High Holy Days 5774:Who Causes the Wind to Blow and the Rain to Fall

Ordinarily, on Shemini Atzeret--the eighth day of lingering--at the end of Sukkot, we add t'filat ha-geshem--the prayer for rain--to the Amidah, which is the standing prayer in the daily services.  It is considered bad luck when the rains come early, and make it difficult to dwell in the Sukkah--the harvest booth--as is commanded during the Feast of Ingathering Harvest.

 Geshem continues to be said across the winter until the spring Festival of Pesach is celebrated, when the summer blessing for Tal--Dew--is added and Geshem is retired until the next Sukkot Holiday. This corresponds to the seasons of Israel, wet in the winter and dry in the summer. 

This year. even as the Holy Days came early in the solar year, Rosh Hashanah starting on the evening of the 4th of September, so too did the rains come early. Or in our case, the monsoon stayed late, making holiday travel as difficult for Jews in Catron County, New Mexico, as it was for the Jews of Judea in the days of old when farmers were expected to build their Sukkot on the hills surrounding Jerusalem.

We had planned to attend High Holy Day Services in Flagstaff, at the little Heichal ba-Oranim synagogue, where we had gone last year. I was looking forward to finally being able to join that congregation, now that the house in Sedillo is under contract, and we are able to make the necessary contributions. We have been without a home synagogue for more than a year, and we were looking forward to making a commitment and enjoying a pleasant holiday in a very haimish shul. 

Alas, it was not to be. As September came, a new and very wet monsoon plume settled over the Southwest. Predictions of thunderstorms and flash floods became a daily reminder that our roads could become impassible in no time at all.

 Rosh Hashanah itself was partly cloudy, but the threat of rain made us decide to stay home lest we not be able to get back should the rains come.  We had a festive meal with all of the traditional foods on Erev Rosh Hashanah, and we prayed the evening service on the porch.
 The next morning, we again prayed on the porch, the sun dancing with the clouds as I proclaimed: Ha-yom harat olam!  This is the day of the world's birth! And the Engineering Geek blew the intricate set of Shofar calls three times: once for Creation, once for Memory, and once for Revelation. The sound of the Shofar rang out across Freedom Ridge, and the horses raised their heads, the dogs barked, and the cows began lowing. The hawk soared and circled on the wind, unconcerned. 

In the afternoon, we did leave for a drive around Big Lake, where the EG and my nephew skipped stones on the water after we cast our bread upon them in the ancient and fanciful ceremony of Tashlich, a casting away of the old and inviting in of the New Year. I have always thought that Tashlich is simply an excuse to take a walk on Rosh Hashanah afternoon, after a long morning service. It began to rain as we drove back along the county road to the ranch. Second day, and thunderstorms near candle-lighting for Shabbat. We missed the Sacred Assembly on the first and second days of the Seventh Month entirely. 

On Sunday after a day of rain, I drove out with the EG behind me in the Dodge Ram in case he had to pull me out. After slipping and sliding down the county road,  I went to Albuquerque for class, and to take care of some business. And on Tuesday, the rain set in there. It rained all day. ALL DAY. A record rainfall. I came home Wednesday, between storms. The road was soft, and there was water in the arroyo, and I drove on the high spots between ruts. Thursday, the rain began in our part of the state, and we knew that there would be no travel to Flagstaff for us. Friday, as I prepared the pre-fast meal, I read about the flooding in Colorado on the internet.

Just before sunset, we invited Yitzak Pearlman to perform Kol Nidre via YouTube.
All vows that we make between this Yom Kippur and the next . . .
Then candle lighting, and the evening service. I sang the parts of the service we could do without a minyan.
 Lightning played across Freedom Ridge as we let the dogs in and began the Al Chet. 
 V'al kulam eloah s'lichot . . . for all these, O G-d of Forgiveness. . . 
and the electric lights flickered along with the candles. A bolt of lighting. Almost simultaneous thunder. And the lights went out, leaving only the flickering candles.  
Lev tahor b'ra-li, elohim . . .create in me a clean heart, O G-d . . . our shadows large upon the eastern wall in the candle light. Sometime in the night, the candles went out and the electricity was restored, but we were sleeping and the next light we saw was a pearly, gray dawn and ragged clouds scudding across the sky, driven by a wet wind. 

We dressed again in white. No leather, no grooming. For the first Yom Kippur day of my marriage, I did not see my husband--Reform Princeling that he is--in a dark suit, starched white shirt and somber tie. As we sat on the couch and read aloud from Climbing Jacob's Ladder: One Man's Journey to Rediscover a Jewish Spiritual Tradition the clouds gathered in the south. "Wind from the South has water in its mouth'\," chanted the EG, as the sky darkened and the rains began.
All that day, as we prayed in the cool, shadowy living room in stocking feet, our tallitot wrapped for warmth and the feeling of being enfolded by Shechinah--the Indwelling Presence--the rains came in sprinkles and soft curtains, now and again hiding the Red Hill.

