Things and Pics

It's seems like ages since I last wrote. Life just seems to get away from me sometimes. Let's see. What's been going on?

Pesach (Passover) is looming. I'm very proud of myself because one evening last week, T and I cleaned the shelves of all the upper kitchen cabinets. Not a small job. This evening I hope to get the lower drawers and cabinets cleaned out with her help. I think this is the earliest I've ever started Pesach cleaning! I also need to make the menu and do the food shopping soon in the hopes of beating the crowds. It looks like just my Mom will be joining us this year for the Seder. DH's married kids and mother all asked to come for Chag Sheini (last day) so that's going to be more of a strain for me than the seder itself.

For my Mom's birthday at the beginning of this month, I made her a beautiful Swarovski bracelet which was time consuming to make and not cheap. She wore it for an hour and managed to lose it! Very bummed about that. I told her I'd make her another one as soon as I can.

T is due to start taking her math "matkonot" tests in school starting right after Passover. These tests are every few days over the course of a month. Math has always been her bug-a-boo subject. I told her I do NOT want her attempting to study for these tests without a private teacher to guide her/help her study. The father of E's best friend in gan is a high school math teacher and the family lives down the block from us. I know the father tutors students. A lovely, lovely man. I spoke to him yesterday about possibly tutoring T in preparation for these tests. He asked if she needs teaching - in which case he wouldn't have time to take her on - or just practice. I told him I thought she needed teaching. He said to send her over to their house last night at 9 pm so he could talk to her and draw his own conclusions. T was there until 10:15. I spoke to the father, Ronen, after she got back. He said she definitely needs teaching. The way he put it was "her head works, the math doesn't". He teaches math in three local high schools and said in every class he's ever taught he's had 2-3 students like T. After orinigally saying he didn't have time to teach her, he said he would tutor her but that I needed to speak to the school's counsellor and see if the school would be willing to let T take the "Moed B" (a 2nd test for those who didn't pass the first one) in July which will allow T more time for lessons with Ronen to bring her up to speed. I spoke to the counsellor and she agreed without hesitation. She didn't even blink at my request which was a HUGE relief. So it looks like it's a green light for weekly lessons for T until July.

We are potty training E. Again. A few months ago he was half trained (peepee) but I got tired of washing poop out of his pants 4 times a day. We figured he wasn't ready yet so put him back in diapers. Now the weather's a tad warmer and Passover vacation is coming up where I'll be off work a lot more and can deal with him so starting last Shabbat we've foregone the diapers - cold turkey. Even at night. We've covered the couch and rolled up the carpets. Geesh! It's like housebreaking a dog.

Last Monday they finally moved me into my new office at work. I'm in love! Small, cute, compact office with two HUGE windows. You almost need sunglasses in here. I now have a door, too, so most days I've got baroque classical music playing softly in the background or streaming nature sounds (burbling creek and forest birds cheeping - I'm always looking for ways to bring the outdoors inside....). So many people have told me my office is the nicest. I've had repeat visitors of other employees who just walk in and want to go ooooo and ahhhhh. O yeah! Lots of atmos in here! I went to the nursery the evening before they moved me over and treated myself to a really pretty plant for the office. I hope I don't kill it.

It's supposed to rain tomorrow and Friday. A spring storm. It's been a very wet winter with lots of snow up north so the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) is filling up nicely. I hope the weather over Pesach vacation will be decent. I'm working 2 full days during chol hamoed and I'm off the rest. I hope to do lots of outdoorsy stuff with the kids - maybe take them camping for one night on the beach near here. I really don't feel like being on the roads with the rest of the country so we'll probably just stick close to home.

Here are a bunch of misc pics that I found on my camera:

Me on Purim. I wore this hat and nose to work the day before Purim. The CEO loved it and came into my office a few times for 2nd and 3rd looks.



E hiding the the kitchen garbage can's insert.

A lemon!



The start of the Rehovot Walk a few Fridays ago.



The fields on the eastern edge of Rehovot.





A tower used in the early days of the State of Israel as a lookout point to protect Rehovot from the surrounding Arabs.



DH.

Feasting on strawberries!



And THAT....believe it or not....is the backside of T.



AWWW. Sweet boychik.

A New Week

E has gan every other Friday and this week gan was "on" so after I dropped him off there, I made a quick run to IKEA to pick up his birthday present - a wooden train and track set. I LOVE LOVE LOVE wooden toys! I got him the basic set and one extension set. If he loves it and actually plays with it, we can always go back and buy another extension set. I've seen how enthralled he is with the huge train track set they have at the gymboree I took the kids to during Chanukah so hopefully it will keep him equally busy at home. He adores balls and anything with wheels.

