Is there a last day to Hanukkah, technically yes, but there is nothing wrong with celebrating Hanukkah all December long. Does Hanukkah end tomorrow? Three days from now, no, did it end yesterday? Will it end with the coming of the Jewish Fast Day in January? Maybe since the lights were lighted in the Temple for eight days, an eternal light, then there is really never an end to Hanukkah. Happy Hanukkah!
She came to visit without a white beard or red and white Santa suit. The twinkle of Santa's eye in her own eyes? Her hair is blonde and her eyes are blue, enticingly gorgeous, high class, who is she? She is a person of endearing lovingkindness, a Jewish female, who is doing her job, her occupation to be an Angel and to visit people who appreciate her presence.
No, she does not call herself a "missionary" on a "mission" she instead asks if she can learn from you, that she does not know all the answers, but what she wants is for your happiness, how she can help improve your life. What is it that you need that she can provide?
She is a Social Worker, has a job where she is paid to help you. Not enough work even though the whole world is crying for help. What does she charge? She does not even ask you for money, her help to you is forthcoming, she believes in what she is doing, she wants to elevate your status, she wants you to feel loved, she is on your side.
She gets along with anyone and everyone, she is guided by the Torah and as she sees your improvement, she has achievement in this way, the better off you are, the happier she is. She wants what is best for you, and your achievements are her achievements. The better you do, the better she does as she encourages you.
Can Santa Claus really be a Social Worker who is a Jewish female? She does not come down sliding through a dirty chimney, instead she can walk welcomed through your front door.
Can we keep our Kosher diet as we travel from party to party, festivity to festivity, served on plates with forks not Kosher purified? How can we keep our commitment to Adonai and stay pure as we skip from house to house, dining room to dining room, meal to meal? Is it appropriate to ask if there is meat included in the sauce? What about getting potent alcohol in dessert sauces? Can we turn down what we do not want to eat, but eat the rest?
All it takes is to ask the chef if there is meat or no meat included in a dish. To try to eat vegan, only the Kosher greens and veggies, this will not only be the healthiest way to eat, as well as the most tasty. God told us not to eat the pork. His Words as we see them in His commandments for us is not to eat the blood either that is in the meats. We need to eat only meat without the blood, and to avoid pork at all costs. This is not difficult. You must be sure of yourself and obligated to follow the rules as God has set them down. How will this change us? For the better indeed.
Know what it is that you want and desire, work towards those goals, spread good cheer to others, as during this season we are all devoted to the observance of love and respect for all humanity.
Be the good example to others, eat Kosher and eat healthy.
From where is your treasure, what do you have, what don't you have, what do you want, what can you live with or without?
Having the love of God from God Himself, to ask of Him everyday to nurse you as though you were His baby, a suckling at your Mother's breasts, nibbling on Christmas cookies we also call Hanukkah cookies.
The colors green and red being as the Zohar says "the colors of evil and sin". Combining red and green as paints mixed to get the color brown, brown being the color of the rich soil of a farmer's field.
A Christmas tree taking on the name of Hanukkah "Bush" a tree like the bush where Moses saw God, it was a burning bush. To smell the fumes of a match or lighter to remember in December your family gathered around bon fires and BBQ's in your backyards or on retreats in the woods. Family reunions toasting to the good health of everyone.
Meeting a Santa Claus in the smile of your neighborhood Rabbi, as he carries bags of books, a Menorah, Hanukkah cookies, and cranberry juice straight to your front door. Not to slide down a chimney like a dusty chimney sweep, gathering coal dust on Santa's white and red suit. A drop of red juice spilled like a teardrop or spot of blood on the Rabbi's pure white shirt, spilling it while serving. Pure as snow, his snow-white beard, even with this spot on his lapel. Words of purity spoken, words "d'varim" straight from the Torah itself, words sung like a Cantor but sung by a Rabbi who wears many hats.
A Cat In The Hat? Why to wear a hat? A Kippah to cover a bald spot, as if made specifically for this purpose? Needing enough hair to clip on the Yarmulke. A pure white bushy beard as perfect as the fur of the Red Hefer, but draped in a triangle sitting relaxed on the Rabbi's chest. but bouncing up and down as he chuckles and laughs.
No, a Hanukkah Menorah does not hurt and is not meant to burn down property or scare someone into submission to avoid its burns. A finger can strum through each Menorah candle like a guitar string in a wisp without getting a burn or feeling any discomfort. This is truly a miracle of this Holiday season! Being able to flip your finger over the hot flames of the Menorah is truly an incredible miracle!!
To then use clean hands to shake the hands of a friend, to open the Torah, to read and to write, to send Holiday cheer to everyone you encounter who you can please.
A Christmas tree is a Hanukkah Bush, the same in every home, we are more alike than different, as this tree accommodates all of humanity, under One God.
Which do you do best? Thinking or feeling? Is thinking a better talent than feeling? Which do you prefer for your own self? From others? Is feeling an unstable action and thinking stable and even keel?
How can we enlighten ourselves to feel instead of think? What are our feelings? We need to act out our six senses in order to feel. Sight, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, prophesizing. To think, we need to test our numbers, do mathematics and use the written words. Is one way better than another? Can we enlighten our entire brain, and do it all?
