Our family decorates oatmeal containers with colorful pictures and scraps of wrapping paper. We modge podge (a kind of glue) the containers, fill them with treats and give them to our friends. This custom is called Mishloach Manot, and it is part of the celebration for the holiday of Purim. On the container at left you can see King Ahashverosh by his red throne.
I love the idea that trees and flowers are blooming in Israel. Anyone who lives in the north can probably appreciate the envy I feel at this time of year. So I’ll start with Batya’s blooms:
While G6 reminds us Purim is coming, Mottel shows us Chanukah past (and here’s my Purim watercolor, too):
Leah presents three from the Chossid’s blog:
Some lovely, some dusty shots on Israeli blogs (Rahel, Yisrael M., CosmicX):
New York on view (by Wolf, Jacob, JoeFlix and Mendy):
Mottel showed South America (Pisaq, Machu Picchu), Ilana-Davita a Hong Kong shul:
And more from Israel:
Sarah has some photography tips to share:
Want to host? Contact jpixcarnival (at) gmail (dot) com.
Please come back on Monday to see more.
Two thoughts on how this happiness needs to be tempered:
1) This year marks the first anniversary of the terrible murder of 8 teenage students from Merkaz HaRav in Jerusalem.
2) It is a custom to drink alcohol on Purim. However, one must always take care of one’s health and the health of others. Therefore, if you or family members do not know how to drink responsibly, don’t. We don’t need the happy day of Purim to turn to tragedy.
Rashi quotes the above phrase from Bava Metzia 59b in reference to Exodus 22:20 —
So I said to my husband: is this a bit like “People who live in glass houses should not throw stones”? And my husband responded, but even if you weren’t a stranger in Egypt, you shouldn’t abuse a stranger.
But I don’t think it’s a good idea for people who live in brick houses to throw stones, do you?
Esser Agaroth hosted the #203 edition of Haveil Havalim, the weekly blog carnival of the Jewish blogosphere. In addition to Tu B’Shvat, the holiday of the trees, this coming week means elections in Israel. Israel has many different parties; governments are formed by coalitions (want to learn more about the Israeli Political System? Take Prof. Yaacov Yadgar’s free, online course on the Israeli Political System). You can learn more about how bloggers vote by reading this week’s HH edition. I found Cosmic X’s post: Are Most Israeli Bloggers Leftists? interesting: the leftists are writing in Hebrew, the right wingers in English?
Please calm me down, as I am hosting next week’s Haveil Havalim. This won’t be too hard, will it, Jack? Will I be clever, witty enough for this prestigious task? Stay tuned.
Thirty three years ago I stood in my the hallway of the home I grew up in (it was a large, grand hall: wasted space, took up heat, but beautiful) and gave a speech. My father wrote the speech. I really don’t remember what the point of the speech was, but I do remember the first pasuk (sentence) of the speech, which is the first line of the upcoming parsha:
And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not by the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said: 'Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt.'
So I remember bits and pieces of it. There was a dog, and a son, and a father. The drawing on the map probably was not part of the speech, but might have been if I had written the speech. So I would have an excuse to draw charts and pictures. The red line represents the route B’nei Yisrael (the Israelites, Children of Israel) most probably did take, so they would have a long time between slavery and being a nation in a land. The blue line is the more direct route, the one they didn’t take, which seems to go close to what is now Gaza or what was then the nation of the Philistines, a war-like people. In any case, they did meet Amalek at the end of the parsha, so they got involved in a battle, anyway.
So what was the story about the dog, the son, the father? I had to look it up. It’s from a Rashi towards the end of the parsha. It seems the father and son were going on a journey, and the son wanted to be held. So the father picked him up. Then the son wanted this. The father gave it to him. The son wanted that. Again, the father generously gave to his son. Along came another man, and the son asked, Do you know where my father is? The father got angry and put the son down. Along came a dog (Amalek) and bit him.
Now, if I could choose a topic now for my bat-mitzvah, I would have chosen Shirat HaYam, the song of the sea. Maybe next year I will study the beautiful poetry in this week’s parsha. Last year I wrote about Devorah. One thing I will have to say: even if I didn’t write the words to my bat-mitzvah speech, it was this speech that was my introduction to writing and giving divrei Torah, words of Torah. I enjoy it! So, thanks Dad (I actually used to call him Daddy, but now we call him Saba, grandfather) for helping me along this path.
