6th Light: White Solstice

Good morning!


To the right is the view I saw when I looked out the window this morning. Last night it was still cloudy and snowing when we went to bed.
This morning the Sandias glowed pink in the pre-dawn light.


We had over a foot of snow at our house over the last 24 hours. We are happy for the snow but we are also happy for th sun that now shines on it, giving the world that blue-and-white look of winter.


According to the new calendar, today is the beginning of winter. We think of the snow as a celebration of mid-winter, according to the old calendar, which designates the winter solstice as Mid-Winter's Day.

To the right is a picture of our house on Mid-Winter's Dawn. The Shadow of clouds on the Sandias can be seen in the background. The drifts at the porch and the south wing are 3-4 feet high, covering the bottoms of the windows!
Today will be the shortest daylight of the year for us. Tonight the sun will set at the same point in the southwest it did last night--just south of Cedro Peak. Then it will be rising just a little to the north each day--bringing an increase in the amount of daylight each day. Once again, the
great dance of the earth around the sun begins!



To the left of the house is the Ponderosa Pine behind which the sun will set tonight! It is the same place the sun set last night--although we only saw a faint glow through the clouds. When the sun appears to set in the same place, it appears to stand still--which is the origin of the word "solstice" which comes from Latin: sun-stand-still. The Romans celebrated this day as the Feast of the Unconquerable Sun, which began a week of celebration called Saturnalia. The Celts celebrated this time as Yule-again rejoicing that our star appeared to stop retreating to the south. Christians celebrate the birth of their messiah at this same time--symbolically celebrating the return of light to the north.



Hannukah is not connected to the solar year. The Jewish calendar is an adjusted lunar calendar. But Hannukah starts after the last quarter moon and ends on the second day of the new moon that comes near the winter solstice. So Hannukah comes during the dark of the moon and the dark of the sun. Increasing light at this time is also symbolic of bringing light into a dark world. At the end of Hannukah, the lunar light is just beginning to increase. This year, Hannukah will end the day after the solstice--as the light of the sun is also just barely increasing. This year, especially, we are reminded of the importance of increasing light to the world as the light increases in the Menorah, as the moon begins to wax with the new month, and as the daylight increases with the passing of the winter solstice.

At dawn after the snowstorm, the dawn of the last day of decreasing light, we welcome the light of the sun!

Welcome, Star of Life, Center of the Year!

Blessed is the Eternal, Sovreign of the Universe, who fashions light and creates darkness, who makes wholeness and creates all things. With compassion, the Eternal gives light to the earth and all who dwell on it; with goodness, G-d renews the work of creation each day... Let all bless you, Eternal, for the greatness of your handiwork and for the great lights you have made: let them tell your glory throughout space and time.





May we all know joy in the increasing light and wake from our winter's rest with strength renewed.


As our roads take us to new heights, may we take with us the resolve to increase the light each day!

Happy Holidays!

Snowbound on the 5th Day

Aren't the lights pretty? They are reflected in the window and show the increasing light we can bring to the world in these dark times at this dark season. Last night we talked about how even in the darkest of places, a mensch (a.k.a. a real human being) can bring a little light into the darkness. As we travel through the eight days of Hannukah we increase the light each day, just as when we travel through our lives we should increase the light each day.



This picture, taken this morning shows the sunrise on the 5th day of Hannukah. The white blur of the picture is due to the snow that was falling even as the sun was peeking through the clouds. We woke up to 7" of snow in the guage and a steady 20 mph wind, creating blizzard conditions. We are truly snow bound as I-40 is closed from Albuquerque east to the Texas border. We live east of Albuquerque, so we cannot go anywhere even if we could get to I-40! Our county roads are drifted shut and the snowplow has not come by. So we are all home today feeling very cozy and warm. N. has been outside twice today already with his sister and the dogs. They had lots of fun jumping over and through the snowdrifts. The only school we have done so far today is pray the morning service and read 5 pages in The Source.



This picture was taken through our kitchen door and is of a sculpted snowdrift that was about 3 feet high. We have since gotten about 3-4 inches of snow, It has been snowing steadily since we got up this morning. How beautiful the snow is when you are warm and cozy inside, enjoying its beauty! We plan to pop popcorn today and play games. N. received the game Blockus as a gift. It is a game of strategy and spatial reasoning. He will probably beat me handily and in less than 30 minutes--who needs to practice spatial reasoning?!

Tonight we will light the 6th light and begin the 6th day of Hannukah. Last night we had classical music. It will be interesting to see what kind of music we play tonight.