Morning Service.
"Let us proclaim the sacred power of this day:
It is awesome and full of dread . . .
On Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed. . . 
Who by fire, and who by water, who by sword and who by beast . . ."

Additional Service. And a short walk in the sprinkling rain.
Resting on the porch, still well wrapped.
Memorial Service.

Afternoon Service. The Ten Martyrs.
Eili tzion v'areha . . . For Zion and her cities I mourn 
like a mother in her anguish,
 like a woman who mourns the husband of her youth.  
I mourn the exile of the servants of G-d,
makers of sweet melodies,
v'al dama asher shufach . . . their blood poured out like Zion's streams. 

And all that day the rains fell, weeping like Rachel for her children . . .
For we did not know, cut off in the sacred silence of that day, that in Colorado, in New Mexico, in Catron County, the flood waters were rising, and in the Blue River Canyon on Catron's border with Arizona, people were lifted out by helicopter and brought out on bulldozers. And it rained. And rained.

Neilah. The Closing of the Gates. 

"This is the house of G-d.
This is the gate of heaven . . . 
El norah alila . . . G-d of awesome deeds, 
grant us pardon . . . b'sh-at neilah . . . as the gates begin to close.
Avinu malkenu . . . let the gates of heaven be open to our prayer . . .
let the new year be a good year for us . . . make an end to all oppression
upon us . . .be our help. 

And the rain stopped. And we stopped to say the blessing for the Rainbow
 as the last rays of the setting sun shone across our valley.
". . . zocher ha-brit . . . who remembers the covenant . . .
Seu Sha-arim roshechem . . . Lift up your heads, O Gates!
Ha-shem, hu ha-elohim. . . 
Seven times and the last long blast of the Shofar.
We thought of it happening hour after hour as the world turned from day to night.
All those at the Wall.

Havdalah. 
"Blessed is the One who separates the holy from the ordinary,
light from darkness, the House of Israel from among the peoples. . ."
And the candle is extinguished in the sweet wine, the taste of which is on our lips.
And the lamps are lighted.

Motzi.
". . . who brings forth bread from the earth . . ."
Sweet round challah with raisins. 
Cream cheese.
Salmon. 

We broke the fast, and eating and drinking, we once again consider the goodness of the ordinary riches of our lives. 
"For I saw how good it is for [man], and beautiful, to eat and drink and know goodness for all his work that he does under the sun . . ."  

We had good holidays. It was still beautiful and filled with meaning that we made, though we missed the beauty of being in the midst of the holy congregation.
But the rains kept us off the roads and in our home. 
We made the best of it and we did well. 

We are soggy, and today I bottomed out the car in the arroyo, and had to have it towed because the box that monitors emissions and engine codes came loose. 
We have rutted roads, a few wash-outs, and full streams.
But no helicoptors or bulldozers.
We have electricity.
We are well.

It's raining again.
The water-pouring of Shemini Atzeret comes a little early.
Blessed is the One who causes the wind to blow and the rain to fall.
Geshem. 
We wanted rain and we needed rain. 
Everything is green, even as the Aspens are beginning to turn gold.
But maybe, just maybe, it's time to build an ark? They need one in Colorado, Northern New Mexico, and on the Blue River.
What's a cubit . . . 

Rosh HaShannah: The Turning of the Year

New Mexico Sunflowers in Rock Garden

     "I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, they  shall never hold their peace, day or night."  Isaiah 62:3

This morning we awoke to a sunny and cool, early fall day, mists rising from the ground, and the sky in the south and east milky white in contrast to the deep blue New Mexico sky to the northwest. After a week of wind, clouds and rain, we were happy to see the sun. As the Catron Kid went riding on Chapo, the Engineering Geek and I started out of the front gate with three of the dogs, anticipating a Shabbat walk along the western fences of Freedom Ridge Ranch. The cool morning turned into a warm and sunny day as we climbed up the mesa to the northwest, greeting the other two horses, grazing up there in the high pasture.

We noted how the year is turning, talking about some of the things we want to do this coming year on the ranch: putting a windmill and solar combined tower up along the ridge behind the house, divide the high pasture, and divide the front pasture, get the solar completely installed, and take more walks like this one, enjoying the beauty of the place.

Early fall on the Continental Divide is different in appearance from what I grew up with and even from what we experienced in the East Mountains. Here, instead of bold oranges and browns, with the grass of soft wheat color, we see water in the stock tanks, and pooling in the draws and washes, a gift of the late days of a good Monsoon. The grass is green from the water, and the sky soft blue, like spring in more conventional parts of America. The boldest colors come from the yellow Black-Eyed Susans and New Mexico Sunflowers, the orange and pink of Globe-Mallow, and the blues and purples of various clovers, gilias and penstemons, and the rare orange-red of Indian Paintbrush on the high mesa tops and along the washes in the canyons. Fall steals into this high country on the heels of the late summer wildflowers, color dotting the gray-green of the range subtly, as the days grow shorter and sunshine replaces the late-afternoon Monsoon rainfall. The days grow shorter, the shadows deepen and the nights grow even cooler.

