Follow up from Friday

Friday I had planned to do a challah braiding tutorial for the blog. Unfortunately, my photos were being held in some kind of an internet cloud purgatory and were not available to me until after Shabbat had begun...so here is the rest of what I had begun on Friday. When I had left off I had two strands of dough.

I am thinking that it might be easier to understand how to do a two-stranded braid if I pretend that I am a Japanese craft book and only show images of the process rather than explaining in words.. Sometimes words get in the way of explaining how to do a series of simple physical moves.

Back when I was teaching little kids I found that I could get kids as young as three or four to make complicated origami forms if I didn't talk but showed them what I was doing step by step.

I am braiding left handed because I am using my camera in my right hand.

This was the final result.

If you have questions, just ask.

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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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