Simchat Torah

.
Thanks for your patience in going through all the holy days of the past 23 days with me. Tonight the long holiday period ends and we can return to life's blessed routine.
Today was Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah. Unlike in the Diaspora, these two holidays are compacted into one day in Israel. Simchat Torah mean Rejoicing in the Torah. In Orthodox synagogues the men dance and sing with the Torah scrolls. In Reform congregations the women and children join in in carrying the scrolls and everyone celebrates together.
The last parasha or portion of the last book, Deuteronomy, is chanted. To keep the reading cycle going unbroken, the scroll is either rewound or a different scroll is opened and the first chapter of Genesis is begun immediately.

I really couldn't take pictures in our moshav's traditional synagogue today. Instead here is my grandson with a "toy" Torah someone gave him, just to illustrate the scroll, pointer, mantel, and breastplate. A kosher Torah has to be hand-written in Hebrew on parchment by a special scribe.

You will no doubt enjoy sampling a new "translation" of these first five books of Moses that is just now being published, post by post, on a blog. Seth Brown is a young writer who worked from four English translations and put the Torah verses into rhyming verse!

So refreshing to read the familiar stories in new language! It is called From God to Verse.
Read about Seth's project here or here or start with "In the beginning" here.

UPDATE, Sept. 25, 2010: Seth Brown's book is now published and available on Amazon!

.

Hoshana Rabba

.
Big day in Jerusalem today! The seventh day of Sukkot is called Hoshana Rabba.
So three friends and I took the early bus to town and got to the Western Wall early, before the tourists woke up. Only the devout worshippers were at the Wall.


Just inside the Old City wall's Dung Gate, the separation started. The sign says "Men's section//Women's section."
This walkway leads to the security checkpoint: your bag is searched and you walk through a metal detector.


We were well protected.  See all the men in uniform? 



Hoshanah Rabbah is also know as "the day of the beating of the arava [willow branches]."
As you see, several men were selling them.


Almost 2,000 years ago the Mishnah (the first part of the Talmud) said, in tractate Sukkah 4:2,
 "How was the mitzvah of aravah fulfilled? There was a place below Jerusalem called Motza. They would go down there and pick branches of willows and would then come and place them alongside the altar with the heads (of the willow branches) bent over the altar. They then sounded the shofar . . . . Each day they would circle the altar once and say, 'Ana Hashem hoshiah na (Please, God, bring us salvation), Ana Hashem hatzlichah na (Please, God, bring us success)' . . . . On that day [Hoshana Rabbah] they circled the altar seven times. When they had finished they would say, "Beauty is yours, O altar, beauty is yours."


And till today, the men still circle the Torah scrolls seven times, holding the Four Species. The man shown above holds the etrog, myrtle, willow, and palm together, near the heart.


The man in the center is doing the shaking of the lulav left, right, forward, backward, up, and down, to show that God is present everywhere.


See the aravah or willows the men have thrown on top of the holy ark where the Torah is? 
Just like the Talmud said to do!


And we heard the call of the shofar!

The male-female divider was thankfully moved a bit more to the left today, to give women more room near the Wall.



The Four Species are often transported in a transparent, flexible plastic carrying case. I think a white stick is included in the set to prevent too much bending. 
These boys were having a sword fight with those sticks.


A little boy was playing at beating a willow on the ground.

Prayers for water and divine blessing throughout the year are very fervently said today.

It is said that during the Festival of Sukkot, the entire world is judged concerning water, fruit, and produce. The seventh day of the Festival, Hoshana Rabbah, is the day on which this judgment is sealed.

At the end of the prayers, in an ancient rite of deep mystical significance, five willows bound together are beaten five times on the ground, symbolically "sweetening" God's judgment.
.
A new weekly bloggers' meme, "That's My World Tuesday," starts today, conceived by the folks who brought you SkyWatch Friday. Have a look at MyWorld to enjoy guided mini-tours.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Super-sukkah

Today was the last day for eating and dwelling in the sukkah.

These two what I dubbed "super-sukkahs" were at the Western Wall Plaza when I visited there this morning.
Very classy, no?
Top view of the skhakh roofing of the sukkah in the second photo.
 LOTS of palm branches!
.

Jumping rope in a long skirt

Just wanted to show you a few of my stealth shots of the very religious residents of Geula in old Jerusalem.

Actually the first photo is on the historical Ethiopia Street
at the end of which begins the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) neighborhood.
It was cute, the girls playing jump rope.

