Jewish Musings, Mon., Oct. 17, Chag Sukkot Sameach!

[gazelle18]

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

[gazelle18]

Chag Sukkot Sameach, everyone!

This week we are going to talk about all things autumn, starting with the wonderful fall holiday of Sukkot. Tonight, DH and I celebrated Sukkot at our Shul with our local grandchildren and of course their parents. It is FINALLY cooler here in NOLA, making for a lovely celebration!

I have read that there are several reasons why we erect/eat in/ sleep in the sukkah. One reason is that our ancestors, who were farmers in the field, lived in these temporary shelters during the planting and harvesting times. So erecting a succah is a way of remembering and honoring our ancestors. Therefore, even though very few of our tribe today makes their living in farming, we still erect a succah today, even though it has no practical modern use.

Can you think of something you do in your life simply because it's the way your ancestors did it? And therefore, it feels "right" to do it?

In my family, we always sit in the same seats for the high holidays. If those seats get taken, we sit as close as possible to them. This tradition began when we were trying to please everyone. Some people liked to be close to the front, and others liked to be further away. These particular seats are right in the middle, and were the consensus choice of several opinionated Jews. Nowadays, none of us really cares that much where we sit, but we choose to go back to those same seats in honor of those who came before us!

[gazelle18]

Angelika, I hope the storms have abated up your way??

[lee058]

Good morning everybody. Hope you are all well today. I'm feeling good; I helped my mom with an ongoing problem, and I'm thinking about how to help a friend with his (please see yesterday's post if you are interested and feel like giving advice --- thanks!). It is a gorgeous day, and the weather is crazy again. It's supposed to be 80-85 degrees for the next few days (!!). I love it. It's the last bit of summer, I'm sure. DS has off work today, so we hope to just lounge around the house. I started taking some more meds recommended by my endocrinologist, so I need to (TMI warning) stick close to the bathroom for awhile. I would love to watch a movie on TV today, so later I will check the schedule and see if there is anything on that I want to see. I checked TCM, and The Lady From Shanghai is on later, so that is a possibility even though I did see it not that long ago. DS and I can always watch an Indiana Jones tape as he loves them.

Re doing things because our parents or other friends or relatives did them: Good topic! I hate to admit it, but I save lots of papers and stuff because that is what my parents did (and my mom still does). I wish it were easier for me to get rid of clutter, but it is ingrained in me that if you throw something out, you will probably need it right away. My mom saves lots of things that I don't: empty food containers that she reuses, plastic plates, jars, etc. I save odd things myself, like twist ties from grocery bags. I have a huge number of these that have been sitting in my silverware drawer for ages. We both save papers, and have tons of unnecessary ones taking up space.

Anyway, life is good. Even though we do have too much stuff! Enjoy the autumn, especially the apples, and have a peaceful day, Lee

[savtele]

Boker Tov All!
Lee - I read your post yesterday with interest - arguments with G-d make up much of Jewish & Christian philosophy, so I think your friend is in good company! From "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" to "Are You There, God, It's Me, Margaret", the depth of arguing with God seems to rise to our consciousness on a semi-regular basis! From our Father, Avraham, to most of us at one time or another - there are times when the world is unfair, when the suffering is too much, when we can't take anymore - and we argue. I'm pretty sure God has no problem with that!

You all know about my Oma's chair & the connectedness that I feel to a long line of women, going back through history, when I sit in that chair with my Siddur. It's not logical - it's completely visceral. That chair, probably made in the 1950s, brought into our house from a yard sale in the 1960s, reupholstered several times, connects me to my ancestors the way nothing else can.

The river is rushing by. At the moment, it's not raining. I am hoping we might get a small break later this week. H2Oaerobics gets together for brunch 1 Wednesday a month - this month I invited them to come sit in our Sukkah. The way the weather looks, that won't be happening - but they can come & sit in my house (which will be a temporary shelter for them, at any rate!)

I'm off to the pool!
Have a good day ladies! Chag Sameach Sukkot!

[happysavta]

Like my Polish ancestors, I stock the pantry. You could live here for a month without starving. I have to throw out expired cans and packages on a regular basis. I just like to be surrounded by food, I guess.

