Apples and honey are essential at Rosh Hashana’s festive table. An old tradition of eating apples dipped in honey reflects our hopes for “sweet” and prosperous New Year. Shall we try and make this treat together?
1. Take a toothpick and a few pieces of modeling clay (or Plasticine) in green, yellow, red and white colors.
2. Mix well a piece of green and a small amount of yellow modeling clay. Make a ball out of this mixture and, using the toothpick, make a hole in the bottom of the ball.
3. Next, you can make a stem for your apple by sticking a small brown piece of clay in the hole that you made. Your apple is ready!
4. Mix well a piece of red modeling clay and a small amount of yellow. Follow the procedure in Step 2 and make a red apple. Don’t forget about giving your apple a “tail” and a “nose” using brown clay.
5. It is time to make some apple slices. Take white modeling clay and mix it with yellow. Shape the mixture into a crescent. Make the skin of an apple from green modeling clay.
6. Combine the crescent shape with the skin and your apple slice is ready. Make a few such slices.
7. We still need to make a pot of honey. For that, we use brown and blue modeling clay. First, make a brown pot, and then add a blue rim to it. Also attach a little handle to the side of your pot. “Fill” your pot with honey by putting a little oval made from yellow modeling clay on top.
8. Now we only need to make a dipper. Take brown modeling clay and roll it into a stick shape. It has to be thinner on one end and wider on another, resembling a hammer. To create the illusion of carving, typical for a dipper, encircle the wide part of it with few horizontal stripes made from orange clay.
Remember, you can use the toothpick to refine all your pieces of art. As well, before you start working with a new color, wipe your hands with a napkin to prevent the unwanted mixing of colors. And, most important of all – use your imagination! There are no strict rules when it comes to creativity. Don’t be afraid to experiment with colors.
Once you’ve finished your creations, if you put together all the pieces that you have made and take a picture, you will have a wonderful and unique Rosh Hashana greeting card.
Sweet and prosperous Rosh Hashana wishes to all the artists and all the Jewish Independent readers!
Lana Lagooncais a graphic designer, author and illustrator. At curlyorli.com, there are more free lessons, along with information about Curly Orli merchandise.
When my husband opened the package with Modern Jewish Cooking: Recipes and Customs for Today’s Kitchen by Leah Koenig (Chronicle Books, 2015) in it, he remarked, “This one you’re going to like!” And he was right.
Koenig is a writer and the author of The Hadassah Everyday Cookbook. When she is not living in Brooklyn, she is traveling around the country leading cooking demonstrations. Her philosophy is keeping a “loving eye on tradition … infusing history with … a sense of innovation … making the Jewish kitchen vibrant, exciting and ever-evolving.” She has written Modern Jewish Cooking “for the next generation of Jewish cooks.”
After an introduction on Jewish cuisine and keeping kosher, Koenig suggests how you should stock your kitchen and provides some how-tos. Then, she dives in with 11 chapters, from breakfast to dinner and desserts – 167 recipes – plus holiday essays and menus. These are enhanced by 57 color photographs and 11 essays. As well, Koenig includes all three elements I love in a cookbook: anecdotes or stories about each recipe, ingredients in bold or standing out in some way, and numbered directions.
The subtitle is “Recipes and Customs for Today’s Kitchen.” This is exhibited in the recipes’ wide variety of origins, including North Africa, Spain, Eastern Europe (including Ashkenazi), Ethiopia, Hungary, Italy, Germany, Bukharia, Romania, Egypt, Israel, Sweden, Iraq, Persia and the Mediterranean. For Rosh Hashana, I highlight three of Koenig’s recipes:
APPLE AND HONEY GRANOLA (six to eight servings, suggested for an Ashkenazi menu)
1/3 cup honey 1/4 cup vegetable oil 2 tbsp light brown sugar 2 tsp ground cinnamon 1 tsp ground ginger 1/2 tsp kosher salt 2 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats 1 cup roughly chopped walnuts 1/2 cup roughly chopped unsalted almonds 1 cup chopped dried apples 1/2 cup golden raisins
Preheat oven to 375˚F. Line a large rimmed cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Whisk together the honey, vegetable oil, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger and salt in a small bowl.
Combine the oats, walnuts and almonds in a large bowl. Drizzle with the honey mixture and stir to completely coat.
Spread the granola on the prepared baking sheet. Bake, stirring occasionally until deep golden brown and tasty smelling, 20-25 minutes.
Remove the baking sheet from the oven, add the apples and raisins and stir to combine. Set the baking sheet on a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container for up to one week.
RED WINE AND HONEY BRISKET (serves eight to 10, suggested for a Sephardi menu. Moroccan Jews customarily serve couscous topped with seven vegetables on Rosh Hashana, as the holiday falls in the seventh month of the Jewish calendar)
4- to 5-pound brisket salt and ground black pepper 1 tbsp vegetable oil 3 large thinly sliced yellow onions 8 sprigs fresh thyme 8 thinly sliced garlic cloves 2 bay leaves 1 1/2 cups dry red wine 3 tbsp balsamic vinegar 1/4 cup honey 1 tsp onion powder 1 tsp garlic powder 1 cup chicken broth
Preheat oven to 325˚F. Generously sprinkle both sides of brisket with salt and pepper.
Heat vegetable oil in Dutch oven or large pot. Add brisket and cook over medium heat, turning once until browned on both sides, eight to 10 minutes total.
