New Beginnings, Or Why There are No More Challah Pictures

I started a new job on Monday. I now work for CJPAC - The Political Engagement People. 

CJPAC is a national, independent, multi-partisan organization. Our mandate is to engage Jewish and pro-Israel Canadians in the democratic process and to foster active political participation. We are dedicated to helping community members build relationships within the Canadian political arena.

It takes me out of advocacy and puts me 100% into engagement. 

So, you may ask, what about the two weeks previously? We were visiting Keren in DC two weeks ago. We left the boys alone, and drove to the motherland (that is the land where our mothers were born). And last week? we'd just arrived home and were trying to transition to our future. 

So, what is this future? The future is me working full time while Sean works part time, at least for the near future. Practically, this means Sean will make challah and Shabbat dinner, since I will be working Fridays. This is definitely going to take some work to get it moving smoothly. 

Sean, this week, made the challah. He tells me the ring represents the king’s ring in Megillat Esther that features so prominently. He came up with that after the fact. It doesn’t matter. It look pretty and will taste even better.

For now I will simply say Shabbat shalom and there's an Ontario provincial election coming up. Get involved. CJPAC can help.

Shabbat Shekalim - Obligations

 This week is Shabbat Shekalim, the time we are all called upon to donate machazit shekel, a half-shekel, to the community coffers. Monies were used, among other things, to repair the roads in preparation for the Pesach pilgrimage to Jerusalem. I just competed learning Masechet Pesachim and am half-way into Masechet Shekalim, so these ideas are in the forefront of my mind. 

Here are my shekalim, copied from a Wikipedia photo, complete with the proto-Hebrew letters. 

Money could be drawn from the community funds to redeem captives or feed the poor. There is a continuing tradition, based in the matanot l’evyonim at Purim, of giving tzedakah specifically for this purpose at this time of year. This is weighing heavily on my mind just now as the Russian army moves further and further into Ukraine. The Jewish Agency has a hotline set up to help the Jewish community, especially connecting students in Israel with their families who are likely in danger. They are sending care packages and helping speed up the process for those who wish to make aliyah. And MK Yair Lapid has ordered the Israeli embassy remain open to help those who need it. 

Ukraine also has the fastest growing Masorti/Conservative Jewish community. Masorti Olami has set up an emergency fund to help move people to safety in Western Ukraine, to provide the basic necessities of life, psychological counseling, and care packages and mishloach manot for Purim. Even in the darkest times there should be some joy.

If you’d like to help at this time - 

In Canada- Go to USCJ at Canada Helps. Make sure you scroll to Masorti Canada Ukrainian Relief Fund.  

In the US - Go to Masorti Olami. Make sure to check “specific program or community” and type in Ukraine Relief Fund.

Thank you for you support. 

Our other challot are simply pretty. We all need more beauty in our lives. 

From our home to yours, wishing you a Shabbat shalom, may it be peaceful for all of us soon.

Ki Tissa - All Is Divine

 After last week’s very late post (in the wee hours of this morning), I am trying to be a little earlier this week.

This week’s parasha is chock full, and so there are multiple challah shapes. Thursday has become “Inappropriate Challah Shape Suggestions” Evening. The most popular was a golden calf. I might have considered it, but free form challah shaping is very fickle. I sometimes think about getting molds to shape my challah. Points and corners round out when bread rises. But where would I keep them? Maybe sometime in the future.

Instead, I look to easier shapes. This week I made feet. Some may think it odd to have foot-shaped food. Feet are considered dirty in many cultures. In some, it’s the worst affront to show one’s sole. To wash one’s feet before seeking God, or to have one’s feet washed is a humbling experience. It harkens back to childhood and being cared for and loved. Aaron and his sons, and the those who come after, are cared for by the community. They are provided for. And through them (though not only through them) the community interacts with God.

The other shape is a paintbrush. It is not only Aaron, the kohanim and leviim who do God’s work. Every artisan shares a divine gift with the community. Betzalel, after whom Israel’s art institute is named, provides just as vital a part of our lives as Aaron. What is life without art and creativity?

This week is also the week of the Aseret Dibrot, aka the Ten Commandments (thosugh there are more than ten and not all are commandments, but I digess). 

(Keeping in mind my commends about free form bread rising,) these are the second tablets. The five balls per tablet represent each of the utterances. They sit on the broken pieces of the smashed tablets. God instructed Moshe to put the whole and the broken in the ark together. Both are holy, the broken and the whole, and sometimes we need the broken to be whole.

Finally, it’s not a Gorman Shabbat without a cupcake challah. Both the cupcake challah and the tablets are covered in streusel, For Torah is supposed to be sweet in our mouths. Even though there is much that can frustrated me in our texts and our history, I believe Judaism to be a religion seeking always to be better, and so we balance the bitter with the sweet.

A sweet Shabbat shalom to all.

