Blog/February 2012/Feb 3rd

Feb 3rd (See this week's devar torah)

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Hi, again!

Less than a week until "tu beshvat" (ט"ו בשבט, the fifteenth of the month of shevat), the new-year for trees according to our calendar. So in order to "gain a year" (the first three years, a tree's fruits are forbidden), Esther and I went to a nearby nursery and got a lemon tree and an avocado tree. The lemon is already three years old, and the avocado is going to be a few years more before it produces anything ... but we wanted to get a jump on the arboreal year and start things right. We also got some perennial herbs for planting; we've been planning on putting in herbs ever since we moved into the house, but didn't get around to it until now.

My boss has started giving a short devar-torah after our weekly developers' team meetings, and asked me if I wouldn't mind giving one next week for "tu beshvat". I was a bit hesitant, since I don't like speaking in public, but decided to take him up on the offer. I plan on concentrating on the halachic aspects since I'm not much for the mystical. I'll let you know next time around how it went.

The Jerusalem light-rail is causing more problems than it was intended to solve. Esther's 40 minute commute took almost two hours the other day! The trains are frequently "delayed" due to ... who knows what. And they move almost as slowly as I can run. As if that's not bad enough, the lights are not coordinated, so the trains have to stop frequently outside their stations. I wish a forensic accountant were assigned to look into just who made out like a bandit on this white elephant of a project!

Today I finally "lost it" and (virtually) yelled at my "team members" on the synagogue website project. The thing that pushed me over the edge was that nobody -- and I mean, nobody -- was "in charge". That means that no decisions were being made, neither good ones nor bad. It's pretty difficult to successfully finish a project when there is no direction whatsoever. Grrr...

We've had the rainiest January in many years, B"H! It rained most of the week, but now it's partly cloudy and it seems we'll have very pleasant weather (if cool) for shabbat. Apparently we'll get more precipitation in the middle of next week (just in time for Tu Beshvat and the new trees!). Let's all pray for a continued wet winter, Israel needs the rainfall!

Sarah's got a couple of her friends over, one of whom eats no cooked vegetables! Poor thing, she (and we) will settle for: tuna salad, ḥumus, roasted eggplant, matboucha, corn salad, "chickeny" soup, pastel de papas, zucchini and mushrooms, rice, lentil soup, baked chicken, pasta with red cabbage salad, blasted peppers, kumquat-pepper relish, my famous date-pecan cake, Sarah's gingerbread cookies

Until next week,
shabbat shalom!

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