Blog/April 2012/Apr 6th
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| Apr 6th (See this week's devar torah) | Comments or questions? Click here! |
Hi, again!
Not surprisingly, we spent this past week in a bit of a frenzy. Pesaḥ isn't a holiday you can just "walk into" without preparation, and even though there's no need to "go crazy" cleaning the house, there are still plenty of things which must be done. So Esther stayed home this week to do the majority of the preparations, and I loafed around and went to work to pay for the holiday.
Because one is supposed to avoid doing things during the intermediate days of pesaḥ (mo`ed, next week) which could have been done beforehand -- among them, laundry -- we did all our laundry. We also went to the shuq and stocked up on all kinds of vegetables (including the only-available-once-a-year fresh garlic). Today I'm going to give our garden a good soaking which will hopefully carry it though the mo`ed. And because next Friday is also yom-tov, we have to make sure to properly prepare ourselves for that!
Thorough preparation of the kitchen area is the most important thing, since that is where the ḥameṣ (leavened grain products) is mostly to be found. And since it's a Biblical prohibition to consume or have any amount of ḥameṣ, everyone takes a lot of care to eliminate it from every place as far as possible. Despite that, there is no need to get "kosher for Passover" toilet paper or soap, etc... so please, just calm down, people!
The saga of Pallywood continues: this week I found more bogus Pallywood photoshoppery being presented as "fact". Note the following (and it's important for everyone to pay close attention to details when looking at any photographic 'evidence'). First: the original picture has no "metadata" whatsoever. If it were an original photo from a camera, it would have the camera's metadata (let alone author/agency etc). Since it has none of those, it has clearly been "postprocessed" or "composited". Second: note that the soldiers behind the attacker are not looking at the event. Nobody seems to notice what is going on. That's just a little incredible, isnt' it? Third: note that the boy being attacked is neither cringing in fear, nor looking at his attacker in fear, but rather gazing off into the distance. That is even more incredible, wouldn't you say? Fourth: where is the soldier's right arm? It seems to have disappeared! A Pesach miracle, perhaps? Finally: zoom in on the soldier's left hand, which is "grabbing the boy by the neck". Why are his fingers folded over so only the first joint shows? Look closely: he is neither grabbing the boy's neck, nor is he open-handed pushing him away. It is not clear just what sort of action he is trying to perform with his oddly folded hand. Note further that though there is no EXIF metadata in the file, there are embedded comments ... one of which states "PhotoShop 3.0". Mmmmhmmm...
And in case you missed:
- Supporters of Israel and the current US government please watch this video.
- Too late for Purim, some Purim Torah from an Islamic "scholar"
Soon I'll be heading off to make last-minute purchases needed before yom-tov. Then I'll make the horseradish (not for maror!), and get the vegetables for the seder cleaned and prepared. I'll also be cleaning our patio in the back and getting the barbecue ready for mo`ed, besides rearranging the salon so we can seat everyone comfortably tonight. Oh, and I have to reset the shabbat clock so the lights don't go off too early. Much to do still!
This year we'll be making two small changes to our prior practice: first, we'll have two different kinds of maror (romaine lettuce as well as endive), in keeping with my research into the subject. In addition, in keeping with what my ḥevrutha and I (re)learned just last week, I will be displacing the boiled egg from the seder plate and replacing it with a piece of meat, since it represents the ḥagiga offering (whereas the boiled egg represents mourning over the Temple, which is inappropriate in my opinion on yom-tov, and has no bearing on the ḥagiga which our Sages -- who lived after the Temple's destruction! -- commanded us to commemorate).
This shabbat is also pesaḥ! We'll have our usual pesaḥ crowd as well as a young woman from our community in the Olde Country and her husband. We'll have the typical (for us) pesaḥ favorites: wine, olive-sized veggie bits, bitter herbs, ḥaroset (Sephardic date variety as well as Ashkenazic apple variety), wine, matsa, huevos haminados, vegetable soup with kneidlach, brisket, baked chicken, homemade horseradish, mina de espinaca, tsimmes, potato kugel, beet salad, cabbage salad, coconut macaroons dipped in chocolate, matsa, wine, wine <pause for breath and sleep>, lamb and fava stew, smoked fish, eggplant and probably other things I just forgot...
Until next week,
shabbat shalom and ḥag sameaḥ!
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