Blog/June 2017/Jun 2nd

June 2nd

Once again Mom spent time in hospital, but she’s been home and is doing well. We all wish her a speedy and complete recovery!

I’m not gonna lie to you: as a teenager, I was a big fan of Lynda Carter as “Wonder Woman”. I even had a poster of her in my room. Yeah. So I’m looking forward to seeing the new “Wonder Woman”, just released, starring the Israeli actress Gal Gadot in the starring role. I’m particularly keen on seeing it so I can help flip the finger to the Lebanese, who banned the film because the lead is Israeli.

Ah, political idiocy.

Speaking of which, the long-hoped-for Savior of the West reneged on his promise to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem. Why do Israeli governments continually bow and scrape to Uncle Sam? I know, “because the US has our back”, and “we need their support”, etc. ad naseum. Except that in truth, they don’t and we don’t. Our leaders would do well to pay heed to King David’s admonition, “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help”.

This week we celebrated the holiday of shavuot: “The Festival of Weeks”, or “Pentecost” as it’s also known. It’s the only Jewish holiday whose date is not specified precisely; rather, it is given as the 50th day from Passover. But shavuot is not the only instance on the Jewish calendar where an observance is arrived at by counting. Each week we count seven days up to shabbat (in fact, our day-names are “first-day”, “second-day”, etc.). Each year we count seven years until the shemitta (Sabbatical Year). We count seven shemitta cycles until the 50th year, the yovel (Jubilee Year). As an aside, “Rosh HaShana”, the “New Year”, is the first day of the seventh month from Passover.

One might ask: why do we count off days until shavuot or shabbat, while all our other Festivals are given specific dates?

According to halakha, if one is lost in the wilderness and doesn’t know what day it is for any reason, one must start counting from the time he becomes aware of his situation, and count off seven days. The seventh day becomes the day he observes shabbat, with all the prohibitions relating to it. That means that when most everyone else celebrates shabbat, our lost person is setting fires and traps or whatever, and vice versa. Similarly, the halakha states that the establishment of the calendar each month (that is, the beginning of the month) is determined by the testimony of witnesses in front of the sanhedrin (High Court). All that, even though we (and they) can and do calculate the expected dates of the calendar.

That is to say, to a certain extent, shabbat and the calendar in general depend on our will.

I think it may be that there are two kinds of observances. The first, commemorations of an historic nature, such as Passover (the exodus from Egypt), Sukkot (our sojourning in the desert), etc. Those were “imposed from Above”, and are independent of our will. The second class of commemorations are more abstract, and involve exercise of our will and often have to do with freedom: shabbat (God abstaining from creative work, and therefore commanding us to do likewise, freeing us from being slaves), shavuot (His giving us the torah, the Jewish “Constitution”, without which there would be nothing to celebrate), shemitta (a shabbat for the Land; freeing people from debt), yovel (freeing people from bondage).

Of course, you might disagree with my take on things, and the discussion could go on quite a long time!

In any event, we had Chaim and Ariele and not-so-little Netzach stay with us over the holiday. It was nice to have them here, and to get into some interesting discussions — and to see the tyke become a bruiser!

We’re looking forward to a quiet and restful shabbat. See you on the other side!

Sarah may, or may not, be with us this time. Regardless, this shabbat we will cook-up:
home-made ḥalla rolls, chicken soup, chicken with rice, chicken schnitzels, roasted veggies, various salatim, probably other things TBD, and summer fruits.

Until next time,
shabbat shalom!

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