Remove brisket and set aside. Add onions, thyme, garlic, bay leaves, 1/2 cup wine and the vinegar. Cook until onions soften slightly, about five minutes.
Whisk together one cup wine with honey, onion powder, garlic powder, broth and one teaspoon salt in a bowl. If using a Dutch oven, lay brisket atop onions. If using a pot, transfer onion mixture to a roasting pan and top with brisket. Pour wine mixture over the top. Cover tightly with foil and transfer to oven.
Cook for two hours. Remove from oven, uncover and turn meat to other side. Re-cover and continue cooking two to 2.5 hours more, until meat is fork tender.
Remove from oven, transfer to cutting board. Cover with foil and let rest 10-15 minutes. Slice brisket, remove thyme and bay leaves. Remove onions and arrange around brisket. Spoon pan juices over brisket and serve hot.
COUSCOUS WITH WINTER SQUASH AND CHICKPEAS (serves six to eight)
Heat olive oil in saucepan over medium heat. Add onions and cook until lightly browned, seven to 10 minutes. Add tomatoes and cook until soft, about five minutes. Add garlic, cinnamon, ginger, cumin, coriander, paprika and red pepper flakes, and cook one to two minutes.
Add chickpeas, squash, carrots, raisins, broth and one teaspoon salt. Turn heat to low, cover and simmer about 15 minutes. Uncover and continue simmering, stirring occasionally until very slightly thickened, about five minutes.
Bring water to boil in saucepan on high heat. Turn off heat and stir in couscous. Cover pan and let stand five to 10 minutes, until liquid is absorbed.
Uncover couscous and fluff with a fork. Mount couscous onto a large platter. Make a well in the centre and fill with vegetables and chickpeas. Spoon a generous amount of liquid over couscous and sprinkle with cilantro. Serve immediately.
Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, foreign correspondent, lecturer, food writer and book reviewer who lives in Jerusalem. She also does the restaurant features for janglo.net and leads weekly walks in English in Jerusalem’s market.
Among the coins and other archeological treasures discovered in a ruined Byzantine public structure near the Temple Mount’s southern wall in 2013 was a gold medallion (inset) inscribed with a menora, a shofar and a Torah scroll, reflecting the historical presence of Jews in the area. The items are thought to have been abandoned in the context of the Persian conquest of Jerusalem in 614 CE. Hanging from a gold chain, the medallion is most likely an ornament for a Torah scroll. (photos from Ashernet)
Fleeing the Nazis, the Pesten family found themselves adrift in some nowhere land in the Soviet Union, wandering through the mud of Uzbekistan, remembering all the adventures they had met since deciding to pack their bags and flee. They felt a yearning for home and some envy for friends who stayed. No one knew yet about the concentration camps and gas chambers. In reality, there was no time for longings or regret, as they had to wake up early every morning and search for food.
The woman of the family, Hanna, was worried. It was only a few days before Rosh Hashana and there was no food in their temporary home. She wasn’t only concerned about that. She was troubled that, in this remote place, they wouldn’t hear the shofar and its blasts of t’kia, sh’varim and t’rua. She would miss the holy shudder she always experienced in those exalted moments of the shofar blowing on Rosh Hashana.
The situation was not yet hopeless. She walked the long distance to the nearby town until she came to a massive garbage heap. She wasn’t deterred by the foul stench. She began to sift through the garbage for hours, although it seemed like an eternity. Would she even find what she was looking for?
The pounding of her heart increased by the minute until, with a broad smile, she pulled out of the smelly heap, the rotten head of a ram that had been slaughtered a few days earlier and was providentially still there.
The slender moon of the end of the month was slowly traversing the gloomy skies of Uzbekistan. The angels looked down from heaven in amazement at a tiny, frail woman, who was bent over, sitting on a low stool, cleaning a curved ram’s horn with a small metal wire as she quietly sang a melody of thanks to G-d. She kept scraping without stopping and without fatigue. Then, with tremendous effort, she finally managed to completely remove the inner bone from the shofar.
That year, the stirring sounds of the shofar blasts echoed through the narrow lanes of Uzbekistan. Due to Hanna’s devotion, the community of Jewish refugees merited that this beloved mitzva was not missed. (Story excerpted from Jewish Tales of Holy Women by Yitzhak Buxbaum.)
Thankfully, here in Canada, we don’t need to do what this brave woman did to hear the shofar. On Rosh Hashana, we only need to go to a synagogue, Chabad House or community gathering. This year is called the year of Hakhel (Gathering), which takes place every seven years after the year of Sh’mita, where everyone would travel to Jerusalem for the festival of Sukkot and be in the presence of G-d when the Holy Temples stood. This year, it is even more auspicious to gather together on the first days of the new Jewish year, which begins at sundown on Sunday, Sept. 13, and continues through Tuesday the 15th.
So, why do we blow the shofar on Rosh Hashana? The Talmud writes that G-d commands us to recite verses of kingship so that we may crown Him upon us, verses of zichronot (remembrances) so that He will remember us for good. And Rabbi Abahu adds that we blow the ram’s horn to remember the Akeidat Yitzchak (the Binding of Isaac).
“Hebrew trumpet” from Italian Jesuit scholar Filippo Bonanni’s Gabinetto armonico (1723), which comprises some 150 engravings by Arnold van Westerhout (with the help of perhaps two other artists) of musicians playing various instruments from around the world. (photo from commons.wikimedia.org)
There are three physical acts associated with the shofar: there is the blowing of the air, the lips that touch the shofar and the physical shofar itself, receiving the air and producing a sound.
