Thoughts as my Challah bakes

Just before Passover, I washed my bedroom curtains. I noticed that the lace curtain, the one that Victorians would call the glass curtain because it is the one next to the glass window had developed holes.

These curtains had begun life as my living room curtains about thirty years ago. My husband kept saying that since they are made out of lace they ought to have holes in them. I think that he really wanted me to avoid unnecessary work.

The holes were beyond what I could tolerate. While my old curtains were the height of late 80s early 90s interior design style finding such curtains or even such yardage wasn't easy in 2025 where minimalism is prized.

Eventually a bit of internet searching turned up some yardage that would work well enough. The fabric arrived a few days ago and now,

we have a new pair of glass curtains in place and unfiltered morning light won't make my husband miserable.

They even look OK at night. Actual time to cut, sew and put up these curtains? probably less than an hour.

This Shabbat is the first Shabbat after Passover.

It is of course a challah baking week. The last few days my FaceBook feed has been filled with images of key shaped challot, called Schlissel challah.

A schlissel is a key in Yiddish. My feed has been filled with reminders to shape my challah into a key as a way to bring blessings, especially financial blessings on my and my family as well as offering up a "key into heaven".

As someone who happily eats sweet things at Rosh HaShanah to user in a sweet year--I can't tell you how much this custom irritates me. This key is a symbol for Saint Peter. Many Eastern European communities bake key shaped loaves for Easter. I suppose that I would be somewhat more comfortable if this key challah custom were shifted to a different point in the Jewish year...maybe for the last meal before Yom Kippur or for the meal where we break the fast??

But coming so close to Easter these key challot feel too much like trying to find a religious justification for having a Christmas Tree in one's home at Chanukah. I know you didn't ask me...but just say no to this custom.

My own challot are baking away as I crankily type this.

What else are we eating tonight???

I found a mystery bag of cooked meat in the freezer that has turned out to be not brisket, but meatballs made in the pre-Passover frenzy of worrying if I had made enough food for the holiday.

Our vegetable matter will be this pan of roasted vegetables. I will probably make some couscous or rice as well. dessert will be left overs from Passover.

A heartbreaking song in honor of Yom HaShoah.

Shabbat Shalom to all of you.

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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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