And with the turning of the year, we mark the New Year for Years, Rosh Hashannah, which falls on the first day of the seventh month in the Jewish Calendar. As the heat of summer fades, we welcome a new beginning just before the harvest: 5773. As we took our walk, we savored the peace around the Sabbath noontide, and we did not speak of our fears and concerns, heightened this week by the world's slide into chaos, and threatened Israel's complete isolation as it deals with the threat of annihilation.  It is easy, way out here, to move with the turn of the earth, the comings and goings of the herds and flocks, and the blowing of the wind. It is quiet, and the nature of the place and its solitude knows not of human strife, chaos and wars. New Mexicans outside the three cities we have in the state are accused of being provincial, and we are, being far removed from the goings on beyond our mesas and mountains. "The mountains are high," we say, "And the king is far away."

But even without television (we have one, but we don't get broadcast TV --or radio--in our canyon), we do hear of what is happening "out there," although it seems far away. So inevitably, when we returned from our two hour hike up the mesa and around and down, and turned to the Haftarah, the perils our country and our people face stared up at us from the printed page, the words of a prophet writing  more than two-and-a-half millennia ago. There is nothing new under the sun in the affairs of men, I thought, though that idea comes from a Megillah we will read later in the fall, at Sukkot.

Perils for Israel, deserted by the President of the United States, her Prime Minister snubbed and denied a meeting even as the her people prepare for war, and the Jewish People across the world face new threats from a very old prejudice. We fear for the safety of that tiny country where our prophets and kings once walked. And we fear for the integrity and safety of our own country and its people, and for our people everywhere.

But this Haftarah that complements Parashat Nitzavim in Torah, is the last of the seven haftarot of consolation. And in it, Isaiah--writing to a people in exile--speaks of victory and restoration. And so it speaks to us now, and to our great concern in the midst of a world sliding once again into chaos. It says to us, war and destruction are not outside out experience, and yet we are still here. We have stood on the edge of danger and peril before, and yet we are still here, able to reason in the face of our fears, to annul the plans of our enemies as necessary:

Who is it coming from Edom, with crimsoned clothing from Bazrah?  Glorious in apparel, stately in greatness of his strength? I who speaks in victory, mighty to save. . . .

. . . I have trodden the winepress alone, and there was no man with me;      Yes, I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my fury, and their lifeblood is dashed against my clothing, and I have stained all my raiment. For the day of vengeance that was in my heart, and my year of redemption have come.        And I looked and there was none to help, and I beheld in astonishment and there was none to uphold. Therefore, my own arm brought salvation to me, and my fury, it upheld me.  (Isaiah 63: 1; 3 - 5)

This year, as Rosh HaShannah approaches, and greetings come to us from Israel, we hear a message very different from earlier years. Then we heard greetings that were upbeat, anticipating the happiness and contentment to come. "It's gonna be a good year!" Now we hear echoes of Isaiah from Latma, from the IDF: "We are not afraid. We are ready, we are standing guard. The Eternal is riding with us. Others tried to destroy us, and where are they?" 

As we come again to the turning of the year, we find ourselves deeper into the Fourth Turning and closer to the crisis. The outcome of the crisis and the shape of what follows very much depends upon the decisions that we make about how we will face what is coming and what we choose to do. It is a fearful Rosh Hashannah this year, knowing that Israel stands alone, threatened with nuclear holocaust; remembering the High Holy Days of 1973 (5733) when Israel was also fighting for her life, alone, while Jews the world over spent Yom Kippur listening to clandestine radios in services, hands clenched, hoping and praying for her survival. This year, once again, we will find ourselves praying for the peace of Jerusalem, hoping against hope that Israel will be able to remove the growing threat without starting World War III.

Halvai! 

And in the coming year, may all of us find those points of light, those moments of happiness and those days of contentment in our lives, and those transcendent moments of joy and beauty in the world, that remind us of why we hope and why we work to make each moment, day and year of our lives fruitful and full of goodness and plenty.

Kayn y'hi ratzon!



And may 5773 be a good year for us.

Catching Up: A Bitter-Sweet New Year

Catching Up: Circumstances and holidays, Jewish and American, have all come together to create a blog-cation of nearly two weeks at Ragamuffin House and Ragamuffin Ranch. This is the second catching up post today! This week, I am beginning a regular writing routine, in order to be more faithful to blogging on all kinds of topics, not just politics.

