Soon after he noticed that I was following him (her?) around with my camera, he settled on this high phone wire in the back of my yard.

Oh, by the way, did you know that Noah sent out a dove: “And he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground.” But before the dove, he sent out a raven. I didn’t have any ravens showing up in my back yard.

My neighbor’s burning bush is quite spectacular – bright red at this time of year. Ah, another Biblical reference, except the burning bush doesn’t show up in the weekly Torah reading until winter time.

Here’s the how the dry oak leaf hydrangea flower looks – this photo was taken the same day as the red hydrangea leaf photos.

For more Nature Notes:

Or maybe he’s really looking out the window:

For the answer to these and other tantalizing questions, you will have to visit my friend’s Harry’s post Noach – Is righteousness relative?

The illustrations of Noah with diamond and window were executed by me (with some critical helpful feedback from my daughter) with pen, ink, and then a lot of playing in Photoshop. The aim was whimsical and playful.

Leora Presents 100=20 While Kindergarten Son Hides Under Table

It seems I started to blog about 100 20 and 7 back in 2008, but I never completed the post. Can anyone explain in the comments how 100 equals 20?

Thanks!

Yesterday Rabbi Bassous talked about the split vav in the parsha of Pinchas. It is the only case in the Torah of a letter being split.

יב לָכֵן, אֱמֹר: הִנְנִי נֹתֵן לוֹ אֶת-בְּרִיתִי, שָׁלוֹם.
Wherefore say: Behold, I give unto him My covenant of peace;

The rabbi explained that it is to show us one cannot achieve peace through violence. (Of course, he said much more, but I can’t repeat what he said without misquoting or taking it totally out of context. So I will leave just this piece for you to ponder and explore on your own).

What do you see?

(My apologies if I restate any of his talk incorrectly).

1. Humility: in crushing the olive to make the oil, we learn humility. We should learn to be humble in our lives.
2. Permeation: Oil permeates the skin if we rub it like an ointment. Just as Joseph was involved in Egypt in a good way, so we Jews should be involved in the world around us.
3. Water and oil separate: water does not mix with oil. We should not mix in and dissolve in greater society. Joseph was involved in Egypt, but he retained his Judaism.
4. Oil floats to the top: if we are good, hardworking people, we can rise above in society.
5. Light unto others: the lighted oil is symbolic of being a light unto others.

If you need further explanation or elaboration, feel free to ask the comments (especially if you don’t celebrate Chanukah or if you just don’t understand one part of what he said – I’m open to questions).

Red Leaves in East Brunswick, New Jersey

On My Blog

I have two more interviews with bloggers on writing coming up for this blog – one for this coming week, and one for the following week. I will post the answer to the Film Festival quiz tomorrow morning on Sunday (in the comments of the film festival post). Still time for guessing – thanks to those who already tried!

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere

Update on Friday: “Baruch Dayan HaEmet – Blessed is the True Judge.

This is the blessing said upon hearing the news of someone’s death.

About 11:10 AM this morning, RivkA passed away.

Funeral plans are in the process, and we’ll post them as soon as we know.

May RivkA’s family be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.”

One more update, a parsha thought on Hayye Sarah by Jeffrey Woolf: “Abraham came to Hevron to eulogize Sarah and to cry for her. The Rav זצ”ל used to emphasize that ordinarily the order is the reverse. First once cries. Only after time passes and perspective returns, can one eulogize the departed and evaluate who they were.

Sometimes, though, one is obligated to suppress one’s primal shriek of pain in order to tell the world just who the person was who has gone. That way, the Rav said, we try to involve as many people as possible in mourning the tragedy. Once the eulogy is achieved, we may all let ourselves go and cry out in pain.”

About thirty years ago when the Soviet Union first opened its doors, an elderly woman arrived in Israel who was visited by many rabbis. She was not religious, but she was the granddaughter of someone famous: the Chofetz Chaim. They wanted to hear about her conversations with and stories about her famous grandfather. There was one story in particular that was related. The granddaughter, against her parents’ and grandfather’s wishes, had attended university. After much education, she came back to her grandfather and said to him, when are you going to give up your old-fashioned ways? The world is moving forward with science and technology; all sorts of exciting new discoveries are happening. The Chofetz Chaim replied, with all these great discoveries, they will build bombs. One day there will be a bomb to destroy the world. While they are building bombs, I am building people.

Rabbi Bassous then went on to relate this to the parsha, where the people build a tower toward the skies.

More on Congregation Etz Ahaim in this post.

•   •   •

The Kosher Cooking Carnival, post-holiday edition, is on Batya’s blog. Thank you, Batya.

The painting is Tower of Babel by Brueghel.

More stories from the prophets: Archaelogical Dig at Tel Dan in northern Israel, Where Jeroboam built a cult as an alternative to the Temple in Jerusalem

For more on this story of Rehoboam, read A Divided Nation on the Aish website or Kings Chapter 12 (Melachim Bet).

How was this related to last week’s parsha? We learned about the law of jealousy in the ten commandments, and from there, my husband told the story of jealous Jezebel, and then there were more stories from the Prophets…

It is a Jewish custom before the Shabbat in which one sings Shirat HaYam (the Song of the Sea, the song about the crossing of the Reed Sea) to feed the birds. Why feed the birds? I found two explanations:

1) There is a tradition that on the first Shabbat of the Manna, not only did people go out looking for Manna, but they (wicked people, says Rashi) had previously scattered Manna around the camp in order to find it and “make a liar out of Moshe”.

Birds came by early in the morning and ate up the Manna, thus protecting the honor of Moshe, and of G-d Who had said that Manna would not fall on Shabbat. In repayment “one good turn deserves another” style, we feed the birds around this Shabbat when we read of the Manna in the weekly portion.

And here is the second:

2) We joyously sing praise to G-d for His having taken us out of Egypt and saved us from the Egyptians. Singing is the special domain of the birds. That is how they express themselves in acknowledgment of the Creator (so to speak – or so to sing). We borrowed their skill; therefore we “pay royalties” on our Song by feeding birds on (before) this Shabbat.

Since last Friday was right before Shabbat Shira, I decided that this was the perfect time finally to take the new bird feeder I bought out of the box and hang it on our garage window (with the help of my seven-year-old daughter):

After some initial difficulty with the suction cup attachments (you have to first soak the suction cups in hot water, then dry them, then rub them with your thumb, then attach them), I finally got the feeder to stay up properly. However, I don’t believe any of our neighborhood birds have been eating from it. I did see one pecking away at my compost.

I believe this bird is a chickadee (thanks, Eileen).

This is what is left of the finch feeder sock I bought one month ago:

As one of the reasons for the feeding the birds custom is to become more sensitive to the needs of the animals around us, I plan to continue to feed the birds. As Michelle of Rambling Woods has taught me, once you start feeding the birds, they expect it.

I hope to post more bird photos tomorrow for SkyWatch; one day last week, my eldest son said, Eema, there’s a bird making a strange noise outside. I went out with my camera and there many, many, many birds.

For more Nature Notes, visit: