Talmud of America
My recent posts..."Talmud of America" Pardes Institute, a non-denominational study center based in Jerusalem, offers immersive Jewish learning around the world. One project is “Talmud of America,” which aims to illuminate and interpret, through Jewish eyes, some...
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.
Crimson Stuff
As I heard the word exit my mouth, I thought, “Oops! Bad choice…”
On Sunday morning, our Galeem (“waves”) Sunday school students searched for chametz, reviewed the order of the seder, sang “ma nishtana,” left Egypt by walking between the watery walls of the Reed Sea, examined the seder plate, dipped vegetables in salt water, made matza/maror/charoset sandwiches, ate egg matza and hard-boiled egg, helped me find the afikoman, and sang some more.
All within an hour.
On hand were a reporter and photographer for the Press of Atlantic City. A lovely gallery of photos was posted on the Press site with an accompanying article.
Before and after the seder, I was interviewed. In one of those interviews, I said, “The main focus is, as we did today, teaching the young’uns, because if we don’t do that, then we’re spinning wheels, there’s no value to it. We are fulfilling a biblical injunction, which is: we are to teach this stuff to our children.”
“Stuff.” What an unfortunate choice in this context! I heard it; I couldn’t retract it, erase it from the video camera facing me. Stuff.
By coincidence (perhaps), coming up soon in the Torah reading cycle is a purification ritual for one whose tsaraat skin affliction has healed. The kohein / priest takes “two live pure birds, cedar wood, crimson stuff (sh’ni tolaat), and hyssop…” (Leviticus/vayyika 14:4) The meaning of the various pieces of this puzzle can be parsed another time. For now, it’s the “crimson stuff.”
“Sh’ni tolaat,” crimson stuff, is also translated as crimson wool, though, to me, it is more enigmatic when it could be … anything — stuff.
Or stuff can be everything. What I meant by “stuff” is the everything — the heritage, culture, ritual, literature, lore, music, practice, superstition, joy, pain, history, victory, and challenge — of being Jewish. I could imagine others hearing just “stuff.”
Lesson: when being interviewed, weigh your thoughts and measure your words carefully before speaking!
I hope you enjoy all of the stuff that comes with — and add your voice to — celebrations of Pesach.
chag sameiach! חַג שָׂמֵחַ