Honey for the New Year

I am someone with a strong nostalgic streak. There are objects from my childhood that I have a strong connection to. Along the way, and through the years since my childhood, some of those object got broken some got given away and others just disappeared. Clearly you can't own EVERYTHING that you were fond of in childhood all at the same time, because if you did you would have no room in your home to actually live.

Some things have a pull.

My parents were collectors of lovely things. They owned lots of Judaica. they also had lots of lovely china and silver. Among the objects in their collection was a Belleek honey pot.

Belleek china as you might have guessed from the photo is made in Ireland. If you went into a home of someone with Irish roots there was likely a Belleek vase or teapot somewhere in the family collection of lovely things. (Just as if you went into a Jewish home in the 1960s you were likely to see a reproduction of the Chagall windows at the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem somewhere in the home.) Perhaps it was living in Irish-rich Quincy, my parents owned a several pieces of luminous Belleek.

I loved the honey-pot which spent most of the year living in the china closet. During the High Holiday season the honey pot was brought out filled with honey and set out on the dining room table and used during all of the High Holiday meals.

I have strong memories of being able to just look over the top of the dining room table and admiring the honey pot from every side and loving the bees attempting to enter the china honey pot.

The lid of the pot is fragile. It broke a few times and my mother would bring out the Duco-cement and fix it. Eventually, the little pot was broken beyond repair. Was I in high school? in college when it had broken for the final time? I don't remember.

The Belleek honey pot was replaced by a cut glass apple. It was pretty, but not the same thing.

Last year when we visited our son during his time in Amarillo we visited the many antique shops along Route 66. Most of the shops are curated towards a particular customer, people who love mid century goods, or people who are into Goth or Western wear. One shop was all white wicker and cotton eyelet. That shop had a collection of Belleek including honey pots of various vintages.

Seeing those objects from my childhood sparked a need. A couple of weeks ago I bought the honey-pot of my childhood in an eBay auction. It arrived two days ago.

And now it is filled with honey and will be used for the rest of the holiday season.

I am always surprised at how an object can take me back to being just tall enough to look over the top of the dining room table and just look at an object so hard that I could almost become one with it.

I am not sure if I will be able to post again before Yom Kippur. Here is a bit of music to prepare.

Shabbat Shalom! and I hope that you have a meaningful Yom Kippur.

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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sarah in nyc

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