The air is known as the hevel (breath) of the mouth. What is this hevel? It’s not just air, it’s something much greater. A person blowing the shofar gives over his entire self, this is the self-sacrifice. What is being produced, however, is not my or the shofar blower’s air, but the sound of the shofar itself. In fact, the blessing recited is “Lishmoa kol shofar,” “To hear the sound of the shofar.” Although human air is producing it, we refer to the sound as coming from the shofar. The person blowing the shofar is not of prime significance, his breath is greater than his limited self.
Our sages explain that the shofar is produced by the hevel from the depths of the heart. The word hevel is comprised of the same letters as the word halev, the heart. When a person speaks, their hevel/breath is affected by the five motions of the mouth that are used to create different vowels. When the shofar is being blown, the mouth is not involved. When one speaks, it is their voice that is heard. With the shofar, there is something much greater going on, much deeper.
According to the Jewish mystics, the letters comprising the word hevel (and halev) represent the five books of the Torah. In lev (heart), the letter hay is equal to five, followed by the numerical value of the remaining letters of lamed (30) and vet (two). These are the first and last letters of the Torah. The hevel of the heart is so much more than words. The sound of the shofar can’t have anything added to it that will make it appear more beautiful – it is pure and is capable of bringing pure spirituality down from above.
The shofar is greater even than prayer. Rosh Hashana is called Yom T’rua, Day of Blasts, not Yom T’fila, Day of Prayer. Prayer may be straight from the heart, especially on the holy day of Rosh Hashana, the first day of the Jewish year, but it is our mouths that form the words. The breath of the shofar is spirituality; there is nothing physical intertwined with it.
We can ask, “Why do we need a shofar at all? Why do we not just shout out loud without uttering any words?” It is because we want to remind G-d of the great near sacrifice of our father Abraham and our patriarch Isaac to arouse G-d’s mercy on us on Rosh Hashana as He did for them. It is the Torah reading for the second day of Rosh Hashana.
We find in Pirkei d’Rebbi Eliezer that the ram, which our sages teach us was “caught by its horns in a thicket,” (Genesis/Breishit 22:13) is the one that was used. Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa adds that it was a special ram. Its skin was the belt used by Eliyahu HaNavi (Elijah the Prophet); its left horn was blown at Mount Sinai upon our receiving the Torah, while the right horn will be blown with the coming of the Moshiach. It will usher in a time of peace in Israel and throughout the world.
May we all be written and inscribed for a year filled with many blessings for our families and communities, “ktiva v’chatima tova.”
Esther Taubyis a local educator, writer and counselor.
Yemenite Jews participating in Tashlich, Rosh Hashana, 1926. (photo by Shimon Korbman, Shalom Meir Tower, Tel Aviv via Wikimedia)
Readers will perhaps find it hard to believe, but the custom of Tashlich, which has become an integral part of the Jewish experience, has no mention in the Talmud. In Ashkenazi writings, the first literary sources of the Tashlich ceremony are from the late 14th century. However, with respect to the Spanish expulsion, even in late works such as the Shulchan Aruch from the 16th century, Tashlich is not mentioned.
The early Ashkenazi sources in which Tashlich is mentioned describe an unusual ceremony, both with respect to its participants and with respect to its time and place. Texts written by both Jews and non-Jews at the beginning of the modern era tell of a ceremony in which the whole community – the old, the young, the women and their servants – go out to a river bank during the middle of the day, after the midday meal. Under the shade of the tangled tree branches and against the gurgling sound of the pure river water, those present entertain themselves by throwing crumbs to the fish, which jump out of the water in an attempt to catch them. This is in contrast to the atmosphere of a Jewish festival whose focus is the synagogue.
One is led to ask how such a ceremony came to be and how it found its place on the day on which the centre of attention is the synagogue. The explanations found in Ashkenazi books on Jewish customs that were written in the 15th and 16th centuries are confusing and fragmentary, and thus it is difficult to get a clear picture of the custom from those sources. However, there are other sources from the same period. Jews who had converted to Christianity and Christians who were involved in the anthropological study of their Jewish neighbors included a description of the ceremony in their writings, which was based on Jewish texts and primarily on what they themselves observed.
It appears that the various rituals are first of all related to the intellectual level of those present. The learned among the Jews present at the ceremony recited a verse from the Book of Micah, “You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea,” without adding any practical interpretation. Most of the community, in contrast, did not stick to the literal text but spoke what was in their hearts in simple German. The “spilling of sins” was manifested in the shaking out of one’s clothing and quickly leaving the location so that, God forbid, the spirit of evil deeds should not return the sins to the individual who had just got rid of them.
Some of the Christian sources relate that the appearance of fish during the ceremony was auspicious for those present, who viewed this as a sign that their sins had been transferred to the fish. This is similar to the belief that the scapegoat that was sent into the desert on Yom Kippur takes with him the sins of the people. In the Jewish ceremonies of the 15th century, fish appear in a different context: upon their appearance, those present are to remember that “we are like these live fish that are all of a sudden caught in a fortress.”
During the centuries in which the Tashlich custom took shape, walking to the river was an accepted pastime during the leisure hours of Jewish festivals and Shabbat. Jews and non-Jews spent time among the trees along the river banks, wading in the water and fishing. From the rabbinic texts, we learn of more than a few halachic problems related to this pastime, such as the carrying of food. Apparently, people used to carry items of food with them to throw to the fish and thus violated the prohibition of carrying from one domain to another. There were those who requested food from their gentile neighbors, who were also spending time on the river bank, in order to throw it into the river; but the act of feeding the fish itself was also prohibited. It is no wonder then that the rabbinic texts dealing with this activity on Rosh Hashana were vehemently opposed to throwing food to the fish because of the prohibition of carrying from one domain to another. As far as they were concerned, going to the river on Rosh Hashana was not related to any religious ceremony. It is interesting that some of the sources from the 15th century state explicitly that the custom of Tashlich is not particularly important and that people are not so meticulous in keeping it.
The Tashlich ceremony had other unusual characteristics, which differentiated it from “official” traditions. The literature of the 16th and 17th centuries relates that women and children participated in Tashlich, in contrast to other public ceremonies in which men were the only ones generally present due to considerations of modesty and separation between the genders. Furthermore, religious ceremonies in Jewish society generally took place in the synagogue or at home, but never in nature. With this in mind, Tashlich is to be understood not as a religious commandment but as the product of a social event. It can be said that Tashlich is a refashioning of a leisure activity as a religious/spiritual activity. It combined entertainment and prayer that had been recited on the High Holy Days for hundreds of years.
Based on the above, it can be said that there is no single explanation for the development of Tashlich. From the various existing testimonies, it can be assumed that the custom began sometime during the 14th century as an attempt to give religious significance to a popular afternoon pastime on Rosh Hashana. The time of the ceremony, its unusual location on the banks of the river, far from the community’s spiritual centre, the participation of women and children and the core of the ceremony – i.e., the casting of breadcrumbs into the river – which became an accepted pastime each Shabbat and festival, indicate that this was not a ritual created by halachists, but rather was an attempt to create another dimension to a popular pastime. The halachic texts that describe Tashlich stress its symbolism and the subjective spiritual process the believer goes through. In contrast, the texts that describe popular Jewish culture indicate that most of the public attributed the results of the ceremony to the activities carried out during it.
Over the years, there have been many efforts to give the ceremony a more religious flavor: the number of participants was narrowed, its date was changed and the weight of the texts and conceptual components was increased. Thus, Tashlich moved away from its roots in the culture of leisure in Ashkenaz and gradually took on the character that is familiar to us today.
Eli Freiman, general manager of Shuki Freiman Co. Ltd., is involved in academic research on the popular aspects of ritual in Jewish culture. This article was translated from the original Hebrew by a third party and the author does not take responsibility for any marginal disparities between the original text and this translation. This article can be found on the Shalom Hartman Institute website, hartman.org.il, and is reprinted with permission.
Until this summer’s drought, most Vancouverites would have prayed for weather that made their umbrellas unnecessary. These High Holidays, however, many of us will be joining more wholeheartedly in the prayer for rain. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)
I never gave much thought to the significance of rain until I moved to Miami. Rabbis in Miami face the High Holiday season with more than the usual rabbinic anxiety. In South Florida, the High Holiday season coincides with hurricane season. In the last several years of Florida living, I have reflected often on the ways in which Judaism invests rain with religious meaning. Prayers for rain mark the culmination of the High Holiday season.
The land of Israel is known as the land “flowing with milk and honey.” However, Israel is not a land flowing with water. The limited resource of water in the Holy Land is a central feature of biblical theology. Rain in the Promised Land plays an essential role in the covenantal relationship between God and the Jewish people.
Deuteronomy explains the unique spiritual essence of precipitation in the land of Israel. Unlike Egypt, where the water comes up from one’s feet, Israel is a land where people must look to the heavens for rain. In Egypt, it was easy to fall into idolatrous practices. The natural abundance of water from the Nile made the Egyptians worship the products of their own hands. However, this spiritual shortcoming is prevented in a land where the natural resources are scarce. The need to look heavenward for rain and the need to pray for rain continually remind the Israelites of God’s involvement and concern for our livelihood. “It is a land which the Lord your God looks after, on which the Lord your God always keeps His eye, from year’s beginning to year’s end.” (Deuteronomy 11:10)
God’s responsibility for dispensing rain in the land of Israel is a central aspect of our covenantal identity. Not only do we live in a land that depends upon God for rain, but God’s gift of rain will be conditioned upon the fulfilment of our covenantal duties. Every day, twice a day, the Jewish people express our love and commitment to God in the words of the Sh’ma.
The second paragraph of the Sh’ma is an excerpt from Deuteronomy about the connection between our covenant with God and rain: “If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving the Lord your God and serving Him with all your heart and soul, I will grant the rain for your land in season…. Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them; for the Lord’s anger will flare up against you, and He will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain….” (11:13)
The notion that the natural events of weather are reflective of God’s covenantal relationship with the Jewish people is a difficult one for many modern Jews. This paragraph is omitted in the version of the Sh’ma found in Reform prayer books.
However, the theological lessons of Deuteronomy can be teased out without adopting a literal reading of the text. Is it true that rain falls in Israel only if the Jewish people are observing all the commandments? Or perhaps our daily recitation of the Sh’ma establishes a consciousness about our fragility in a world where we cannot control the elements. In such a world of limited human power, we recognize that our lives are a gift from God. The recognition of our dependence leads to a sense of responsibility. The Jewish response to the precarious nature of life is to find meaning and purpose in commandedness. Rain in the land of Israel serves as a reminder of our covenant with God.
According to the Torah, the scarcity of rain in Israel is a spiritual safeguard. As the Israelite nation prepares to enter the Promised Land, the Book of Deuteronomy is consumed with a fear regarding the spiritual danger of sovereignty. Once we leave the desert and settle in our own land, we might forget about God’s role in our lives:
“When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses to live in … and everything you own has prospered, beware lest your heart grow haughty and you forget the Lord your God … who led you through the great and terrible wilderness … a parched land with no water in it, who brought forth water for you from the flinty rock; who fed you in the wilderness with manna … and you say to yourselves, ‘My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me.’ Remember that it is the Lord your God who gives you the power to prosper.” (8:12-18)
For 40 years, the Israelites depended upon God for sustenance in a hostile environment lacking natural resources. That dependency cultivated an intimacy with God and an appreciation for our human weakness. However, when we enter the Promised Land, and we build our own houses and plant our own crops, we might grow arrogant and distant from God.
According to the medieval commentator Rashbam, it is precisely because of this threat that God instituted the festival of Sukkot at the time of the harvest, when we are most likely to glorify in our material success:
“Therefore, the people leave their houses, which are full of everything good at the season of the ingathering, and dwell in booths, as a reminder of those who had no possessions in the wilderness and no houses in which to live. For this reason, the Holy One established the festival of Sukkot … that the people should not be proud of their well-furnished houses.” (Rashbam, Commentary on Leviticus 23:43)
The purpose of dwelling in the sukkah, according to Rashbam, is to remind us of our vulnerability in the desert and to return us to that ideal spiritual state of humility and dependency. Without a yearly reminder of our frail human condition, we might grow too haughty in our own land and begin to worship the power of our own hands.
The festival of Sukkot culminates in the holiday of Shemini Atzeret. This obscure holiday embodies one main ritual – tefilat geshem, the prayer for rain. Focusing on the uncertainty of rain is the perfect conclusion to the High Holiday season. One of the recurring themes of the High Holidays is the nature of human mortality. As human beings, our existence is vulnerable and ephemeral. Will we even be here next year? “Who shall live, and who shall die … who by fire and who by water?” This yearly reminder of our fragile human condition is meant to jolt us out of our complacency, to inspire us in our search for greater meaning and purpose in life.
This central High Holiday motif finds its dramatic finale in tefilat geshem, as the cantor comes forward during the musaf prayers, dressed in a kittel, the white burial shroud, and invoking Yom Kippur melodies. We conclude the spiritual marathon of the High Holidays with prayers for rain, humbled by the awareness of our fragility and our dependence upon God for sustenance and survival. As we pray for rain, we also rejoice in the notion that God cares for us and keeps His eyes on us, from year’s beginning to year’s end. Rain will be a daily reminder of our human limitations and the greater meaning and purpose we can find in accepting a covenant with God.
On this Shemini Atzeret, may our prayers for rain remind us of our vulnerabilities and our responsibilities to God, “Who causes the wind to blow and the rain to fall.”
This article was originally published in the Jewish Week and can be found on the Shalom Hartman Institute website, hartman.org.il. It is reprinted with permission.
This month, the Reform movement’s new High Holiday prayer book, Mishkan HaNefesh, is being published. It replaces Gates of Repentance, which has served the movement since 1978, and is a companion to the movement’s siddur, Mishkan T’filah, which was published in 2007.
“It was an innovative siddur in a number of ways,” Rabbi Hara Person, publisher and director of CCAR Press, the Central Conference of American Rabbis’ publishing division, told the Independent. “It includes a lot of poetry and other kinds of readings that haven’t historically been in prayer books. It includes both the faithful translation of the text alongside, in some cases, alternative translations.
“The approach is multi-focal. It’s not an approach that says there is only one way to read our tradition or prayer. Instead, it opens up to people different ways of understanding, and struggling and grappling, with the text and tradition … and with theology.”
As an example of the new machzor’s increased accessibility, Person explained that, as does Mishkan T’filah (Sanctuary of Prayer), Mishkan HaNefesh (Sanctuary of the Soul) includes transliteration throughout for all of the prayers. “We wanted it to be open and welcoming to people, no matter what their background or how much or little a Jewish education they have,” she said.
About the diversity of the people sitting in the pews, she added, “Some may not be Jewish at all. They might be there with a Jewish spouse or partner. We don’t want to tell them that there’s nothing there for them. We want them to be able to learn and participate to the extent that they’re comfortable.”
Another significant aspect of the machzor is its inclusivity. “For over 25 years,” said Person, “we’ve been speaking up about inclusion of gay and lesbians in our communities on every level, so this is just another piece of that. That’s true for anybody who walks through our doors.”
This meant that the language of some of the prayers had to be updated.
At the heart of the prayers that talk about a bride and groom, for example, is the love between a couple. “So, we changed the language to reflect that and to not exclude gay and lesbian couples,” said Person. “Also, regarding being called to the Torah, we felt it should reflect the view and acceptance of all people, including those struggling with gender identity … calling people from the ‘house of’ as opposed to referring to them as ‘the son or daughter of.’…”
These most recent changes follow those that have come before regarding the increased participation and recognition of women.
“I think the Reform movement has a long history of egalitarianism, even from the very start,” said Person. “Even before women were rabbis, the Reform movement did away with separate seating in synagogues, so very early on in the history of the Reform movement, men and women were allowed to sit together in synagogues.
