Life as seen through the eyes of a frum Reform Jewish rabbi changing the world one Jew at a time
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I have a secret. The secret is that this post was so much fun to craft. Interviewing Durga Yael Bernhard, who goes by Yael, was like having a chat with a friend. Her expertise, creativity, and passion are engaging. I read Around the World in One Shabbat: Jewish People Celebrate the Sabbath Together , in advance of the interview. Read More »
It was hard to create the kind of vibrant Jewish home I wanted for my children when I was so busy bringing Judaism to others. I couldn’t find the time. I lacked the energy. Read More »
Squealed with glee when I saw this… The author of this letter apologized for the lack of fancy stationary. And was worried about spelling errors. She need not have worried. When I brought the post into the house this afternoon, I was delighted to discover an envelope that could have come from one of my memory boxes. Written in longhand . Read More »
One of the things that I treasure is the annual opportunity to participate in the annual Blog Tour for the Sydney Taylor Book Awards. Each year, I have learned a great deal about the process of producing an award-winning book. And the information I have gleaned continues to enhance my reading pleasure. Read More »
B-day Gift from Mom & DadGiraffe During a time of tremendous upheaval, the prophet Isaiah taught: וְכִתְּתוּ חַרְבוֹתָם לְאִתִּים, וַחֲנִיתוֹתֵיהֶם לְמַזְמֵרוֹת–לֹא-יִשָּׂא גוֹי אֶל-גּוֹי חֶרֶב, וְלֹא-יִלְמְדוּ עוֹד מִלְחָמָה …and they shall beat Read More »
I have written before about my love of the handwritten note. So imagine my utter delight to discover that novelist Mary Robinette Kowal has created A Month of Letters challenge. A Month of Letters 2012 The art of letter writing, feared to be a relic of a slower time, has been embraced recently by a number of well-known authors. Read More »
No, you didn’t miss it. Yet. But my birthday is coming. Soon. Veeeerrrry soon. This Friday. Did you already get me a gift? It’s OK if you weren’t planning on getting me anything. Read More »
Having been away all week, PC was due to arrive home at eleven o’clock last night. In addition to missing her daddy, Poppyseed was especially concerned that PC had spent his birthday travelling home rather than actually being at home. So at about 7: 14pm, she suddenly decided that she wanted to decorate the house. Read More »
It was an unconventional request. January 26 would have been my mother’s 77th birthday. As I was talking with my brother about how we could honor her, the first thing we came up with is baking. Anyone who knew her, or of her, knew that she loved to bake. It was her therapy, it was her gift to anyone who entered her domain, it is her legacy. Read More »
Something has gotten a hold of Peach. He can be the sweetest, most compliant, loving child. And then, like a flip of the switch, he seems subsumed by something sharper. Harder. Fiercer. Meaner. It is…his Yetzer HaRa . According to Rabbinic tradition , a child is born only with his Yetzer HaRa in place. Read More »
There are the good days…and there are the not so good days. Everyone has them. But with a child on the autism spectrum , there are fewer good days. And the bad days… Well, they are pretty bad. For example, today I overslept. I was awakened by Beernut, screaming at me that it was 7: 10am. Screaming. Hysterically. Read More »
My new bible If you would have told me that a day would come when I would be the proud owner of The Joy of Cooking , I would have thought nothing of it. I would have figured that it would sit, unused, alongside my other cookbooks. Read More »
With all of the recent hullabaloo concerning modesty, BossGiraffe delivered the following message this past Shabbos: I wonder if you are familiar with the Hebrew word tz’niut . It means modesty . Every culture has a concept of modesty. Imagine receiving an invitation to a CBT beach party to be held on the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend. Read More »
courtesy Wikimedia Commons Yes, you read that correctly. Merry Christmas. At least it’s Christmas according to Peach. Last night, as I was tucking him into bed, he told me that it was Christmas for all the people who celebrate. I reminded him that Christmas had been celebrated a few weeks ago. But it snowed today. Read More »
We missed you yesterday. So said Peach’s teacher at drop-off this morning. Whoops. Peach had school yesterday? On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day?? Poor Peach. As the third child, he has spent his lifetime being schlepped along simply because The Bigs (Beernut and Poppyseed) and their schedules take priority. Read More »
Image via Wikipedia Hi. Is this Mrs. Frummie? Yes. Yes it is. Well, hi, Mrs. Frummie. I’m calling about your propane tank. We’d like to schedule someone to come out and refill it. Um…I don’t think that we have a propane tank. Yes, yes you do. It’s somewhere on your property. Read More »
Is it Friday today? asked Peach, wandering into the kitchen. Nope. It’s Wednesday. Why do you ask? Because it smells like Friday. So why did my house smell like a Friday when it was only Wednesday?? Because Beernut had the following {outstanding} idea: why don’t I bring challah into his school for my presentations on Friday. Read More »
More than a quarter century has passed since I sat in Mr. Armstrong’s World History class and still I remember what it felt like to see the red marks all over the chapter test. D-plus Though I was never the student that DadGiraffe was throughout his academic career, I had my subjects of strength and my subjects of weakness. History? A strength. Read More »
