Shula Klinger creates her vibrant, whimsical designs with cut paper. The art is then scanned and reproduced as prints and greeting cards. Selections of her work can be purchased at Delish General Store (Granville Island) and Queensdale Market (North Vancouver). To see her full range of work, visit niftyscissors.myshopify.com or find her at the Artisan Fair, hosted by the North Shore Jewish Community at Congregation Har El in West Vancouver on Oct. 16, noon-4 p.m.
Tag: Rosh Hashanah
An apple-honey cake
Add some apples to your honey cake this year. (photo by Barry A. Kaplan)
In the spirit of trying new things and as the New Year approaches, here is a recipe from my kosher kitchen, a slightly different take on the traditional honey cake. It’s a Rosh Hashanah favorite.
TWO-LAYER APPLE-HONEY CAKE
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
3/4 cup sugar or sugar substitute
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
3/4 cup canola oil
1/3 cup non-dairy creamer
1/2 cup honey or honey substitute
3 cups grated apples
Frosting
2 cups tofu cream cheese
1/2 cup unsalted pareve margarine
1 tsp grated orange peel
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup honey or honey substitute
- Preheat oven to 325˚F.
- Put vegetable spray on two nine-inch cake pans.
- Place flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and sugar or sugar substitute in a large bowl and mix.
- Add vanilla, eggs, oil, non-dairy creamer and honey. Mix, then add apples. Place half of the batter in each baking pan. Bake in the oven about 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool.
- Beat cream cheese and margarine in a bowl until fluffy.
- Add orange peel, confectioners sugar and vanilla and blend. Add honey. Chill until firm enough to spread.
- Place one cake on a serving dish. Spread with one cup of frosting. Top with the second cake and spread the remaining frosting on the top and sides.
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 walks in English in Jerusalem’s market.
Celebrate sweetness
The High Holidays are all about family and friends coming together and sharing a meal. Kosher Taste: Plan. Prepare. Plate (Feldheim, 2016) by Toronto-based Amy Stopnicki offers home cooks a new formula for kosher cooking, with more than 100 recipes and photos.
In Kosher Taste, Stopnicki has taken her best innovations from years of experience and combined them with her passion for creating balanced and beautiful meals.
“I love to cook and I love to entertain. The warmth and beauty of sharing a beautifully set Shabbos or holiday table with friends and family is my passion and joy,” she explained. “The satisfaction I feel when family and guests dig in for seconds, or when kids enjoy a new dish, this makes all the effort of planning and preparing worthwhile. My goal with Kosher Taste is to share this joy, this passion, with home cooks who are looking to experience delicious new tastes and flavors to share with their families.”
Every recipe offers an easy-to-follow formula. Plan: tips for preparing ingredients ahead of time. Prepare: simple instructions and a step-by-step guide help any level of home cook recreate Stopnicki’s recipes. Plate: making what you have prepared look beautiful when served and what you can serve it with.
Recipes include squash zucchini soup, mango salad with raspberry vinaigrette, broccoli kugel, grilled fennel with balsamic reduction, stuffed mushrooms, salmon pad thai, wasabi tuna steaks, maple-glazed turkey breast, spinach pesto stuffed chicken, skirt steak in rum sauce, simple savory brisket, chocolate-dipped hamantashen and pumpkin pie brulée.
Here are some recipes to try for the New Year.
QUINOA SCHNITZEL
status: meat, serves 6-8
Plan: This recipe can also be baked on cookie sheets. Lightly cover the cookie sheet with oil and coat the top of each schnitzel with non-stick cooking spray. Bake at 350°F for approximately 10 minutes on each side. Quinoa flakes are a great gluten-free alternative. They are light and healthy and easy to work with and can be found in most health food stores.