Snowstorm in Hannukah

Look at this!

This was before the most recent wave of snow hit--which is happening now.

We are having our second winter storm of the season--and last year we got almost NO SNOW at all. Even though this ties up traffic and makes driving hard, we really need the snow. (The snow in the meadow is actually about 2" deep, but the meadow grasses are about 3' tall). The record monsoon rains we got in August and the El Nino snows we are getting this winter may actually pull us out of the 10 year drought we have been experiencing. Anyway, I LOVE snow!

We had a quiet day today. I got up early to have a phone conference with Dr, Cheri Florance in New York. She runs an organization called "Brain Engineering" and she has some awesome programs to help visual people adapt to the verbal world. After the Bar Mitzvah, N. and I are going to be doing a lot of that work. We hope the program will help him with attention to verbal instructions, and speaking and organizing his writing.

Anyway, I let N. sleep in since it was snowing this morning. Then we snuggled on the couch with eggnog as we read some more of The Source. I did a little laundery, we watched an episode of Star Trek, The Original Series (season III), we took some pictures, N. went out to play in the snow three different times--a nice, cozy snow-storm sort of day.

The snow seems to be coming in waves--and a look at the satellite pictures show the storm center over western New Mexico, so there is a lot more to come tonight. We are expecting 12" by tomorrow morning. Tonight is going to be a night for popcorn and movies...after we light candles for the 5th light of Hannukah.

Three Weeks and Counting...

We now have three weeks and counting until N.'s Bar Mitzvah!

On Wednesday we had our second appointment with the rabbi so that he and N. could work on the D'var Torah.

The D'var Torah is sometimes called "the speech" but it is really supposed to be a discussion of the Torah Portion of the week. N. is not fond of writing and due to his AS, he has difficulty with anything but the literal meaning of the text. What this means is that school has become mostly the Bar Mitzvah. I had planned on a break during Hannukah, but instead of a complete break we have taken a break from secular studies and we are focused only on Bar Mitzvah studies. All of what N. is preparing and practicing could be considered academic--he is writing an interpretation of a particulary juicy Torah portion, he is learning the trop marks for chanting Torah and Haftarah, and he is working on translation. These are all important skills--so why am I worried that we are getting "behind" in Saxon math? In the home-school context, what does "behind" really mean? After all, "behind" is a relative term!

I think the difficulty for me in going from schooling to homeschooling is more the mind-set than the curriculum. Sometimes I find myself wondering if I am doing the right thing!

The end of this week was also spent getting ready for Hannukah. Although we are careful to emphasize that Hannukah is not Christmas, there are still some preparations involved. Inevitably, when Hannukah is over and I should clean and polish the Menorot, I say to myself: Oh, well, I can always do this as we prepare for Hannukah next year! The problem comes at three o'clock on the day Hannukah is supposed to start when I am running around like a crazy woman grating 15 potatoes for latkes and then it is time to get the Menorot out, and then I say: Why the heck did I wait until now? If insanity means doing the same thing over and over expecting different results then I am truly certifiable at this time of the year!

There are, however, compensations. We are reading James Michner's The Source out loud. This week we read the chapter: In the Gymnasium--which dealt with Antioches Epiphanes and the Maccabean revolt, just in time for the celebration of Channukah. We had a great discussion about what the miracle of Hannukah really is. There was some good discussion over Shabbat dinner last night. N. finally said the miracle was that Am Yisrael Chai. The people Israel lives! Now that is a miracle.

Tenderfoot

Last night N. got his Tenderfoot Rank Badge!

Look at this handsome boy scout!

This is N. reading his part of the "12 points of the scout law" ceremony last night at a Court of Honor at which he made a rank advancement to Tenderfoot in his Boy Scout troop.

The Tenderfoot is the second rank on the "Eagle Path." The ranks are as follows: Scout, Tenderfoot, 2nd Class, 1st Class, Star, Life, Eagle. In the Scout through 1st Class ranks, the boys are learning the outdoor and life skills to be an accomplished scout. From the Star through Life, they are learning service to the community. At Eagle Scout, the boy not only has the outdoors skills and has done community service, but they have also developed leadership skills and have used them to lead others in service to the community.

This is N. receiving his Tenderfoot badge from the assistant scoutmaster for his troop. In order to earn the rank of Tenderfoot, N. accomplished the following:

• Present himself to his leader properly dressed for a camp-out with a properly packed backpack.