There is not one commandment in the Torah that one cannot do. All commandments are humanly possible. In following these commandments, all 613, we are putting our brain in safeguard. If there is no abuse, abuse by others towards you, or abuse by you towards others, the commandments are said to be all in effect. In this safety, this calmness, a place without anxiety, lies the peacefulness of prayer. To know your blessings, memorization, to pray often and to love each thought as it comes to mind as you pray, freedom of thought, one thought after the other coming and going in the brain. To welcome all thoughts, to understand yourself and be good to oneself and others.
A holiday season upcoming. A prayer during Chanukah for the safety of all our men in the military service, a prayer for all good people, a prayer for our loved ones as well as all humanity.
To eat three Thanksgiving dinners, not one, not two, but three!!! Is this manna falling from the sky? To not have to do any cooking or cleaning, or any preparation, no shopping?
Turkeys that are sacrificed for our taste buds, perfect species, a bird whose life and death is for you, s/he died to save us from our sins. A bird whose body is to be fattened up so we can eat his/her juicy meat in ceremony like the Pilgrims before us, what are we thankful about?
To be thankful to receive three turkey dinners, and to eat the best of foods, no indigestion, no heartburn, no sick stomach feelings, a tummy that is full and sated, a stomach that is churning like that full of butter, churning cottage cheese, not to need Tum's, a sated belly.
Yes, on Thanksgiving we can be thankful for our foods, and thankful to our cooks.
To then shine with the halo of an Angel after a good meal, and to invite others to try on a halo so to love the turkey and all we have and all we will get.
To be thankful for a future of happiness because we have this eternal love, a love we learned when we were inside our Mother's womb, and throughout our childhood, as she and your Father loved you, now you are able to love others too.
Kiss my lips with your eyes, but I will not kiss your lips with my eyes. Sorry but my sweetness is savored, saved, for those I love, true to few, lovingkindness to those who are honestly my friends and not my gapers.
On my lips is the purity of lip gloss, coconut flavored, climbed up a palm tree to tickle the coconuts to fall down one after the other, not leaving even one on the tree, bouncing, crashing in their hairiness, slam them with a screwdriver and a hammer, sweet white fruity juices forthcoming, Mother's milk, to eat the coconut meat too from the middle of the fruit.
How else can we be sweet? We can be sweet as pudding if we can love puddin' and pie. Sweet apples from your backyard tree, apple cobbler, apples galore! Sweet Cherry tree, no political scientist to chop it down, no George Washington chopping down a Cherry Tree.
Not discussing politics or religion, how about discussing the ecology of fruits? Fruits are very sweet! How can we be like fruits? Is a fruit a "nerd" and so we cannot be like one? Does an apple a day really keep the doctor away? Is this doctor actually just a nerd but not a sweet one?
Sweetness of our words and whispers, not to reserve your honey for those who are sour. To find somebody who is as sweet as honey on their own and merge with them. Brown sugar and white sugar, stir them up, add honey, sugarcane, sugary whipped cream, butter cake frosting.
NOW, you are Sweet! Sweet becoming a proper noun! Stay this way. Love your neighbor not just your "fellow" and your sweetness will pass on as an inheritance that is greener than cash, being the green leaves of the palm tree, speaking Green English and having a ball that is a chocolate piñata!
Chocolate in our imaginations to sweeten our disposition even without swallowing the candy!!!
Just call me "Sweetheart" from your fine lips and you then will become a "Sweetheart" too!!
Imagine a picture and then to draw it, to print it out from your computer, go to google images and find the perfect pic. What pic in google will be your companion pic, a pic of something that will be all you need, a pic as a friend, a pic that is of Rembrandt quality, to fold this pic like a letter and to put it next to your heart. What kind of pic could heal a broken heart?
His name is God, and he was born as Jesus. What does he look like and why is his image important, why if we hold his pic close to our heart will he heal us and how could this miracle happen, and how to us, you and me, and anyone who loves him.
It is love that cures. But you need to love someone who is real, someone who was born a human and surfaced up from the normalcy of humankind into a hero, a hero who saved humankind.
Do you like pretty pictures? How about a soft pic of the grayness of a man, just a man, who became God. His eyes are so full of love you cannot keep your eyes off of him, and it is okay to look at him as much as you want. His soft blonde beard covers his face like a Teddy Bear, soft curly blonde hair, long, wavy, sits upon his shoulders, his blue eyes being a Recessive genetic inheritance from both his Mom and Dad, blue eyes, or green eyes, even to imagine him with brown eyes, eyes on a pic that look back at you directly towards you, no matter which angle you look at him. His lips are caressing, full and plush, a pinkish in color, with soft pink cheeks like the cheeks of an Eskimo in the winter blooming like roses on his face beneath his dove peaceful eyes. Eyes that shine, a nose that is thin, breathing in soft gasps, steadily, filled with oxygen, expelling carbon dioxide, lips that although are closed on the pic open into the form of a kiss at your command, a picture is worth a thousand words, let him kiss you and return his kiss, kiss him back.
To mend relationships, having people who know you wishing to know you better, establishing bonds, uniting small business owners with potential customers, talented workmen, blue and white collar workers, people with good work ethics, to be on time, timely, to help you out, deserving of rewards, to be paid and paid on time, people who survive from day to day, dollar to dollar, struggling to get work, jobs in their dreams, awaking early, an early bird gets the worm.
Working day hours, a hot sun as solar energy, energy alive as energy of love, to love and to work, to love your customers, to love your employers. What kind of love? Real love, love for humans who need love and reciprocate their love for yours. A helping hand, to hold her/his hand, to support him with your hands, working hands, honest hands, hands of creativity, hands of skill.
My hands to massage you as your hands rest and continue to love my hands, to hold up the world with our loving skillful honest imaginative hands.
Do we like "new" things? We eat new food everyday for breakfast lunch and dinner, some days we eat rye bread some days we eat Challah. Challah is a holy bread, rye is not. We can certainly enjoy rye bread at Jewish restaurants filled with Kosher corned beef and mustard. We can bless the bread ourselves as we sing the Motzi to thank God for the Kosherness in the meat and thereby also blessing the rye bread in addition to the meat.
So we want new foods? Can we go out and eat shrimp and lobster and complain our Kosher diet is too regular, not "new" and therefore boring?
No, we cannot hurt ourselves when we are angry at others. Ingesting non-Kosher foods is an act of hurting oneself, if you are Jewish. We must stick with the security of Kosher foods so not to hurt oneself, even if there are people who disapprove, but this disapproval is just based on ignorance.
As Jews we can eat new Kosher foods in our diet that we have not eaten all year, such as blueberries and raspberries because they come into season regularly grown during the summer months only. Or watermelon. We can then eat the fruits and thankfully to God to sing the new foods Blessing: "The Shehekeyanu". Or sing this beautiful Blessing when buying new clothes or the purchasing of a new electronic item or new appliance.
To watch the moon change every night: a new moon, a quarter moon, a half moon, a three quarter moon, a full moon. The moon changes every night predictably and we as Jews can count on a Rosh Chodesh once a month to celebrate the newness of this astronomical fact and turn it into a wonderful religious experience, to love the moon.
To yet find out this past week that Saudi Arabia did not even legally allow its women to drive motorized vehicles, it was against their law. Who is hurtful and who is not? The people who oppress women are the hurtful ones and the people who love and care for women giving us our equal rights to men are the people who are merciful and good, righteous people to be honored and respected.
So this change and newness has been expressed and honored by the Jews in Israel as we now allow women to pray at the Kotel, to read Torah at the Western Wall. Finally also to have the newness of being a Muslim woman and being behind the wheel of a car.
So, what you like is change? Newness? I do too. But not as in a "New Testament" as one's Bible. Instead to stick with the true and tried and turn the original old wheels (i.e. Honor One's Father and Mother, Do Not Murder...) Commandments that we already know work, instead of turning back-breaking new wheels that will end up in flat tires because they are not the truth, they are not The Jewish Faith.
What can we do to heal the world and try something new? Help a woman find new employment or start a new small business.
Find a way you can honor the women in your lives, be for us a way to newness as each day everyday you bring to us your delight in different ways, not the same: a box of chocolates or/and a bouquet of flowers, a new and different flower each time, Roses and Geraniums of redness or Lilies that are the pureness of whiteness.
Sukkot next on the lunar calendar, a holy day of living in a tent, a hut, a Festival of Booths, like the booths the Jews lived in as we were traveling 40 years in the desert to the Promised Land of Israel. A tent with a roof of willow and palm branches but to let the rain come in, to know what it is like to live in exposure to the rain and lightening and thunder, like the homeless, to have only the sparsest of material goods, to live frugally, to sleep on a pad on the ground, the ground being stiff and not soft, a place for one's head without a pillow. To eat in this Sukkah, a meal of salads, green items, orange veggies, yellow, and even Kosher Sushi for a meal.
To again sing the Shehekeyanu, the prayer for the newest of our experiences. A new etrog, being a fruit of the most delightful of smells, giving the etrog to a friend, stem downwards for him to turn right-side up. A lulav of tree branches, (Hebrew: לולב) is a closed frond of the date palm tree. It is one of the Four Species used during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. The other Species are the hadass (myrtle), aravah (willow), and etrog (citron).
Shaking the branches back and forth, shaking away evil out of our existence, a shake in front a shake in back a shake to the side to the other side, a shake to fight and kill wickedness on the sharp sides of the leaves like swords made of plant branches that we dash back and forth.
To afterwards hover together, to try to physically avoid the rain not to get our bodies wet, but to pray for rain for our harvests, to beckon The Lord to water our gardens, enough produce of fruits to last all winter long, deep into the coldest of the winter months, food in jars, to open and digest food everywhere in the world.
Fun and music in a Sukkah as we decorate it with gourds and artistic creations, as God created the world in 6 days with one day of rest, our Shabbat, we too create this Sukkah.
May the spirits of the souls of our Prophets and Prophetesses come inside our Sukkahs as we invite them to dine with us, to party with us, to protect us, to love us as we feed them and love them and they return the favor to us all year round.
God is in many places, He is everywhere you want Him to be. First and foremost He is in your body, beneath and on the surface of your skin, on your fingertips as you type an email or text, upon your lips when you speak, in your footsteps as you change a slovenly walk into a dancing step, playing hopscotch as you step into the dance and feel goodness in each foot.
God is in front of us, in back of us, and within us. He circulates in our bloodstream going inside and pumping out of the heart, into all veins and arteries and capillaries, around one leg into the other, a leg torso leg arm, head brain, eyes, nostrils, mouth lips. Blinking an eye, twinkling that same eye, two eyes that see one God, two becoming one, a man and a woman creating children, generations after generations, more and more populace, the choice instead to remain single, to worship only God as you feel Him inside and outside, He is the delicious taste on our lips, the feeling we have inside our hearts as we appreciate Him and include Him, the weight of our life's endeavors as we feel Him on our back/neck between our shoulders, as strong as the shoulders of an ox.
Now you know where God is, He is you, He is all about you, He is separate from us when we want separateness or together with us when we want togetherness.
He is all we need, Psalm 23: "The Lord is our Shepherd, we shall lack nothing."
What words did you associate with the Shofar blowing on this new year Rosh Hashanah? Tishrei 5778. A call from a ram, an animal of grace and goodness, a Kosher animal that chews its cud and has cloven feet. The ram is not a predatory animal, does not eat meat, a vegan animal, fed the best of the greenest of good Godly grass.
Gardens still blooming, hot temperatures, flowers not withering, green vegetarian Mother Earth of soil, compost heaps in our backyards, jarring the veggies to save for the deep cold winter months.
Our hands in this soil, to nurture our plants, soil from the greenness of Mother Earth in between our fingernails, molding the soil around like clay pots, like an artist potter, forming a collar of goodness around the stem of a newly formed plant, keeping the plants firmly united with the dirt, dirt not being dirty dirt, instead being the nourishment from our Earth, Mother Earth.
Hands that become clean again after being soiled, hands even cleaner than they started out to be, clean hands clean hearts. Hands of generosity as your green produce is food, food for you, food for your family, 10% as charity for the poor.
The miracle of bread becoming cake! For one's meal eating Challah, the miracle yellow holy bread of the Jewish religion. Also with this bread being served cake, so to eat a holy bread and a delicious cake. If not cake, to eat a Kosher New York cheesecake. A cheesecake drizzled with chocolate syrup. A graham cracker moist chewy crust. Not a fasting holy day upcoming, instead a Rosh Hashanah when we celebrate and live it up, we have happiness and happiness is cultivated for us and our loves ones through Kosher sweet as honey foods galore.
Cakes of every flavor, buttercream, whipped cream, you name it, it is there for us to eat. A sweet table, real honey, bee's honey, a table filled with every cookie or/and chocolate candy you can imagine, our imaginations transforming into reality, wonderfully coming true. Needing an imagination to feel the existence of God.
To imagine God feeding us as when we were babes, softly coaxing us like a mother who uses a silver spoon to feed her children. One's mother who sings a song as she places the Kosher food sweet bread or cake upon our tongue.
Pleading for more sweetness, as Moses sweetened the River Nile with just a piece of wood. An entire river becoming as sweet as Kosher wine upon a touch of the staff of Moses, a staff (or walking cane) becoming a pen, a writing tool, the wood in the Nile becoming the Torah, the Torah of our lives to be recorded in "The Book of Life". In writing we read with a "yad", the Jewish Torah pointer. Bread becoming cake with the touch of a magic wand. The wand used by an orchestra conductor. A wand of Moses becoming a snake to chase away evil, the Hebrew slaves freed upon the death of the Pharaoh's son, never again to be enslaved.
As a birdie, a hungry baby birdie with opened beak or an adult mother bird to feed our youngsters with our Torah teachings our writings: To be followed by God and to be led by God.
To remember always, to "Keep the Faith of Judaism", our journey is never alone, God is always with us.
Angels. Do they exist? In the Torah, there are four angels mentioned. Yes, four. Not thousands, and the angels are not babies, not cherubs, not children but also not sure of what gender. When one leaves the Synagogue after worshipping on a holy day, after Kol Nidre or Rosh Hashanah, the Rabbi tells us, we are all angels, to look for an angel in one's mirror.
To feel your arm or/and hand and its smoothness, with or without lotion applications, your arms and hands are gentle, as gentle as an angel's. Can we feel like Michael and Raphael, or to be the angel who saves the mule from a lickin'. Or to be the angels who save the life of Isaac? To come directly from the heavens blowing Shofars of warning for Abraham not to kill his son, but instead to sacrifice a ram. To be the angel who fought Jacob, and Jacob became then of the honorable name Israel.
But we are talking over thousands of years ago. Do angels still exist? If you feel rescued by a human, say at a store in a check out lane, the cashier not taking your gift card, lying and saying there is no balance on it, and then, as a miracle the person standing behind you in line is the person who gave you this gift card, and she then tells you that "The cards do not give cash, that you have to come back to the store to spend it on another day".
Angel? I definitely think so! The argument was solved, I knew I could trust her, I saw her angelic shine as she patiently kindly steered me into the right direction, to come back another day to the store to spend the remaining balance on the store gift card. Not led out of the store by security for a misinterpretation, but yet coming so close!
We all had a good laugh and my admitted ignorance was the funny bone!
Mouth-watering green leafy salad for lunch today, this addition to my Kosher lunch was added, the greenness jumped out from under a Ranch Salad Dressing and like a lucky green leprechaun or a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, this greenness in a good cholesterol abundance was added to my diet. How did this come about? I prayed to God and He answered my prayer. Do you mean it is as easy as that? For some but unfortunately not for everyone.
What can we add to the lettuce to make the salad even tastier. We can add purple or golden raisins, but how can a Nazirite eat these forbidden raisins? First, one must give raisins to a Jewish Kohen Priest as a gift for him to eat before you and then you as a Nazirite may eat them too. A Nazirite is a Jewish Priest who is forbidden to eat raisins, grapes or to drink alcohol. But a salad, yes, a salad s/he can eat and enjoy if it is there for him.
Adding orange shredded carrots, red juicy tomato quarters, sunflower seeds. Red, orange, yellow and green peppers, chopped into small squares and sprinkled on top of the lettuce. Eggs but not fertile eggs, fertile eggs are not Kosher eggs. How can we tell the difference between a fertile and non-fertile egg? A fertile egg contains a spot of blood on the yolk.
Cheeses sprinkled on top too. American cheese, Muenster cheese, Greek cheese, White cheeses, Parmesan cheese, Wisconsin cheeses, any cheese that waters your palette, but no meats added if there are cheeses, to keep Kosher not to mix dairy and meat.
All I did was pray, but I made sure I prayed to the ONE God, the God of Abraham and Sarah, and whallah! There was the salad on my plate. Feeling now like a satiated rabbit after eating bunny lettuce, greens that are as deep as greens can be.
To have a handful of old friends who never leave you, like God, they are always there, to keep in touch either by phone, email, postal letter or a person to person visit. To know all about these old friends, they opened up to you sincerely when you first met and keep opening up to you to ask of your advice or encouragement. People who have something in common with you, mentors they are to you and mentors you are to them.
To eat together, to read Reader's Theater together, to create poetry or visual artwork together, to want to know how each other's creative streak is going, to take pleasure in the pleasure they have when they create.
To know their creative works like books in your library, establishing a connection of the artists' lives as you see it in their works. Knowing their favorite colors, their politics, the same religion, and on and on.
An old friend who brings you love and caring, year after year after year. Him being a friend to God, as you are.
Listen! What can you hear? Listen is SHEMA as the Hebrew word. To seek and to find, to find a tune that makes you move, to feel a dance in your steps even while you are sitting down in a chair. How can you locate God? Where is He? Are you looking for Him? Listen to this music and find Him there.
Huge timpani drums, six or eight of them, pounding on them, getting bass, echoing bouncing against all the walls around you, sound-proof, only the best of sounds coming through, hitting the drumheads harder, leather animal skins, clanking the metal cymbals, one against the other, clinking clanking, the Psalms teach us that this is an appropriate way to call upon God. Making noise, can He hear us?? Make more noise! Say, "God, can you hear me now?"
A violin, a baby girl, sitting on one's shoulder, carefully cradled, a string bow, not to shoot an arrow but to caress the violin so it kisses the air making sounds delightful to the ear, a violin child all grown up after a bat mitzvah having become a cello, a large violin, a blast of a womanly sound, a cello as a large body in one's arms, to strum a harp, a harp for you and a cello for me. Finding a clarinet player, a flutist, all together, a combination of musicians to show us the music of God, to strum and to then hear God sing, He is singing to us as we play music for Him.
Clear your throat, let pure air come into your lungs, heave your chest and find oxygen, expel carbon dioxide, when you breathe in call Adonai with every breath, when breathing out give Yah your gift of breath, in Adonai, out Yah, breathe again and again, in unison with the one God, in unity with two of His names, searching and straining the air purifying it, pour white flour powder into a sieve and puffing it up, granules mixing together, as white as white can be.
White flour to become cakes and cookies, brown sugar integrated with white sugar, using a large wooden spoon to circulate it, as a wand of direction in an orchestra, a symphony, baking your bakery to sounds, playing Classical music, a cello and violinist as you are, strumming the strings to the sounds you hear and the sounds you create, playing exciting music, playing it as a praise and thanks to God.
Rosh Hashanah just a month away, soon to be here, clocks ticking, dates on calendars changing everyday, Monday to Tuesday, and Tuesday to Wednesday...
Skimming through fashion magazines and getting the perfect style, one's haircut and fingernails painted, beauticians to beseech you. Fur coat dry cleaners, a higher heel than the year before, tiptoe through the tulips. To wear a full skirt like an Alice In Wonderland or a tight short skirt that exposes the knees? Curly hair or braided hair, dyed hair black or blonde? New eyeglasses that are of a golden metallic rim with the vision of a great artist to see your Cantor singing on the Bemah from your seat in the back of the Sanctuary, as if she is standing next to you, with you, all her words memorized singing with her. Time to sing at the services, singing along with the beat of the Cantor as she sings with you and with God.
Excitement! "Will you be at Temple on Selichot?" she asks you.
Sweet Kosher Red Wine and delicious finger desserts, a Nile River colored red, red wine from clear river water, a beautiful baby boy Moses rescued from the Nile, an infant, a new Prophet, the greatest of all Prophets!
God used Moses as His mouthpiece. Moses speaking God's Words from his soft stuttering young tongue, Words inscribed on stone tablets from Mount Sinai, 10 Commandments becoming 613 Commandments, soon to be Maimonides's 13 Commandments. Rambam, Talmud.
Our instructions: simply to love and fear God.