8 chicken breasts
2-2 1/2 cups dried quinoa flakes
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp pepper
2 eggs
1/2 cup cornstarch or potato starch
canola (or safflower) oil for frying
Prepare:
1. Slice chicken breasts horizontally and pound to flatten.
2. In a shallow bowl, combine quinoa flakes, salt, paprika, garlic powder and pepper.
3. In another shallow bowl, lightly beat eggs.
4. Pour the starch on a plate.
5. In a large skillet, heat oil over a high temperature for frying.
6. Lightly dip each piece of chicken in starch, egg, and finally the quinoa mixture.
7. Fry each piece of chicken, turning when necessary. You will know it’s cooked when all sides are golden.
Plate: There are endless debates on how one serves and eats schnitzel: with noodles, or salad, or even in a sandwich. Stopnicki’s favorite is Israeli-style with hummus, Israeli salad and basmati rice.
APPLE CINNAMON STREUSEL MUFFINS
status: pareve, makes 18 muffins
Plan: This sweet treat is a great muffin to have for the kids as an after-school snack. Double the recipe and freeze them so you can take them out as needed. They thaw in 10 minutes or so.
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
2 cups flour
1 tbsp cinnamon
2 tbsp baking powder
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup water
2 gala apples, peeled and finely diced
Streusel topping
3 tbsp margarine
1 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Prepare:
1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream eggs, vanilla, sugar and oil until mixture is light.
3. Add dry ingredients, applesauce, water and apples and combine well.
4. Pour batter into paper-lined muffin tins, filling them 2⁄3 of the way.
5. Meanwhile, combine all streusel ingredients until they achieve a sand-like consistency.
6.Pour one tablespoon of streusel mixture on top of each unbaked muffin.
7. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until the tops are slightly golden.
Plate: Enjoy these alone or with a hot cup of tea.
Plight of bees is our plight
A European honey bee extracts nectar from an aster flower. (photo by John Severns via Wikimedia Commons)
Around the world, bee populations have been decreasing in number, year by year, at an alarming rate. Such a tragedy isn’t just stinging the beekeepers, whose livelihoods depend on the honey-making insects, it’s affecting global agriculture.
And there’s more at stake than just honey production. Bees’ handiwork assists in the growth of myriad foodstuffs. In fact, millions of honey bees are depended upon to pollinate plants and crops, which produce a quarter of the food we consume.
According to Science Daily from May 2015, beekeepers across the United States lost more than 40% of their honey bee colonies from April 2014 to April 2015, compared to the previous year’s decrease of 34%.
This is determined from an annual cross-country survey that is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and conducted by Bee Informed Partnership with the Apiary Inspectors of America.
The survey asked commercial and small-scale beekeepers to track the health and survival rates of their honey bee colonies, in an effort to understand how to manage the decreasing population. This is the ninth straight year of losses. It’s referred to as colony collapse disorder.
More than 6,000 beekeepers, who manage 400,000 colonies from all 50 U.S. states responded. All told, these beekeepers are responsible for nearly 15% of the nation’s estimated 2.74 million managed honey bee colonies. The total economic value of honey bee pollination is said to be more than $15 billion each year in the United States alone.
Among small beekeepers – those who manage fewer than 50 colonies – a problem area appears to be the varroa mite, a lethal parasite, able to spread between colonies.
Beekeepers, environmental groups and some scientists also suspect blame lies with an insecticide known as neonicotinoids, or neonics. It is used on crops, such as corn, and on plants found in lawns and gardens. Its toll has been taken seriously enough that the Environmental Protection Agency is examining a series of studies on the insecticide and its effects on bees. The investigation is expected to be completed by year’s end.
The issue has even caught the attention of administrators at the White House, who have formed a task force to study the problem.
In Canada, the problem is even worse.
In Ontario, bee losses have been severe over the last few winters, measuring a decline of 58% in 2013-2014, due to a combination of extreme cold, mites, disease and the types of pesticides used on crops.
While it has experts scrambling for a solution, some people and companies are taking matters into their own hands.
One hotel is doing its part to increase the bee population. On the roof of the downtown Fairmont Royal York in Toronto, about 300,000 bees perch in six hives that produce anywhere between 500 and 900 pounds of honey per year. The hotel offers it to guests, and uses it in recipes.
CBC also recently installed hives on its rooftops in Toronto and Montreal, while Vancouver Police will build two hives at its headquarters.