Waiting… I still don’t know exactly how this happened. This sports thing. We move to a place where everyone plays sports. She chooses field hockey. She plays the fall season . And she likes loves it. And she’s awful. Really awful. Yet, she still loves it. Winter season started on Saturday night. Yes, night . Indoor, of course. Read More »
Daniella Meira, z’l There is an exhaustion that comes on rather suddenly during pregnancy. It feels as though it is coming from deep inside. Most likely because it is. There is a mind-numbing exhaustion that comes during infancy. It no longer takes much imagination to understand why sleep deprivation is an effective torture technique. Read More »
Crummy Chicken from the kitchen of Grandma Selma chicken oil paprika corn flakes Put oil in soup place – add paprika. Crush corn flakes. Place chicken in oil and then into corn flakes. Grease pan. Bake 1 hour at 350°F ****** That’s it. That’s what it says on the handwritten card in my mother’s recipe box. Read More »
Dear Grandma, I made your Crummy Chicken recipe for dinner this Shabbos. It was a huge hit with all the Frummies. I told the kids that it was my grandmother’s recipe. MamaBear, z”l? Nope. Grandma Rose, z”l? Uh-uh. Grandma Gussie, z”l No. Grandma Selma. Who? I’m sorry that I haven’t done a better job sharing you, through stories, with them. Read More »
#HanukkahHoopla The amazing and incredibly creative Bible Belt Balabusta !!! Her comment over here was chosen at random by random.org. Read More »
She is a creative woman, an energetic mother, an engaging rabbi, and a loving wife. And she knows scads and scads of people. And because she loves and appreciates all those in her {{extremely}} large circle, she is constantly finding ways and reasons to bring them into relationship . Thanks to her, I acquired several new friends. Read More »
I. Hate. Chanukah. I do. I really do. Call me a Scrooge. Or a Grinch. Or whatever. This holiday has become a shameful mockery of what was intended to be an important message about religious identity. A polemic against assimilation. Instead, it has become a poor imitation of someone else’s holiday. Read More »
Courtesy Microsoft Office Ninety bright faces, turned upwards with anticipation. Does anyone know what a rabbi is? My opening question to the entire third grade at Poppyseed’s school. After a great amount of thought , I arranged to go into the school and give an explanation about Chanukah. Read More »
I don’t know about other homes, but this time of year seems to inspire a lot of religiously-oriented conversations. In a chaotic and confusing world, we make impose our own sense of order by naming things. By attempting to define them. To put them, things and people, into compartments as a way of making sense of that which often confuses us. Read More »
Where do we find community? Or is it just faster to ask where can we not find community? As social beings, we yearn for companionship. In an age of instant communication, we can discover community in places heretofore improbable, if not impossible. Are online relationships preferable to those face-to-face interactions? Of course not. Read More »
When our loved ones die, we don’t leave the burial to strangers. Because to participate in the act of burying our dead is considered a chesed shel emet — the ultimate and enduring act of lovingkindness. We do it knowing that the person whom we’ve buried can never repay the mitzvah to us. Read More »
Everything here is different. Or, at least, it seems that way. At times. To all five of us. December is proving to be particularly difficult for Poppyseed. It wasn’t that Christmas was ignored back in California. In fact, it certainly seems as though it was everywhere. Read More »
I’m not very good at this part. The tooting of my own horn. Or pipes, in this case. It just feels so…so…self-aggrandizing. What am I going to say? Hey, my CD is so fantastic that your life will be immeasurably enhanced after just one listen. Or something equally obnoxious? It’s just not in my nature. Never has been. Read More »
Looking for me?? I’m over at The Smartly today. . Read More »
Do you know what is important to your kids? I don’t mean the Wii or Littlest Pet Shops . I mean the kind of things in the world that they find meaningful. Do you know? Because I surely didn’t. Until this past Shabbos when PC asked each one of them to decide where they would like to send their tzedakah . Read More »
You don’t understand anything! And with that, she turned and stomped her way up to her room, using the door for punctuation. With the birth of a daughter, I have known for the past eight years that this time would come. Read More »
courtesy Microsoft Office With text messaging entering it tenth year of existence earlier this week, it is getting increasingly more difficult to imagine life with this handy method of instant communication. But caveat textor — Let the texter beware! Phones, which seem to be getting “smarter” with each new generation, now employ auto-correct. Read More »
via CCAR and itunes Am I too rigid? or too much of luddite? Too old-fashioned? or Am I simply in the wrong movement ? Probably. Possibly. Most definitely. and, sadly, increasingly accurate. Today, one of my colleague’s dreams, not to mention hard work, has come to fruition: the launch of our movement ‘s prayerbook as an app for the iPad. Read More »
Courtesy Microsoft Office Last Chanukah, Peach received a much-anticipated gift: Baby All Gone . Over the past year, he has cared for her, answered her cry, changed her clothes, and show her much love. Yet one thing continues to mar this perfect relationship; Baby All Gone continues to call him “Mommy. Read More »
Courtesy MomGiraffe Isn’t she beautiful? She has been hanging in my parents’ home for as long as I can recall — which, in my case, is nearly my entire life. She is my mother. OK — that last part is not, to the best of my knowledge, true. Read More »
Peach: Mommy, remember what we had for that dinner last week? FrumeSarah: Are you referring to Thanksgiving? Peach: Yes. That thing was disgusting. FrumeSarah: Which thing? The turkey? Peach: Yes, the turkey. The turkey didn’t want me to eat him…. He wanted to be alive. Yowza, kid. Read More »
It has baffled me that my kids are not voracious readers. We did all the recommended things. We read to them since they emerged from the womb. Our home is filled with books of all types and they see the adults in the family inhale the written word as if oxygen. Asperger’s makes reading increasingly difficult for Beernut. Read More »
My heart broke a little today. Thanks to the wonders of Facebook, a woman, who knew JockBro from BBYO, saw that I was FB friends with one of her FB friends. And that mutual friend died quite suddenly over the weekend. This isn’t my first experience with death. It isn’t even my first experience with the death of one of my peers. Read More »
PSALM FIFTY-NINE Rosh Chodesh Kislev by Debbie Perlman , z”l Courtesty Fotolia Slowly, You ease the chill upon us, Sending midday sun to warm us; Through the shattered glass of yesterday’s pain, You move us ahead into winter’s dark. Balance the dark with Your light, O Eternal; Balance the cold with the warmth of Your care. Read More »
********************************* It isn’t just Jewish holidays that seem to come early some years. We can add Black Friday to that group. Read More »
The Menu: Roast Turkey with Gravy (substituted pan drippings for the chicken stock) Mashed Potatoes (using a modified version of this recipe ) Dressing (straight out of the box with NO additions) Cranberry Sauce (jellied from the can and sliced, just Read More »
It was the strangest Thanksgiving we had every had. Though the cast of characters hadn’t changed, we weren’t at my grandparents’ nor was there a home-cooked feast on the table. Long tables in a sterile room. Trays with compartments for each food item.Ice cream bar out of a deep freezer. The Twilight Zone marathon on KTLA . And nuns. Read More »
where we now reside, the local radio station has been playing Christmas music since the first of November. Read More »
Given my learning curve with all things domestic, it will be of little surprise to learn that I have been perusing recipes, “how-to” articles, etc. for the past several weeks in preparation for my first Thanksgiving feast. Read More »
See that spot? ======> Is my name on it? I don’t see it. So it would not occur to me to park in that spot. I had a meeting at Beernut’s school so they were expecting me. But that doesn’t mean that the “reserved” spot was for me. For five years, I had my own parking spot. It was a reserved spot. Read More »
It was a deafening crash. If I had discovered that something had fallen through the floor that separates the second storey from the first, I would have not been surprised in the slightest. It was that loud. To my horror, it was PC who I found splayed out at the bottom of the stairs. How he came to be there remains a mystery. Read More »
Did you happen to catch David Bianculli’s review of the upcoming PBS Masters documentary on Woody Allen? It was an impressive review. By that, I do not mean that it was a positive review, although it was. Read More »
Courtesy FreeFoto.com Forty days. Forty years. Or, as in my case, forty verses. I was given the amazing honour of leyning Torah at my best friend’s son’s Bar Mitzvah. And the cantor has given you the fourth aliyah. Forty verses. Never for a moment did I think that I could not learn it. Read More »
Courtesy Microsoft Office Dear “Superior Sale,” While I appreciate your desire to gather valuable opinions from your customers in order to improve your service, you might want to wait to ask about my experience until after my shipment arrives. Read More »
You’ve just been ousted as the mayor of Congregation Fill-in-the-Blank! That was the subject heading of an email that I received on Saturday night. Read More »
From this… …to this All weekend, stolen glances at my dear friend brought moments of nonrecognition. Who is that woman? She looks so familiar. She bears some resemblance to a girl I once knew. The girl whose image I see with my mind’s kind eye whenever I think of her. Read More »
In his desire to give me as much time to myself as possible, PC encouraged me to stay out until the kids were fast asleep. I tried. Really I did. But how long can one stay at a restaurant before it just looks strange? And the Barnes & Noble closed fifteen minutes after I got there. And the Panera was closing even earlier that usual. So I came home. Read More »
The first dance. The young bride, glowing, and in the arms of her beloved. Dancing to “their” song. Tonight, the very same hall, the very same song. Instead of dancing, she is orchestrating the placement of family for a photo. Glowing still. . Read More »
Courtesy Microsoft Office Am I as funny in person? Will we have enough about which to talk or will there be awkward silences? What if I say something really stupid? It’s like a first date. In fact, that is exactly what this is. Sort-of. I am meeting JaneTheWriter for the first time. Again . I am so excited. And…a bit nervous. Read More »
********************************* The following “tip” appeared in a recent travel magazine: I always take the complimentary shower caps provided by most hotels. They make good little doggy bags in countries that don’t provide them. Read More »
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Salon at the Rue des Moulins, 1894 Hadassah started it. She used the word in a status update and it got me thinking… Gee, I haven’t heard that word in an awfully long time. And I’m so impressed at the ease with which someone used it in daily conversation. Read More »
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