This is the watercolor I painted for a post on the age of Rivka. I decided in order to paint I need 1) my children to be out of the house (OK if eldest is home) and 2) not a lot of time. If I have a lot of time, I will fritter it away, checking blogs, doing laundry, running errands, catching up on whatever household stuff I couldn’t get to when I had too much work on my plate.
You will notice the paper is rather rough; it’s fun to experiment with different types of paper. Also, because much of a bride is white, I had to concentrate on the negative space, the parts of the composition that were not bridal veil, dress or flowers.
“Not painting because it’s too much fun is like not going outside on a pretty day because the weather is too nice.” – Sh, a dear friend
My World is a meme played by people all over the planet. For more information and to see other places and wonders, visit My World.
I took a trip down to the Native Plant Reserve in Highland Park last week. And when I say “down”, one does go down: Highland Park is on a little hill, and the Native Plant Reserve is down by the Raritan River. It looks bare now, but in the spring many new buds will open up.
In the spring I’ll come back and photograph the little signs and their accompanying plants.
This tree looks proud. The little sign below says it is a white oak.
More about the Native Plant Reserve.
I read a review on VosIzNeias and one on the Jerusalem Post (ht: Seraphic Secret) for a new film for women called “A Light for Greytowers”. It fascinated me: a girl is separated from her parents and sent to an orphanage where a cruel matron does not want her to keep her religion.
Just my luck (or was it hashgacha pratis, Divine Providence), I got to see the movie last night. It screened at a local synagogue, Congregation Ohav Emeth in Highland Park, to a full room of women and teenage girls. It turned out the movie was not just a Jane Eyre story re-created in Jewish form. It was also a musical, and a funny one at that! Some said it reminded them of Annie. I thought of Oliver Twist and “food, glorious, food.” Another friend said it evoked “The Little Princess”, Jewish style.
Here’s the plot as described on the Kol Neshama website:
This thrilling musical adventure follows Miriam Aronowitch from Czarist Russia to Victorian England where she and her mother, Anya, have taken refuge from the Cossack pogroms. When Anya becomes critically ill, however, twelve-year-old Miriam finds herself abandoned in an English orphanage — appropriately named Greytowers — and at the mercy of its cruel matron, Miss Agatha Grimshaw. Only the strength of her faith, imbued in her by her beloved mother, enables her to withstand the torments and bleakness of Greytowers and to rekindle the light of Judaism in the hearts of her young companions.
Some of my favorite scenes included one where the young orphan girls are being taught by a previous, kindlier matron on how to make brachos (blessings) on their food. Another, earlier in the film, depicts two silly sisters (who look like the aunts from James and the Giant Peach) singing to the girls about nutrition. The whole movie is a parody of many English stories, such as the scene where a captain’s wife comes to visit and sings of her loneliness. The woman who plays the cruel matron is a funny and fabulous actress.
And the movie has a happy ending, too!
I do have to say, however, that the emphasis on “gam zu letova”, this too is for the good, did get to me a bit. If one is using the film as a teaching tool, there really is no room for explaining the unhappy endings, which, unfortunately, do happen too often in life, especially in Jewish history.
Here are a few photos I took of my garden last week. Above is a rudbeckia, a black-eyed susan, peeking out from behind white alyssum.
Pretty much all my annuals have now faded or died. In the spring I’ll photograph the azaleas, here shown with red leaves, that are under the andromeda shrub.
A lonely pink rose in my backyard: sometimes we get roses on a warm winter day. But this past week brought frost each night; yesterday felt like January. Still no signficant snow, however.
Today’s Flowers is hosted by Luiz Santilli Jr. Thank you, Luiz, for this lovely and lively meme.
A while back I wrote about a rally in Highland Park in front of the Ten Thousand Villages store.
One of my friends, Harry Glazer, was one of the organizers of that rally. He wrote the following letter to the Highland Park Mirror (a local newspaper), explaining the nature of the rally (and graciously agreed to my posting the letter on my blog):
As one of the organizers of the rally held in front of the Ten Thousand Villages store in September, I hope to clarify.
The Mennonite Central Committee has hosted [Iranian President Ahmadinejad] for dinner not once, not twice, but three times as of his September visit. His pronouncements and actions have only become more menacing in the years since he’s hobnobbed with the Mennonite Central Committee and other like-minded peace groups.
And if the purpose of dining with an enemy is not influence their views or acts, then how does a faith community justify showing respect to someone who espouses such blatant religious hatred?