• Spend the night in tent he helped pitch



• Assist in preparing two meals at the camp-out for his patrol

This picture is N. putting his Tenderfoot Mother's Pride Pin on me! Requirements continued below:

• Whip and fuse the end of a rope



• Demonstrate and explain the use of two half-hitches and the taut-line hitch knots



• Explain the rules for safe hiking on the highway and cross-country, day and night. Demonstrate what to do if he is lost



• Demonstrate how to raise, lower and fold the American flag.


• Repeat from memory and explain in his own words the scout oath, law, motto and slogan.


• Know patrol name, give the patrol yell and describe the patrol flag


• Improve ability to do push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups over 30 days


• Identify local poisonous plants and demonstrate treatment for exposure to them


• Demonstrate the Heimlich manuver and explain when to use it


• Demonstrate first aid techniques for simple cuts and scratches, blisters, first-degree burns or scalds, insect bites, stings and tick removal, poisonous snakebite, nosebleed, frostbite, and sunburn


• Demonstrate scout spirit by living the scout oath and law in everyday life


• Participate in scoutmaster conference


• complete board of review

I really like the incremental approach to learning concepts and developing skills that the scouts use. I also like that N. is spending quality time among boys of a range of ages and that he is mentored by the older boys and well as by the adult men who guide the troop as scoutmasters, assistant scoutmasters, merit badge counselors, boards of review, and troop committees. What a world it would be if schools used these approaches--they are the methods that create autonomous learners. As it is, homeschoolers often use similar approaches by mentoring our kids or providing mentors and incremental learning approaches in which our kids are encouraged to take the next step and go the extra mile. I find the scouts to be a great supplement to my homeschooling curriculum for N.

Here is the Bazooka Berserkers Patrol with proud parents!

N. is third from the right in the first row. I am immediately behind him. Bruce, my husband is behind me. We are standing behind placards of the BSA ranks.

Happy Trails!

Hannukah Lights

This weekend we were busy and I did not get a chance to make an entry.
On Shabbat, we went to a Bar Mitzvah--we were ushers because N. is the next Bar Mitzvah. When Shabbat was over, I was busy with getting my e-mail caught up. Yesterday, I mopped the floors and cleaned the bathrooms while Bruce worked on preparing to put a new tub into our bathroom. But we did get up early yesterday to see the totally awesome conjunction of Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn. They rose at about 6:00 AM and were visible until just before sunrise on the south-eastern horizon.

Friday evening we had my daughter's gentleman-friend over for Shabbat dinner. I had baked him a pie since he helped with the tub last weekend. He came in and immediately asked why we don't have our "Hannukah Lights" on. (Our house had white twinkle-lights on the eaves when we bought it. We have not taken them down but neither have we ever used them. They are white light and would ruin night vision for astronomical observations). The conversation went like this:
A.: "Why don't you have your Hannukah lights on?"
Me: "They are not Hannukah lights and anyway Hannukah does not start until next week."
A.: Aw--why not turn them on? They are on the house."
Me: "We don't do that."
A.: "But why not?"
Me: "We don't do that."
And the conversation went on to other things.

The point here is not that A. was trying to get us to celebrate Christmas, but that A. does not understand what Hannukah is. I have noticed that Christians, whether nominal or religious, who celebrate Christmas according to the customs here in the United States, tend to think of Hannukah as sort of a Jewish version of Christmas. They may be somewhat aware of the story we tell about Hannukah (the miracle of the lights) but they do not get at all the meaning that Jews ascribe to that miracle. So here, in short, is an explanation of the meaning and purpose of the celebration of Hannukah.

Hannukah is a minor holiday (that is it was not biblically ordained) and it commemorates the victory of the Maccabees (a priestly family) in a guerilla war against the Selucid tyrant, Antioches IV (called Antioches Epiphanes--meaning Antioches who is god made manifest). That war was the end result of an assimilationist religious policy that Antioches mandated for all the nations of the Selucid empire. (This empire was ruled by Hellenized Syrians from Antioch). The purpose of the policy was to unite the empire under one religious system in which all subjects were required to pay homage to Antioches and were also free to worship their own gods as secondary deities. This was acceptable to most of the subject cities of the Selucids, but it was not acceptable to certain Jews in Judea and the Galilee. Many of the Jews living in these places were quite Hellenized--they spoke the Koine, they went to the gymnasium, and they even tolerated the command to make sacrifice in homage of the emperor twice a year. The high priests often also had Greek names (such as Jason or Alexander). For this reason, as the edicts came down from Antioch, the response of the Jews as a whole was to tolerate them, while secretly they called the emperor "Antiochus Epimanes" which means "Antiochus the fool." However, there were some Jews, such as the priestly family of Mattiyahu in Modi'in, Judea, whose tolerance was limited. When the emperor commanded that pigs be sacrificed in his honor in all of the temples of the Selucid empire (including Jewish synagogues and the Temple in Jerusalem), these Jews protested. Circumcision and the study of the Torah was then forbidden--which created an open rebellion by the sons of Mattiyahu, including Judah called Maccabee. After three years of war, Antioches gave up and the Maccabees became the rulers of Judea and the Galilee. They had missed the celebration of Sukkot (a major festival that lasts 8 days), so when they rededicated the temple (Hannukat ha-bayit), the proclaimed a holiday to last 8 days beginning on the 25th day of Kislev (approximately mid-winter in the Hebrew calendar). That is the holiday of Hannukah--meaning rededication. The story of the lights does not appear in the books of the Maccabees (which are NOT part of the Jewish Bible because they were written in Greek and not Hebrew). The miracle of lights is a Rabbinic midrash that appears in the Talmud, when the celebration of Hannukah was already customary among the Jews.

