This erev Rosh haShana as every year I find myself in the kitchen listening to Selichot at the Kotel making my babushka’s Lekach (honey cake) thinking about her life hoping to become one day as good a cook as she was.My grandmother’s life was not easy at all. She had to run from pogroms from…
Category: World around us
Random Spring Pre-Purim Thoughts
Spring is, inevitably, coming. And, with it come hopes, dreams of the better future, associations with pink / rosy glasses. Time and again, my mind races back and forth bringing pleasant thoughts and emotions and going back to the darkness that is so ingrained in my whole being. Personal ups and downs are mixed today…
קוּמִי אוֹרִי, כִּי בָא אוֹרֵךְ; וּכְבוֹד יְהוָה, עָלַיִךְ זָרָח. Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.
This week’s Haftarah brings me back to Jerusalem, of course. Jerusalem, as a city of prophets and a place for G-d’s vision to come alive, a city with blood, tears, hopes and joy all intertwined with each other in one giant ball of cosmic energy too tight and ready to burst out. It always seems…
Wine! Glorious (kosher) Wine!
Not sure if I said it already, but my younger daughter is studying to become a sommelier. Apparently, there are only 249 masters of this trade in the whole world! In America, there are only 25 women. One can study for years and years and still fail the Master’s exam. So, there is a long…
The Russian Picnic Tradition
Apparently, Soviet cuisine is very fashionable now. Otherwise, why would there be such a great number of articles, books and posts about it. I need to write about Kachka – the book that I enjoy reading and the experience of my daughter, the Portland lover. I have been following the Russian food blogger, Peter, who reinvents the…
Still Thinking about Pardes?!
Just some ranting: This year’s program was a bit different. Firstly, it was bigger than the ones I attended before. It was also much more diverse. People came, of course, from the States and England as they always come, but this year there was a relatively large group of youngsters from France, one lady from…
Bamidbar
“Do not on any account enrol the tribe of Levi or take a census of them with the Israelites.” (Numbers 1:49) Below are the words of Dr. David Ackerman: Parashat Bamidbar opens the fourth book of the Torah, also called Bamidbar, in the wilderness of… In Bamidbar, God orders Moses to prepare the Israelites for their wilderness trek by conducting a conduct a census…
Memphis
So for the last few days, I’ve spent my time at the event my organization holds every two years on the border of three states, Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi. Apparently, the bridge that I saw every day from the Convention Center window marks the border of two of them going along the mighty Mississippi river. What can I…
Am I still entangled with Mother-Russia?
I wonder if it is coincidental that I have read this book over Shabbat just prior to the 2018 Russian presidential election. I got this book from my favorite book-junkie event of the year – the Jewish Book Council “Raid the Shelves“. Luckily, I work right next door, so I don’t schlep all of them at once,…
Roller-Coaster During Yamim Noraim / ימים נוראים
These Days of Awe – ימים נוראים have been very challenging for me so far. Is the Universe trying to tell me something that I refuse to hear? Right after Rosh haShana my body started to give in somehow. Yesterday, I decided to defy the pain and walk to a Community Beit Midrash Kick off at Mechon…
Parshat ha Shavuah Verses Nitzavim-Vayelech / נִצָּבִים-וַיֵּלֶךְ
I am starting this post with tribulation. The reason is that I am not at all sure that the minor event that happened yesterday would be as distressing to my readers as it was to me. I am really curious to see by reactions to this post if I am living in a dreamland, or…
Parshat ha Shavuah Verses Shoftim / שֹׁפְטִים
People think about different things when their minds drift away from the task at hand. Being super busy now at work, I somehow still always manage to find my way to Israel in my mind. And today I am missing it so much it hurts. Maybe one of the reasons is that here, in the…
Noshing Across the Nation 