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Post by peachymom1 on Apr 8, 2017 22:55:23 GMT -5
What’s on your mind — how to make kugel? This week’s Torah reading? Life goals? Prayer? We are all engaged in weight loss/weight maintenance journeys and we are all Jewish or at least interested in Judaism. We like to eat, we like to discuss. It is our goal here to provide each other support on our journeys, to share experiences, to call on our rich cultural heritage and texts, and to help each other grow spiritually.
Some of us take weekly turns starting the thread:
Angelika
Holly
Lee
Louise
Lynne
Peachy
And for those of you that stop by to read this thread without posting - you are welcome to do that but you are also welcome to chime in!
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Post by peachymom1 on Apr 8, 2017 23:01:32 GMT -5
Sunday, April 9
Good morning and shavua tov! Passover is almost upon us, the central celebration of our people. My house is ready. My kitchen is stocked. My guest list for our seder is finalized. I love Passover and look forward to it with gusto every year.
Last year I finally wrote my own haggadah, and I always enjoy the tremendous variety of teachings and interpretations from other haggadahs as well. I’d like to share some excerpts and see what you think. Here’s one about the plagues that I liked. It’s from the AJWS haggadah:
As we read the 10 plagues, we spill drops of wine from our cups, mourning the suffering the Egyptians endured so that we could be free. This year, as these drops spread across our plates, let us turn our hearts toward the millions of people around the world suffering today’s plagues of hatred, prejudice, baseless violence and war.
Dam—Blood: We comfort and mourn those whose blood has been spilled.
Tzfardea—Frogs: We protest the proliferation of violence.
Kinim—Lice: We stop infestations of hatred and fear.
Arov—Wild Animals: We appeal to all people to act with humanity.
Dever—Pestilence: We overcome the sickness of racism and bigotry.
Shechin—Boils: We tend to those who suffer from disease.
Barad—Hail: We respond to storms and disasters that claim lives.
Arbeh—Locusts: We fill the air with voices for change.
Choshech—Darkness: We bring light to those who live in the shadows.
Makat B’chorot—Death of the Firstborn: We inspire the next generation to carry on the struggle for a better world.
Do any or all of these speak to you? This was a new way of looking at the plagues for me, and I had to read each one several times in order for them to sink in. I like this very much. What do you think?
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lee058
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Posts: 23,289 
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Post by lee058 on Apr 8, 2017 23:25:29 GMT -5
Hi Peachy, and all who follow. I can't sleep, so here I am. My shoulder and arm hurt less, but they still won't let me sleep, especially now that I'm off the pain medicine.
Peachy, your list comparing the plagues with various woes of humanity is inspired. You are so creative!
I'll be back at a more reasonable hour of the morning. Have a peaceful night, Lee
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Post by gazelle18 on Apr 8, 2017 23:51:44 GMT -5
I like this very much. It turns the focus from the historic plagues to what we can do to combat modern plagues. By the way, I think AJWS, from which this was apparently taken, does great work.
I am in the thick of prep now, but I do love it.
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lee058
This space for rent
Posts: 23,289
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Post by lee058 on Apr 9, 2017 6:49:31 GMT -5
Good morning everybody. Hope you are all well. I went back to sleep but woke up again at 4AM. To my horror, I discovered ants in the kitchen! I threw out the items that had ants in them, moved everything off the counter after checking them first for bugs, then woke H up to move the crockpot as it was too heavy for me with my shoulder problems, then cleaned off the counter and finally sprayed Raid. Yuck!!! The ants must have gotten in when the other ants did a couple of weeks ago and hid in the walls. I hate bugs. Bugs in the house are definitely a modern-day plague, if you ask me.
Oh, and I woke DS up to take the trash out as I didn't want the ants to get out of the trash bag into the rest of the kitchen. Thank goodness they seemed to have been just on one countertop.
Anyway, everything else is okay. What a way to wake up. I'll be back later. Have a peaceful day, Lee
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Post by momof2 on Apr 9, 2017 8:01:06 GMT -5
Boker Tov!
We will finish the kitchen after breakfast. The cars need to get washed. Laundry needs to get done. The detailed vacuuming and floors. We are in the home stretch. DD loves to help. Will start some cooking today and the shopping has to get done.
Yesterday, we decided to go to shul, made minyan. It was the anniversary of my Bat Mitzvah. The congregation does the triennial reading and it was the part I read! The rabbi wasn't there (he isn't doing well, health wise), so DH was gabbi and being rabbi. I read the first alyiah, with no prep. I did very well with the first two sentences and needed help with the third. DH was holding DS, and DD was standing on the stool. It was a family affair. Glad I showed DD women can read Torah too. I also followed in the scroll, for the 2nd and 3rd ayliah while holding DS, as DH was reading from the tenach. He had no idea he would be reading Torah. DD opened and closed the ark. Definitely a memorable Shabbat.
Have a happy and kosher Passover!