The photo on the left shows me conducting some kind of game at my bat-mitzvah. The photo on the right is from my brother’s bar-mitzvah one year earlier; I am sitting in the same location that I stood one year later to give my bat-mitzvah speech.
On the fifteen day of Shevat, there is a Jewish holiday called Tu B’Shevat. This year Tu B’Shevat falls on Monday, February 9th.
The celebration often involves eating special fruits, especially figs, dates, almonds and carob. As a little girl growing up in New England, I often thought it strange that we celebrated a day for trees in what felt like the middle of a snowy winter to me. But the day is about the agricultural cycle in Israel. It started because the rabbis needed a day to begin counting certain laws such as Orlah, the three years one must wait for planting a fruit tree before enjoying the harvest.
The photo at left, which you can click to enlarge, shows some trees in Jerusalem in front of the Montefiore Windmill. The blue sign says “Heinrich Heine” (Road). Heine was a German poet. I chose the photo for this post because of the variety of trees in the photo. Also, because the photo reminds me of the story I told about my eighty-year-old friend identifying trees in Jerusalem.
In celebration of the upcoming holiday, I decided to post a few of my favorite tree photos.
Ilana-Davita hosted a wonderful JPIX, the blog carnival of photos (and drawings, one in this carnival) by Jewish bloggers. Thank you for including my bench of roses detail and my cup. If you visit the carnival, you can find the link that will lead you to the post that will tell you in which restaurant I took that photo.
This month shall be unto you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. (Exodus 12:2)
I learned this week that the Chinese calendar is like the Jewish calendar, as it follows the moon, but it has a correction, a leap year of some sort so the holidays stay in the right seasons. So some bloggers this week were wishing me Happy Chinese New Year while others were wishing me a good month (it was the beginning of the Hebrew month of Shevat). It occurred on the same day because of the moon.
In this week’s parsha, the moon first becomes a symbol of hope and renewal for the Jewish people. There are many Jewish laws (halachot) regarding the sighting of a new moon. In the days of old, witnesses who saw the new moon would set fires on a string of hilltops to let neighboring and far communities know of the new month. Now we follow a calendar.
In his book Ancient Secrets: Using the Stories of the Bible to Improve Our Everyday Lives Rabbi Levi Meier talks about the moon:
Note that God’s symbols, as presented in the Bible, are generally elements of nature: a tree, a rainbow, a rock. The Bible imbues these natural elements with meaning, and each symbol is intended to give us strength to face the challenges that arise.
So when the pharaoh’s rage is unleashed as he is threatened with the last of the ten plagues—the death of all firstborn Egyptian males—the Israelites are told to look to the new moon.
It does seem strange, that amidst these plagues, the concept of Rosh Chodesh, the new month, is introduced.
Rabbi Meier continues:
The new moon silently speaks to them of renewal, of a new beginning. The moon returns each night to light the darkness, changing its shape, waxing and waning, only to rise afresh after a cycle of twenty-eight days. It speaks to them of the cyclical nature of life.
Just as the Israelites are getting ready to leave Egypt, they are given not only a symbol of hope but also a reminder that life is like the moon. It, too, moves in cycles. In the worst of times, it is important to remember that there will always be renewal.
The cycles of waxing and waning, of trust and mistrust, of intimacy and distance, of joy and despair, are all normal. A great deal of unhappiness in this world comes from our refusing to acknowledge this simple fact. When things are going well, we want to hold on to those feelings of happiness and bliss. But happiness gives way to sadness, as it surely must. And we suffer needlessly, agonizing over the realization that happiness, once achieved, cannot last forever. In the midst of our disappointment, we forget the moon will rise again, bringing joy once more.
The great figures of the Bible understood that we need “down” cycles in order to have “up” cycles. Thus, even in the worst of times, they were never immobilized by despair. They used the dark moments to change, to grow, and to move forward.
What do you think of when you see the moon?