Our protest was held in front of the Ten Thousand Villages store in recognition of the fact that the store sends a significant portion of their profits to their parent organization, the Mennonite Central Committee. So in a very real sense, a purchase at Ten Thousand Villages supports the Mennonite Central Committee’s legitimization of Ahmadinejad, as well as other activities by the group that demonstrate a complete lack of balance with regards to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
I have no problem with the fact that Ten Thousand Villages sells goods made in Palestinian areas or that the Mennonites send humanitarian aid to those areas. I do take issue with the attitude of the Mennonites that the conflict is mostly Israel’s fault.
I can say, as well, that it pains me to have to oppose Ten Thousand Villages, since I respect and value ideals of the store – to sell handcrafted goods that are manufactured by workers in underprivileged areas across the globe, thereby providing income to those struggling to support themselves and their famillies. This is a noble mission and, sadly, few other avenues exist to support these artisans in the same honorable fashion.
With sorrow, though, I recognize that I cannot shop at Ten Thousand Villages because some of the money spent there goes to defame a struggling democracy, Israel, which is regularly besieged by enemies with no regard for civilized rules of conflict. Worse yet, the funds spent at Ten Thousand Villages also contribute to efforts to honor a mortal enemy of my friends and relatives, an enemy currently seeking nuclear arms to make good on his word.
A cause may seem noble on the surface, but sometimes when you find out more on how the money is spent, one gets more cautious about giving.
Baila’s got a whole bunch of recipes at the latest Kosher Cooking Carnival.
I’ve been playing in my crock pot again, and this time it’s called Turmeric Soup. It doesn’t look terribly different than my Farmer’s Market Soup.
Ingredients:
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 Tbsp. olive oil
- 1 or 2 cloves of garlic
- Turmeric, about 1 tsp.
- Pepper, about 1/2 tsp. and salt to taste
- 1 sweet potato or yam
- 1 can of beans (I used cannellini, but chickpeas or northern beans will work, too)
- 3 leaves of kale
Saute the onions in olive oil until translucent. Sprinkle generously with turmeric, pepper and salt. Put chopped sweet potato in crockpot. Put in the can of beans. Put in the sauteed onions and garlic. If you feel up to waiting just before it’s almost ready, you can add the kale right before everything is tender. But if you are lazy like me, just add it at the same time as the other ingredients.
I let it cook for about 4 hours, and it tasted delicious.
Was Rivka 3 or 14 or some other age when she got married?
Josh Waxman has much more on this topic.
But for us in the 21th century, either age seems young. One can see advantages to marrying someone off at fourteen; it (mostly) eliminates the problem with teenage pregnancies, as the girl/woman is married. She was also marrying someone who shared her culture, even if one family worshiped one God and the other worshiped idols. On the other hand, it doesn’t give her anytime to develop a career or even any sense of herself before having children. I can’t even begin to imagine a married 3-year-old, unless it was just a betrothal. Then, married fourteen-year-olds also seems like a strange notion…
This post is a continuation of 100 20 7 14 3. More on the 127, coming soon.
Above is one more sky photo taken on Raritan Avenue.
Links to explore:
- Klara set up a blog called Trees and Forests. She knows how to cook (and can teach you a thing or two about healthy cooking), but she needs some help with blogging. Go and give her some good ideas!
- Eddie photographed a misty, colorful rural landscape outside Kyoto, Japan.
- Loved Mimi’s purples.
- Feeling a little more down than usual this fall, as the days get shorter and colder? Could be SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder. Therapydoc has some good anti-SAD ideas.
Finally, the secret ingredient in the birthday cake was: BEETS. Congrats to the ones who guessed correctly (Ilana-Davita and Klara).
As a continuation to the My World post on Raritan Avenue, this week I’m featuring a Sky Watch on Raritan Ave. Above is a glimpse up South Third Ave in the center of Highland Park.
A street scene between Fourth and Fifth Avenues, one can see a Bradford pear tree with its red fall foliage (now gone and bare).
Here’s an ambulance from Woodbridge zooming along past my favorite toy store, Over the Moon Toys. We are fortunate that two excellent hospitals, Robert Wood Johnson and St. Peter’s, are just over the bridge from us in New Brunswick.
While standing in front of the supermarket on Raritan Avenue a few days ago, my daughter and I were privileged to view this sunset.
For more Skywatch participants, please visit:
I did pottery for about ten years. I haven’t found a studio locally that I like, but maybe when my kids are older I’ll venture over to Raritan Valley Community College or back to Middlesex County College to take a pottery class again. It’s a very relaxing hobby. Anyway, my home is full of pottery that I’ve made. Accidents do happen, and someone who was quick to do the mitzvah of washing hands (before eating bread, Orthodox Jews wash hands with a mug and say a blessing) broke this washing mug that I made lovingly almost twenty years ago. Now I bury my favorite pottery in my garden, broken shards on display with my plants.
Carmi has a new theme, “broken”, for Thematic Photographic. What a great excuse to photograph my broken washing mug!