Rosh Hashanah 5771:


Shanah Tovah--as the graphic says: A Good Year--for a High Holy Days season that kind of snuck up on us, beginning in the same week as Labor Day.
Our lunar Jewish calendar is intercalated with the Western solar calendar, so that seven times in 19 years, we add a leap month to keep the holy times and seasons in line with the actual seasons. Sometimes leap month comes every two years, and sometimes, like this year, it comes in the third year. When that happens, the second year comes with holy days that are very early according to the solar calendar.

So Rosh Hashanah 5771--the Jewish New Year--snuck up on me, and we almost missed Elul, the month of preparation. Or did we? So much is happening in the world and in our lives, and during Elul, I think our hearts and minds were busy with changes--some welcome, some unexpected, and some necessary to the times and seasons.


On Wednesday evening we ate a very good dinner complete with round cinnamon-raison Challah, dipped our apples in honey--for a sweet year, and then went to synagogue to welcome the new year with our beloved (if at times exasperating) fellow Jews. We hoped and prayed for a good and prosperous year for ourselves and the whole House of Israel. May it be so! May we make it so!

On Thursday and Friday at the first and second day morning services, we performed the Mitzvah--the commandment--of hearing the Shofar, the wild calling of the Ram's Horn, to awaken us, to warn us, to strengthen us for what is coming: the good, the bad and the ugly.

Given the signs of the times, I think the bitter-sweet mood among our fellow Jews is indeed timely. Economic hard times are only beginning, and tends to cause the anti-Semites to come pouring out of the woodwork. Israel is threatened, and war with Iran may not be avoidable, which brings a large number of our people under the gun. And the new Exodus from Europe--Jews leaving countries where they are warned not to tell who they are, or wear a kippah, or a star, for fear of retribution from the growing Muslim majorities in Sweden, in France, only because they exist as Jews. The world grows harder and more troubled.

And yet, we remind ourselves at our solemn and yet hopeful assembly:

". . . how unyielding is the will of our people Israel! After the long nights, after the days and years when our ashes blackened the sky, Israel endures, hearts still turned to love, souls still turned to life.
So day and night, early and late, we still rejoice in the study of Torah, we will walk by the light of Mitzvot. They are our life and the length of our days. Praised be the Source of Life, and Love, and Israel, our people!"
--CCAR and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (1978): Sha'arei T'shuvah: The New Union Prayer Book for the Days of Awe (p. 25-26).

We have survived worse, and come back to flourishing life. The dry bones are clothed in new flesh. And at those times when the outside world becomes hard and troubled, we must summon within us the resolve to keep the flame alive within our own hearts, and within the hearts of our homes and our synagogues, in order to succor the strength and resolve to come through this latest great gate in history with strength and honor and love of life.

And may this year indeed be a good year for me, and you, and the whole House of Israel, and the whole world. For Rosh Hashanah commemorates and celebrates the birth of the world, and the goodness of life.

Jews with Guns II: IDF Psalm 121

L'Shanah Tova from the IDF and Carolyn Glick of the Jerusalem Post.
Glick says:

" . . .it occurred to me that the people of Israel don't really care about Goldstone and the UN and all their libels against our sons, and daughters, our brothers and sisters, husbands and wives in the IDF. We aren't seeking their approval or permission. We know who we are and we know who our soldiers are. "



Text of Psalm 121:

A Song of the Ascents:
I will lift my eyes to the mountains,
from whence cometh my help.
My help is from the Eternal,
maker of the heavens and the earth.
G-d will not allow your foot to slip,
your Guardian does not slumber;
Behold, the Guardian of Israel
neither slumbers nor sleeps.
G-d is your Guardian,
G-d is the shade at your right hand.
By day the sun will not harm you,
nor the moon by night.
G-d will protect you from every evil,
G-d will guard your soul.
G-d will guard your going out and your coming in.
From this time to forever.

Zichronot (Remembrance): You Shall Go Out in Joy

Rosh Hashanah 5770 began Friday at sundown.

This year the High Holy Days seemed to sneak up on me, and yet, as I have come to expect, they are still a roller coaster ride of events and emotions.

This year the New Year was bittersweet, our first without the Chemistry Geek Princess. I have not written of it, or of her upcoming wedding, because mixed in with my joy at seeing her coming up in the world is also the personal heartbreak of watching her choose to leave Judaism behind her. For me, being a Jew has a light side and a dark side and binds my personal universe together. Like all loves, it is exciting, frustrating, challenging, comforting, fulfilling. It is so inextricably part of who I am that I would be unrecognizeable to myself were I to wake up tomorrow not a Jew.

And yet somehow, in our topsy-turvy lives, I did not convey this to my daughter. She did not find it compelling. It is, we say, hard to be a Jew. And in this day and age, each person must choose Judaism for herself.

Perhaps there is a moment in the life of every mother when her eyes are opened and she wonders: How did this one grow beneath my heart, how did this child come forth from my body, and yet become so inexplicably foreign to me? How is my own child more unrecognizable to me than the child of a stranger, the young woman who stood to chant B'reshit (Creation), on this the second day of Rosh Hashanah, at the service in the mountains?

