Leora

Haveil Havalim Hosts

Signs of Times: Seasonal Shifts

Here’s a leaf of my bald cypress, photo taken this November.

The same bald cypress tree was photographed in July, with a gray catbird enjoying the branches.

My oak leaf hydrangea is almost all red.

It was much greener in October.

One neighbor’s tall maple was displaying yellow leaves in October.

Here’s the same tree, back in January 2009. I looked an hour ago, and the tree is almost bare again, soon to look as it did in January.

For more Nature Notes or Signs of the Times, visit Rambling Woods.

Thursday Challenge: Welcoming the Shabbat Bride

When I think of songs that warm my soul, the songs of Shabbat come immediately to mind and heart. Lecha Dodi is sung on Friday nights – the song is a welcoming of the “Sabbath Bride.” Lecha Dodi was written in the 16th century by Rabbi Shlomo Halevi Alkabetz. I rather like this untraditional rendition of the song on YouTube.

Thursday Challenge theme is MUSIC (Guitar, Playing an Instrument, Things that make sounds, iPods, Sheet Music, Noisy Things,…).

Pigs in Metuchen

The Three Little Pigs is showing at the Forum Theatre in Metuchen, New Jersey. For more information, including times and how to get tickets, visit the Forum website.

We greatly enjoyed seeing Rapunzel in October.

What creative groups are featured in your area? Theater, artists, musicians, museums – are there any that your family enjoys?

Leaves of Autumn 2009

More October 2009 leaves. Now you see them, outside you don’t, except on a few late-turning trees. Do I like taking fall foliage more than photographing flowers? Hard to say, but the time does flee quickly for the foliage. Flowers generally last longer, except for my climbing roses which are only bursting in bloom for two weeks of June.

Reading with Belle the Dog

Belle is a dog. My daughter has been reading to her once a week at the Highland Park Public Library. Last year my daughter struggled with reading even the simplest words. This year she is making progress, and she feels comfortable at her reading sessions with Belle, who is sometimes called a “therapy” dog.

This past week she chose to read a Fancy, Nancy book to Belle. See more of Belle and my daughter on the Highland Park Public Library photo gallery.

I am glad Belle has a red collar, so she can be my Ruby Tuesday post for this week. For more photos with red, visit:

Fall Foliage October 2009

You blink, and the fall foliage ends. I took this photo at the end of October.

Review and Up a Tree

On My Blog

And if you look in the comments for the See and Tell post you will find the villain. And in Name the Book, I named the book. Thanks to all who participated.

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere

• Veterans Day: Thank a veteran for keeping our world safe. Jewwishes, Raizy, Baila, and RamblingWoods posted about Veterans Day. Ilana-Davita posted photos of the beaches of Normandy. Isramom posted about a U.S. soldier who fought in Normandy and Alsace, who received a special blessing.
• In Which I Become a Soldier’s Mother by A Mother in Israel

Years Years Years

Note: I wrote this post a year ago. And it sat as a draft in my WordPress until today. In honor of Ilana-Davita and because Raizy misses Ilana-Davita’s parsha post this week, I am now hitting ‘published.’ Please note that I never finished, but at the bottom you will see that I found a high school student who did.

One of the problems with writing about the parsha is getting it up before Shabbat is not always the easiest task, and one often has more time to review the parsha on Shabbat. So here’s a few more thoughts on the years of Sarah, before we turn to the parsha of this coming week, Toldot.

What’s the question about the opening pasuk, the opening sentence of the Torah portion? Unless you read Hebrew, you might think from the English that it only says “years” twice. However, it really says “shanah” or years 4 times. Since everything in the Torah is repeated for a reason, why so many years?

There is a midrash that goes with the story of Sarah. It’s like this:

When Sarah was 100, it was as though she was twenty in sin.

And when Sarah was 20, it was as though she was 7 in beauty.

So Rashi claims that we learn this midrash from the fact that the pasuk repeats the word “shanah” or year: 100 years, 20 years and 7 years. But the Ramban says no, we learn the midrash from the end of the pasuk, where it says “And these were the years of Sarah.” Because by Yishmael, it also has years repeated, but his years were not all alike.

And here the post ended…but Nachi Friedman provides a good summary of what the commentators had to say about this topic of Sarah’s years.

Thursday Challenge: Youth