Meanwhile, across the pond in England, the BBC reported that, in January 2014, in more than half of European countries, there were not enough honey bees to pollinate crops. And more than 14% of England’s honey bee colonies died over the winter, according to the latest research from the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA).
In the United Kingdom alone, nearly 90% of the apple crop and 45% of the strawberry crop relies on wild bees and managed honey bees to grow. It is a billion dollar economy there.
The BBKA’s annual survey of beekeepers across Great Britain showed the losses were up from nine percent last year, but lower than the year before; normal losses are about 10%. It blames “poor and variable weather, pesticides, bee diseases and parasites such as the varroa mite and starvation.”
To make matters worse, demand for the little honey-making insects has grown, while their numbers shrink.
Europe is experiencing a boom in biofuels, which is the result of the “EU renewable fuel directive,” where 10% of transport fuel must come from renewable sources by 2020. What that means for farming is planting a third more “oil” crops, like soybeans, oil palm, oilseed rape, sunflowers – all of which require ramping up bee numbers, which simply aren’t there.
According to the journal Plos One, Great Britain has only a quarter of the bees they need – their deficit equaling seven billion honey bees.
In light of this, as we approach Rosh Hashanah, you may think more about that little jar of honey on the festive meal table – millions, or perhaps billions, of honey bees came together to create that sweet liquid.
We know that the symbolism of honey on Rosh Hashanah is to have a sweet New Year. But there’s more: bees and the Jewish people are alike in many ways.
There’s little we can accomplish if we are alone; much that we can accomplish if we combine our efforts towards our goals as a people. We are more productive when in a community; our “hives” are our communities and synagogues, where we are needed – in fact, required – to be drawn to the whole. The honey bee teaches us that we must come together and work towards a higher purpose.
May everything go well next year not only for ourselves, friends, family and others, but for our little busy bee friends, buzz’mun hazeh!
Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than a hundred publications around the world.
How we pray to G-d
This year, Rosh Hashanah begins on the evening of Oct. 2. On the first day of the holiday, we read the Haftorah that tells us the story of Chana the prophetess, who prayed to G-d for a child. She prayed softly while whispering. Eli, the high priest and leader of the Jewish people, thought she was drunk, as this type of prayer was foreign to him.
She replied, “I’m not drunk, I’m praying for a child!”
Chana prayed to G-d and told Him, through her prophecy, that her child would be an important person in the Jewish nation. This, in fact, came true. Her wish was fulfilled, her son Samuel was born, and he became one of the greatest prophets of the Jewish people.
Chana’s method of prayer is used as the basis for all the Jewish laws of prayer. As well, the rabbis of the Great Assembly instituted the text of the prayers throughout the year based on Chana’s manner, specifically for the Amidah prayer of 18 blessings, called Shmona Esray, which is recited quietly while standing. This prayer is also said with deep concentration, as we are standing in G-d’s presence.
But there are also times when our hearts need to open up and scream out loud for what we need or want in our own words. G-d wants us to open our hearts to Him and give Him our emotions. Every day, all year long, each prayer we recite brings us closer to G-d. Every prayer we recite is immensely valuable if said with sincere feeling. When we need something and feel that only G-d can help us, we shout out to Him as we do when something hurts us physically.
Prayer is immensely powerful, especially when recited as a kindness for others. Our sages taught that if a person prays for a friend, they fulfil the biblical commandment (mitzvah) of performing kindness. If one is in the same situation as their friend and prays for their friend, they will be answered first.
There is the story of a farmer who went to his synagogue on Rosh Hashanah but couldn’t read at all. Being illiterate, he just wrapped himself in his tallit and stood shaking and screaming like a rooster, as that was the only way he knew how to express himself from the heart.
Our sages also taught that G-d receives more satisfaction from a single Jew praying than He does from the millions of heavenly angels who sing His praises day and night.
On Rosh Hashanah, there are many prayers we recite from the special prayer book, the Machzor. One of these is the Avinu Malkeinu prayer that means, “Our Father, our King.” This moving prayer lists our shortcomings and our needs as we plead for mercy from two perspectives. One is that G-d is our father who loves us and provides for us, so how could we be ungrateful to Him? The second one is that G-d is our king, who has absolute power over us and to whom we owe total allegiance, so how dare we challenge His authority?
