Then we handed the manuscript over to R. David Markus, who combed through it for misplaced nekudot (vowel markings) and Hebrew typos and asked great questions about text and formatting choices. Half a million people have died in our nation alone. It was published in December by Phoenicia Publishing (thanks Beth!) I'm eager for the day when we can shed our winter garb again. Comments (1), Mom, I'm using the cocktail napkins you gave me when I moved outon my own, simple and greywith my single name in red, anecho of the ones you ordered. My son's school had just closed down, and I knew that I didn't / couldn't know what was coming. The scent of this covid year:sour scallion-water in the kitchen window, the tail-ends of green onions trying to miracle fresh green from, tap water and sun.When it catches in my throatI choke, then, rememberif my sense of smellstill works, how lucky, Posted at 10:48 AM in pandemic, poetry | Permalink Reform rabbi, Kahanist agitator, firebrand writer: The new Knesset’s 16 rookies Lawmakers from no fewer than 13 different parties have made it into the 24th parliament. (Ex. But vaccines exist, and they work, and they will reach everyone. New and deadlier variants are sprouting. I hope this is helpful -- if you use any part of this slide deck, let me know how it works for you. (Salt, sugar, and oil: sure, but that was different. And it's February, which doesn't help anything, at least here where I am. Be gentle with yourself, and with each other. It's the third step of the seder, karpas: greens representing spring and new life, salt water representing the tears of slavery in ancient days and our tears at injustice even now.It's a gustatory hyperlink. We yearn to feel free, but we're not "there yet.". Five hundred thousand human beings. Still staying apart to protect each other and ourselves. Unlike the term “allyship,” achrayut doesn't presume a power differential between the person with needs and the person with privilege who's centering those needs. But someday, the rest of us will hug again. | Vaccines will come. So if you're not okay? Mincha Fri:  6:50p 1) Bayit's pre-seder materials are intended to flow directly into the karpas step of the seder. Comments (0), When we planned our first pandemic Zoom seders a year ago, none of us imagined that we would be preparing now for a second "season of our liberation" locked down at home. Last year who could've imagined that we'd be here now: preparing for another Zoom community second night seder? | I don't know how to process the fact that after a year, the reality is half a million souls here so far, and 2.64 million worldwide. with ice water, andyour small silver creamerwith our salt water tears. When we care for each other, we express and strengthen our achrayut. I kept it open in a tab all the time. And keep it that way. When the Bayit Liturgical Arts Working Group met to begin planning our offering for this second COVID Pesach, we decided to offer materials that could be a bridge or doorway into seder: starting where we are, and bringing us (we hope) to a place of readiness to approach freedom. This year I added a new-old flavor to my table. We will celebrate Pesach as a community again via digital means, not "in person." One way to understand allyship is through a Mussar lens. I talk about this verse every year, because I love it. The delicate quenelles of minced tilapia and salmon, simmered in a light broth of fennel and aromatics, are a revelation. What does it mean to prepare ourselves for liberation when many of us may still feel constrained: by pandemic, by economic challenges, by racism and all the harm it creates, by the reality of anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers? And maybe most of all, I love being part of a thoughtful, creative, collaborative build team. I'm the lead architect for Bayit Publishing, so our book projects (and liturgy projects and to some extent blog projects) are in my purview. Yesterday NASA landed a new robotic rover on Mars, named -- as you probably know -- Perseverance. Salt water tears. That was June, and at first, I didn't think I'd be very involved until it was time to bring the book to print. One of the ritual items on the seder table is salt water, representing the tears of our ancestors during slavery. This is the d'varling I offered at Kabbalat Shabbat services (cross-posted to the From the Rabbi blog. … “In Short Stories by Jesus, Amy-Jill Levine revisits the parables with an eye to how even these simple and straightforward stories unsettle and challenge.” -- Publishers Weekly “In this brilliant book Amy-Jill Levine invites her audience to read the parables of Jesus through a Jewish lens. You can find the whole collection here, in google slides form (beautiful!) So you'll likely want to delete a few slides as you figure out which of the karpas slides you want to keep. Maybe an orange and an olive. Not in some imagined reality where the pandemic never happened, but right here and now. I want to believe that we can harness those changes for the good of each other, but I don't know how. As is the dream that the science this little robot will do -- sampling regolith and soil, testing for microbes -- will bring us one step closer to someday landing human beings on Mars. Mincha: 6:50p. Vibrant and green, salt giving way to savory as the stem crunches. With our digital tools and inadequacywe sit with the trauma, the sirens, the losses. Any time a little red dot appeared on the tab, I knew that Shari or Steve had left a comment, and I'd click through to join the conversation and help however I could. God's presence is with us when we bless and light candles together-apart, when we bless and break bread together-apart, when we daven together-apart. My mother had just died and the world had turned upside-down. (So if you're reading this and thinking, "Is she blogging about our conversation?" The stuff in jars is unappealing, but I wanted to try it from scratch, remembering generations who stretched what little they had to make a feast worthy of Shabbat or seder. The second year was... well, a fog of grief, again: not intimate and personal, but global. The ark over which the divine Presence would rest needed to be ready to go at a moment's notice. 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