Aliza's Journal

01:35 pm - Only at a California Seder...

Sashimi instead of gefilte fish.

Yum!

07:03 am - Photo Link: The Passover Plague Peeps

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17025280@N00/sets/72157600038845249/detail/

Current Mood: amused

01:46 pm - Forgiveness

At this time of the year it is traditional to ask for forgiveness for any wrong I may have done any of you this year, whether consciously or unconsciously, whether it be an error of omission or of comission, whether by word or by deed.

I'm not just asking for forgiveness, though - if there is anything I have done wrong, or any opportunity to do right that I have missed, I'd like to make up for it if I can. Please ask, and I will do what I can to right wrongs, to repay debts, to balance the karma wheel.

Responses screened.

10:37 am - Seder Silliness

The Monty Python Haggadah: http://www.pclaunch.com/~kayton/montypythonhaggadah.htm
Uncle Eli's Haggadah (often referred to as the Dr. Seuss Haggadah): http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Uncle_Eli/Eli.html or ISBN: 1886411271

(And many thanks to Ethan and Courtney for inviting me to their family's Seder, and for introducing me to the Santa Cruz Haggadah, http://www.santacruzhag.com/ - a Halachically Kosher "personal liberation/psycho-spiritual haggadah".)

(And a side note: if your Haggadah contains instructions like "pieces of the top matza are distributed", does that mean a client-server model or a three-tier model?)

12:13 am - Seder

I just got back from a wonderful Seder I was hooked up with via the USCJ's Project Reconnect - pretty much the full traditional liturgy, plus a bit of talking, a bit of commentary thrown in from the different Haggadot we were each holding, some singing of select Hebrew parts.

I enjoyed learning some new melodies, and was only slightly thrown by the melodies that were slightly different from the ones I knew :-)

Besides, where else but Silicon Valley can you go to the Seder and talk about the 100 types of children?

08:35 pm - Why Is There An Orange On The Seder Plate?

Why Is There An Orange On The Seder Plate?
------------------------------------------

When we think of the Pesach story, the story of our liberation from slavery in Egypt, one great leader's personal story is interwoven: Moses. From his humble beginnings in the basket of bulrushes, finding the Burning Bush in the desert, challenging Pharaoh, parting the Red Sea, leading the Children of Israel through the desert, summoning water from the rock, bringing the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai... it's hard to think of the Exodus from Egypt without remembering Moses' role in it.

It's a bit surprising, then, to realize that Moses isn't mentioned anywhere in the Haggadah, not even once.

Why not? He was a great leader, one of the greatest the Jews ever had. Many people refer to Judaism as "the Mosaic faith". He's all over 4 of the 5 books of the Torah. Why shouldn't the Haggadah praise the great leader who led us to our freedom?

However, the downside of glorifying great leaders, even great leaders who talk directly to G-d, is that we lean on the great leaders and forget that we are a great people. When you count on one great leader to carry you through a crisis, to give meaning to your faith and hopes and beliefs, you become dependant on that person, and that's a dangerous path to follow. When you depend on your leader, are you truly free?

Think for a moment about the story of the Golden Calf. Moses led the Children of Israel out of Egypt and into the desert, and then he parked them at the foot of Mount Sinai for forty days while he went up to have a little chat with G-d. Forty days? What can go wrong in forty days? Well, the Israelites got a little nervous, and then they got a lot nervous. For the first time they didn't have Moses to reassure them. Stranded in a strange and forbidding territory, without the leader who had brought them so far, they found hope in a way that seems foreign to us now -- they decided that maybe their old neighbors the Egyptians had the right idea about faith, so they collected up a bunch of gold and forged a statue of a golden calf to pray to for help.

In hindsight, we can see that was a mistake, but it couldn't have been obvious at the time. They felt abandoned, they were scared, they didn't trust themselves... so they went looking for a higher power that they could understand.

So, what does this have to do with the orange on the Seder plate?

Well, the Hebrew term for an orange is "Tapuach Zahav" -- literally, golden apple.

A golden apple to remind us of the story of the Golden Calf.

This orange [raise up the orange] is here to remind us all that, even in the darkest hour, we shouldn't give up hope, not in ourselves, not in our community, not in our G-d.

Why is this night different from all other nights? On this night, Jews gather together with family and friends and community members, and remember what we can do when we stand together and don't give up hope.

P.S. Yes, there's another story floating around to explain why so many of us have had oranges on our Seder plates since the 1990s. I was never happy with it, so I invented my own, a few years back, as a symbol of hope, and only later found out the true roots of the orange on the Seder plate was yet a third story. I hope Susanna Heschel doesn't mind that I've re-purposed her symbol.

(C) Aliza Panitz, 2006.
Permission granted to print this out to use for your personal or community Seder.
All other rights reserved.