Of course you can't just run into IKEA for ONE thing and I walked out with about 15 items and having spent 400+ NIS. One of the things I found in IKEA's marked down section was....I guess you'd call it a large shallow Teflon pot. It's so large that when I put it on my stove top it covers two burners. It was marked down from 255 NIS to 135 NIS. I brought it home and made matbucha in it (a garlic-y tomato-based salad - similar to salsa - that you simmer on the gas for a LONG time). Came out great!

It's been a VERY cold and rainy few days. Shabbat was hard due to not being able to go outdoors with the kids. We basically stayed home, had a pajama day (a.k.a. mental health day) and skipped shulgoing. The afternoon was spent with Y practicing her cartwheels in the living room and E spent the afternoon playing Superman, gleefully jumping off the coffee table over and over and over and over and over and.......I was too tired to care and didn't have anything better to offer him that he would have been interested in doing. T got a fire lit under her and tidied up her room BIG TIME. When she was done, the Queen of England could have visited and I wouldn't have stressed about it. T IS capable of tidiness and order when the spirit moves her.

E's gannenet (daycare teacher) has been commenting on how poor E's language skills are. She claims he hardly says anything at all in gan, that he doesn't know opposites, his colors, etc. DH also took E for a developmental checkup at Tipat Chalav (baby wellness clinic) and they were also concerned that he didn't know the word for "star" when she pointed to one and that he didn't know the word for "milk" even when she pointed to a carton of milk in a picture and spoke to E in English. And yet when E is at home with us, compared to what they were just a few months ago, his language skills are growing in leaps and bounds. True, he mixes - and I mean MIXES - his English and Hebrew which can be very, very funny but if not funny then adorable but he is coming out with complete sentences now and then. I was also reading him a bedtime story the other night. I showed him a picture of a cow and right away he pointed at the cow and said "chalav (Heb: milk)" and then "milk". So I don't know what everyone's getting all worked up about. I keep telling everyone to slow down. WE see his progress at home and yes he's far behind where Y was at his age but a) he's a boy and b) he's dealing with two languages. I'm NOT worried. I do wish though that he would be able to sit for long enough for me to read him a book.  He just doesn't have the patience for it. At the most, when I try to read to him, he'll take the book away from me, quickly look at the pictures himself and then throw the book across the room and get up and run off to do something else.

I finally made it to the doctor on Friday and as I suspected, I've got bronchitis. I should know. I've had it often enough before. So. Bronchitis confirmed. Drugs acquired.

T was home for Shabbat this week. At the dinner table Friday night she was almost - almost - outgoing and it was so nice to be able to have a two-way conversation with her instead of the one-word grunts that usually pass as conversation with her. She was just very "laugh-y". (Is that a word? Well, it is now.) She was laughing at the little ones' nonsense and DH's witicisms which normally she wouldn't be caught dead doing. It was just nice to see her so light and "up". At the dinner table, she started telling me what decorating changes she'd like to do to her room. Mostly just re-painting which it does desperately need. And then maybe some pretty stenciling around the two windows. So by the end of today I will have gotten 2 price quotes for repainting her room. Both girls' rooms are due for a facelift. I used to be the family painter but I think those days are over. No time, no energy.

A Spark of Inspiration

I am not one who goes into ecstacies over every shiur (religious lecture) nor do I find very many of them spiritually inspiring. However, Dr. Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo is my rabbinical hero. Why? Because his interpretations/views are fresh and refreshing and not just a regurgitation of chapter and verse. He sees the problems within Judaism and isn't afraid to point them out and cry for change. (Interestingly, he also happens to be a convert to Judaism as well.)

He is affiliated with the David Cardozo Academy in Jerusalem (http://www.cardozoschool.org/) where you can find a huge selection of audio lecture on a wide variety of subjects. He also writes a weekly essay entitled "Thoughts to Ponder" which you can sign up to receive.

This recent essay about the importance and spiritual qualities of song and music really moved me and I wanted to share.

Thoughts to Ponder  

No Mashiach (Messiah) Without a Song

Nathan Lopes Cardozo

Whether the angels play only Bach praising God, I am not quite sure;I am sure, however, that en famille they play Mozart. (1)

When attending synagogue services around the world, one is often confronted with a lack of religious enthusiasm. In many synagogues, services are heavy and often depressing. It is not always the lack of concentration by the worshippers that makes synagogue services unattractive, but the absence of a song and passion. It is true that prayer is a most serious undertaking, yet our sages have often emphasized the fact that the opportunity to speak to the Lord of the Universe is a great privilege, which should bring much happiness to man. After all, for humans to converse with their Maker is something that has no logical basis. Who is man to speak to the King of Kings? This is even more surprising when one contemplates the fact that man has the opportunity to praise God with hymns and laudations. As the great German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe once said, “Wer einen lobt, stellt sich ihm gleich.” (He who praises another person places himself on the other’s level.)  And as Aristotle said—probably referring to Plato—“Everyone may criticize him, but who is permitted to praise him?”