[happysavta]

My DS#1 and my lovely DIL put up a sukkah in their back yard and we all got to shake the lulav and smell the etrog last night.

[louise]

I will set my mind to thinking about things that are "tradition" motivated. What comes to me right now is just Thanksgiving dinner - there is pretty much nothing that can be left out (in the interest of trying something new) because each of the foods we have at my SIL's house is someone's favorite. When I introduced mashed cauliflower it was an addition, not a replacement for anything else. And I dare not walk in without 2 cranberry breads and 2 banana cakes. When I was a child I know we went to my grandma's for dinner every Friday night. I can't think of anything just now that doesn't have value other than being a tradition.

I put out the Kiddush after services this morning which included a noodle kugel I made last night. Someone brought those little baby peppers and we had hummus so at least there was something I could eat. Less weight, less pain. Do it.

On YK my rabbi gave a sermon largely about Elie Wiesel and in it he talked about a trial that 3 people had one night in Auschwitz where they put God on trial. It was very powerful and also very provocative. I have asked him to send me the text of some of that and I'm sure he will when the holiday is over. Lee, I think it could be valuable to use it in discussions with your friend that is having such a hard time.

[hollygail]

I think I've mentioned here that I was raised as a secular Jew. When I was pregnant with DS, then-DH asked what we were going to do if it were a boy. I said we were gonna have him circumcised. He asked why; I said because we're Jewish. He said, "but Holly, you don't believe in that stuff!" and I replied along the lines that it didn't matter; we were Jewish and that's what Jews do. And so he was circumcised in the hospital before we were discharged.

There are other Jewish practices that I've done only because "it's what Jews do." One example: I had a friend in 7th grade, then my family moved to a different part of Queens, so I went to a different junior high and high school. I kept in touch with some of my friends from 7th grade. One day, in high school, one of my 7th grade friends called me to tell me that the mother of this one 7th grade friend died. I didn't phone her, I just got on a bus, changed buses in Flushing (sort of a major terminal-type place) for a second bus, and went to her house. Yes, she was sitting shiva, and I made a shiva call. I must have been around 16 or possibly 17. She had no idea I was coming. A few years later, she saw me at Queens College where we were both entering freshmen, and we renewed our friendship. She told me that she remembered my shiva call...

Passover seders... My sister made the seder for some years (in my 20s, anyway) and then I moved to Amsterdam when I was 30. There I was in a city where I had zero connection to family, etc. So I and one other Jewish woman I met from work made the seder. We invited everyone from work, plus a few friends from outside of work. We had no idea where to find any pesadikke foods, so we asked one man to make the recipe from the Jessie Grossinger cookbook (did I mention "work" was an American bookstore?) on page such-and-such, and someone else to make something else, etc., and then asked everyone else to bring wine, but we stipulated that it couldn't be any of the regular wines people had with dinner; it had to be any kind of "different" wine (someone found a ginger wine!). Only one man, from France, brought a red French vin ordinaire... (Someone gave us a box of matzah; I have no idea where he found it; it's possible he received a "care package" from the US)

Yes, there are definitely things in my life that I do (and/or have done) for the simple reason that it's what "we do" and for no other reason...

[lee058]

Hi again everybody. Oof, I feel exhausted. I spent an hour on the phone with my mom as she was upset about several things and needed to talk. I'm too tired to go into details. Yay me, I did not binge on anything in reaction because there is nothing in the house to binge on; there are NO sweets. Amazing. I did have one cup of hot cocoa, but I don't think that counts as a binge (!).

Have a peaceful evening, Lee

[peachymom1]

Lee, good for you, that's a major pom-pom wave for you!

Neither DH nor I come from families with strong cultural commitments, traditions or even habits that have lost their meaning over time. We joined a congregation when we were 20 and 22 (and we still go to this shul) in order to create a sense of belonging and, over time, to create our own ways of doing things, observances and traditions. Although it was challenging to create Yiddishkeit (literally "Jewishness")for ourselves and our children, I can say in retrospect that it has been very deeply rewarding to do so. Now that our children are grown up, whenever I hear them mention something they enjoyed doing as kids, or that they did at Jewish nursery school, or that they grew up learning and doing together (with us or with each other), it is such a wonderful feeling that I know it was worth all the effort and all the floundering to break new ground.