“So, these are just further steps in that progression of treating everybody with dignity and with a sense of equality and inclusiveness, and a way of saying we are all created in the image of God … women as well as men. It’s true for gay or straight or trans. Why would we exclude some but not others? It’s part of our value system to be inclusive.”
The new machzor has been in the works for a long time.
“We did a tremendous amount of piloting ahead of time,” said Person. “The book was in development for five or six years. Over those years, we had about 350 congregations across North America who piloted different sections of it.”
Some other interesting features of the new machzor are the poetry – from American and also Israeli writers – and art.
“We worked with an artist in New York named Joel Shapiro,” explained Person. “He created an opening piece of art for each of the services. They are woodblock cuts. He spent a huge amount of time studying the services and prayers and was inspired to create the art for the services.
“For me,” she continued, “it’s really exciting because some people love poetry and that’s going to … be a way into the prayer book and into the experience of worship for them. For others, it will be the commentary, and for others still, it will be the art…. Art may open the door for them and help them walk in. It’s really exciting that we were able to do all these things within the prayer book.”
A large-print version of Mishkan HaNefesh will also be available, as will an e-book version. “There is a percentage of people who actually use machzors before the holidays to do their own spiritual preparation,” said Person. “This book has so much in it for that. For a tablet, maybe they’d use it ahead of time, but not bring it to synagogue. I don’t know.”
For more information about the new machzor, visit ccarpress.org.
The great epic poet Homer once said, “For rarely are sons similar to their fathers; most are worse, and a few are better.” In honor of Father’s Day, here are some quick facts about some rather unfamous (though not all infamous) fathers of famous biblical characters.
Terah, father of Abraham. The biblical verse is mostly silent on Terah’s life and times, its brief description of his family and travels serving only to set the stage for the story of Abraham. But various ancient interpretive traditions grew around the character of Terah in the imagination of the rabbis, especially as they pertain to the spiritual evolution of Abraham. Terah is portrayed in the Midrash as a typical worshipper of Mesopotamian gods, perhaps even a priest, who kept a sizable collection of stone idols. His precocious son Abraham, so the familiar tale goes, having become convinced of the powerlessness of these images, smashed all but the biggest one to pieces, then left his hammer in the remaining statue’s hands. When a furious Terah later demanded an explanation for the disaster, Abraham cleverly blamed the one idol he’d left standing, claiming that a fight had erupted in which it was the sole victor!
Elkanah, father of Samuel. Elkanah had two wives, like many men of his day, but had only been able to have children with one of them. The biblical narrator tells us that it was his other wife, Hannah, who was his favorite of the two. Hannah was greatly depressed by her infertility and Elkanah, in what is perhaps one of the earliest accounts of male insensitivity, responds: “Hannah, why do you weep? And why do you not eat? And why does your heart grieve? Am I not better to you than 10 sons?” (I Samuel 1:8) In fact, having a son was so important to Hannah that she made a deal with God: if granted a son, she offered to permanently lend him to the service of the divine. Thus, Samuel, when he came of age, became the servant of the High Priest Eli, and grew to be one of the great prophets of Israel.
Jesse, father of David. The importance of the genealogy of David to both Jewish and Christian messianic thought has helped make Jesse a more familiar name than some of the other dads on our list. Jesse is said to have descended from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob, who in Jewish lore was given the rightful kingship of Israel. The book of I Samuel contains the dramatic account of Samuel visiting the house of Jesse in Bethlehem, having been instructed by God that one of the man’s sons has been chosen to replace the weakened King Saul. Jesse innocently offers Samuel his oldest, tallest son Eliab, assuming him to be the best man for the job, but he and Jesse’s next six sons are all rejected by God until the youth David is called in from the sheep pastures. Jesse later has a hand in David’s fate, when he sends the lad to bring bread and cheese to his older brothers, who are stationed at an Israelite military base preparing for war with the Philistines. It is there that David hears the taunts of the enemy champion Goliath, and launches the bold challenge that would propel him to becoming one of the most celebrated monarchs in history.
Manoah, father of Samson. Manoah was descended from the tribe of Dan, and also had a wife with whom he could not conceive. He and his wife were eventually visited by an angel, who told them that they would soon have a son, but commanded them to raise him as a nazir, a consecrated individual who cannot drink wine or have their hair cut, according to biblical law. This they did, and the result was the super-strong and highly temperamental Samson. As a young man, Samson became interested in taking a Philistine woman as a wife, to which his parents protested, “What, there’s not enough Israelite girls around here?” (See Judges 14:3 for the exact quote.) Nonetheless, despite his disappointment, Manoah makes the trip to meet the woman and negotiate her marriage to his son, perhaps to be a supportive dad, but perhaps because there was simply no arguing with Samson.
Binyamin Kagedanhas a master’s in Jewish thought from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. To read more from Kagedan, visit jns.org.
Silk Road Vegetarian: Vegan, Vegetarian and Gluten Free Recipes from the Mindful Cook by Dahlia Abraham-Klein (Tuttle Publishing Co., 2014) contains 121 recipes in eight chapters, several of which would be ideal for Shavuot.
Although Abraham-Klein grew up in New York, her parents trace their ancestry to the Babylonian Exile (now Iraq) and Persian conquest (now Iran) of sixth century BCE. Her ancestors traversed Persia, Afghanistan and Bukhara (capital of Uzbekistan), speaking Farsi and Judeo-Persian. In the early part of the 19th century, they settled in Afghanistan, in the middle of the Silk Road, which was an extensive, interconnected network of trade routes across the Asian continent.