As Jews, we share the mythos that all of us stood at Sinai amidst the fire, the smoke, the awe and the blasts of the Shofar. Everyone who has the soul a Jew, whether she comes to it early or late; whether he comes to it through struggle, or by slipping into it as one slips into the world between one moment and the next at birth; everyone who is a Jew stood at Sinai, and in that moment out of time, accepted the covenant as an individual. This is our shared Ur-story, our shared myth and shared remembrance.

And today, as I sat under the Ponderosa Pines listening to our rabbi sing of remembering Sinai, and as I felt the heat and tasted the smoke, I understood that the Chemistry Geek Princess did not stand there with us in that time outside of time. In that mythic time she was elsewhere, partaking of a different story, choosing another way. For it is hard to be a Jew.

Since learning, during the week of Pesach, that the Chemistry Geek Princess was no longer crossing over the boundaries with us, I have not gone to a single Shabbat service until Erev Rosh Hashannah, Friday. For reasons that are complicated and inchoate, even now, I kept myself apart from the synagogue.

At the Erev Rosh Hashanah service I had an almost unmanagable desire to stand for Kaddish with those mourning a recent death. But the Chem Greek Princess is, thank goodness, very much alive. Every moment of life is a moment in which to rejoice.

Yesterday Rosh Hashanah morning services were good. Together we remembered the birth of the world, of life. We remembered Abraham's moment of insanity when he almost murdered Isaac, the child of laughter, and we remembered the urgent call to reason at the last moment. We stood for the wild wailing of the Shofar, calling us to majesty, to remembrance and to redemption. But the sermon, of which I will write more later, jarred that momentary sense of remembering, and by Kaddish, I was no longer there in that place.

This morning was different.

Joy greeting the light of day--Or Zaruach l'tzaddik . . . light is sown for the righteous.

Women dancing to the sound of drum and cymbals . . . kol han'shamah . . . the voice of everything that breathes . . . echoed the blue of the sky, the deep green of the pines.

A primal moment of Jewish soul.

The second Aliyah--the going up to make the blessing for the reading of Torah--called those who stood in need of healing; of the body, or of a breech, or of some great internal struggle in need of a tikkun, a repair, a return to shalem, to wholeness. I went up with others whose bodies or minds or spirits called them to go up. And, beside myself, I said the blessing. And as I stood there listening to a young woman chanting Torah, I saw the mirror of my daughter. What might have been, in a different universe. And I stood, tears running silently down my face as I listened to her proclaim in her sweet and confident voice of the goodness of the earth and those that dwell on it.

And so through the second blessing: . . . Blessed . . . for implanting life within us . . .

And so through the Mishebeyrach: . . . May the one who blessed our mothers and fathers bless these ones also with life and great wholeness and completeness.

And so through the reading of the Haftarah (Prophets): " . . . you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace. The mountains and hills shall burst out in song before you . . . They stand as an everlasting sign that all shall not perish."

A wedding. A simcha--a time of rejoicing. A commitment. A new family. A chance at more life. It should be, it is a time of joy.

And yet, here a breech, a loss. A daughter's choice, a mother's grief.

How to find the balance? The sense of shalem--of wholeness, of completeness, of peace?

"I remember you,

As we stood at the foot

of that mountain,

covered with soot

from all the fire and the smoky cloud . . ."*

And I remember watching you,

through the ashes and the flame,

I remember you . . . turning and walking away.

Was the sound and the heat too intense?

Did I not teach you your name?

Or was it all just too much,

And you turned away?**

A mother's work is to guide each child, to teach and to uphold her. But a child's work is to grow and becoming someone new and different. And the child will go where the parent wishes she would not. And that is the way of life.

And so I grieve. My crown is broken. A precious jewel is gone. There is a loss, a tear in the garment, a breech in the circle. I cannot know how this will become. And there is distance made by her, and made by me. Perhaps only the coming of the messiah can span it.

And still, she should go out in joy.

*Rabbi Joe Black, "I Remember You", from the album Sabbatical.

** Elisheva Levin, You, Walking Away.

Where Does the Circle Begin? Equinoctical New Year

NEARLY WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

27 Elul, Two Days before Rosh Hashanah

"Where does the circle start? When does the year begin?

As with many Jewish questions, there are at least two answers

--and both of them are right."

--Arthur Waskow, Seasons of Our Joy

For us now, the circle begins amidst the end of the season growth. A new beginning as the harvest of autumn begins.

Here, the equinoctical storms gather; frontal weather from the west, this year, the rains are increased; brought by the gathering waters of the El Nino far away.

This brings unsettled weather, dark clouds scudding across a pale, rain-washed sky at dawn.

The season is changing, a season of death and renewal. A season of introspection and harvest.

"Judaism is a religion of Life against death.

Death negates redemption; it is the end of growth, of freedom.

. . . Judaism's general response to the fact of death is to fight back.

