Blog/April 2017/Apr 14th

April 14th

The big news this week, of course, is Passover! We had a pretty big group for the seder (the first night’s meal), and it went well (as it always does). Of course, since the order of the evening (e.g. the “seder”) is fixed, there are no big surprises. Usually. But this year, we unveiled our first-ever home-made, soft matsa — and it was a big hit with the crowd!

Jew Haiku:

Passover: matsa
That irregular flat bread
Have another piece!

Presenting the home-made matsa gave us ample opportunity to expound on the different aspects of making it, and in particular pointing out that not so very long ago, everyone ate soft matsa. In any event, it was a great success and we’ll continue to make them in future years. Indeed, sometime today we’ll make them for the upcoming shabbat.

During the intermediate days of the Festival, we went to the City of David, which is just south-west of the “Old City” of Jerusalem. We walked a lot, saw some interesting exhibits, and walked a lot. Later that day, we had a “barbecue” (the actual grilling was preempted by rain). My nephew Chaim and his wife Ariele, their child, Sarah’s boyfriend, and Jeremy’s cousin all pitched in to ensure no food remained. A good time was had by all!

Another day, we went to Qumran, which is the place where the “Dead Sea Scrolls” were discovered. There we endured the absolute worst film any of us had ever seen. Seriously, it was ludicrously bad. The film was seven minutes long, but three minutes were taken by the introduction: a nausea-inducing “flyover” of the Dead Sea area. After that infelicitous beginning, the film continued with an entirely fictitious recreation of what it might have been like to be one of the inhabitants of the place. No actual information was given, though there are ample sources they could have mentioned (like, say, the “Dead Sea Scrolls”). Really, truly, and in all other ways, pathetic.

I discovered, just after the end of the first day of pesaḥ, that our internet router wasn’t working (my family dutifully mentioned the lack of internet access to me). Looking into it, I found the router was actually completely “bricked”, that is to say, as functional as a brick. Not working at all. I tried everything I could think of (and everything Dr. Google suggested) to resuscitate it, to no avail. I suspect that this malware or something similar may have been the culprit, though I don’t see how exactly. Fortunately, we had the original router Bezeq gave us, so we could get back on-line; but that router is not a very good one. But it is functioning…

Apart from all that, we’ve been enjoying Daniela and Jeremy’s company and just “hanging out”. We’re going to just keep doing that, I think, until the end of their visit.

This shabbat our band of intrepid eaters is augmented by Daniela and Jeremy, as well as one of Daniela’s friends. We’ll serve:
(hopefully) homemade matsa, lamb and fava stew, brisket, mina de acelga, potato kugel, butternut squash soup, roasted beets, asparagus, various salatim, and banana cake.

Until next time,
shabbat shalom and ḥag sameaḥ!

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