The meaning ascribed to the celebration of Hannukah is that of resistance to assimilation. We live among the nations but we have our own identity. We say the Al-Hanissim prayer during the eight days, reminding ourselves of "the miracles, wonders, and battles" which the Eternal "did for our ancestors in those days at this season." Those miracles, wonders, and battles resulted in the survival of our people as a people apart. Hannukah happens for eight days sometime between Thanksgiving and New Years Day on the western calendar. However, it is not even remotely related to Christmas--which is a major Christian Feast and also a major Madison-Avenue mid-winter Event. Religious Christians celebrate the Feast, but most secular Americans celebrate the Event. As a Jews, my family does neither, though we do recognize that our Christian neighbors are celebrating a major feast. I enjoy looking at the lights and I appreciate the joy Christians feel at this time. However, it is inappropriate for me, as a Jew, to keep Christmas as a Christian feast because I am not a Christian. It feels even more inappropriate for me, as a Jew, to celebrate the Event of Christmas, which has pagan roots and tends to ignore the religious aspect so important to my Christian neighbors.

Hannukah is a holiday during which Jews celebrate the right and responsibility to be who we are. In our celebration of Hannukah, we commemorate the miracle of our persistance as a people who have retained our identity despite the many times tyrants have tried to make us assimilate throughout our long history. For these reasons, I find it disingenuous to put up "Hannukah" lights or have a "Hannukah Bush" in my home. These assimilationist practices are contrary to the purpose of commemorating the victory of the Maccabees. As our rabbis taught us, that victory should not be remembered primarily as a military victory but as a victory of the Jewish spirit. The miracle of the lights is a metaphor for the miracle of the continued existence of the Jewish people as a people with a unique identity among the nations. At Hannukah, as we chant the blessings and sing the songs, I am reminded that it is my responsibility and my privilege to guard the stubborn flame of Jewish identity for my children and their children.

Thirty (30) Days to the Bar Mitzvah

Last night I got an e-mail reminding me to send in a bulletin article and picture for N.'s Bar Mitzvah announcement. (They reminded me later than the deadline--but that is another story that has to do with a three month period without a clergy assistant at our synagogue).

Announcement? Picture?

But didn't we just do the bris (circumcision and naming) a few years ago?

I don't know why, but this step in the process just stunned me.

It's strange.

He started his tutoring last April--I put the appointments in my calendar but no emotions about that.

In August when we started homeschool, I added a morning service and Torah study to his schedule. I enjoyed teaching him the trop (tunes) and the meaning of his chanting.

I ordered invitations in October--eInvite is a great site! But no emotions--just a sense of when they had to get out in the mail.

I addressed nearly 100 envelopes. Here it was a concern about getting them in the mail before Thanksgiving.

But that announcement in the Bulletin business--that started it. I became Nervous Nellie immediately.

Tonight he had his tutoring session and then a meeting with the rabbi to begin working on his D'var Torah. As our rabbi went over the responsibilities and priveleges of being a Jew--I started sniffling! Oy Vey! My little yidele is becoming a Jewish adult.

Since I had not yet scheduled a photographic session, we took a picture with our digital camera--actually several pictures. We needed to choose! We included N.'s dog in the picture because he is doing a Mitzvah project involving collecting needed items for gift baskets for people adopting pets at our county animal shelter.

And his dog is his constant companion. He wrote a little article about his Bar Mitzvah and the Jewish ethics for considering the needs of our animals.

See the picture at the top? Aren't they beautiful?
I am kvelling.