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...
Good for the Heart
I wish this kind of joy for all of us!
More than a year and a half since we were able to hug and kiss our grandchildren. Until today!
Playing basketball and baseball (both sort of, with constantly changing rules), reading aloud “the WHOLE BOOK, Sabba” with a stuffed monkey and blanket on my lap while Ellie gets a tour to reacquaint her with (unchanged) kids’ bedroom.
In person, the kids are taller, bigger, clearer, cuter, louder, smarter, funnier…more delicious than ever!
And the pleasure of hugging their parents and seeing the modest changes in their abode.
Looking forward to the calm of Shabbat (an unrealistic aspiration in a house with four kids 9.5 to 4) and more time playing house, cards, chess, ball, and whatever else they want!
But wait — there’s more! On Sunday we get to be with the other crew of three (and their parents). And, later in the summer, our daughter in Israel is coming in for a visit!
Through the pandemic, we have kept up via phone and computer, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the squeezing, tousling, holding, whispering, teasing, laughing with a real live child.
I’m grateful for the vaccinations that enabled this relative freedom, I’m grateful that those in our family who contracted COVID emerged with (only) manageable long-term effects, and I’m happy to read “the WHOLE BOOK” again and again, to mess up the ball game rules and to lose, to play house, watch, listen and kvell.
I wish this kind of joy for all of us! It’s good for the heart.
Shabbat shalom! שבת שלום