sarah in nyc

Tonight begins Rosh Chodesh Elul, the new moon. Starting on Sunday every morning services will end with the blowing of the shofar as a reminder that Rosh HaShanah and all of the internal work we need to do to prepare is soon coming. My father died on the fourth day of Elul. Those of you who grew up in Quincy remember his shofar blowing. He was a powerful shofar blower. The year after my father died our rabbi asked if anyone in our household blew shofar. I volunteered. Since then, every day during the month of Elul I run through the blasts.  First I go through the shofar blasts on the tan shofar and then on the black one. The tan one is HARD to blow. The black one is ugly but is easy to blow and produces the sharp shrill sounds I remember my father producing. When my mother was still alive I used to call her before I practiced. I would ask her if she wanted to hear me blow shofar. She always said yes.  I would  put down the phone and go through the blasts. When...

One of things that strikes me is that people who don't sew sometimes thing that relatively easy tasks are super complicated. At the same time exactly because they don't sew some things that seem easy on paper become a total headache when you actually have to do them. So in the harder than it looks category is sewing this particular atara onto the tallit. What has made it so hard is that there is a DIFFERENT atara on the other side of the tallit. And of course, the other atara is smaller and narrower. All of which means that I needed to sew the atara on so the stitching is invisible on both sides. I won't take you through every bit of the process, but I will say that it took three frustrating attempts and several days to get right. (Normally this is a job that would take maybe twenty minutes.) Now for the other category, something that looks complicated, but is in fact a simple job. When I wear garments like this one  people will inevitably comment, "Ther...

One of the constants in my life is using the making of food to express emotion. The "tag team" bread so often made in our home, started by one of us, kneaded, by another, shaped by another  and baked by a third person often functions as a wordless conversation between me and my boys.  When we sit down to eat the bread,we will often discuss the various attributes of the loaf and discuss what each of us added to the process. Last Friday was our friend Mike's birthday. We wanted to be sure that he knew how fond we are of him. I made an ice cream cake  (pomegranate ginger ice cream studded with bits of candied orange) and decorated it. Yes, he got the message. While I often express my feelings in edible form as the people who sit at our table --I hope-- recognize it isn't often that I am on the receiving end of such messages. This past Sunday we were invited to the home of dear friends. We used to spend lots of time together but life and work and lots...

When I began doing the work that I do in fabric both my clients and I were seeing to work with colors that danced In those days I produced lots of work where I felt like I pushed the limits of the level of friction possible between colors. I don't know if it is the current political situation but  this has been the summer of producing things that are white on white. My nephew's bride is making her chuppah and asked relatives to make all white squares. This was what I made. All summer I have been working on an atara. That too is white on white. It has been something of a long slog. My hands have to be clean. I will stop to wash them several times during a work session. It's a lot of hand embroidery. while it is time consuming I can work while I am in conversation with someone. Eventually my embroidery was completed, but i needed to finish off the piece. This piece was supposed to be about the reflective quality of the whites. i added ma...

When I was little, tucked in among the shelves of books of biblical commentary, theology Biblical archaeology and other books of use to a congregational rabbi in my father's knotty pine basement office was a collection of photo albums. I spent hours sitting in my father's Naugahyde reclining chair looking at the lives my parents lived before I was born. After my parents died, I inherited those beloved albums. There were rifts in the family so there were many faces in that album that existed for me only as people in theory rather than living and breathing human beings. As decades of hurt and anger have flowed under many bridges various segments of the family have re-connected. Perhaps twenty years ago my sister saw a death notice for one of my father's cousins in the New York Times. My parents happened to be in town so my father reconnected with his cousin Carole-Lee. My cousin has a life filled with children and grandchildren, art making  and all of the many obligations...

I got a delighted phone call from the mother of the recipient of this sweater.  It made me happy that I had made the effort and that my niece was as delighted by this sweater as I am, perhaps even more. Another great niece visits on Monday and I made her this sweater. It is knit with a wool-blend heavy weight yarn and is edged in purplish crochet. My favorite part of this sweater are the buttons.In Hebrew this baby is named for my Mother , Zipporah, which means bird. This baby's middle name in Hebrew is Zahavah, which means gold. I was delighted to find the button with a beautiful cloisonne bird.  My mother, in the family was known by her English name. I think that the hand  carved shell buttons are a nice evocation of my mother's English name. I love a baby garment that is a bit over the top. Tonight is officially Tisha B'Av but since we don't fast on Sabbat ( except for Yom Kippur) the fast begins tomorrow night. There is a tradition to...

Yesterday my husband and I were out in the country swimming at a lake. Out youngest called. He was having an allergic reaction to SOMETHING. We still aren't exactly sure what, but he was feeling a bit alarmed. He and I talked through possible courses of action- take an antihistamine, go to one of the local urgent care centers, go to an ER. At first the antihistamine seemed like the way to go. Within a few minutes between texts and phone calls it was clear that a visit to the urgent care center was the prudent thing to do. I figured he was OK. I went for a short swim and checked my phone. My son sent me a text that the urgent care center had sent him on to the ER. My husband and I packed up and raced back to the city, an hour away. Our two other kids abandoned their Sunday afternoon plans and rushed to the ER to be with their brother. By the time I had arrived my son looked like this. His allergic reaction had receded. The hives were gone. The swelling in his mouth was...