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Post by hollygail on Apr 9, 2017 8:26:06 GMT -5
Yesterday, one of my students became bar mitzvah. He pulled it all together! Half of his aunts (and both grandmothers) cornered me Friday night and/or Saturday mid-day to thank me (!!!); all of them already knew my name. And the kiddush lunch was catered by a caterer whose food I've eaten before; it was all middle eastern and I don't know the names of some of the dishes, but everything was delicious. Last evening, the family hosted the ganseh mishpocheh (and DH and me and a few families of the boy's Sunday School classmates) to an improve show at a theater downtown that specializes in improv performances and the cast is used to bar/bat mitzvah celebrations, so nothing was "R" rated...
As for today's topic: I've been gathering various supplement materials and have added the AJWS plagues to my files. Thank you, Peachy, for bringing it to our attention. I've also recently added the pineapple (refugees) along with some pages from HIAS (refugees) and one about the tomato (farm workers and modern day slavery). I already had information about fair trade chocolate (the teens at my shul are having another chocolate seder later this morning, also featuring fair trade chocolate).
So, yes, I'm aware of modern day plagues. There are just so many! It seems to me that maybe 25 or 30 years ago I was talking about air pollution and water pollution at the seder regarding then-modern day plagues... It seems "modern day plagues" just don't stop...
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Post by savtele on Apr 9, 2017 9:24:01 GMT -5
Boker Tov All! Like Holly, I too realize that "modern day plagues" don't stop - they just seem to multiply! And this year, the world is poised in such a way that we are painfully aware of all of them at once - almost overwhelmingly.
The dryer is going with the last load of laundry. The kitchen gets finished today. My windows sparkle when the sun is out - and shine clearly & beautifully (I simply love it when they are all clean & lovely - I always tell myself that I should think of washing them once a month, but that doesn't happen!)
My DS is coming out to look at a tree outside our back door - I think I've mentioned it before. It is right at the edge of the drop-off down a steep hill. There were several intense wind-storms this winter, and that tree has been bouncing in the wind. I've been concerned that it will take out the side of the house, or at least the deck, if it falls. It's leaning badly - a few more storms & it will fall of its own weight. So, he's going to come take it out, probably within the next few weeks. I will miss that tree - it has shaded our back door ever since we moved here. (However, it will give us a lot of firewood - it's a big tree!)
Have a good day ladies, and if I don't "see" you before, Chag Pesach Sameach!
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Post by happysavta on Apr 9, 2017 11:47:53 GMT -5
I think I see where you are going with this, trying to make a connection between ancient and modern. But I don't think I would change the reading of the Hagaddah to include this stuff. Yes, I might open a discussion at some point in the Hagaddah asking, "What do you see as a modern day plagues?" But I think the connection that the AJWS wants to make is a stretch and untenable. I don't see any connection between Makat Bechorim and inspiring the next generation. What do frogs have to do with protesting violence? What do locust have to do with voices for change?
Perhaps this would fit better into an after dinner discussion about the state of the world and what we can do, but I think it detracts from the Seder by adding a social-political agenda that just isn't in the Hagaddah. It's all nice sentiments, of course, but it's artifically forced onto the Hagaddah and onto the Passover celebration. The message of the holiday is to remember our people's suffering as slaves, to be grateful to G-d who brought us out of slavery into freedom, making us free to worship one true G-d, and to freely to accept and follow his commandments.
Let Passover be Passover.
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Post by peachymom1 on Apr 9, 2017 14:53:15 GMT -5
Frieda, in ancient Egypt, frogs were a symbol of fertility. I would say that the text is comparing the literal proliferation of frogs to the proliferation of violence in our world. Swarms of locusts would make a heck of a buzzing that would fill the air with a really annoying noise; the text is suggesting that we fill the air with our voices instead, for a positive result instead of the devastation of locusts. As for makat bechorot, I would say that since our children were spared from this, the worst of all plagues, it is our duty as parents to teach them to lead lives that matter, that can help heal and inspire others.
It is this last one that gave me pause. I haven't done anything great or grand in my life, but this got me thinking. My parents are homophobic racists; I learned to be different, and my children grew up accepting people of all colors and flavors. This happened because other people's children inspired me and taught me to open my mind and heart in ways I had not known before. My children grew up never knowing hunger or need, because someone I met as a young adult inspired me and DH to go to college, get educated and work hard to make a much better life for our kids than we'd had ourselves. At the shul I joined when I was 20, I was inspired to help others; I couldn't make large monetary donations, but I could bring food to the food bank, sing in the choir to add to the High Holiday experience for the congregation, invite people for Passover who didn't have a seder to go to, and serve as a Hebrew tutor for a couple of special-needs kids who had a hard time studying for their bar and bat mitzvahs (and tenacity about learning certainly inspired ME). These are all small things compared to such global plagues as war, famine and poverty, but if other people had not taught me, helped me, encouraged me and inspired me, I might not have done anything at all.
For me, the primary message of Passover is to free all people from slavery of all kinds. The haggadah tells the story of one kind of slavery, and we do indeed have great cause to be grateful to God. But there's so much left to do in the world, and I think that's why the Torah commands us to keep telling the story, so we'll keep applying it to modern life and keep working toward ending slavery for all.
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