Tetzaveh & Feeling the Weight on Your Shoulders

 

January/February is always a very busy time for me. There's so much to do to close out one fiscal year for a charity or non-profit and lead into another, to ensure that the funds of one year are distributed to keep the work focused.

Parashat Tetzavah describes the clothing of the kohain gadol, the high priest. Every piece of his outfit is designed with intent. Much of it to ensure that neither the Israelites nor Aharon forgets his purpose. I imagine Aharon, and generations of kohanim after, donning those garments, weighed down as each layer is added to their ritual uniform. They literally wear the weight of their responsibility on their chests and their shoulders. And so last week's round challah was marked in remembrance of the breastplate. Twelve sections to weigh upon Aharon's heart, to be felt with every breath, his obligations to them. 

Last Friday was a workday. It isn't normally. And the work stretched throughout our Shabbat prep to fill the time, as it is wont. I remembered, just before lighting candles, to snap a picture. Ironically, the fourth challah is cut off. It's a section of tzitzit, the strings and knots we tie on our garments that work like strings on our fingers to remind us of the mitzvot. In my rush, I neglected to remember to check the photo, and I cut the tzitzit from the picture. 

I'll try to do better.

More photos tomorrow.

Last Week & Parashat Terumah

 So I missed last week. In the final ten minutes before Shabbat when I wanted to sit down to blog I realized two things. I’d forgotten to take pictures, and something was burning.

Last week’s meals were an ode to Robbie Burns. Missing our annual Robbie Burns Dinner, we had steak pie, barley vegetable soup, and trifle for dessert. There were  scotch and berries, and all sorts of yummy things. And for parashat Mishpatim there was a challah shaped like scales with a heart and a feather to weigh. The heart and feather are Egyptain mythology, but Gavi asked for it, so there you go. I remade a simplified miniature version to show this week. Last week’s larger feather and heart were better, but as long as it’s yummy it doesn’t matter.

This week I made a menorah. No, not the Hanukah one, the one described in the parasha for the mishkan and ancient Temple. The symbol of ancient and modern Israel (and you though it was the star of David - nope).

We mark all our moments with fire, the good -weddings and b’nei mitzvah, the sad - shiva and yahrtzeits, and the holy- Shabbat and holidays. The wonderful thing about flame is that when you take one flame to light another you lose nothing. You illuminate the world and bring warmth and heat. A colleague, Rabbi Geoff Haber, mentioned, at a shiva minyan yesterday, that love is the same. That’s the message for Shabbat. Giving love away illuminates your life, giving warmth and heat. What a wonderful world.

Shabbat shalom.

From Pittsburgh to Colleyville and Beyond

I was recently speaking with a friend of my children. She grew up in Dubai, knowing little about the Jewish community.

After spending a lot of time (much of it on Shabbat) at our house, she commented about how much she learned and how our history of persecution came through (more frequently than we realized). Day to day we don't realize how our collective trauma comes through, even in well-adjusted families.

Although she was commenting on the ability and strength it takes to continue life positively while facing our history, it made me think about how antisemitism is ever-present.

I started this entry following the third yahrtzeit of the shooting at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. I stopped shortly after starting, not having the words for everything I was trying to process.

The Tree of Life attack took place on October 27, 2018. It was the deadliest attack on Jews in America. Exactly six months later, on April 27, 2019, a shooter walked into the Chabad in Poway, CA killing Lori Gilbert-Kaye and wounding three others. Then two weeks ago, a man walked into Beth Israel in Colleyville, TX, allowed the rabbi to make him a cup of tea, and took Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker and three others hostage. Full details are still to come, but it seems this man believed Jews could control America, so, Jews are the means to getting what you want. Even more so, he had Rabbi Cytron-Walker call Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, a rabbi in New York, to make it happen, implying that we somehow all know each other. Since Rabbis Cytron-Walker and Buchdahl both graduated from HUC-JIR, it was possible for Rabbi Cytron-Walker to reach out to Rabbi Buchdahl. Did the terrorist know that, or did he really think Jews all know each other? Did he know that Rabbi Buchdahl was a Reform rabbi who would use the phone on Shabbat? I wondered what might have happened if he wanted to call a Conservative or Orthodox rabbi who didn't check messages until after Shabbat.

In the aftermath of this, other events made national news. For eighteen years, a group has protested Israeli policies outside a synagogue on Shabbat mornings. For eighteen years, the city of Ann Arbor ignored the antisemitism inherent in what claimed to be political protests. Whatever one might believe or feel about Israeli policy, the act of choosing the synagogue on Shabbat mornings is antisemitic.   

Big moments affect us, like any major event. People will remember where they were when JFK was assassinated, when Reagen or John Lennon was shot, when the space shuttles exploded, or 9/11/01. We carry the trauma with us. The trauma of generations: slavery, expulsions, attacks, and murders. Most days, I don't realize I am touched by antisemitism, however clear it may be to others. But there are days it cannot be avoided. The yahrtzeit of the shooting at Tree of Life reignites my fear that a peer, friend, or student of mine or a friend of my children's might have been a victim froze my heart and does so each year. When I was a seminary student, Matt Eisenfeld and Sarah Ducker, fellow students, were killed by a terrorist's bomb. Though I didn't know them well, I am forever changed by their presence in my life. If you've never been to a Jewish funeral, we bury our own. That day we, their family, friends, and peers, buried our classmates with our own hands.

