Here’s a photo of my daughter trying to walk backwards at the Kotel, the Western Wall. It is considered respectful not to put your back to the Kotel. The wall that one can see at the Kotel plaza is actually a mere fragment of the walls of the Second Temple renovated by Herod Around 19 BCE.
We took an underground tour that showed us the full extent of the wall on the west. On this tour we passed by Warren’s Gate, an ancient entrance to the Temple. I was surprised to see women davening (praying) as we tourists tramped on through them. The men had less interuption in a balcony above. This is considered the closest one can get to the Kodesh HaKedoshim, the Holy of Holies. The gate is named after the explorer Charles Warren, whom our tour guide told us to Google to find out more about this fascinating man. According to our guide, at some point in his tunnel explorations Warren seemed to have accidentally come upon the bathroom of some nuns, but I couldn’t find any evidence of this anecdote online. He was also known to have failed to find Jack the Ripper when he returned to England.
I am working on a post of Ir David, the most fascinating of the tours we took, because every few months they discover something new. And this is by far the most ancient section of Jerusalem (it is right outside the Dung Gate, outside of what is called the Old City). Charles Warren shows up again in Ir David.
Can you identify what is in this photo?
Hint from Parshat Korach (Numbers 18:30) —
Therefore thou shalt say unto them: When ye set apart the best thereof from it, then it shall be counted unto the Levites as the increase of the threshing-floor, and as the increase of the wine-press.
Ilana-Davita (5.) was the closest thus far. I’ll post the answer with more photos and explanation next week.
My breakfast at Kfar Blum (my son makes fun of how much salad I eat)
Westbank Mama hosts Kosher Cooking Carnival.
And
Phyllis at ImaBima hosts Haveil Havalim: The Packing for Camp Edition. Thank you, Phyllis, for including some Pirkei Avot links and a link to my Galil post. We need to pack for camp (Camp Stone, for Middle Son) when we are finished unpacking from our Israel trip.
Yesterday was Parshat Naso, a great parsha with laws of the suspected adulteress, laws of the nazir, the Kohen’s blessing and gifts of the tribes. Maybe next year I’ll write a post on this parsha, but some bloggers came up with some good divrei Torah (words of Torah) that I would like to present.
First, read Jack’s Haveil Havelim #168 Go Celtics Edition.
On Parshat Naso:
If you needed to decorate your house for just two days with some kind of flower theme, how would you do it? If you wanted to involve your children in the project, how could you make it fun?
Here’s some quick ideas:
- Buy some beautiful (but expensive) flowers at the florist.
- Go to the supermarket and buy some OK flowers.
- Do tissue paper flowers (do you use pipe cleaners and twist around the middle and trim the tissue paper?).
- Draw pictures of flowers and plants and hang those up.
- Go pillaging through your garden and find something or another that might possibly last for two days.
Ideas welcome.
The holiday of Shavuot is coming, and it is customary to decorate one’s house with flowers. The origin of the custom may be a tradition of vegetation sprouting up around the mountain of Sinai when the Torah was given, or it may be connected to the agricultural roots of this holiday, which is also called Hag HaKatzir, the holiday of the harvest. Whether you celebrate this holiday or not, I am sure you can come up with at least one idea of how we could floralize our house.
After a busy Sunday (see the parade) and a Monday of work, here’s a simple post.
A snapdragon from my front yard.
I had the pleasure of marching in uniform with Troop 55 of Highland Park/Edison, New Jersey in the Salute to Israel Day Parade down Fifth Avenue in New York City. The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America are some of the first marchers in the parade. We are right behind the Veterans of America. First, we had to get there:
At left, we leave from Edison, New Jersey. At right, we are in Penn Station, New York.
A lot of waiting for the parade to start:
Finally, we march:
There were a lot more schools and floats from many organizations that we missed, because we wanted to get home. In particular, it would have been nice to see RPRY(my children’s school) and TABC(the high school my son will attend next year). But they weren’t marching until much later.
This one is a reflection in the window of a New York apartment building:
So here are some of the tired scouts, sitting down this time in Penn Station:
We got to ride on these cool double-decker trains on our train ride back to New Jersey.
See also Elinka’s parade pictures.
In between working on intriguing posts for your enjoyment and taking care of my family, I do website work for a number of Central New Jersey businesses and organizations. Sometimes it takes a while before my work becomes public, but recently I edited a number of web pages that I can share with you:
- Yesterday, I put the Rutgers Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life’s
Fall 2008 Public Events. Note that in December Dara Horn, author of The World to Come, a book recommended by Mother in Israel, will be speaking at Rutgers.
- The Highland Park Public Library has a bug poster to advertise summer programming for children. The bug poster, by children’s book illustrator Harry Bliss, is part of a national program called Collaborative Summer Library Program, so you may see a similar one on another library site. I just added some text to make it unique to our library.
- New Jersey School of Dental Assisting had me add their newest schedule, information about tuition and financing, and a new field on their contact form.
- I did some edits for Wilkin & Guttenplan, an accounting firm in East Brunswick, New Jersey, including an animated gif of Best Places to Work award logos that you can see on the bottom right of the Careers page.
I will soon be working on a new online course for the Rutgers Bildner Center. The courses are free; so if you have some time to do a course, go to the Jewish Studies Online Studies page to take the Bible & History or the Israeli Political System. Also, I’ve been working a site for a local firm that is not yet public.
From Parshat Behar, Leviticus 25:10
“proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof”
וּקְרָאתֶם דְּרוֹר בָּאָרֶץ לְכָל-יֹשְׁבֶיהָ
The above phrase is written on the Liberty Bell. If you read it in the context of the Torah portion, you will realize that it is talking about freeing slaves. In the fiftieth year, one is supposed to free one’s slaves. So one could say the Liberty Bell designers got it wrong; it’s only slaves that are being freed, not everyone. But when you own another human being, you the master is not truly free, either. So indeed the freeing is for everyone.
Here’s a little more explanation of this idea of a master not being free:
The Pnei Yehoshua explains this with a profound psychological insights. Slavery does not only deprive the slave of his freedom, but the master as well. A person who dominates others is not truly free either, and the Talmud correctly states that one who acquires a slave acquires a master over himself (Kiddushin 20a). He who enslaves another becomes enslaved himself.
And here’s background on how the phrase on the Liberty Bell was chosen:
The Pennsylvania Assembly ordered the Bell in 1751 to commemorate the 50-year anniversary of William Penn’s 1701 Charter of Privileges, Pennsylvania’s original Constitution. It speaks of the rights and freedoms valued by people the world over. Particularly forward thinking were Penn’s ideas on religious freedom, his liberal stance on Native American rights, and his inclusion of citizens in enacting laws…
the line in the Bible immediately preceding “proclaim liberty” is, “And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year.” What better way to pay homage to Penn and hallow the 50th year than with a bell proclaiming liberty?
It would have been nice if I had posted this a week and a half ago, right before we read the Torah portion of Behar in the synagogue. However, that did not happen. So I will connect it with Memorial Day, which is tomorrow. On Memorial Day we remember those that died for freedom. We have freedoms today because what of others sacrificed.
Parshat Behukotai 26:37 says “each man before his brother as if from before a sword”. Please note the “as if”. This is analogy for something. For what? Rashi explains that each man will stumble over each other’s sins. We are all responsible for each other:
כל ‘שראל ערבים זה לזה
Shabbat Shalom.
