Various kinds of light and a winter Shabbat

Before Chanukah ended , I was struck by the sunlight on the water tanks and by the shadows that they cast.

Thenthe sun began to set.

Once Chanukah ended, it was time to clean our Chanukiyot.

Our oldest one unscrews with ease for cleaning and was easy to clean and polish.

It is now back on our living room window sill.

We did lots of hosting over the holiday. Nearly all of the tablecloths is washed and ironed and put away. All of this laundry made easier by the fact that we now own a working dryer. Getting a new dryer was a long difficult and really boring tale that I won't be sharing unless you really want to hear each dull detai.

Snow is promised for tonight and we are having a cozy meal of

crock pot chicken soup with lots of STUFF. My husband loves a peasant soup filled with lots of goodies and doesn't understand why I would go through the effort of straining a soup.

We are also having a chicken.

This cute chicken was coated with sumac and hawaij before cooking. Vegetable matter to be derarmined. Dessert will probably be a slice of the excellent fruitcake sent to us by our Texas cousin.

This lovely lyrical melody is paired with words about a sailor who drowns.It is deeply embedded in my childhood which was filled with beautiful ballads in Hebrew about people who died. Often the deaths were in the last stanza but in this ballad the death is up front in the first stanza.

Shabbat Shalom! Stay warm and dry.

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מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים

וְנֶאֱמָן אַתָּה לְהַחֲיוֹת מֵתִים: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים You are faithful to restore the dead to life. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Resurrector of the dead. That particular line is recited at every single prayer service every day three times a day, unless you use a Reform or Reconstructionist prayer book . In those liturgies instead of praising God for resurrecting the dead God is praised for giving life to all. I am enough of a modern woman, a modern thinker, to not actually believe in the actual resurrection of the dead. I don't actually expect all of the residents of the Workmen's Circle section of Mount Hebron cemetery in Queens to get up and get back to work at their sewing machines. I don't expect the young children buried here or the babies buried here to one day get up and frolic. Yet, every single time I get up to lead services I say those words about the reanimating of the dead with every fiber of my being. Yesterday, I e...

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