremer household Pesach tradition, or rather, a pre-Pesach tradition. Somewhere within a couple of days prior the first seder and noon on erev Pesach, something would go awry in the kitchen.
Justice! Pursue Justice!
Yesterday afternoon, Ellie and I were privileged to attend the Ceremonial Swearing-In of Honorable Irina G. Ehrlich as Judge in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County. Irina and her husband Charlie Ehrlich, 15 years a judge in the same court, are members of Shirat Hayam.
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.”