Most interesting is the fact that one of the ways we are able to identify the Mashiach (the Messiah) is by his capacity and willingness to sing. In the talmudic tractate Sanhedrin (94a), Bar Kapara states that God intended to appoint King Chizkiyahu as the Mashiach, the ultimate redeemer of mankind, but eventually did not.

Chizkiyahu is known as one of the most righteous men the Jewish people has ever seen. He introduced significant religious reforms and was a man of outstanding devotion, committed to the highest level of morality. In fact, he was so successful in promoting Torah study that there was “no boy or girl, no man or woman in the land who was not well-versed in the religious laws of tahara and tuma – purity and impurity!”

Still, King Chizkiyahu was unable to teach the awe of God to his own son and heir to the throne, Menashe. King Menashe is known for his wickedness, and commentators observe that this was partially due to the fact that his righteous father did not know how to sing and was therefore unable to inspire him. We can be sure that Menashe was well educated in Jewish learning, but all such learning was academic and frigid, because the warmth of a song did not accompany it.

Most telling is that, as the sages inform us, King Chizkiyahu did not sing even after he experienced a great miracle that saved Israel from the hands of the wicked Sancheriv, the Assyrian king (ibid). 

Being unable to sing is considered by our sages a serious and irreparable weakness that invalidates one from becoming the Mashiach (ibid). Indeed we find that all of King Chizkiyahu’s efforts to encourage Torah learning came to an end after he passed away. There is no future to Jewish education and Judaism without a song and passion.

This, however, needs some clarification. What is there in a song, not found in the spoken word, that makes it so crucial to the Jewish tradition?

It may be worthwhile to look at a highly irregular statement by the great rationalist thinker, Rambam. Discussing human reason and prophecy, he writes: 

              

"I say there is a limit to human reason, and as long as the soul resides within the body, it cannot grasp what is above nature, for nothing that is immersed in nature can see above it.  Reason is limited to the sphere of nature and is unable to understand what is above its limits… Know that there is a level of knowledge that is higher than all philosophy, namely prophecy. Prophecy is a different source and category of knowledge. Proof and examination are inapplicable to it. If prophecy is genuine then it cannot depend on the validation of reason….Our faith is based on the principle that the words of Moshe are prophecyand therefore beyond the domain of speculation, validation, argument orproof. Reason is inherently unable to pass judgment in the area from which prophecy originates. It would be like trying to put all the water in the world into a little cap. (2)"         

Music raises the spoken word to a level that borders on prophecy. It gives it a taste of that which is beyond and transforms it into something untouchable. There no way to explain the difference between a spoken word and one which is sung, unless one sings. It lifts a person out of the mundane and gives him a feeling of the imponderable, which is the entrance to joy. It sets the soul in operation and brings us near to the Infinite.

“Some men go on a hunger strike in the prison of the mind, starving for God,” said Heschel (3). Only song will free them. Prayer is our answer to the inconceivable surprise of living. “To be able to pray is to know how to stand still and to dwell upon a word” (4).This is true, even more so, when a group of human beings join in communal song.

When our sages inform us that one who is unable to sing cannot be Mashiach, it should be a message to all who want to be religious.  Song with passion is crucial while praying and when trying to live a meaningful life.  We are deeply indebted to Sephardic tradition, Chassidism and legendary figures such as Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach z”l, for they have placed song in the center of modern Jewish life. While there is much more to Judaism than song and music, it is time that synagogue rabbis give this aspect of spiritual expression their devoted attention, teaching members of their communities to surprise themselves at what their souls are able to achieve. It is prayer in the form of song that makes this possible.

***

******(1) Karl Barth quoted in his obituary, The New York Times, Dec. 11, 1968 (2) “Letter to Rabbi Chisdai” in Kovetz Teshuvot HaRambam Ve’iggerotav, Abraham Lichtenberg, ed. Leipzig: H.L. Shnoys, 1859. II, pp. 23a-23b (3) Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion, New York: Farrar, Straus and     Giroux, 1976. p. 90(4) Abraham Joshua Heschel, Between God and Man, New York: Free Press, 1997.  p. 206