Nevertheless, He always remains merciful. Therefore, we take the courage to approach Him from both aspects in our time of helplessness. If we deserve His mercy, let Him be tender as a parent and, if not, let Him judge us as necessary cogs in His empire. When the world sees G-d’s concern for His errant people, His glory becomes elevated and we become closer to Him.
We also listen to the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, which symbolizes the depth of our emotions that come out in a cry. It, too, is a form of prayer, an emotional outburst to G-d. There’s a simple message on Rosh Hashanah, that when we cry from the heart, someone listens! That’s the message of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah. When words end, the cry of the shofar begins. It is the sound of our tears. Tekiya: the call without words that surrounds all the shofar’s cries. Shevarim: a series of three sobs. Teruah: nine sighs, with which we ask G-d for His forgiveness.
May G-d hear all our prayers and supplications and grant us a healthy and prosperous year. May He hear all our prayers, silent and aloud, and fulfil them so that we will merit to hear the shofar of Moshiach imminently. Please G-d we will see real peace in Israel and all over the world.
Esther Tauby is a local educator, writer and counselor.
A Rosh Hashanah wakeup call
In just over a week, many of us will be in the synagogue. While listening to the sounds of the shofar, feel their power and reflect. (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
Close your eyes and imagine yourself in the synagogue listening to the blasting of the shofar, something many of us will be doing just over a week from now. Feel the power of the sound – the staccato notes, the longer notes, and the really, really long note – reverberate throughout the sanctuary.
The sounding of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah serves as a wakeup call for the Jewish people, a chance to start over with a clean slate. Maimonides describes the wakeup call in the Mishneh Torah, a code of Jewish religious law.
“Arise you who are fast asleep, and awaken you who slumber,” he writes. “Search your deeds, repent and be mindful of your Creator….”
Now close your eyes again and, this time, look back at the year behind you.
Did you live a year that mattered, and did you fill it with meaning? Did you laugh easily? Did you connect with someone new? Did you cultivate deeper connections with people you already knew? Did you chat with the barista at your coffee house? Did you smile at children?
Did you look up from toggling between apps on your phone to watch a setting sun or notice a full moon? Were you brave enough to take some risks and leap – even if you were scared? Did you dance? Did you say sorry, and mean it, to someone you hurt? Did you wander slowly through the rain? Did you notice ladybugs?
Did you honor your parents, your grandparents and other people who helped form you into the person you are today? Did you think about how your food gets from the land to your plate? Did you treat your body as a temple, at least some of the time? Did you stand up for the things that matter to you and stick up for people who needed it?
Were you sensitive to the pain and bloodshed of others that you heard about in the news – in your city, in Israel, and around the world? Were you present? Did you teach your children to be kind to people, to animals and to the earth? Did you give tzedakah? Did you give thanks each day for something in your life? When you spoke about other people, were you thoughtful about what you chose to say? Did you appreciate the fact that someone always has it worse than you do, and did you recognize that you’re luckier than most people in this world? Were you honest? Did you trust?
Did you give yourself a break about the things beyond your control? Did you value the sacrifices of your ancestors that made the world a better place? Were you a mentor to anyone? Did you open your mind and listen to people whose beliefs and ideas are different from your own? Did you let a baby’s tiny hand grasp your finger? Did you give big tips? Did you visit someone sick? Did you read and learn about something new? Did you do something you didn’t really feel like doing because you knew it would make someone else happy?
Did you stand and say the Mourner’s Kaddish for someone you loved and lost, or did you say it alongside someone else who lost a loved one? Did you learn a new skill? Did you smell rosemary, pinewood, vanilla or cinnamon? Did you invite a guest to come and share your Shabbat table? Did you dream big?
OK, now that you’ve looked back over the past year, close your eyes again – but this time look ahead to next year.
How will you fill your life and the lives of others with spirituality, meaning and love? Who will you surround yourself with?
We, Jews, are lucky for a chance to take stock – to awaken from our slumber – and then press reset for a new year.