The author’s great-grandfather owned a vineyard in Uzbekistan; her grandmother moved to the United States in the 1950s and grew her own grapes to make wine. The author’s mother and siblings grew up in Kabul, then moved with the family to Israel in 1949. The author’s father, who had grown up in Kabul, lived in India and visited Israel, where he met and married her mother in 1952; they lived in India until 1956.
Abraham-Klein’s family were merchants, absorbing the culture, languages, tastes and cuisines of all the places in which they lived. However, she grew up in New York and, as a teen, became unable to eat wheat, dairy and sugar. She has a master’s degree in education and a degree in naturopathy.
Silk Road Vegetarian contains recipes for bases, condiments and dips such as hummus, tomato paste, za’atar and mango chutney; appetizers including vegan chopped liver, stuffed grape leaves and Italian zucchini fritters; soups like Persian bean and noodle, and pumpkin. Among the salads are minted beet, and Middle Eastern lemon potato. Afghan squash goulash and Bengali potato and zucchini curry are among the main dishes; Bukharan green-herbed and Greek-inspired spanakorizo are among the rice dishes, and sides include sesame noodles and shawarma-spiced potato wedges. The desserts chapter has, for instance, orange blossom date balls and orange zest almond cookies.
The book is enhanced by 174 color photographs. Among these are ones that show how to prepare slivered orange peel, fold stuffed cabbage and remove coconut meat. Because Abraham-Klein has no formal culinary education, she has produced a cookbook that is easy to follow, with interesting cultural and historical notes about each recipe, bold-faced ingredients and numbered instructions. There is also an essay on the spice pantry; others on tofu and legumes; an article on grains; and a feature on food preservation.
COCONUT MILK Can be used as a substitute base for curries, in lieu of cream, and for dairy in desserts.
2 cups water 2 cups grated fresh or frozen coconut
Bring the water to a boil in a large saucepan. Stir in the coconut and then remove from the heat. Cover and let cool.
Purée with an immersion blender. Line a sieve with cheesecloth and set it over a bowl. Pour the purée into the sieve and squeeze the cloth to extract the liquid. Remove the cheesecloth and use the coconut milk right away or store it in the refrigerator for up to two days (shake before using). Makes two cups.
PERSIAN SPINACH AND YOGURT DIP
1 tbsp olive oil 1 large thinly sliced onion 1 minced clove garlic small pinch saffron 1 tbsp hot water 3 cups stemmed, washed and chopped fresh spinach 2 cups thick plain yogurt salt and pepper to taste
Heat the oil in a large skillet and sauté onions for 15 minutes or until they are soft and beginning to color. Stir in garlic and sauté for one minute or until fragrant.
Steep the saffron in a small bowl with hot water. Let sit until water is tinted.
Add spinach to the skillet and sauté for five minutes or until wilted. Add saffron water and stir to combine. Cool completely. Fold in yogurt, season with salt and pepper. Refrigerate for several hours to allow the flavors to meld. Makes six to eight servings.
BAKED LEMON RICE PUDDING
1/2 cup short-grain rice 2 1/2 cups unsweetened coconut milk 2 tbsp packed brown sugar 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract grated zest of 1 small lemon 1 tbsp chopped vegan butter fresh strawberries or any seasonal berries
Wash and soak the rice according to instructions. Combine rice and coconut milk in an ovenproof casserole dish and set aside for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 150˚F. Add sugar, vanilla, lemon zest and butter to rice mixture and whisk gently to combine. Bake uncovered for 2 to 2.5 hours or until top of pudding is lightly browned.
Allow pudding to cool, then gentle peel off skin at the surface and discard. Chill in refrigerator for about an hour or until pudding thickens. Garnish with strawberries or seasonal berries and serve. Makes four servings.
Sybil Kaplanis a journalist, foreign correspondent, lecturer, food writer and book reviewer who lives in Jerusalem. She also does the restaurant features for janglo.net and leads weekly shuk walks in English in Jerusalem’s market.
As a famous Jewish comedian used to kvetch, “I don’t get no respect.” I feel we treat Shavuos similarly. In Temple days, how would you compare the Holy of Holies to a Jerusalem tavern down the street? Silly question, yes? Then why does Shavuos get such minor league attraction?
We got the Torah! The cradle of Western civilization! So, some of us go to shul (compare it to Yom Kippur attendance) and we study, or nap, through the night over an open Chumash. We eat dairy and read the Book of Ruth. No bugles blare and no rabbis make two-hour presentations.
Even books designed to explain Judaism’s beauty give it short shrift: 10 pages to the Jacob/Esau rivalry, a page and a half to this modest holiday. I’m only a scribbler, not a sage, but I don’t get it. Then, there’s the fact that our reception of the Torah is combined with a harvest celebration. What’s the connection? The relationship between barley and Torah seems odd. Maybe one is food for the body, the other for the soul. Are we trying to economize on holidays? Two for the price of one?
And why do we read the Book of Ruth, which is a tract featuring intermarriage – a practice loudly condemned by dozens of statements in the Torah? It seems to be written by someone who favored fraternization with our deadly enemies, the Moabites. Remember that the path to the Promised Land goes through Moab. We fought our way through it. How did this book get chosen? Did they take a vote on Purim after a day of gorging on the grape?
The Book of Ruth is a book in which everyone is gentle, even the Moabites. Everyone is supportive of their fellow characters. If it were a play, this story would run for years on Broadway.