Life is given the highest priority."

--R. Irving Greenberg, The Jewish Way

All that lives must die.

So the grasses wither and the leaves will fall in the face of the oncoming winter.

And yet, abundant life is the work of the earth.

Life is the ultimate, infinite value of the human being.

In this world, death is the ultimate contradiction of the Eternal, that which "delights" in life, and strives towards human fulfillment.

"Zochreinu l'chayim--Remember us unto life,

Melech chafetz b'chayim--O King who delights in life,

V-chatvenu b'sefer ha-chayim--And inscribe in the Book of Life."

--Amidah for the Days of Awe

In the desert mountains, the storms are fierce; lighting dances on the mountain front, tearing winds howl through the canyons.

But the rains of autumn also bring life-giving water to the soil, and the first frosts work it deeper into the ground, shifting it, covering the falling seeds, preparing it for new life to come.

And the sun, not so fierce as in the summer, shines again, a blessing of light and a promise of warmth even as the cold season approaches.

"V'hinei Adonai ohver . . . and, behold, Adonai passed by, and a strong wind rent the mountains; and broke in pieces the rock before Adonai, but Adonai was not in the wind.

And after the wind an earthquake, but Adonai was not in the earthquake; And after the earthquake, a fire, but Adonai was not in the fire.

And after the fire, kol ramamah dakach . . . a still, small voice.

And it was so . . . "

--Malchim Alef (I Kings: 11-12)

The Days of Awe, intense and powerful.
The Shofar's wild cry;
The deep and dark U'ntana Tokef;
The solemn confidence of the Avinu Malkeinu.

But the Presence of Life was vouchsafed already to me,
in the dawn-turned jeweled beads of the recent rain upon the ever-green pinyon pine needles.
In the moment of quiet; the soft ramamah sound; the last drops of last night's life-giving rain.

"When death is present, someone steps forward and, through the recitation of the Kaddish, testifies that this

family has not yielded to crushing defeat . . . the Kaddish affirms that the [Eternal] kingdom of total wholeness and total life

will be brought speedily into being, preferably in this very lifetime."

--R. Irving Greenberg, The Jewish Way

"Magnified and sanctified be the Great Name . . .

May abundant wholeness and completeness rain from the skies,

with life's goodness for us and for the whole House of Israel,

Now, in our own day and our own time . . ."

--Kaddesh d'Shalem

Aspen Gold & Shofars Blow: Week of Mixed Blessings

Autumn comes to the High Country.

Rosh HaShannah.

Bad Filters.

Politics.

The Cubs.

This past week has been one of great changes in moods and meanings. And only today, as the new week begins, did I notice . . .


The Aspens have turned gold and the oaks are brown and orange in the high Sandia Mountain Front. (One golden patch of Aspen is just below the leftmost patch of cloud on the mountain peak).

The Holy Days began Monday evening--

Erev Rosh HaShanah.

Wednesday morning, (second day)

the Holy Congregation

assembled the lovely tents of Israel

at Oak Flat, in the South Sandias.

"Ma tovu ohalecha, Yisrael . . ."

"Oh, how lovely are your tents O Israel,

Your dwelling places, O Jacob!"

Shofar, Torah, and Challah, which is round for the Holy days, in a mishkan--a portable sanctuary--the east meadow at Oak Flat.

Rosh Hashanah is called Yom HaZikaron--a day for remembering. Remembering the power inherent in creation, the birth of the world, the binding of Isaac, the sweetness and goodness of life.

But it was hard to forget what was going on outside the sanctuary in town or the mishkan in the mountains: Financial Meltdown, the high treif (unfit food e.g. pork) bail-out, the meanness and division of this political season.

Blowing the Shofar:

the powerful tekiah--calling the assembly;

the broken shevarim--for mourning and remembrance;

the staccato truah--for warning and battle;

the long tekiah gedolah--that ends abuptly.

"Areshet s'fateinu . . .

Accept the offering of our lips, the sound of the Shofar."

By the end of the service I felt sunburned and grumpy,

beautiful though it all was.

I stayed too long.

I must remember: come in peace (I did--I opened the gate for everyone) and go in peace (I didn't).

And in the evening, I had to return to work.

Full force, it all returned: the campaign sniping, the smears on the candidates, and the disenfranchisment of the tax-payers by vote-selling in Congress, the Cubs lost the first play-off game, Joe Biden's teeth, once the service was over. Filtering. I need to learn it.