There is so much talk now, as there should be, of security for the future. This terrorist act, like Pittsburgh and Poway, will affect us. I cannot stop that. I can, however, choose how I change. Much like Rabbi Cytron-Walker, I refuse to be cowed. I have generations of those who came before who continued to act positively, who continued to be welcoming. Though there have been multiple attacks (three in five years), I will not allow this to change who I am. I will protect myself and my community. And, through it all, I will continue to be me. I hope others will walk this path with me.

Parashat Yitro - I Will Be Welcoming

 This week has been focused on last Shabbat hostage situation. It was also a week of covid tests for travel and hugging friends for the first time in two years. 

I drove Keren back to DC between the snow storms Sunday and Monday. Sean and I arrived home late last night, and he left again this morning. Jesse made the challah dough and we shaped it together. Jesse wanted to make a shofar calling out at Sinai. For me it is a call to come together, to stand against our enemies. This Shabbat, Jews around the world will gather in synagogue, in person, to say we are not afraid. Anna Salton Eisen, a founder of Beth Israel in Colleyville, said she will not be afraid. Instead, she said, “ I feel, really, better.’ Because I know that if I’m in trouble, they’re coming to help me.” I thank Ms Eisen for her words.

Simple braids can illustrate the interconnectedness of us all. 

At Har Sinai we gathered to see the thunder and hear the lightening, cascading down our challah. Whatever your thoughts on revelation at Sinai, Jews have a collective memory of a mystical event, and event that changed us a people. Last shabbat, and every trauma, changes us more. But we will gather again. We will gather in defiance. We will gather in love. We will stand strong in the face of fear and of hatred. We will go on into the future.

We have been besieged by covid for two years. I will not be besieged by fear. I pledge to continue to welcome the stranger, as Rabbi Cytron-Walker did and promised to do again. 

There is so much more to say, but Shabbat is almost upon us. I wish you a particularly peaceful Shabbat, in company of others if possible. And, if you need a hug, I have had three negative covid tests. In the meantime, I send you a virtual one.

Shabbat shalom.

Parashat Beshallach - Walking Through the Sea & Man Hu

 This week I have a guest challah maker. Combine a busy work week with being sick (went for a covid test, no results yet), there’s still work to do today (even though I don’t normally work Fridays). Jesse stepped up to bake and cook. 

We discussed a few different shapes. My favourite is a bird challah. Midrash tells that when some of the mixed multitude strew the manna on the ground on Shabbat to make it seem as if manna had fallen that day, the birds came to eat it before anyone saw. There is a strong tradition of feeding wild birds for parashat Beshallach. Jesse chose to make manna. Described as man hu, meaning what is it, the manna was formless and described as tasting like coriander seed. It’s covered with poppy seeds because the Yiddish mun is similar in sound. This is Jesse’s interpretation of manna.

Jesse also created a beautiful interpretation of the splitting of the sea. Everything spice represents the shells and stones that would have been left on the sand and cinnamon on the outer sides is the sand and dirt that would have been churned up by the movement of the water. Beautiful.

Finally, no Shabbat is complete without our family cupcake challah.

 

My children, like all other can be frustrating and aggravating. They leave laundry and dishes around and consistently clean up 97% of the kitchen. Really! 97%. Why do they do that?! Why not just put the last few things away or wipe down the table? But when we need them, they step up. 

Here’s hoping that covid tests are negative. Be well. As Sean says, “Stay safe and stay sane.”

Shabbat shalom.

 

Parashat Bo - Hardening Pharaoh’s Heart

 This week’s parasha concludes the Pesach story and sets the annual observance of Pesach in the spring. Key to the story, to God’s show of might is God hardening Pharaoh’s heart.  So many have tried to excuse God for this act. The best explanation I’ve found is that God hardens Pharaoh’s heart, but Pharaoh keeps his heart as it is. Without excusing God’s actions in causing the suffering of so many Egyptians, we are all affected by circumstance and by the actions of others. In that state, we can choose to open our hearts or lock them away. Pharaoh’s heart is locked in one attitude. He sees and hears only that which is in the box. He cannot or will not soften. And so, today’s challah is a heart in a braided box, being pushed upon. There is no room in the box to expand or turn, and so the heart is contained.

As Pesach is set to be the spring, the second challah is a flower marking the hope of spring that builds throughout the cold winter. Tu BiShevat is almost upon us, with its celebration of the first buds and its, modern, environmental attitude. If we only open our eyes to look, we can see the signs of the cold, darkness passing and the world being reborn.

            

Wishing everyone a Shabbat shalom and a year of open hearts and sunshine.