sarah in nyc

This has been a season of many wonderful things, a conversion to Judaism, a wedding, Passover. One of the events we have been looking forward to for quite a while is taking place this Thursday night in San Francisco. As I have been the keeper of the textiles for my family and for others, my husband has been the keeper of his father's artwork. My late father-in-law was prolific. After my mother-in-law died and my father-in-law moved to California my husband took on the herculean task of closing up his parents' home and storing a lifetime of drawings and paintings. Two years ago, as you can read here  we found a place for a portion of my father-in-law's output. The lovely folks of  The Lost Art Salon  have curated cleaned and reframed about half of the works they have purchased. The opening of this exhibit will take place this Thursday at their gallery. We are flying out tomorrow and will be joined by other family members. If you want a preview of some ...

or how to do this while recovering from a slow sinus sick But we have dear friends that will be eating with us tonight. Peppers and tomatoes are roasted and ready to be added to tonight's salad. The chicken was coated in smoked paprika, sweet paprika, and cayenne pepper. Rice baked with last week's chicken juice. Our guests are bringing dessert. But I did make challot filled with chocolate and spices. After I finish typing I will take a nap before dinner. Shabbat Shalom

Any marriage is a blending of two different family cultures. My own marriage is no different. Those of you who know me in real life or have read this blog know that I often joke about my parent's secondary religion, that of fine china and crystal. My in-laws, and therefore my husband grew up completely innocent of this universe of the importance of an elegant table setting. In our marriage, we have come to a workable compromise between those two poles of thought about how one sets a table. When my mother died and it came time to divide the objects accumulated during our parents' long marriage there were some things that each of us really wanted. There were a few things that all of us wanted and we came to a really amicable division of those things. There were lots of things that while we didn't exactly want them we knew that those objects had mattered to our parents and the taking of those object was a bit like accepting a burden. One set of objects that fell into t...

Y's bar mitzvah is this Shabbat so I made sure I was done yesterday. I was touched to see how much Y and his mother loved the tallit. After they were done with their first round of admiring the tallit, we got down to the work of tying the tzitzit. Having my clients tie their tzitzit means that they get the opportunity to pay attention to their tally before the big event( usually a bar-mitzvah). Y and his mother loved the shimmer of the tallit. There is lots of gold but it does not look like a Liberace tallit. The tallit also references Africa but does not in any way look like the "Lion King tallit". Tying the tzitzit takes time and the four of us worked together companionably. Occasionally I was called on to help out, to recount thread wraps or to undo wonky work.  Eventually, all of the corners had properly tied tzitzit. It was time for Y to put on his new tallit with all of the intentional verses from Pslams, say the proper ...

It was great to get back to baking challah. This week our meal will be eaten some at our table and some at a Shabbat table three blocks away. There is something about food that is made to comfort friends who have recently gone through a loss. There is a famous story about a king who eats at a Shabbat table. He loves the food and asks his hosts for the recipe so the meal can be recreated at his palace. The recipes are given and the food is prepared by the palace chefs. The meal is somehow lacking. It just isn't as delicious as it was in the simple Jewish home. the king demands to know what spice was omitted from the recipes. After a bit of thought, the king is told that the special spice is Shabbat. I  don't know the truth of that famous story. I can say that I coordinated meals for mourners at my synagogue for years. I can't tell you how often a person who had volunteered to cook would tell me that the soup or the lasagna they had made for a Shiva house ended u...

The Passover dishes are all put away with a great deal of help from my husband and kids and my son's friend. Shir haShirim, the Songs of Songs is  usually read on Passover and one of the famous lines there is "for lo the winter is past.." I grew up in New England where a snowstorm in April is not unheard of. Usually, I think that my New York neighbors are weenies when they complain about the cold in April. But this year, despite the Song of Songs and despite the calendar day after day feels like late November. The calendar does read April though so my next tallit is due fairly soon. This tallit is being made for a young man who was born in Ethiopia. I am using parts of an Ethiopian hand woven scarf in the tallit. The text that is tying the tallit together comes from the teachings of Nachman of Bratslav. The melody was written by Baruch Chait who was a member of the band The Rabbi's Sons which was the Orthodox version of The Beatles. Their music was even more ...

The last few days have been full of today being Martin Luther King's fiftieth Yahrzeit. He was killed fifty years ago today. Ten days before Martin Luther King was assasinated he was the keynote speaker at the Rabbinical Assembly convention at the Concord Hotel in Kiamesha Lake, NY. The Rabbinical Assembly is essentially the union for Conservative rabbis. Note this is Conservative with a capital C, meaning not Orthodox nor Reform. The Conservative relates to Jewish law and not to politics. I was six years old. I was present for the dinner in the massive dining room and Dr. King was on the dais along with other dignitaries. It was the first time I had seen a person of color on the dais of a Rabbinical Assembly convention. Last week one of my husband's friends, Naomi, was visiting and she mentioned that she was there that night too. Her father was also a Conservative Rabbi. She commented, that I must have been too young to stay up and hear his talk. I was. Naomi was a...

Getting the Sedarim put together this year was, to put it mildly, something of a challenge. I was grateful to have use of the basement fridge. But having to run down seven flights to get that one thing that had been forgotten was less than ideal. As promised the fridge repair guy did arrive, not in the morning as requested, but at 4pm. He announced as soon as he walked in that it would be a job that would take several hours. During his time working there were times we had no access to the kitchen. Our seder was called for 7:00. Candle lighting was at 7. I lit candles as the repairman was just finishing up. (He had replaced all of the internal working bits of the fridge.) Fortunately, our guest came a little late so I had time to get dressed and slap on some lipstick. Our maror this year was pretty spectacular. here is a glamor shot of the top. The root was large enough to use as a weapon. I spent the first half of seder kind of stunned. Amazingly everything looked...