Camels and oxen

.
Oi veh, I thought, how am I going to tie in animals with my Sukkot theme this week?? It is, after all, time for our bloggers' weekend meme centered at Camera-Critters. So I started reading up, and sure enough, there are at least two animal connections!

The Talmud, in Sukkot 2.3, says,

"If one erects his sukkah on the top of a wagon (though it is on the move) or on the deck of a ship (where it is exposed to gales), it is valid and they may go up into it on the festival. If he made it on the top of a tree, or on the back of a camel, it is valid, but they may not go up into it on the festival . . . ."

And why, I hear you asking, may we not be in the sukkah on the camel on the first day of Sukkot, when work is forbidden? It is because of a side reason. The Sages enacted a gezera (a rabbinical decree) against riding on animals on Shabbat and the holidays, out of concern lest a rider unwittingly break off a branch as he rode along an overgrown trail, and that (the breaking of the branch) would be a violation of a melacha (an activity regarded as work which a Jew must not do on the Sabbath). Got it?

Photo courtesy of Gerald Johnson at Heifer Ranch, Arkansas

A Chabad website explains how oxen are connected to Sukkot's message of universal peace:
"When the Jewish people rejoice, our hearts go out to the whole world.
In the days of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, the Sukkot Festival offerings included seventy oxen, corresponding to the seventy nations -- in prayer for their well-being, and for peace and harmony among the nations of the world."

When a tree hut is not a sukkah

After the exodus from Egypt, during their forty years of wandering in the wilderness, the Jewish people were surrounded by protective "clouds of glory" [which is a term from rabbinic literature and not exactly from the Bible]. In Jewish tradition shade primarily represents God's protection, in relation to the symbolism of the clouds of glory. Shade and shadows are associated with the fleeting, the ephemeral (as our human life is, and especially Jewish life).
The essence of the sukkah, for the rabbis, lies in the special thatched roofing, the skhakh, and the shade it gives.
According to halakha (Jewish law), this skhakh must provide more shade than sun but must not block out the stars. It must come from plants that grew out of the ground but that are no longer attached to the ground.
A kosher roof can be bamboo or reed mats or wooden slats covered by palm fronds or other branches.
The photo shows some klutz-proof, easy to carry and put up, sukkah roof kits on sale just outside Jerusalem's Shuk Machaneh Yehuda. Oh, and some colored tinsel to decorate your sukkah, too.


And as luck and good timing would have it, New York's Madison Square Park has just had a dozen of its trees decorated with TREE HUTS, pinewood tree houses perched 30 feet up in the branches! The installation is being built under the direction of Japanese conceptual artist Tadashi Kawamata.
More information and real photos at the fine Daily Dose of Architecture blog. Or enjoy the Tree Huts blog.

Even if they got the skhakh right, I'm afraid these tree huts could not be counted as kosher sukkot. Why? Because nothing, not even a tree (or an overhanging balcony), may come between the sukkah and the sky. If a sukkah is built on the very TOP of a tree, then it is valid. Maybe not so safe, but kosher. . . .

Artist's sketch, from the Tree Hut blog 
.

Dwelling in a temporary hut

"You shall dwell in sukkot (huts) for seven days . . . so that you will know, for all generations, that I had the Children of Israel dwell in sukkot when I took them out of the Land of Egypt; I am God your God." (Leviticus 23:42-43)

"How [does one fulfill] the mitzvah of dwelling in the sukkah? One should eat, drink, and live in the sukkah, both day and night, as one lives in one’s house on the other days of the year: for seven days a person should make his home his temporary dwelling, and his sukkah his permanent dwelling." (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 639:1)

God says . . . “I have one easy mitzvah, and sukkah is its name.” (Talmud, Avodah Zarah 3a)

I have finally shot a few sukkah pictures to show you, now that we are already half-way through the week of the Sukkot holiday. The one above is typical for my village in the Jerusalem Hills where the moshavniks have plenty of space.

Many communities decorate the sukkah with posters on the walls or by hanging fresh fruits or other decorations from the sechach beams. Some, like Chabad Chassidim, have the custom not to put in decorations, as the sukkah itself is considered an object of beauty.
This plain big sukkah-hut is one of several in the garden of a restaurant at Beit Ticho, an art gallery in Jerusalem. You think they serve hut cuisine inside? :)
  
Yesterday I ventured into Geula, a strictly ultra-Orthodox (haredi) neighborhood, home to different segments of Chassidic and Lithuanian Judaism. My stealth photo shows a small plywood sukkah/booth/hut.
Look at this apartment building in a narrow Geula lane! Click to see it full-page. Sukkahs everywhere--on the roof, on the little balconies, even protruding from the corner.