Skipping into the Sanctuary in keen cowboy boots humming to a Rosh Hashanah holy service, to welcome a new day, and a new month and a new year. Rosh Hashanah being 1 Tishrei the beginning of the new year 5778. A New Year's Eve to welcome the future!
A new you, an improved you, as a graduation reunion, friends from Hebrew School, a get together, "What's new? Did you receive my Rosh Hashanah Greetings card?"
Using a yad pointer to follow the Hebrew text Words, Hebrew language as your first language from your two souls reincarnated. Biblical Hebrew, "goo goo ga ga" Moses spoke to his Mother, and then he spoke to God.
If he can do it, we all can do it! Moses as a mentor, our leader, a great orator, a gentle smooth confident speaker, a prayer, a song, singing to God and praying to God for a good new sweet new year L' Shanah Tova!
A miracle. Do you want and pray for a miracle in your life? Something to happen that would cause you a burst of excitement, a happy happening, a wild wishful thinking desire that comes true?
Do you want to change someone? Do you wish for someone to alter their behavior towards you, but you try and try again but forever getting naught, not knowing how we can change someone, so instead must to change ourselves, our attitude toward the situation, to forgive someone of bad behavior, even when s/he does not solicit our forgiveness.
Needing to forgive so we do not hate. Fighting hatred, and fighting to not hold grudges.
Needing to forgive before we go to bed at night, forgive someone's dishonoring you or/and dishonoring your property.
We must call out to God, beckon Him, pray to Him, be serious-minded about our praise and our thankfulness to Him, it is not a fairyland, religion is real, it is non-fiction, it exists whether we believe in it or not, and we have our choices as to which religion to make our own.
We need to take our choices serious-mindedly even though they may not be respected as our chosen choices by others. It is also our choice to forgive someone of transgressions towards us whether they want the forgiveness from us or not.
A moon is a cheese, a polka-dotted cheese, Swiss cheese, a target of bullet holes into the cheese, into the moon, which is it a full or new moon? Is the moon a feminine entity and the sun male? Every one hundred years a solar eclipse, a sun that is sin and the moon hides it. Not to look directly at the sun but okay to look at the moon. She will not hurt you, her rays will not blind you.
Hansel and Gretel found their way home watching moonlight reflecting on bread crumbs turned into a pathway for them to follow. A wicked witch who baked cake to feed them and they pushed her into her oven head first. A moon's light instead that saved them, a pathway in a different direction away from the witch. The pathway home.
A cow's cheese moon, a cow that jumped over the moon. Walking on the moon, no gravity, a Neil Armstrong, a strong-armed man no guns allowed, just a Shofar ram's horn aloud, a sword that is wooden a sword not sharp, a sword of a Halloween costume, a pirate's sword, a kid's toy.
A blue moon, a once in a blue moon, not once a month, every 100 years an eclipse, a reflection of your goodness as the moon is new without blemish, a new moon, a Jewish Rosh Chodesh moon.
A fight between King David and Jonathan, a fight that turns them into best friends. The truest form of friendship, not of Tamar and her brother Amnon, but of David and Jonathan. Brothers in a brotherhood, a unity of enemies becoming pals, companions, blood brothers, landsmen shaking hands as jumping on or over the moon.
A full moon not worshiped by witches or warlocks, a moon as a satellite around and around your head, a halo, a wish upon the moon, a blessing to you on Rosh Chodesh from a land of friendship, a herd of kosher milking cows that put an end to thirsting, water from a rock, a rock n' roll, Atlas pushing a boulder to the top of Mount Sinai as slow as a snail, with only one blue thread, wandering, wondering, wonderfully winning the race.
Is it a "Sin" or is it a "Shin"?
What are you looking for? A Guide, a Good Relationship, a Friend, a Doctor, a Sovereign, a Leader, a Mentor, a Motherly Person, a Fatherly Person, a Warrior Who fights all your battles without a war, instead with peace.
Someone to quietly whisper to, to think a thought and to have Someone Who knows your thoughts, and Who could give you good advice. Do you have physical pain, somewhere in your foot, or torso, digestive problems? Is there Someone you know Who can cure all your ills?
Want Someone to love? Want Someone to take your hand and to show you affection, compassion, understanding, to share His wisdom with you?
Time to leave reality and imagine! Imagine you are with God, that God can fill in all your deficits, that you are both whole and holy, that you have no hole in your head.
That what you imagine, to have a God, is real, God is real, and what you imagine is real, reality can be as wonderful as you imagine it can be.
Questions? He has the answers. Talk to God.
What is lovingkindness? In Hebrew it is referred to as the Hebrew word Chesed, and understanding is said as Binah. How to give someone chesed and binah? Is it in the words we say, or deeds we do, mitzvoth that we perform, gifts we provide, our facial countenance being amiable as we speak to them? How we treat someone, actions we do and to obey actions not to do?
Where does our incitement originate to do actions of lovingkindness? The incitement comes from solely once place, from our One God. We want someone to feel good, to obtain a reward, and so we, as God would do, we provide a nicety to someone: a goodness, helping him, giving to him, providing for him, telling him a truth, providing advice we have to make his life easier, to simply show someone you care and that you are there for him.
Lovingkindness and understanding materialize when we are able to walk in someone else's shoes, to be able to understand his hardships and feel his emotional reactions. When we can use "binah" meaning "understanding" so we become enriched with an increase of our knowledge, our wisdom, to then, being in the know, being able to be there for another, whether in physical presence or spiritual presence, as we are there with and for our God.