Wishing you and your loved ones a year ahead filled with health, happiness, sweetness, fulfilment and peace. L’shanah tovah u’metukah!
Cindy Sher is the executive editor of Chicago’s JUF News. To read more from JNS.org, click here.
Yellow dates for New Year’s
To make biblical date honey, Middle Eastern Jews boil and press dates that range in color from yellow to brown. (photo by Barry A. Kaplan)
The Torah describes Israel as eretz zvat chalav u’dvash, the land flowing with milk and honey, although the honey was more than likely date honey, since beekeeping is not mentioned in the Bible.
The word honey in Hebrew, dvash, has the same numerical value as the words Av Harachamim, Father of Mercy. We hope that G-d will be merciful on Rosh Hashanah as He judges us for our year’s deeds.
To make silan, or biblical date honey, Middle Eastern Jews boil and press dates that range in color from yellow to brown. Apples can be dipped into the date honey in the hope for a sweet new year. In the markets in Israel during this season, one finds strings of these dates.
In the 2011 article “Cooking class, it’s a date, honey,” cookbook author Faye Levy writes: “For many Jews, apples are the Rosh Hashanah fruit par excellence. For me, fresh dates are the fruit that herald the coming of the New Year. As soon as I see the bright yellow dates at the market, I begin to plan my menus.
“I’ve heard people say they’re not fond of fresh yellow dates. I have learned to enjoy them at their khalal [initial] stage, when they are crunchy and less sweet, but I prefer to wait until they become honey-brown, [the] stage called rutab.”
There are several kinds of dates grown in Israel, including Medjool, which Levy notes “are delicious and easier to find than perfectly ripened yellow dates.”
But, regardless of type, dates are a traditional Rosh Hashanah food, and form part of the Sephardi seder, which dates to the Babylonian Talmud.
“An elaborate Maghrebi [the region made up of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya] specialty calls for nut-stuffed dates that are used to stuff a chicken or a large fish,” writes Levy. For Shabbat, she explains, dates might be added to dafina, which is a Sephardi meat stew cooked overnight to eat on Saturday lunch, or Moroccan hamin, another slow-cooked overnight stew for Saturday eating. The dates “contribute a subtle sweetness that mellows the flavor of the sauce. A dish from Baghdad from the Middle Ages calls for stewing lamb with dates and sweet spices.”
Silan, which Levy notes was brought to Israel by Iraqi Jews, is also known as date molasses or date syrup.
Varda Shilo, author of Kurdistani Cooking (in Hebrew), describes how to make it. Dried dates are simmered in water to porridge consistency, then the mixture is spooned into a cloth bag, moistened with more water and squeezed to remove the juice. This juice is simmered until thickened and is kept in jars.
Shilo explains that breakfast is the meal at which date honey is most often enjoyed in the Middle East, mixed with tahini (sesame seed paste) and served with bread.
Kinneret Farm silan makers suggest other ways of using date honey, such as adding it to stir-fried vegetables, as a sweetener for beverages, in sweet-potato pancakes, with an added dash of cinnamon.
“Dates are best known for their uses in sweets,” writes Shilo. “They are a favorite filling for the rich Middle Eastern cookies called ma’amoul and for rolled cookies resembling rugelach that are popular around the region.”
“In Persia,” write Reyna Simnegar, author of Persian Food from the Non-Persian Bride, “walnut-stuffed dates are a Rosh Hashanah treat. The stuffed dates are drizzled with a little syrup and sprinkled with cinnamon.
“Another popular way to serve dates is as a snack with tea.”
“Cooks in Egypt use the firm, fresh yellow dates to make jam,” says Levana Zamir in Cooking from the Nile’s Land (in Hebrew). “They also use them to make stuffed dates. First, they remove the dates’ very thin peel with a sharp knife and cook the dates in water until they are soft. Next, they pit the dates without cutting them in half.
Instead, they push the pit out with a hairpin so that each date can be stuffed with a blanched, peeled almond. Then they make a clove-and-lemon-flavored syrup from the dates’ cooking liquid. One by one, the stuffed dates are carefully added to the syrup, simmered and then cooled. The sweets are served with Turkish coffee and a glass of cold water. Making them is quite an undertaking but … these stuffed fresh dates are a delicacy fit for kings.”
