Blog/September 2007/September 21st

September 21st 2007

This week was pretty quiet; Rosh Hashanah was relaxing. One thing that was quite different from what we were used to, is that we were done with R"H services in the morning at 11am! So we got to go back home, have a nice meal, relax, learn, visit etc. I'm hoping Yom Kippur services are also just as succinct (probably not, they are longer and there is a whole extra service that doesn't exist on any other occasion, e.g. "ne`ila").

We had our first official guests over for Shabbat dinner - so we're slowly getting into the swing of things. Unfortunately, Sarah's friends in the neighborhood all went away for the holiday, so she had no-one to be with except us (and her sister, who was also here for the holiday).

Speaking of Sarah, she got the rest of the furniture we ordered for her room; so she is now the only one in the house with nice furniture. Now her room is more her room, rather than just a dropping-off point for clothes.

In case you were not aware, we live in the desert; it turns out that ants also live in the desert, and they were here before us. They also outnumber us approximately 100,000,000 to 1. I don't mind that, but I do mind when they crawl onto my dining table and get into food. Especially since they aren't kosher! I've been pretty cool about them up 'till last week, when I decided that I'd had enough of their six-legged dances all over my food supply. So I declared "total war" on them; I made up to go get ant traps, and ant spray, and anything else I could find. I researched online, and I asked people what to do. That was especially useful, since -- almost to a man -- the response was, "you live in the desert, just ignore them - they won't go away and there's nothing you can do about it". Well, you can imagine I didn't take that advice! No, I cleaned the floor thoroughly with detergent; I sprayed all the cracks in the walls and all the other likely ant-y places with Israel's finest chemical weapons. We had to leave the house for a couple hours, so I took advantage of that and sprayed just before we left. After we came back, I looked around, saw no ants and started to feel better. The next day, and the day after -- also no ants. But alas! on the third day, some of those insectoid freaks were found crawling around. Phase two begins after Yom Kippur, when I rent a flame-thrower...

There were also successes this week. I replaced a faulty air conditioner timer with equivalent parts from the hardware store, despite being told, "you won't be able to do that, you need an electrician". I managed to put a screen on the kitchen door, even though there is no good way to attach fiber screen to an all-metal door (superglue doesn't work - I used silicone instead). Hopefully it will last a while. I managed to put pictures of our house up on the Web. You can see them here:

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All around town are posters for "kapparot" at various shuls. "Kapparot" is a custom apparently originating in Ashkenazic countries, where a person takes a rooster or chicken and "transfers" his sins to it by waving it over his head and reciting verses. Usually the chickens are then slaughtered and donated to the poor, in most communities. What I don't understand is how any Sepharadim can do this, since the Shulchan Aruch comes out strongly against the custom (as did the Ramban, apparently, and many others). Oddly, it seems that if any custom is associated with "mekubalim" (as the posters here declare), then the Sepharadim will ignore the Sh"A. Oh, well... I'm sure the chickens also disapprove of the custom.

It is apparently not going to be *too* hot this Yom Kippur (32C/90F). Last week the forecast had it around 38C, which is definitely too hot. Nevertheless, we'll try to stay cool and hope you all do the same.