As you thank and praise God, thank and praise humans. Obtain a love and fear of God and also a love and fear of humans.
A mezuzah or not, this is a choice, but what kind of choice is it, if this mezuzah is protection, and you not having it decreases this protection and your room is not protected. Putting a mezuzah on one's doorpost makes it a Jewish room and a Jewish residence, a Jewish home. If a home has even just one Jew who lives there, the home is considered a Jewish home.
This room and house, what kind of protection is it? A spiritual protection, a soulful protection, a kind word on your lips every time you pass it and enter the room, to thank the Lord for providing you with this room and house. To feel His presence as you enter or leave this space. To honor the place as a place that includes God, a space of justice, mercy and lovingkindness. A place for the study of wisdom, a place that is there again and again, not a destruction of this space, instead to know it will be there as long as you with the help of the One God wants it to be there. To find new places, but always to erect the mezuzah on the new rooms.
This mezuzah is a ritual object that we can pass as we enter the protected room, but to use our hands to touch it, to transfer a kiss onto our fingers and apply this kiss to the mezuzah as we pass it. To no matter how much property is in this room, it is still a good room, upheld in its glory by this mezuzah.
Want love in your life? Love your space, your room, your house, your fellows, and yes, God too. But use your love wisely, love the mezuzah on your doorpost to remind you of the Torah, as inside this mezuzah is the blessing of The Shema blessing. Each time you pass the doorpost you can sing The Shema. Beauty on your lips with kindness and song in your step.
This Shema will remind you of the specialness, the one-of-a-kindness, the mysticism, the meditation, the honorableness of God, as we are instructed to know S/He is One and to never forget it.
This wisdom is our Ko-achmah, our Gevurah, our Strength.
Do you have a sore throat? Ever had one? Are allergies of pollen in the air upsetting your upper respiratory system?
Don't want to put yourself out with meds full of heavy alcohol that interrupts your sleeping schedule, dosing yourself into a deep sleep so you don't feel the pain in your throat but are not awake to appreciate the sunshine?
Tired of tea remedies, this tea or that tea, supposed to be the right tea to cure you? Teas with medicinal value, but which to who or what? How to keep your throat from catching on fire, and choosing teas that may or may not be the cure. A suggestion of a warm cup of tea for two, a tea time with your friend having teas be the bonding drink to show you she cares as she stirs in lemons with her gentle hand.
Temperature changes on the throat, sometimes work and sometimes don't. Drink a few cups of coffee in the morning, warmth like love, even heat, on the back of the throat, swallowing sweetness adding dairy white cream to your drinks. Like a warm soothing loving touch to heal the rawness of your throat, swallowing without pain. Coolness after warmth, a deep chugalug of a cool drink, iced tea, iced coffee.
Did someone cook you some chicken soup? Wow! Chicken soup for the soul! Swallowing now to test the pain in your throat, is it gone yet?
Having someone who cares whether or not you are in pain, and when, and how severe. When swallowing to think of their good will and get well wishes and to feel relief as you smile at each other and thank them. The blessings of humans in your life who are guided by God.
Having the sameness day after day, a stock in the stock market that rises and rises again, a workplace that is bringing forth profit getting a raise after raise and it goes into your purse. Like an old horse stomping step after step in cleats, in horse shoes, a game of horse shoes and winning but not every round. Hooking it on the stick, hearing the clanking as it scratches the surface of the pole.
Knowing ahead of time that there will be a breeze, getting fuller and windier as the breeze picks up and cools you down. A predictability of breezes but not in your ears.
A delicious chocolate kiss or two wrapped in colored foil from Hersheys, a kiss or two from you on the palm of your hand to the mezuzah of your home doorposts, knowing what you are kissing, you are kissing a symbol of the ONE God, the Only God. Identifying yourself as Jewish to all who look upon you entering a room.
"Are you Jewish?" "Yes, I am Jewish." "Well! So am I!" Landsmen everywhere, never without a fellow neighbor to love. Kisses everywhere, love everywhere.
To be truthful and out, coming out (like Esther did) with who you are and that you will never change. God will always accept you back if indeed you stumble on your way. Get back up and be sturdy and be sure of yourself.
Is pork a potential problem? Stay away from all places that serve pork, keep turning it down. Have a piece of candy in your pocket to be there always to eat instead of pork.
Is your problem an attraction to idols, a need for "love" in a physical form with God and thinking false gods might be real Gods? Don't kid yourself. The only sculptural item you need is a Menorah and/or Star of David.
You do not have to hate Jesus. Make friends with Jesus, he sure went through Hell, and God the Father Who was his Father too thus warned us never to leave Him as the One true God or else, Hell is what you get and where you go. Skip over this supposed "loving Christian faith" and know that as long as you love the true One God only, no other gods, the atrocities that Jesus experienced will never happen to you.
How to fight someone without fighting, but using the love for your neighbor that is recommended in the holy literature of most religions. Is there an offense that someone repeats day after day and week after week. An offense you could change your attitude towards, and thus dissolve its hatred and bother you no more.