Ruth, a Moabite, is loyal to her mother-in-law, Naomi. Her first husband, Naomi’s son, has died. Naomi – remember, a Jew – strategizes with Ruth to win the heart of Boaz, also a Jew. A famine stalks the land. Perhaps the agricultural setting explains the use of the holiday as a harvest celebration, but not its connection with the Torah. I consider this every time I think of Shavuos, one of the three special occasions, along with Sukkot and Pesach, when all Israel flocked to the Temple. With the destruction of the Temple, I think we lost the grandeur of Shavuos.
They shouldn’t have named it Shavuos, Hebrew for weeks. Indeed, seven weeks after Pesach comes Shavuos. Like in a Jewish wedding ceremony – seven times the bride (Israel) circles her groom (the Creator), thereby remembering and reenacting our covenant. We rest on the seventh day and, for seven years, the land must lie fallow. Even today, that ancient poetic number still glows with luck – from the sublime to the ridiculous, the seven wins initially for the dice shooter and excites the roar of the winners.
I can see it now. It’s 1000 BCE and the annual meeting of the Israelite holiday commemoration committee. “We need a special day to honor and commemorate that fateful day when God gave us the Torah,” said the chairman. A chorus of agreement rocked the room. Done. Then that guy in the back of every room (yes, he was around even then) shouted, “Yeah, but what about the grain harvest?” Puzzled, the committee men looked at each other in bewilderment. The grain harvest?
The chairman spoke: “Look, we got enough holidays now – nobody’s working. Let’s save a holiday and throw it in with Shavuos. [And they hadn’t even made Tu b’Shevat yet!] After all, the grain harvest lasts seven weeks, and the Holy One gave us Torah seven weeks after we paraded out of Egypt. We’ll make Shavuos celebrate both events, thereby economizing on holidays. Done.”
Shavuos, for all its importance, doesn’t get its due. No big feasting, no dramatic breast-beating, no triumphant chauvinism; only the satisfaction that more than three millennia ago in the darkest of the dark ages we were chosen to receive from the Hand of God a solemn covenant that we would be a light of civilization to the nations of the world.
No matter how many weeks after Pesach it falls, let’s face it: “Weeks” doesn’t do it justice. They should have called it Yom Torah or something like that. If I were a member of the holiday naming committee, I’d have called it Independence Day.
Ted Robertsis a freelance writer and humorist living in Huntsville, Ala.
The author and her mother at Matanuska Glacier on a previous Mother’s Day adventure. (photo from Masada Siegel)
At a party a few years back, a high school friend approached my husband and cheekily said, “You do realize your wife Masada is going to turn into her Jewish mother. Are you prepared for that?”
My husband, a serious look on his face, responded, “ I should be so lucky.”
My friend’s grin turned to shock and I laughed, knowing why his greatest wish is for me to turn into my Jewish mother.
My mom is organized, thoughtful, kind and a fabulous cook who makes everything from scratch. She is the perfect hostess, makes people feel at ease, a great listener, advisor, diplomat and one of the most well-read people I have ever met.
My brother-in-law Gabe agrees. He always jokes that he married my sister, Audrey, because our mom was already taken – my sister was the next best option.
The truth is moms never get enough credit for the backbreaking work they do to make their families lives better. Mother’s Day is an opportunity to recognize the commandment to honor your mother and father. It’s special to focus on the woman who gave us life, and Jewish mothers, like mothers all over the world, are obsessed with making sure everyone else is happy. Often that means they never take time to look after themselves.
My mom, a former sergeant in the Israeli army, happens to be the queen of doing for others, and not so good at relaxing and taking care of herself. So, to celebrate her, I took her to the Omni Scottsdale Resort at Montelucia for a spa day.
At first, she protested the concept of an 80-minute massage. She’s not great at sitting still, always feeling the need to be productive. We both shook our heads: Mom at how she could have a daughter who writes about life and leisure, and me on how I could have a mom who is such a giver and less good at receiving.
Entering the Omni’s Joya Spa is like taking a trip to Morocco, between the low-light entrance and a room filled with plush red couches and endless pillows to the pool overlooking the spectacular Camelback Mountain. After wandering into a most comfortable, quiet room filled with canopy beds, we headed off to enjoy our Joyambrosia massages.
After, we indulged in a poolside lunch and I asked my mom what other Mother’s Day experiences she would enjoy. She laughed, “It’s about being appreciated daily, and family making an effort all year long to be close and loving. Sharing time together and making wonderful memories are what matter most in this world.”
I began to think of new ideas for celebrating people who I love. All it takes thoughtfulness and creativity, as simple as printing and framing a photo or making a tasty breakfast.
Another idea is to take your mom away from the everyday; go away for a weekend or take a day trip. A few years ago, I took my mom through the wilds of Alaska. We took trains, planes and automobiles, hiked glaciers, experienced fabulous food and drank in the beauty of a new place and time spent together.
Whatever you decide to do for that special person, be it your mom, a family member or friend, the most important gift you can give is your time. That said, you can never go wrong with a luxurious massage! Happy Mother’s Day!
Masada Siegel is an award-winning journalist and photographer. Follow her @masadasiegel and visit her website, masadasiegel.com.
1. Take a toothpick and a few pieces of modeling clay (or Plasticine) in green, yellow, red and white colors.
5. It is time to make some apple slices. Take white modeling clay and mix it with yellow. Shape the mixture into a crescent. Make the skin of an apple from green modeling clay.
