יעלה תחנונו

Like many coffee drinkers, I have been getting advice for years to reduce my caffeine intake before Yom Kippur so that I don't get that inevitable caffeine headache throughout the day. Actually, for a couple of years I did follow that advice.

This is what I drank this morning. A big cup of really strong black coffee. I will have more of the same tomorrow morning. Why?

The biblical text about how to observe Yom Kippur states the following:

אַ֡ךְ בֶּעָשׂ֣וֹר לַחֹדֶשׁ֩ הַשְּׁבִיעִ֨י הַזֶּ֜ה י֧וֹם הַכִּפֻּרִ֣ים ה֗וּא מִֽקְרָא־קֹ֙דֶשׁ֙ יִהְיֶ֣ה לָכֶ֔ם וְעִנִּיתֶ֖ם אֶת־נַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶ֑ם וְהִקְרַבְתֶּ֥ם אִשֶּׁ֖ה לַיהוָֽה׃

Mark, the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It shall be a sacred occasion for you: you shall practice self-denial, and you shall bring an offering by fire to יהוה;

The key words here are וְעִנִּיתֶ֖ם אֶת־נַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶ֑ם , you shall practice self-denial. I would actually translate the Hebrew as "You should make your soul suffer". Yom Kippur needs a bit of suffering to work it's magic. Every year I have a bad headache---because it is part of the observance. When I come home from services after Neila I will have some coffee and feel reborn...just as you always do at the end of Yom Kippur.

Yesterday, I spent much of the day preparing, not soul but body for the holiday.

I set up bread dough for a bread for us to eat between yesterday and tomorrow. I also set up a challah dough.

Several hours later they turned into

a prettily scored weekday bread made with bulgur wheat and molasses, and a batch of round challot

that are all stuffed with thickened apple butter. I didn't get fancy with the shaping this time.

While the bread dough was resting, I was not. I rolled out a bunch of noodles to make the dish we always eat for the end of the fast.

This is a vast Cholesterol Death Kugel made with ricotta cheese, cream cheese, sour cream and farmer cheese, a stick of butter and eight eggs. The kugel is topped with a mix of spices, cinnamon, cloves, allspice and nutmeg. The flavors are Eastern European meets New England. There are years when I actually consult the index card with the recipe. This was not one of those years. The general rule for this recipe is more of everything---well except for the sugar. I tasted a bit after I cut it up and set it into the freezer. It tastes exactly as it should. It will provide us all with a sense of comfort and being loved after the fast ends. For those of you who want to end your fast with this wonderful kugel The recipe is here. It's super easy to make so even if you are reading this the morning before Yom Kippur there is lots of time to shop for ingredients and make this kugel.

And now a new topic---a warning for those of you who don't dwell inside of my brain.

Our friend Yocheved died in that storm of deaths that took place in late December and January where five friends died over the course of a month. Yocheved was 95 and outrageously young in spirit. Later in the winter Yocheved's nieces asked for help emptying out her apartment.

We worked sorting and packing books and household goods. One of Yocheved's nieces asked me if I was interested in any of the big categories of STUFF we were all working on clearing out of the apartment. I mentioned that I was particularly interested in textiles.

One of the nieces then said that she had something special to show me. She couldn't bear to part with it but she wanted me to see it. She then handed me the tallit bag that I had made Yocheved for her 70th or 75th birthday. I was so touched that among all of Yocheved's wonderful collection of textiles my work was the one deemed too special to give away. It was a little dirty and a bit worse for wear. I suggested that I could restore it using some of the textiles that Yocheved collected.

The other day I picked open the side seams of the bag. The lining had completely rotted away. I washed the open bag.

Yocheved collected embroidery from the Middle East. I tried to recreate the mood and the colors of the textiles Yocheved loved with quilting cottons. I plan to line the bag with some wonderful old embroidered pieces from Yocheved's collection. I will get back to work on it right after the holiday.

Getting my soul ready for Yom Kippur means listening to the music of the season---Here are a few selections.

Wishing all of you a meaningful day.

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...

AnonymousOctober 3, 2022 at 10:10 PM
Lovely to see Yocheved's bag again! 💙
Sarah JacobsOctober 4, 2022 at 9:58 AM
Seeing Yo's bag either under her arm, tossed on a table or even in my to do box always makes me happy. Some of my work is especially successful. I put this bag in that category. I was touched to find bits of kiddush crumbs caught in the corners of the bag. This bag was made better because it was so well used.

sarah in nyc

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