It's Purim!

Tonight, March 9th, Purim begins--it's a joyous, fun holiday, with a carnival atmosphere. Two of my grandchildren, Avigail and Joseph, will be dressed as Alice in Wonderland and the Cheshire cat, and they will of course be adorable!
Purim celebrates the deliverance of the Jews from a massacre. The beautiful Jewish heroine Queen Esther, the King's favorite (he did not know she was Jewish) persuaded him to save her people. The villain Haman who had planned the massacre was hanged.
To celebrate Purim, which usually falls in March, one month before Passover, Jews read aloud the book of Esther. It is customary, and lots of fun, to boo, hiss, and use noisemakers to blot out the name of Haman whenever it occurs in the reading. Children dress up for Purim parties and parades, adults are commanded to get drunk, and friends give each other gift baskets. Happy Purim!

Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel

I'm excited to see my four-year-old granddaughter, the lovely Princess Avigail, this Hanukkah. She knows Hebrew--alas, I don't. So I am studying up on how to play the dreidel game. As I understand it, we'll take turns spinning the four-sided top--the dreidel-- and depending which Hebrew letter comes up (see the chart above) we'll gain or lose our tokens-- money, or M&M's, or raisins. The person who is left with no tokens is out of the game.

The Hebrew letters on the dreidel stand for the words translated as "A great miracle happened there," which refers to the two thousand year old legend of the one jug of oil which would normally have been enough to light the menorah for only one day, but which miraculously lasted eight days during the purifying of the temple in the time of the Maccabees.

My friend Ted sent me this wonderful You-tube video of a cowboy version of the dreidel song--you gotta go there now!

Simchat Torah

Fall is such a busy season for Jewish holidays. At sundown tonight, Oct. 21 (remember that days in the Jewish calendar go from sundown to sundown), Simchat Torah, which means Rejoicing in the Torah, begins. This one-day holiday marks the end of the annual cycle of weekly readings of Torah chapters (from the beginning of Genesis through the end of Deuteronomy). Just as it celebrates a completion, it also marks a beginning--at the same service the reading starts anew, beginning a new yearly cycle with Genesis.
All the Torah scrolls are brought out and are paraded with singing and dancing seven times around the synagogue, and sometimes outside as well. Children wave flags or carry toy stuffed Torah scrolls. "On Simchat Torah," goes the beautiful hassidic saying, "we rejoice in the Torah, and the Torah rejoices in us; the Torah, too, wants to dance, so we become the Torah's dancing feet."
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Sukkot

Sukkot begins this evening, Oct. 13, and lasts for a week. It commemorates the Hebrews' forty years of wandering in the desert, where they built themselves temporary shelters called "sukkot"--booths, or huts. Sukkot has another function. A pilgrimage festival, it was called the Feast of the Ingathering in ancient Israel, when the Jews celebrated the harvest by bringing produce offerings to the temple in Jerusalem.
Observant Jews build three-sided booths, the sukkot, outdoors, where they eat and socialize during the festive seven-day holiday. The sukkah's cover must be made of living things such as branches, or bamboo, and one must be able to see the sky through them. Children enjoy decorating the sukkah with fruits and flowers and pictures.
According to Jewish Virtual Library, a useful source on the web, it is sad that some American Jews complain that they don't get to decorate a Christmas tree and yet know nothing of the fun of decorating a sukkah.
I visited only one sukkah, at an acquaintance's house, many years ago. The setting was very pretty, and the family was hospitable and joyous, but I had no idea what it was all about, and, stupidly, I was hesitant to ask.
The description of the holiday in Leviticus commands that Jews use the Four Species in the temple ritual of Sukkot. One should have a fruit called an etrog (it resembles a large lemon) in one hand and a bouquet of willow, palm, and myrtle (tied in a certain way) in the other. At certain times during the service the worshipper shakes the Four Species.

I've read that the Puritans' celebration of Thanksgiving may be related to the festival of Sukkot. I remember my own church observed a Methodist version of Sukkot: we called it the Harvest Festival. We gathered in the church basement, which we decorated with cornstalks and autumn leaves, and everyone brought canned goods to distribute to the poor.


There's a terrific 2005 Israeli movie about Sukkot. It's called Ushpizin, which means "the guests." (During Sukkot it is especially important to be hospitable by welcoming guests to your sukkah.) The guests turn out to be escaped convicts, and the movie is both touching and funny. You can buy it on Amazon and tell me what you think! Wishing you a fine holiday, Marilyn

The Yom Kippur Fast

Coming from a Mid-western Methodist upbringing, I always believed that an essential part of worship was gobbling up the offerings of tuna casserole, macaroni and cheese, jello chiffon pie, and German chocolate cake on the tables in the church basement at the monthly pot-luck supper. As I think about the Jews' obligation of fasting for 25 hours starting at sundown last night, it occurs to me that Protestant churches are the only religious groups I know of who do not mandate fasting.
(I read in Wikipedia that the continental Protestant Reformers "criticized fasting as a purely external observance that can never gain a person salvation. The Swiss Reformation of Zwingli began with an ostentatious public sausage-eating during Lent."--YUK.)
Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Mormons, Baha's, and Sikhs all recommend or require fasting. I feel like such a wuss.
For each of the 43 years we've been married, my husband, who is proud of his Judaism but is not religious, has fasted on Yom Kippur. Last year I joined him, but in previous years I did eat--just not where he would see me and be tempted.
Yom Kippur, the solemn and holy Day of Atonement, began at sundown last night. Observant Jews abstain from food, drink, washing, marital relations, and wearing leather (leather shoes, in Biblical times, were considered extra-comfortable) as well as the regular Sabbath abstaining from working, carrying, driving, cooking, etc.
At the end of Yom Kippur it is traditional to celebrate with Break the Fast, a family meal. In their lighthearted yet informative book What to Do When You're Dating a Jew, Weiss and Block quote as overheard at the beginning of the meal: "You can tell who didn't fast. They are being much more civil."
For more about the High Holy Days, which include Roshashana as well as Yom Kippur, click on Holidays on the sidebar.

Roshashana

Roshashana

September 30-October 1, 5768 (2008-2009)

Shana Tovah—Happy New Year!
Gemar Chatima Tovah! May you have a good signing in the Book of Life!
Roshashana and Yom Kippur are called the High Holy Days, or High Holidays. Roshashana is two days long; the period including Roshashana and Yom Kippur and the days in between totals ten days. Usually falling on days in September, Roshashana is celebrated on the first day of Tishrai, the seventh month of the Jewish calendar. It seems odd to celebrate the New Year on the seventh month! The intricacies of the Jewish calendar I haven’t yet fathomed, but I have learned that one explanation for calling this day New Year’s is that Adam was created on this day.

The High Holy Days is a time of reflection, repentance, and forgiveness; it’s much more serious than the Dec. 31 New Year’s Eve and the New Year’s Day which follows it. In fact it’s so serious that the days of Roshashana and Yom Kippur are referred to as "Days of Awe." On Roshashana God opens the Book of Life and the Book of Death, and on Yom Kippur he seals your name in the Book of Life or the Book of Death, determining whether you will have a good or a bad year.

Just as Christians who seldom go to church all clamor to attend Christmas and Easter services, so Jews who don’t often go to services find it important to be in synagogue for Roshashana and Yom Kippur. At the services the shofar, the ram’s horn, is blown many times. I like the way Judaism for Dummies (a very useful book!) calls the sound "a wake up call for the soul." Traditionally it is blown at services during the two days of Roshashana for about 100 times.

During the morning service on the first day (remember that days begin the evening before) some congregants wear a white garment called a kitl, a burial shroud, as a sign of repentance. During Roshashana Jews do teshuvah, which means repenting from sins (literally it means "returning," as in returning to God). The Akeda, the story of when Abraham demonstrated his trust in God by preparing to sacrifice his son Isaac, is retold each year at Roshashana.

If you are invited to attend services, here are a few things you should know:
Synagogue services, especially during holidays, are much longer than you are probably used to. I remember in my Methodist congregation people would get grumbly --and their stomachs rumbly-- if the sermon went on much longer than twenty minutes, and the whole church service took about an hour or so. If you are a married woman you should cover your head with a scarf or one of those doily-like things you used to use in Catholic churches. In general you just follow along with the prayer book (which begins on the last page) and do what other people do.

At the family Roshashana meals it is a lovely custom to dip apples—and sometimes pieces of challah, the delicious egg bread—in honey to wish for a sweet new year. The challah, which is usually braided, is round in shape on this holiday to symbolize the cycle of life and of the year. A traditional dish is tzimmes, a tasty casserole containing carrots, sweet potatoes, prunes, cinnamon, and honey. I love it! Because this dish takes a while to prepare and cook, there’s a cute Yiddish expression: "Don’t make a tzimmes," which means "Don’t make a big deal out of it." I like to add brisket to my tzimmes, which makes it a meat tzimmes.
Shana Tova—Happy New Year—and thanks for visiting. You’re a real mensch!

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Book Review: Inside Intermarriage

The subtitle of this book by Jim Keen is informative: "A Christian Partner's Perspective on Raising a Jewish Family." Here's an excerpt from the preface:
"...before we know it, wedding plans emerge. And then, suddenly, the questions arise. What are we going to tell our parents? What kind of a ceremony are we going to have? Who is going to marry us? In what religion do we raise the children? How will we celebrate the holidays? Which ones? Yours or mine? Finally, how can each of us keep our own identity amongst all this give and take? It's not easy."
If you and your Jewish partner plan to raise your children Jewish, this book will help you understand the enormity of the undertaking. Nevertheless, the author is the children's father, and however much he participates (and he participates a lot) in holiday observances, schlepping the kids to Hebrew school, etc., it is usually the mother--that will be you-- who bears most of the responsibility for the children's Jewish education.
What is unusual about this book is that it is written from the perspective of a devout Christian. The intermarried couples I know are not very religious, although they often choose to have their sons and daughters bar or bat mitzvahed, and the Protestant or Catholic shiksa (in my own case, Protestant) had not been actively practicing her religion. The author spends a lot of time and energy helping his wife and daughters celebrate Jewish holidays and traditions; then he goes off to church by himself, except for major holidays, when they come along to show respect. It seems to me that he has to give up a good deal of his identity and status, but clearly he, his wife, and children have a close, loving relationship that works for them.
URJ Press, a Reform house, published this paperback in 2006. You can find it at Amazon.com for around $16 (new).