One recent tradition is that one of the ladies who shares today's haftarah with me invites us all over to her house to have lunch in her sukkah every year. She invites other people we know from the shul too, and we have bagels and fruit and sweets and shmooze for a while. I look forward to it every year now. It's wonderful to just sit in the sukkah and relax and enjoy the time together.

[peachymom1]

Lee, why people suffer has been argued and theorized for centuries, hasn't it? Surely cave people sat around and wondered the same thing. I personally like Rabbi Harold Kushner's book, "When Bad Things Happen to Good People." He doesn't know the answer either, of course, just as none of us do, but this is something I have thought about practically all my life. I can only share things from my own experience and perspective; I don't have the chutzpah to think I know the answers.

It's easy to simply say that it's God's will or it's a force of nature beyond our control that makes bad things happen. Personally, that doesn't do it for me. I can't believe in a God who punishes or deliberately causes us pain. I don't need a God like that. Perhaps that leads us to have a healthy respect for things out of our control, but I think we have evolved enough to understand that concept without blaming it on God.

I do believe that human beings, directly and indirectly, are the sources of a lot of suffering ourselves. If we would stop spending so much time, energy, money and resources on killing each other and fighting over who's got control of land, money, people, etc., just think how much more effort could go into curing diseases, saving lives and preventing suffering before it starts. A close friend of mine's sister said a few years ago that she wasn't going to believe in God anymore because she was mad at God for letting her get cancer. I told her she had the right to believe anything she wished, but that it made more sense to blame people for not having done enough research to eradicate cancer in the first place. God has given us so many gifts, so much talent, intelligence, ambition and resources on this earth -- in my opinion, before we go blaming God for not making a perfect world, we have to ask ourselves what we've done with the gifts and opportunities we've been given.

I've read over and over that there's enough food on our planet to feed everyone, but the problem is getting it to the people who need it. That sounds to me like we have the power ourselves to eliminate hunger, as long as God causes things to grow, brings rain and sunshine, etc. And the medical advances in the last century alone give me hope that we can do so very, very much more if we just keep at it. My sons would not have survived if someone hadn't invented incubators for preemies, and if a long line of folks hadn't done extensive research on removing cholestiatomas and rebuilding eardrums. It's a strong Jewish belief that we are partners with God and that tikkun olam (repairing the world) is in our own hands too. So I ask myself every day, what are you doing today, Peachy, to help bring someone comfort, healing, help or peace? Some people can do great and sweeping things, while others of us can be smaller cogs in a much greater wheel. We can make a difference in even the smallest ways.

I feel for your friend, Lee, and I wish I could do something personally to help him. But I sure am glad he has you, because you are listening and bringing him the comfort of friendship, which is a wonderful thing for you to do. I wish him strength and courage, and I hope things get better for him soon.

(stepping off my soapbox now)

[peachymom1]

Hi everyone, it's me again -- seems I can't shut up today! I didn't mean that people bring their own suffering on themselves; I hope you didn't interpret my words that way. I meant that collectively as a society, sometimes what we do, or fail to do, is the cause of suffering for some or all of us. My friend's sister didn't do anything to bring on that terrible cancer, and being angry about it is certainly reasonable. I can't do anything to alleviate her physical pain, but I can babysit when she goes for chemo, I can help clean the house, etc. When my kids were very small, an acquaintance in the Mothers of Twins/Triplets Club got chicken pox along with her baby triplets and an older child. (This was a few years before the vaccine came out.) I was so busy with my own kids that I didn't have a lot of time to help, but I went over and did their laundry and cleaned up their kitchen. Lots of people from the Club did that, in increments of an hour or even thirty minutes at a time. All those little pieces of time added up and were of tremendous help to that family. I thought of that mom when my own kids got chicken pox, but they were 4, 2 and 2 at the time, and I'd had chicken pox already and was able to take care of them myself. Thank God we came up with a vaccine for that particular ailment.

OK, I'm really going to shut up now. (At least for a while!)