Two are entangled, whose the better one? A person who is so enmeshed within hatred towards another who has not the same reasons to fight. A twin from your mother's womb who cannot understand your language. How to have a relationship with someone so close to you in DNA but who nevertheless thinks of a struggle with you instead of love. What is love? Is it love for a god but not for humans. What is love? Love is sex, and that should not be mixed up with a love you have for a god. What is the difference between sex and love?
Having a relationship with a God Who is/was not human excludes any mix up as to whether it is love or sex. God loves you whether or not you love Him back or not. That is the power of a God Who is real, His love is unconditional and not dependent on sexual activity mixed with love. His love is unconditional and has nothing to do with sex.
The purity of this love for the Hebrew God is a good purity, a prayer for all to thrive and to strive and to become successful.
Love God in a healthy way, an unconditional forgiving love. True love, truth, history, abounding with loving-kindness. Fear? Okay. Love and fear?
Fear of punishment if you do wrong. Fear of the incredible awesomeness of a God Who can be yours.
To love and fear God, or to not love and fear God, love that is real, and fear that is real. A humungous whirlwind of emotions led by the intellect.
Don't understand? Never been there? Then be tolerant of that which does not belong to you, that which you just cannot comprehend.
I will pray for your good health and good will.
The land of licorice candy! Black sweet, coated with a sugar coating of a shell, created in the form of a pill, a capsule, a bit of sweetness called Good & Plenty, each morsel better than the last, not an addiction, instead a desire come true!
Black are the insides, chewy, melts in one's mouth, not in the hand, to shake it to the rhythm of a train locomotive back and forth and to say "Good & Plenty, Good & Plenty, Good & Plenty...Chew Chew!"
The flavor lasts a long time in one's mouth, sticks to the roof of your mouth to lick your lips again and again, pop another, just one at a single time, an apple a day keeps the physician away, but Good & Plenty does a better job.
If it can be called "Good" it is a synonym for the word Great, God is good God is great, let us thank Him for our food. Let us thank Him for our daily dosage of licorice pills, not a medicine, a delicious licorice candy, but that soothes like a flu medicine, heals all your ails. Gives one "get up and go."
Have somewhere to go? Need get up and go? Get up with Good & Plenty and come and go again and again and again.
Waking up day after day with a sore throat, susceptible to infections, getting more than your share, a throat when swallowing could use a salt water gargle to ease pain. Wishing the pain will go away, a caring mother in my family who asks me everyday "How is your throat?"
Having the largest most formidable neck and throat being a Taurus the bull in my zodiac sign. "Strong as bull?" they would ask me. A throat that is larger than all other body parts. A long esophagus extending from the chin to the torso.
Feeling today like a Red Hiefer, a bull of one color, a red colored bull with no black or white hairs. A perfect bull, as perfect as a bull can be. "A Bull in a China shop," broken glass everywhere, a November 9th as I see it, the Night of Shattered Glass. My Grandfather Hyman Ginsburg died on November 9th, years after the Shattered Glass Crimes but on the same date. My Grandmother Celia died just before Rosh Ha' Shannah. These are the deaths I mourn. Also my Mother's family, many are in my prayers of The Kaddish.
A Jewish Valentine's Day today. Knowing love is important but not all there is. A brain not to follow a heart, but a heart to follow a brain. Use your brain to tell your heart what to do, not to use your heart to dictate and mislead your brain.
The pleasure to keep a serious mood of the intellect, and not wasteful useless frivolity.
A vision of the Third Holy Temple of Jerusalem, what will it look like? Can we picture in our mind's eye, how we can invent, remodel, and decorate The Third Holy Temple of Jerusalem? To visit Synagogues around the world, a pathway from Shul to Shul, and take a bit here and a bit there, to rebuild our Third Temple with the finest of ideas, a Temple of sparkling gold, silver, copper, bronze, and brass.
A changing room for the Rabbis, Kohens and Levis, to put on their robes of crimson, purples, blues, and whites, an area for white shoes, a washing machine and dryer to wash all clothes, bleach to get the whitest of the whites in our uniforms, our garb of tunics, skirts for women. A place to hang our prayer shawls and lace for women, tree on which to hang kippot.
A stained glass window to cover an entire wall or two or three. A library with holy books of all denominations, the Third Temple to be Non-denominational, a place for all. An availability of all books, a comfortable place to read, sofas, easy chairs, small reading lamps, desks, computers, you name it, it will be here. Shelves and more shelves of prayer books, and The Torah, The Talmud, The Mishnah, The Zohar, The Mishnah Torah...a beautiful Torah Stand for the Cantor to sing made of the finest of carved beautiful wood, a mic system so the Cantor's voice can resound all over the entire Temple, in every room, in every hallway, high on the choir loft.
Torah Scrolls hand-printed by a Scribe with not one error, a Torah covering made of the finest of imported fabrics and original design, glass beads, precious and semi-precious stones, diamonds, silks, velvets, hand woven tapestries.
A place of a café for us to drink coffee or tea, soda, grape juice, apple juice, holy beverages, tables for four, meeting rooms, a place for the Torah, an Ark, a Mishkan, a room of a Chapel to daven. Pure natural moving water for a mikvah and to wash our hands.
This Third Temple being the greatest of all Temples, a place never created before, the best of the best-est ever made, a place to visit with The Lord, a place to pray, to daven, to find out who needs our help and how we can provide it.
The Third Temple is a realistic vision, we as Jews want it to exist, and we will have it.