The end of the week was a blur of catching up at work, getting angry at Congress, and dealing with a broken water-heater and a flooded laundry room. Friday afternoon, the Boychick and I arrived home to find the water-heater leaking and flooding the garage alcove where it stands, as well as the laundry room on the other side of the wall. It was the strangest Shabbat we've had in six-and-a-half years of marriage. Bad news: the breech and the flood. Then good news: it was a nipple on a T-joint of the valve--no need to buy a new water heater. Then the bad news--the was impossible to remove the nipple--it was that corroded. Then the good news--a trip to town to get the right tool and a replacement valve would solve it. The bad news--no water to the house until the new valve was replaced. Good news--we could make Home Depot before closing time, if we hurried. A mixed blessing: Shabbat dinner at a Sonic Drive-In on Central Avenue after getting the tool. (Bad--very un-shabbosdik, good--hunger is the best sauce). Good news--I managed to be flexible enough to roll with it all by this time. More bad news--the Cubs lost. Good news--the Engineering Geek--every my anchor during household disasters--got the water back on by midnight. As Ma Ingalls would say: All's well that ends well.

Saturday night went well.
The Boychick had his first high school dance.
It was also the first homecoming for East Mountain High School. And the first dance in their new gym.

In honor of all the firsts, the Boychick wore his Fedora and ironed his jeans.
He's too young for dating, so he met friends there. And he danced with the charming L., his first dance with a girl other than his sister.


So the week ended well after all.




Except the Cubs lost. Three games against the Dodgers.


Sigh.
It's going to be a rough year.

Rosh Hashanah Sweetness

We had a sweet Rosh Hashanah.


On Wednesday evening, we had an early dinner and then hurried to synagogue, where Bruce and I ushered. I love ushering, because I see and hug so many people that I have known for over 20 years, many of whom I have not seen recently! I get a high off of just standing at the door and greeting them and saying "L'shanah Tova!" (A good year!) and "Gut Yontiff!" (Good Yom Tov--which means holy day).

A funny thing happened this time. An elderly woman unknown to me came in the doors. I greeted her, and because she looked European in her dress and manner, I greeted her with the Yiddish "Gut Yontiff!" rather than the Hebrew greeting. She sniffed at me and said: "I don't speak Yiddish." So I said, "Aht m'diberet Ivrit?" (Do you speak Hebrew?). She said, "I speak German." I apologized that I have not learned German yet and wished her a sweet new year in Hebrew and in English. Then she went up to M., another greeter, who has a Spanish surname, and said testily: "What kind of name is G. for a Jew?" M., without missing a beat, said, "I'm a Spanish Jew. My family has been here for four hundred years." She muttered and went on in. M. wondered what that was all about. I suggested that she is probably Israeli. She clearly understood Hebrew although she did not answer me in it. She spoke English with a German-Hebrew accent, and she was offended by Yiddish. She was forthright to the point of rudeness from an American point of view, which is typical for Israelis, especially the 'Yekkies,' (German Israeli Jews--so called by other Israelis because they insist on formality and wear suit jackets even in the summer heat among the much more relaxed and pragmatic Israelis).

On Wednesday, after morning services and hearing the Shofar, we brought S. and J. home with us to eat Rosh Hashanah Dinner. They are the most wonderful couple that have known for years. We enjoy their company very much. They are retired teachers who love children, too, and they get along wonderfully with N. They do not have grandchildren, so they are informally local 'grandparents' for N. and he is their "kadishul"--the person they expect to remember them by saying kaddish for them when they return to G-d, may that be a long time coming!

They were here last Rosh Hashanah and the weather was cold and windy. They were also here at Passover, but we were busy with the Seder. So this was the first time they had a chance to walk around outside at "the new house" and enjoy the beauty of what Bruce call's "our little piece of paradise."

N. has been enjoying being up in trees lately. He climbed up in "his" tree and blew the shofar on Rosh Hashanah afternoon. I did not get a picture of the shofar, but upon hearing it ran in and got the camera. By that time he was done, but here he is in the tree.

On Friday, we went over to Oak Flat for Second Day services. It was warm and beautiful. There is something special about praying together surrounded by the fragrance of Ponderosa Pines and the sounds of birds and children.

N. climbed up about 25 feet in a Ponderosa Pine there, too. I had several of the Yidishe Mamas (Jewish Mothers) shouting at me and frantically pointing, telling me that he was up there. I smiled and waved at them, not the least bit worried. N. has been climbing trees for years. I know what he is capable of, and I saw that he was close to the trunk of the tree and perched on thick, strong branches. The YMs shook their heads, certain that he was headed for disaster. But we finished the services with N. intact, and after the Aleinu he came down from the tree, eager to join us for Kidush and lunch. When admonished by one of the YM's, he gave her a look that plainly said 'Poor earthbound one, you don't even know what you are missing,' and bit into the cookie she gave him. " Thanks," he said, "I'm starving." She looked gratified and handed him another cookie. He's got the YM mentality down. Just eat what they feed you and all will be forgiven.

He said to me: "Two cookies on the second day of Rosh Hashanah! It's going to be a very good year."

Happy 5768!

Rosh Hashanah: A Sweet New Year

Tomorrow at sunset Rosh Hashanah begins, and with it the most solemn and yet joyous season of the Jewish year, the Yamim Noraim--the High Holy Days. This ten day period of supplication and repentence ends after Yom Kippur.