Some Moroccans dip apples in honey and serve cooked quince, which is an apple-like fruit, symbolizing a sweet future. Other Moroccans dip dates in sesame and anise seeds and powdered sugar in addition to dipping apples in honey.
In her book The Foods of Israel Today, Joan Nathan writes about having lunch at Jerusalem restaurant Eucalyptus, when owner/chef Moshe Basson put a bowl of tahini “on the table and swirled in a date syrup called silan or halek, which he explained was a biblical ‘honey,’ one of the seven foods in the land of Canaan cited in the Book of Deuteronomy. Today, visitors can see a 2,000-year-old date-honey press, similar to an ancient wine press but smaller, near the Dead Sea at Qumran, the sites where, in 1947, a Bedouin youth found the Dead Sea Scrolls hidden in earthen jars.”
Nathan writes further that Ben-Zion Israeli, one of the founders of Kibbutz Kinneret, dressed as an Arab and, in 1933, went to Iraq and smuggled 900 date saplings back to Palestine. Over the years, with many trips, he brought back more than 7,000 saplings from Iraq, Iran and Kurdistan; about half took root. Shmuel Stoller later brought saplings from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In the 1970s, Medjool and Deglet Noor varieties were introduced from the Coachella Valley in California.
If you are wondering about dates and your health, Judy Siegel-Itzkovich writes in the 2013 Jerusalem Post article “Local dates are best variety to fight disease”: “All nine varieties of dates grown in Israel and found on any supermarket shelf have characteristics that make them better than other varieties at helping protect those who consume them against cardiovascular diseases.
“This has just been demonstrated by Prof. Michael Aviram and colleagues from Haifa’s Rambam Medical Centre and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. The research was published in the prestigious Journal of Agriculture Food Chemistry.”
The research team found that the most effective varieties for health are yellow, Barhi, Deri, Medjool and Halawi dates, and that, despite there being about 20 different types of dates growing around the world, those from the Jordan Valley and the Arava are the best.
Aviram warned Siegel-Itzkovich, however, that silan won’t help much. “As silan is a sweet concentrate that does not contain fibres, it is far from the real thing,” he said.
The article also noted, “A study the researchers published in the same journal four years ago showed that eating three dates a day does not raise blood sugar levels in healthy people, but it does reduce blood triglycerides and even ‘improves the quality’ of blood cholesterol by reducing its oxidation. These effects reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke and other vascular diseases, they said.”
Nonetheless, Aviram advised diabetics against eating a lot of dates, as they are high in sugar.
In addition to the health benefits of dates, the Post article also highlighted 2009 research Aviram had led, showing that “antioxidants from the group of polyphenols found in pomegranates, red wine and olive oil help remove plaque from inside the arteries. In the new research, the team found that dates can bring about the slowing and even regression of atherosclerosis (accumulation of fatty plaque) in the coronary arteries, and that eating one of the three specific date varieties is most effective.
“The material in dates has the clear ability to speed up the removal of excess cholesterol from endothelial cells inside blood vessels, the team said.”
While dates have been grown for thousands of years and their health benefits have been cited since ancient times, it is only in relatively recent history that science is confirming many of the beliefs.
High in fibre and also containing many minerals, such as potassium, zinc, magnesium and calcium, Aviram and his team, writes Siegel-Itzkovich, “recommend following a Mediterranean diet – with its variety of vegetables and fruit (including dates), fish, whole grains and olive oil – rather than eating just one or two ingredients, so that a whole range of oxidative factors that cause atherosclerosis can be neutralized.”
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 walks in English in Jerusalem’s market.
Making your own traditions
As an alternative or addition to synagogue services, you could find a nice place outside in which to pray or reflect. (photo by Jan Lieberman via Wikimedia Commons)
There is a lot of beauty to the traditional synagogue experience. However, a traditional High Holidays service just does not speak to some, especially many young adults.
“Buying seats for the High Holidays is super-expensive,” said Rachel Moses, a marketer for a Jewish nonprofit from Mt. Washington, Md. “It also just doesn’t feel like it’s my place.”
