Jewish Musings, Fri./Shabbat/1st Day Sukkot, Sept. 29-30

[peachymom1]

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:

Holly
Lee
Louise
Lynne
Peachy

And for those of you that stop by to read this thread without posting — you are welcome to, but you are also welcome to chime in. Don’t be shy!

[peachymom1]

Good morning everyone! Tonight begins Sukkot, the fall harvest holiday, and yes, I am reading Torah and haftarah tomorrow. It’s also DD’s 35th birthday tomorrow – how the heck did THAT happen??

I love Sukkot because it’s just so happy and festive, and I look forward to singing the Hallel, after all the solemn prayers of the High Holidays. I’ve never had my own sukkah, but we always go to someone else’s, and the shul has one, of course. I’m reading Torah next weekend as well, for Shmini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, so I’ll be practicing, but I am planning on some naps and general loafing time too.

Tomorrow is also the one-year anniversary of my mother’s passing, though it came up on the Jewish calendar last week, and I lit a yahrtzeit candle and said kaddish for her. How the year has whizzed by, and how much I have thought of Mom and looked inside myself for what I could learn from the time she spent here.

What are you thinking about today, now that the High Holidays are over and we’re moving to Sukkot? How are you celebrating this year? Does it make a difference that it falls on weekends this year? It does to me, only in that I don’t have to use up any vacation hours for these days. Attendance is usually good at our shul for Sukkot, because people come who were inspired during the HHD, which is great. And I wonder if next week I’ll see the local Chabad’s sukkah-mobile, putt-putting around the neighborhood.

Thank you all for your participation this week. Shabbat shalom and chag sameach!

[hollygail]

I was unable to get back here yesterday after reading the opening. Peachy, good for you! And Louise, Tokyo's airport with your "Adonai li v'lo ira" is sensational. My story is so much more mundane. I was afraid of heights from the time I was fairly young (certainly in my teen years). And as a young mom of a baby, there was a time the kitchen light blew out. It was nighttime. The baby was upstairs asleep. I was alone downstairs. The ceilings were very high in that house (it had been built during Hollywood's heyday and was what was called in those days a "Hollywood studio" apartment; I think the ceilings were about 10' high although it could have been 12'). I didn't have a ladder (and DH, who was about 10" taller than I, was out of town). I managed to climb up onto a chair and then onto the kitchen table and then (somehow!) I was able to stand upright on the table (without having anything at all to hold onto), practically shaking the whole time. I was just barely able to reach just below the ceiling to unscrew the bulb and then screw in a new one, of course having to bend down to place the burned out one onto the table and pick up the new one which I'd placed there. My heart was beating a mile a minute. I climbed down from the table to sit on the chair and just sat there breathing for a while. But as a result of this "traumatic" (to me, at least) experience, I realized I was able to conquer my fears when faced with a situation that had no other options. (And yes, eventually, I "outgrew" my fear of heights, although it didn't happen on that night...)

I was supposed to read Torah on the first morning of Sukkot (tomorrow morning) for a small chavurah that usually meets at this one couple's house. Yesterday morning, the wife of that pair called to say she'd been exposed to Covid and was trying to figure out what to do about tomorrow's services: we could do it without her altogether, just at her house, or perhaps move it to the following week; we'd planned to meet in her and her husband's sukkah tomorrow and since it would still be up the following week, it made sense. Later I checked my calendar and realized my one student from a rabbi I don't particularly like is having his bar mitzvah on Oct. 7. By the time I realized it, and emailed her, she had already spoken to the other leaders and everyone agreed to move services to the following Saturday (Sh'mini Atzeret / Simchat Torah). I don't think I have a choice; although I would very much prefer to be with this chavurah, I think I owe it to my student and his family to be at his shul...

Shabbat shalom and chag sukkot sameach, everyone. Thanks, Peachy, for another interesting week! I haven't figured out yet what we're doing next week on our thread, but I'm sure it will have something to do with the holiday season of Tishrei...

[lee058]

Good morning everybody. Hope you are all well and SAFE!

Re today's topic: DS and I are planning on celebrating by 1) baking cornbread today, and 2) going to a fall festival at our favorite garden center (not sure what day).

When am I next supposed to do the leads? If Holly starts on 10/1, then I guess I start on 10/8 --- is that right? I always get confused.

Have a peaceful day, Lee

[gazelle18]

Hi everyone,
I love this holiday, perhaps because it signifies the coming of autumn, which I love. Sumner down here is just so hot, that October is welcomed with open arms, hopefully with a nice little light sweater! This year we are traveling with our friends to the upper Peninsula of Michigan, a place I’ve never been. Lots of hiking and wine drinking and laughing.

I’ve eaten many a meal in a sukkah, but never had one at my house. Oh well…
Enjoy, all! Thanks Peachy

[happysavta]

Shalom, chaverot,

I'm doing great. Surgery provided a lovely nap, and I've had hardly any pain or discomfort. It was a 2-Tylenol procedure and that was only on the first day of surgery. I'm just fine now, up and about. In a week, we'll meet with the doctor and get the Pathology results and find out if I need to do anything else.

I do want to tell you with great indignation that whoever said that cancer is associated with weight loss is a blatant liar. I've had 2 cancers in a row and cancer definitely causes weight gain! I'm blaming my newly added pounds on the disease, not on the donut shop around the corner that makes the best donuts in San Diego.

[peachymom1]

Frieda, I'm so glad to see you here, and that you're doing so well! And that your sense of humor is still intact!

[louise]

We were supposed to have a shabbat dinner in our synagogue sukkah this evening but we had very heavy rains and enough flooding to cause cancelation. Probably won't be able to have kiddush in our sukkah tomorrow either. Oh well. I was invited to a friend's (my Israel) roommate) for lunch in her sukkah on Monday along with some others from the trip. Looking forward to that one!