Moadim lesimcha (the greeting said on the intermediate days of the holiday) and Shabbat shalom to you.
.

Sister Moon appears

Mazal tov! A new meme has been birthed by the SkyWatch Friday crew. Have a look over at SkyWatch.

Just as I was coming up out of the woods Sister Moon came up and lit my path.

Onward Christian Zionists, marching as to . . .

.

REUTERS photo from today's Haaretz online newspaper

Although yours truly was a lazy blogger today and did not go out under a rain-threatening sky to photograph it for you, today was the annual Sukkot Jerusalem March. Some 35,000 Israelis were walking the three possible routes too, but a big contingent was some 7,000 Christian Zionists, pilgrims from a hundred nations who came to express their love and support for Israel. The International Christian of Embassy Jerusalem, a global organization that promotes ties between Israel and the world's Christian communities, is sponsoring a week-long convention in the capital. After the hikers converged on Jerusalem another 20,000 people joined in the festivities at Sacher Park.
The Christian visitors always call the Sukkot holiday the Feast of Tabernacles.
You can read more about the march in the Haaretz article and/or see a brief video of the marchers from IBA television here.
A humorously biting coverage of this and last year's march is here, at the Jerusalemite blog.

UPDATE: Thursday's Jerusalem Post has full coverage of the event here and explains the important point that "Citing different verses of scripture shared by Jews and Christians alike, organizers pointed out that Succot is the time when the nations of the world are supposed to come to Jerusalem and celebrate with the Jewish people." . Sukkot is one of the three ancient Jewish pilgrimage festivals (along with Passover and Shavuot), when Jews from all over the world were to come up to the Temple in Jerusalem.

M is for myrtle

To see what other bloggers have come up with for "M" day, jump over to ABC Wednesday.
`~~~~~~~~ ~

My M is for myrtle. Myrtle branches are one of the four species of plants that are needed for an ancient Jewish ceremony done during the week of the Sukkot holiday. Yesterday I took you into the yearly Four Species Market in Jerusalem. Let's go back again!
A "gingey" (generic name in Hebrew for all redheads) brings in another load of first-class myrtle branches.
The religious men know exactly what to look for to make sure the branches they buy are perfect.
The man with the gingey beard is holding branches of the willow tree, another of the four species.

The excellent and fun Jerusalemite blog features an interview with a veteran vendor at this shuk, if you'd like more detailed explanations.
The sign on the hadassim/myrtle reassures customers that the branches are "foreign produce." The year that just ended was a shmittah year as the Torah commands,
"But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath for God; you shall neither sow your field, nor prune your vineyard."

The Four Species Market in Jerusalem

Happy Sukkot! Tonight we start celebrating the holiday of Sukkot, known in English at the Festival of Booths or Tabernacles. We can talk about the meanings in the coming days because the festivities go on until October 22.
But what I am excited to tell you about first is that today I saw for the first time in my life the Shuk Arba'at HaMinim! This special market opens for only a few days every year so that Jews can buy the Four Kinds (or Four Species) needed to perform the mitsvah of "taking [and shaking] the lulav."
The four are branches of willow, myrtle, and palm, plus the fruit citron.
So I scouted out the big tent from the outside, like the other photographer was doing.
But then, who wants to shoot through fences?
There were no women inside.
Would they let me in, a female, a non-religious one, wearing jeans, holding a camera yet??
Applying the Rebbe's advice from yesterday's post, I stopped thinking so much and decided to "just go over." The two entrance lines had security guards who could have examined my bag or wanded me, could have but did not.

I was in! In that other world of Orthodox and Haredi men. And wonder of wonders, they were so engrossed in examining every minute detail of the Four Species that no one even noticed my camera! What a rare opportunity.
So here the lulav (Hebrew for palm frond) is being checked to see if it is perfect.
Same for the etrog (citron fruit).
How do you like the man multi-tasking with the phone thingy in his ear? :)
The wonderful Shuk of the Four Kinds is a normal and exciting part of growing up for these religious boys. Come to think about it . . . I did some growing up there today too.

Obstacle? Just go over.

.

This is where I often go walking at the end of the day.

Once it was our village's only way to Jerusalem.

Then the new road, higher on the hill, was built and this old one was blocked.

Grandson No. 1 and I had a big hike from here down to the spring when he came from Australia to visit almost two years ago.

I thought of this picture when today's "Daily Dose of Wisdom from the [Lubavitcher] Rebbe" arrived in my inbox. It is copied below.

