With a name like stars and stripes in the title of this post, perhaps you were expecting something else? What do you see in this painting? It is a detail of the invitation we used for my older son’s bar-mitzvah in 2007.
If you don’t know the story (or can only guess the stripes), here’s a link to the parsha.
Free Association Game: What do you think of when you read sheep? Or when you look at the above image? (or both)
Please leave your thoughts, ideas, associations in the comments. As always, vulgar or obscene comments will be deleted. But the truth is, I’ve never gotten any vulgar or obscene comments…
Not necessary to play the game, but if you are curious, read the difference between a lamb and a sheep.
How does one depict an angel? How does one depict the earth, the sky, the ladder? I skipped putting the main subject, Jacob, in the painting. Maybe next time. If I were to depict Jacob, he might look like this man.
A big thank you to hosts of Haveil Havalim: Phyllis of Ima on and Off the Bima for last week and Hannah of A Mother in Israel for this week. Haveil Havalim is a weekly Jewish blog carnival.
When I think of songs that warm my soul, the songs of Shabbat come immediately to mind and heart. Lecha Dodi is sung on Friday nights – the song is a welcoming of the “Sabbath Bride.” Lecha Dodi was written in the 16th century by Rabbi Shlomo Halevi Alkabetz. I rather like this untraditional rendition of the song on YouTube.
Thursday Challenge theme is MUSIC (Guitar, Playing an Instrument, Things that make sounds, iPods, Sheet Music, Noisy Things,…).
Note: I wrote this post a year ago. And it sat as a draft in my WordPress until today. In honor of Ilana-Davita and because Raizy misses Ilana-Davita’s parsha post this week, I am now hitting ‘published.’ Please note that I never finished, but at the bottom you will see that I found a high school student who did.
One of the problems with writing about the parsha is getting it up before Shabbat is not always the easiest task, and one often has more time to review the parsha on Shabbat. So here’s a few more thoughts on the years of Sarah, before we turn to the parsha of this coming week, Toldot.
What’s the question about the opening pasuk, the opening sentence of the Torah portion? Unless you read Hebrew, you might think from the English that it only says “years” twice. However, it really says “shanah” or years 4 times. Since everything in the Torah is repeated for a reason, why so many years?
There is a midrash that goes with the story of Sarah. It’s like this:
When Sarah was 100, it was as though she was twenty in sin.
And when Sarah was 20, it was as though she was 7 in beauty.
So Rashi claims that we learn this midrash from the fact that the pasuk repeats the word “shanah” or year: 100 years, 20 years and 7 years. But the Ramban says no, we learn the midrash from the end of the pasuk, where it says “And these were the years of Sarah.” Because by Yishmael, it also has years repeated, but his years were not all alike.
And here the post ended…but Nachi Friedman provides a good summary of what the commentators had to say about this topic of Sarah’s years.
Can you think of any famous journeys? I asked some friends, and we came up with these:
In this week’s parsha of Lech Lecha, God tells Avram (he is not yet Avraham) to go forth from the land of his birth and travel to another land. According to the commentator Rashi, one is liable to lose three things by journeying: a trip can inhibit the birth of children, decrease one’s wealth and lessen one’s fame (lose one’s reputation). So God blesses Avram accordingly so he will have many children, wealth and he will become a great nation (fame).
So do any of the famous journeys we mention fit into the three categories mentioned by Rashi? As a loss or as a gain? Can you think of any other well-known journeys? Do people lose children, wealth or reputation on these journeys? Or do they gain them?
Last year I wrote about Oaks, Terebinths or Plains.
Ilana-Davita writes about a spiritual journey for man and an individual relationship between man and God.
in pain you shall bear children (Bereishit 3:16)
So, 13 years ago my little guy came out like a cannon ball. No time for the doctor to show up, no time for the epidural. The nurses were in a panic; they thought they would have to deliver the baby (a resident at the hospital did). There’s a technical name for women who deliver babies very quickly. I can’t remember it – I just call it “cannon ball pain.”
And then the parsha (portion of the Torah reading) tells me that I’m going to deliver in pain. No kidding.
At least it wasn’t emotional pain, like that of losing my mother. Her yahrzeit (anniversary of her death) is tonight.
We are in the middle of celebrating the holiday of Sukkot, in which observant Jews around the world eat (some sleep) outside in little booths called Sukkot (singular = sukkah). With my son’s guidance, this post will teach how to create a sukkah decoration (recipes vary wildly from family to family – there are no set traditions for decorations).
Ingredients:
First my son drew the initial sketch with pencil. Then he painstakingly colored in the drawing:
The spaceships have no religious significance. The Hebrew says “Brukhim Ha’Baim” – Welcome to All Those Who Come, which is a common greeting to put at an entrance to a sukkah. You can see those words on the front of our sukkah at the bottom of this post.
When the drawing is complete, one cuts some clear contact paper slightly bigger on all sides than the drawing. Then one cuts one more piece of contact paper the same size as the first. Carefully peel off the backing and place the contact paper on both sides of the drawing.
Here is the drawing hanging in our sukkah. There are also a lot of red apples in the sukkah; my son made a game for our guests of “count the apples” – he claimed we had 50 apples pictured in the decorations.
Here is a photo of the sukkah from further back. Unfortunately, this may be the last year of this sukkah. My husband says it takes too long to put up (he created it himself), and it is also not big enough for hosting guests. So we may get a new one, probably a pre-fab that is easier to put up.
Do you have any decorating traditions?
For more photos with a little or a lot of red, visit Ruby Tuesday:
Many of the piyutim (liturgical songs) that we sing at Congregation Etz Ahaim on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are beautiful, memorable melodies, but one that stands out in particular is Et Sha’arei Ratzon (see the piyut on Sefaria). The poem was written by R. Yehuda ben Shmuel Ibn Abbas in the 12th century; it is a haunting retelling of the Akeida, the story in which Avraham brings his son Isaac as a sacrifice and then he is stopped by an angel. The repeated verse that most remember is “Oked veHanekad VeHamizbeach” – “the binder, the bound, and the altar.” Here is Avraham the binder bringing his son the bound on the altar – a scary, hard to explain, difficult to comprehend episode in the Torah. It seems like we too on Rosh Hashana are coming before God; like for Avraham, it is the “Et Sha’arei Ratzon” – the time of the gates of grace or desire. The Akeida is part of the Torah reading for Rosh Hashana.
My husband explained some of the midrashim of this song. The first is a lie that Avraham tells Sarah, that he is taking Yitzhak (Isaac), her beloved only son, to study Torah. In the next, Avraham, Yitzhak (Isaac) and his servants are approaching the mountain, but at some point the servants are told to stay behind because, according the English translation in the Sephardi siddur, they are not “spiritually worthy.” The Hebrew, however, calls them Hamor (may possibly be translated as donkey). When Isaac is taken to be sacrificed, he worries about his mother Sarah, how she will weep for him. The angels ask that Isaac be spared, that there shouldn’t be a world without a moon (i.e., without Isaac, who is compared to the moon).
The poet, who starts the poem with gates of “ratzon” (desire?) ends with gates of “rahamim” (pity, mercy) and a call for salvation.
Et Sha’arei Ratzon (Oked Vehanekad), sung at Congregation Etz Ahaim in Highland Park, New Jersey, on Rosh Hashana, is a poem written by R. Yehuda ben Shmuel Ibn Abbas in the 12th century; it is a retelling of the sacrifice of Isaac.