(*) The true origin of the orange on the Seder plate: Ref: http://www.miriamscup.com/Heschel_orange.htm
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/holidays/Passover/TO_Pesach_Seder/Arrangement_214/Orange.htm

Crossposted (with interesting comments) to weirdjews

03:55 am - The Halacha of Christmas

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ridge/6661/other/xmas.html

This is a wonderful piece of "Purim Torah" that speculates what Jewish authorities might have had to say about some of the cultural aspects of the way that Christmas is celebrated in the United States. While no disrespect is meant to either religion, it does cast a few aspersions on some aspects of "the holiday season"...

The footnotes are often the best part.

A few choice quotes:

1. PREPARATIONS FOR XMAS MUST NOT BEGIN (1) BEFORE THANKSGIVING.

1 This contrasts sharply with Shabbos, for the mitzva of honoring Shabbos applies all week long. For example, if one finds a particularly good food during the week, one should save it for Shabbos even though it is now only Sunday and Shabbos is a week away. However, Xmas preparations may not begin too far in advance, in order to fulfill the dictum, "It's beginning to look a lot like Xmas."

7. IN RECENT YEARS, THERE HAS BEEN A GREAT CONTROVERSY OVER THE USE OF MANUFACTURED TREES. IN THEORY, SOME HOLD THEY ARE INVALID,(16) WHILE OTHER AUTHORITIES HOLD THEY ARE VALID.(17)

16 Based on the verse "Etz chayim hee" ("A tree is alive"), teaching that even if it looks like a tree, it still cannot be a tree unless it was alive at some point.
17 Based on the verse "Etz chayim hee" ("It is a tree of life"), teaching that some trees have life, and others do not necessarily have life.

5. KIDDUSH IS NOT RECITED ON XMAS, BUT HOLLY IS REQUIRED.

[... as opposed to Hallel -- arp]


HAGADA FOR XMAS

This is the fruitcake of our affliction, which our ancestors baked 400 years ago.

04:12 am - Compiled Religious Wisdom

I just figured it out.

Orthodox Judaism thinks that Halacha is statically linked.

Conservative Judaism thinks that Halacha is dynamically linked.

Reform Judaism thinks that Halacha is interpreted.

(Halacha = (loosely) Jewish Law)

12:54 am - Jews for Jesus

Apparently these missionaries are making a big push in various cities, targeting anyone they can, particularly those who don't know enough about Judaism to see through their lies. As I said in a response to someone else's post:

I consider Jews 4 Jesus (the so-called "Messianic Jews") and all the various flavors of Christianity-in-a-tallis to be an abomination. And no, I do not use that word lightly, I use it in the Biblical sense, as in "destroy on sight."

If you want to steal other people's holidays and dress them up in Christian trappings to gain converts, well, yeah, there's a long history of that, going back to the first conversions of the Roman emperors. But don't tell people that you're just "enhancing" their religion.

The people who seduce Jews into "synagogues" to pray to Jesus are lying and cheating in order to steal people's souls. There's only one Christian deity who condones such behavior, and his name is Satan.

Current Mood: angry

09:43 pm - Schiavo-inspired living will thoughts

I need to go through and write this up formally and with details, but:

If my brain is dead, I am gone. Donate any usable organs, whether it's a heart or kidney to save a life, or a chunk of skin to help a burn victim heal more easily. Give the rest a Jewish burial.

Please note: the rules of Jewish funerals were originally designed to enforce a lowest-common-denominator standard for burial: a plain pine box, 100% biodegradeable, buried directly in the ground, and the remains not embalmed or dressed up, but wrapped in a simple white cloth. If someone tries to sell you a $180 "Halachically correct" pure linen shroud to wrap me in, go to Goodwill and buy a simple cotton bedsheet to wrap me in. (Sorry, I don't remember who gave me that example - was it cahwyguy?)

And while I'm on this tangent: a funeral is where family and friends gather to bury the body of the deceased. Thus, an essential part of the ceremony is to bury the body. Putting the coffin on a hoist over an empty grave, and walking away while it is still suspended in the air, is not a burial. Lowering the coffin into the grave, and walking away while it is still open to the sky, is not a burial. Shoveling dirt over the coffin is a burial - and, if possible, everyone who cares enough to gather together to bury me should be given the opportunity to put at least a token shovelful of dirt on top of the coffin.

BTW: the above comments on funerals are based on my personal feelings and my personal religion, and are not intended to criticize other people's religions, cultures, or family traditions. In particular, I know that some people derive a great deal of comfort from viewing the body of the deceased, and that some people have very compelling reasons for preferring cremation to burial. The above is mostly meant as a general outline of the features of funerals that are meaningful to *me*.

02:16 pm - Happy New Year!

L'shana tovah t'catevu v'techateMOO

 
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Current Mood: energetic