Rabbi Shmuel of Lubavitch, known as “The Rebbe Maharash,” the fourth in the golden chain of rebbes of Lubavitch, had an attitude.

Many wise people say if you can’t go under, go over. The Rebbe Maharash said, “Just go over.”
Meaning that instead of first trying to work through a problem by its own rules, and then --if that doesn’t work --gathering the strength and courage to step brazenly over it. . .
Instead, just start by stepping right over it, as though there were no obstacle to begin with.

After all, that’s why obstacles are there in the first place--so you will go higher.

A Daily Dose of Wisdom from the Rebbe
-words and condensation by Tzvi Freeman
Tishrei 13, 5769 * October 12, 2008

.

A coat of many colors

.
Huh? What's going on here?
.

"Homage to Jerusalem - Stabile" was the last statue planned by the famous American artist Alexander Calder (1898-1976) and was installed in Jerusalem, on Mt. Herzl, in 1977.

Three years ago it had to be moved because an underground parking lot for Jerusalem's still under-construction tram line had to be built just there. Now it has been returned. To see slides on how the 65-ton metal statue was transported click here.

The by-now rusty looking metal was supposed to be restored to its original bright color with "Calder Red" paint, especially ordered from abroad. So what's with this white paint?? Is it some kind of Grundfarbe (base coat?)?
It looks funny. You can even see it from my house, across the valley, sticking out like a sore thumb on Mt. Herzl.

Calder was a mechanical engineer [as is my dear daughter, who also carries the artistic gene].
He pioneered the stabile, an abstract construction that is completely stationary. His examples were termed stabiles to distinguish them from mobiles, their moving counterparts, also invented by Calder.

In a catalogue essay Marc Glimcher writes that “Calder's invention of the stabile set the stage for a major revolution. The nature of his compositions along with the materials and construction allowed the idea of abstraction to expand beyond the gallery, the studio or the museum and spill out onto city streets… This unprecedented accomplishment simultaneously restored the place of monumental, public art and claimed it for abstraction. Scores of artists in the following generations have taken up the challenge of monumental abstraction, and in doing so have generated many of the ground-breaking developments seen in the last forty years of contemporary sculpture.”

Take me, I'm yours

An animal-loving friend in Jerusalem is raising these two young kittens who were left at her apartment door. They are really quite sweet. Would you like to adopt them, and soon??

Our weekend Camera Critters is underway. It was just nominated for Blogger's Choice Awards. Have a look at all the animals there.

The sun on Yom Kippur

This is my strange contribution to SkyWatch Friday.

Hundreds of other bloggers' skies can be viewed by clicking here.

The radiant circle at the top signifies the sunrise which in turn recalls the firstborn status of Reuben.

And this is the sunlight shining through Marc Chagall's stained glass windows as seen inside the synagogue at Hadassah Hospital.

The windows look so different--black--from the outside. Classical Hebrew of course had no word for this type of art, so we adopted the French word ויטראז vitrage.
  The square, simple synagogue is beneath the arched windows, behind the decorated lower walls.
Yesterday I walked up to Hadassah for the Yom Kippur prayer services. It was beautiful--the setting and the chanting and the sound of the shofar.
Late afternoon the sun sank low and suddenly the windows lost their color and light, making the intensity of the Neilah (literally, "locking") service even more powerful.
 The image is of the heavenly Gates of Repentance closing as the Day of Atonement ends.

Chagall  made one window for each of the twelve sons of the patriarch Jacob.
 The Twelve Tribes of Israel: Reuben, Asher, Benjamin, Dan, Gad, Judah, Joseph, Zebulon, Simeon, Levi, Naphtali, Issachar.

If you'd like to learn the Biblical source of Chagall's symbolism, Hadassah has a page on each of the windows starting here.

The late great Chagall made fascinating remarks about the sources of his inspiration at the dedication of the windows in 1962. This highly recommended reading is here.

Below is my favorite, Issachar, because of the donkey. Jacob's blessing in Genesis 49:
"Issachar is a strong-boned ass, crouching among the sheepfolds.
When he saw how good was safety, and how pleasant was the country,
he bent his shoulder to the burden and became a labourer."

This vitrage was damaged by shelling from Jordan's Arab Legion during the 1967 Six Day War. The white spot on the donkey is actually the repair of a shrapnel or bullet hole.
 I seem to remember from a guided tour that Mayor Teddy Kollek z"l was full of sorrow when this happened and telephoned the artist.
 Chagall said, "Don't worry. You just win the war and I will fix the glass."
.