If you think like Moses, consider skipping the tickets, and celebrating Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur outside the traditional four walls of your family synagogue. Here are nine alternative ways to connect to the High Holidays without stepping foot in a shul.
- Build community
Thomas Arnold, who works in Homeland Security and is from Pikesville, Md., says people often interpret Yom Kippur as a heavy day of repentance. In contrast, the day’s prohibitions – things like fasting, not wearing leather footwear, not making love to your partner, refraining from taking a bath – are intended to help us think less about our own needs and more about those of others.
“The point is to understand there are people that don’t have food, that don’t have water, that don’t have shoes to wear,” said Arnold, citing the 18th-century ethical Jewish book Mesillat Yesharim: The Path of the Upright by Italian rabbi and philosopher Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto. “We don’t have sex because there are people in the world who don’t have partners and cannot connect in that way.”
Arnold looks for people who are in need, lacking something or are lonely, and makes a point of giving to them during the High Holiday season. Sometimes, he invites them over for a meal, and other times he just lends them a helping hand.
“On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, make it about other people,” he said.
- Host a meal
Rabbi Jessy Gross, named by the Forward as one of the most inspiring rabbis of 2016, said some of her best holiday memories are not from the synagogue, but from places where people came together, like at her holiday table.
“Having meals with other people, especially if the person hosting can serve traditional Jewish foods, creates an opportunity … to celebrate Jewish food and culture,” said Gross.
Shari Seidman Klein of Beit Shemesh in Israel agrees. She cooks a holiday meal for her family, as well as for her children, a few of whom choose not to attend traditional activities. Apples and honey, round raisin challah and other sweet things bring the kids and their friends back to her dining room each year.
- Change something
Klein said she often instructs her Hebrew school students, many of whom are products of intermarriage, to use the High Holidays as a time to better themselves. She tells them, “Take on one thing for one day.”
For example, rather than fasting on Yom Kippur, she recommended giving up candy, soda or something else they like to eat. Older individuals might decide to give up the personal comfort of watching TV, or they might make the higher commitment of refraining from talking badly about others.
“It’s the idea of tikkun olam, bettering the world,” said Klein. “That one thing on that one day can take you back to the basics of being – and thinking.”
- Do Tashlich
One of Gross’ favorite rituals is Tashlich, for which all a person needs is access to a body of natural water such as a creek, pond or river. She recommends taking some bread or crackers and spending some time by the water meditating or journaling.
“I like to think about where I have missed the mark or haven’t reached my potential and cast this out,” she said. “It is great opportunity to … think about what you want as we evolve into the coming year. It’s a process of spiritual cleansing and preparedness.”
- Form a minyan
The Israeli organization Tzohar has been working to bring together the religious and secular Jewish communities in the Jewish state. In the central city of Lod, Tzohar’s executive vice-president, Yakov Gaon, said his organization found that many secular Israelis refrain from going to synagogue, not because they don’t want to pray, but because the service is too fast, politicized, costly or uncomfortable.
“They don’t know how to dress, when to stand up or sit down,” Gaon said.
About 15 years ago, Tzohar began creating alternative minyans in community centres, schools and gyms. The services bring like-minded people together. Each service is assigned a leader who announces the prayer page numbers to read, and explains what’s happening in the prayers. Today, more than 56,000 people take part in these Yom Kippur services at 300 locations across Israel. An additional 1,500 people attend one of Tzohar’s 60 Rosh Hashanah services.
- Go to Israel
While it may be too late now to book a trip, in general, traveling to Israel on or around the High Holidays is a more special experience than traveling there during nearly any other time of year, said Arnold, whose daughter is studying in Israel for the year.
Arnold said Israelis have a reputation for being rude or pushy, but during the Hebrew month of Elul – this month, which leads up to Rosh Hashanah – Israelis tend to mellow out.
“It’s like they know it instinctively,” Arnold said with a laugh. “Their Jewish souls come out and they know it is the Yamim Noraim (High Holy Days) and they better get themselves together.”
The whole country prepares with holiday festivals, music, delicious holidays foods and smells, he said.
- Host discussion
Skipping the rabbi’s sermon? Write your own, and invite others to hear it. Klein has tapped into several online resources, such as myjewishlearning.com, to provide fodder for discussion at the table, or for her son and his friends to discuss in an intimate setting. Gross, too, said that using online content and hosting a discussion group can help you learn about the holiday, and then share those insights with others.
- Reflect in Elul
There is still time to make an Elul reflection calendar. Create a pie chart divided by the Hebrew months, said Gross. Break each pie down by the number of days in that month. On each slice, record a guided meditation question or something you want to work on. Then, every morning or before bed, read it and reflect.
Here, too, Gross added, there are plenty of online trigger questions if you need guidance.
- Have a picnic
Mt. Washington’s Moses said hosting or attending a holiday picnic brings people together, offering a venue to eat traditional foods and also spend time in nature. While the children are playing, the adults can host the aforementioned discussion group, or meditate under the open sky.
- Pray outside
In general, being outside is a good way to infuse spirituality into your holiday. Transform your backyard, a park or a forest into a synagogue and pray.
Most years, Moses attends Baltimore Hebrew Congregation’s Rosh Hashanah Under the Stars program, which offers an alternative Jewish New Year get-together for members and non-members.
“There are thousands of people there, right under the stars, with no ceiling above you,” said Moses. “You feel like you are one with nature, with each other and with God – whatever sense of God there is.”
On years she cannot make the service, she and her family might travel to Ocean City, Md., instead. “We’ll just sit there and listen to the ocean,” she said.
To read more from JNS.org, click here.
Shofar’s deeper messages
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).
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 Tauby is a local educator, writer and counselor.
Time for new shofar?
Paul Harnett felt “compelled to understand the nature of the shofar, and what it embodied.” (photo from Paul Harnett)
In 2000, Paul Harnett was living in Vancouver. On the day before a flight to the East Coast for a family reunion, his mother asked him to purchase her a shofar. He found one at Temple Sholom. He didn’t know it at the time, but that purchase would lead him on a journey of personal transformation, turning him – 14 years later – into one of the Lower Mainland’s main shofar producers.
Harnett, 53, who lives in Abbotsford with his wife Iris, is inspired by Judaism but not halachically Jewish himself. When asked what brought him to shofar making, he said, “The shofar picked me, I felt drawn by it.” Moreover, he felt “compelled to understand the nature of the shofar, and what it embodied…. Shofar making requires lots of practise and perseverance and getting the horn blown properly takes many months to perfect the art.”
In 2009, an Orthodox Jewish friend from Montreal claimed Harnett’s shofars were not kosher due to the type of horn used. Concerned, Harnett wrote to Rabbi Eliezer Danzinger of chabad.org, who responded, citing Orach Chaim (586:1), that they are indeed kosher because his horns come from kosher animals. With renewed confidence, Harnett committed to producing the highest quality shofars that he could for his customers around the country.
Harnett sources raw horns from Israel, England, Africa and the United States. Each horn has a unique sound and, if properly tuned, can be used as musical accompaniment. Composer Herman Berlinski, for example, and others have explored the dynamics of this ancient instrument.
On two occasions, Harnett has blown the shofar for visiting dignitaries from the Knesset, once in order for them to honor and recognize the Tsawwassen First Nation. Among other events, he also accompanied a blowing of the shofar at a Holocaust memorial hosted by Beth El Synagogue in St. John’s, Nfld.
In addition to the command to blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, there are other reasons to own your own. “The shofar is not only a prayer without words,” said Harnett, “it is a visible testament of our identity when displayed as a beautiful ornament in your home.”
As accessories, he makes custom stands out of granite for the shofar, while his wife makes shofar bags from chintz.
Prices for Harnett’s shofars range from $50 to $500, depending on the quality of the horn itself and the time spent making the shofar; shofars can be shipped, upon request. For more information, Harnett will soon have a new website, beharshofars.com.
Gil Lavie is a freelance correspondent, with articles published in the Jerusalem Post, Shalom Toronto and Tazpit News Agency. He has a master’s of global affairs from the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.