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Post by peachymom1 on Apr 12, 2017 23:50:00 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 12, 2017 23:53:04 GMT -5
Good morning and chag sameach! I’d like to talk a little today about some of the text we read during Passover. We all know the story of Passover, and we’ve told it twice now at our seder tables. I’d like to look at the haftarah we read on Shabbat during Passover. It’s Ezekiel 37:1-14.
This is the story of the dry bones. Ezekiel is in a valley of dry bones that develop flesh and breath and come back to life. It’s an allegory for God breathing life back into the Jewish people after being in exile. As a child, I thought it was kind of creepy, like a ghost story about a skeleton coming back to life. But when I studied it as an adult, I noticed some interesting things about the text.
The first thing I noticed is that according to the text, God physically took Ezekiel and placed him in the valley that had all the bones (Ezek. 37:1). This meant to me that sometimes we don’t notice something important until someone or something grabs us and makes us see it. I also noticed that God asked Ezekiel a question that seems rhetorical: “Can these bones live?” (Ezek. 37:3) Why on earth would God ask him that? Doesn’t God know? And how could God expect Ezekiel to know, even if he’s a gifted prophet? I think God was trying to find out if Ezekiel, and by extension, the Jewish people, had any hope or anticipation for the future at all. Since Ezekiel basically dodged the question, God went on to tell him what would happen, that God would breathe spiritual life back into the Jewish people. Sometimes all we can do is leave something in God’s hands.
But let’s move on to something more exciting: the Song of Songs. We read this during Passover because, according to tradition, it’s an allegory of the love between God and the Jewish people; now that we are free people, we are free to have a full relationship with God. But the text itself has such wonderful romantic and sexual expression that it’s worth reading it at face value as well.
Probably the best-known phrases are “Dodi li va’ani lo” (Song of Songs 2:16) and “Ani le-dodi vedodi li” (Song of Songs 6:3): “My beloved is mine, and I am his,” and “I am my beloved’s, and he is mine,” respectively. The first one is engraved on the front of my own wedding invitation. For my DD28 getting married this year, I suggested this text for their invitation: “Libavtini achoti kalah” (Song of Songs 4:9), which means, “You have captured my heart, my own, my bride.” I don’t know if they’ll actually have it added to their invitation, but DD28’s eyes lit up when I pointed out the text. Ah, young love!
Any thoughts or comments on Ezekiel or the Song of Songs? Or anything else you’d like to talk about?
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lee058
This space for rent
Posts: 23,289 
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Post by lee058 on Apr 13, 2017 6:51:40 GMT -5
Good morning everybody. Hope you are all well. After a couple of very hot days up in the 80's, today is going to be practically perfect: sunny, a little breezy, and high around 70. Very springy! I think it's great. My arm and shoulder continue to hurt but not nearly as badly since I started taking ibuprofen on Monday. I'll be seeing my doctor again on the 24th, and the orthopedic doctor on May 11th. Together they will work out a long term pain management plan for me. There are risks with the ibuprofen for people with asthma, but at least for now, it is really helping and thank goodness, I haven't had any side effects.
DS and I went to see "Beauty and the Beast" and we both liked it a lot. "La La Land" just got to the cheap theaters, so we will probably go see it again soon.
I don't have anything in particular to add about today's topic, but wanted to say hello.
Have a peaceful day, Lee
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Post by savtele on Apr 13, 2017 9:10:54 GMT -5
Boker Tov All! Lee - I am happy to see that a pain management plan is being worked out for you!
Peachy - I love this! I wrote a song based upon this & John & I sang it to each other at our wedding "An apple tree among the forest, so is my love among 10 thousand men, You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride, stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes" - Good Memories!
Today I'm taking mom shopping & to a dr. appt, so it will be a full day. She looks forward to these outings, and so do I. I remember years ago, the daughter of one of our residents was talking to me about some of her mom's goings on, & suddenly the thought hit me: but her mom is over 90, she must be 70 herself! And here I am, my mom is 90, I'm 68, "Old age" is here, LOL!
One thing we both will buy for sure - armloads of daffodils! This time of year, they are a MUST!
I need to make a shopping list. Mom had wanted a few things from Costco - I'll stop there on my way to pick her up. (Costco shopping tires her too much for me to take her there)
Have a good day ladies!
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Post by louise on Apr 13, 2017 10:19:12 GMT -5
I am sick as dog. Staying home today. Will be brief. If I have a voice by Shabbat I will be chanting this haftarah. It's of my favorites (I'm a sucker for miracles). Last year we didn't get to include it and I missed it. I may have mentioned before that chanting the Shavuot haftarah about the Merkavah is a really big deal for me. One year, as I was trying to understand it, I read on in the book of Ezekiel. It was 70-80 pages of the worst things - sitting on dung heaps, all hopes dashed, all death and dying. Could barely take any more, and then I got to the bones. I can't tell you what an absolute relief it was to read this message of hope after all that preceded!
Not what you asked, but that's what I have.
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Post by hollygail on Apr 13, 2017 18:14:34 GMT -5
We're back from Malibu. Lovely seder. I led. I used something quick, but didn't rewrite the whole thing. The food was yummy, what I ate anyway (my sister makes brisket which neither she nor I eat). My DBIL made his famous ice cream (and for once, I was able to have dessert with everyone else, not having eaten any kind of meat at the meal), and my niece made a fabulous dark chocolate pareve torte (and whipped heavy cream without sugar or anything else added for on top; I had a very small amount of ice cream, a small slice of torte, a small amount of whipped cream).
I particularly like chapter 1 of Ezekiel, which is very mystical... either that or he dropped some LDS way before Timothy Leary was born... Visions of God are not very frequent and I'm drawn to it. I taught something about the dry bones haftarah recently, but it wasn't at all inspired (or inspiring)... Can't win 'em all...
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