Another week

We get through our weeks with Zoom funerals and Zoom Shivas and our Google Hangout Shabbat dinners.

A friend from synagogue suggested that we also have virtual Kiddush, so last night several of us gathered to schmooze virtually. It felt like a real kiddush, a real blessing, even though it wasn't Shabbat and we weren't even eating.

My youngest mentioned last night before he went to bed that he was looking forward to Shabbat.

One advantage of having virtual guests at our table is that we only need to cook for four.

My older son made the chicken. It is cooked on a bed of potatoes with tons of lemon and parsley. I didn't photograph the roasted string beans also made with lots of lemon, because we had lots of lemons in the fridge.

We were able to get both yeast and high gluten flour. It feels luxurious to be able to put together a meal without worrying about having enough ingredients.

Yesterday I taught a class via Zoom for my synagogue on mask-making. It was recorded and you can watch it here if you want to learn how to make a mask. Just don't make me watch the video.

Thursday I completed another batch of face masks.

This brings my total up to just under 90 masks.

If you look out the window of my living room you will see that the two markets across the street have spots for people to stand while they wait to get in.

There are times when there are many more people waiting than there are strips of yellow tape on the ground.

In these weeks that are colored by illness and death there are some deaths that hit particularly hard. Yesterday I learned of the death of a college friend. He was very close to dear friends of mine. Eddie was just a kind old soul. He died after a long illness (as obituary writers used to say euphemistically). I hadn't seen Eddie in decades. The world is a less good place without him here.

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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...

Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee. If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it. My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid. I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed. A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night. I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1) אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2) אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3) יָאֵר יְהֹ...

sarah in nyc

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Another week

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