The High Holy Days are not really "home" holy days, unlike most of the rest of the Jewish holidays. Rather, these are synagogue holy days, upon which the congregation comes together for an intense period of ritual and prayer. But there are some sweet home customs for the two day holiday of Rosh Hashanah.

Rosh Hashanah at Home

by N.

We spend a lot of time at synagogue on the High Holy Days, but there's also the home front. On the home front, most of what we do is about food. When we sit down to dinner tomorrow night...well, it will be dinner but very early because Mom and Bruce are ushers at temple and have to be there early. So when we sit down at 4 o'clock, there will some unusual things on the table along with the china, the candles and the kiddush cups we have on Shabbat. First, there will challah, which we have for Shabbat, too, but this Challah is different from all other Challah. It is round! We make the Challah round because roundness symbolizes the fullness of life, something that we pray for on Rosh Hashanah. Some people also make Challah in the shape of ladders, to remind them of Jacob's Ladder. Mom makes the challah with raisins and cinnamon for a sweet new year. Another thing we have on the table are cut apples and little bowls of honey. The apples, a symbol of the coming fall harvest, are dipped in the honey, and we say a blessing and then serve each other bites of them and say: L'shanah tova mituveka--Have a good and sweet year! And then there's the fish Mom bakes, head and all! Rosh Hashanah means 'the head of the year' so we have the whole fish. Also, mom says to remind you that fishes have their eyes open all of the time--and at this time we want to have our eyes open to our sins so that we can know them and make t'shuvah for them, which means to turn around and go a better way! Last of all, we have honey cake for dessert--again, to remind ourselves to have a sweet new year. So that's the evening.

On Rosh Hashanah day we have a big dinner after services, kind of like at Thanksgiving. Some years, when we have lots of people, we have turkey. But this year mom is only having a few people because of the floors, so she is making Fez Chicken with Couscous from the Jewish Holiday Cookbook. She says she used to make it all the time when I was little but I don't remember. And there will be more round Challah and apples and honey. But Mom also makes Tayglach--which is a honey and nut candy for dessert. Last of all, we will have rimmonim, which a known as pomogranites. They remind us of Torah because they have many seeds, just like the seeds of Torah that are planted in every Jew. They also qualify as "funny" fruit--a fruit that you don't eat very often. Maybe once a year or so. That way you can say the Shehecheyanu--a blessing for special days--when you light the candles for the second day of Rosh Hashanah.

I like Rosh Hashanah. There's lots of good things to eat. It's different in ten days when we come to Yom Kippur, but that's another story.

Back to you, Mom!

I think N. has done a great job of telling about our food traditions for Rosh Hashanah.

In the synagogue, Rosh Hashanah is a joyous holiday when we greet the New Year with the blowing of the Shofar. The Shofar is a ram's horn, and it is sounded after the Torah reading. There are three parts of the Shofar service, and during each part, the Shofar is sounded with three calls. Each part reminds us of an important aspect of the Eternal.

The first is Malchuyot, which means "kingship," or sovereignty. We say: "As it is written in the Torah: For the kingdom is Yours, and from eternity to eternity You will reign in glory." The Shofar is sounded. And we say: "Hayom harat olam...this is the day of the world's birth...as we are Your children show us the compassion of a father, as we are Your servants, we look to you for mercy...O Holy and Awesome G-d!"

The second aspect is Zichronot--Rememberance. We say: "This is the day of the world's beginning; now we remember creation's first day. On this day the fate of nations is in the balance...Happy is the one who does not forget You..." The Shofar is sounded. And we say: "In love and favor hear us, as we invoke Your remembrance."

The third aspect is Shofarot, which is revelation. We say: "It is written: 'The Eternal will appear; G-d's arrow will flash like lightning. The Eternal G-d will cause the Shofar to be sounded and stride forth with the storm-winds of the South.' Thus will You shield Your people completely..." This time, after the shofar is sounded with all the calls, the very last blowing is Tekiah Gedolah, the great sounding that lasts until the blower runs out of breath.

This is the high note of the morning service. When it is over, we mingle and greet each other, eat some Tayglach and then go home to the family table for eating and schmoozing. And eating some more, until, rather like hobbits, we resort to filling in the corners with honey cake and pomegranites. Then on the second day, we have services and a picnic here in the mountains. And of course there is more eating and schmoozing and playing games after.

So Rosh Hashanah is the serious time, the time that begins the ten days of t'shuvah (turning) and supplication for life. But although it is a synagogue holiday, there is also family time and time to be with one another. For what are we without family and friends?

The Days of Awe come down to this prayer:

"Remember us unto life, O King who delights in life; inscribe us in the Book of Life, O G-d of Life."

For really, that is what the whole idea of turning ourselves anew, and aiming the bows of our lives more truly. It is so that we may have the life that we were born to live and be the people we were meant to be.