Teach

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Torah was given to teach us. 

And today's City Daily Photo Theme Day's focus is TEACH.

Pirkei Avot 4:15 in the Talmud says

Rabbi Elazar ben Shamua taught: "The dignity of your students should be as precious to you as your own. The dignity of your colleagues should be as precious to you as your reverence for your teacher. The reverence for your teacher should be as great as your reverence for God."

And the daily prayer Kaddish dRabbanan blesses our teachers:

 "May you be blessed and strengthened 
as you have blessed and strengthened your student.

May you have peace, grace, kindness, mercy, long life and

everything you need."

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Good luck to the 2,310,000 pupils in Israel who start the new school year tomorrow, Sunday, Sept. 2.  
And blessings to their teachers!

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The Day of the Breaking of the Ax, Tu B'Av

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Today was Tu B'Av.  As you can see from the Google doodle, in modern Israel this ancient holiday has evolved into a day of love, with many of the trappings of Valentine's Day that we learned from  other countries.
But reading a good Chabad article today, I learned that the Talmud lists six joyous events which occurred on this 15th of Av.

Just recently we found an X word for ABC Wednesday:
 Josephus (Bellum Judaisum 2:17)   refers to Tu B'Av as the Feast of Xylophory ("Wood-bearing") because on that day the cutting of the wood for the main altar in the Temple was completed for the year.

Today I learned this from Chabad:

 When the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem, the annual cutting of firewood for the altar was concluded on the 15th of Av. The event was celebrated with feasting and rejoicing (as is the custom upon the conclusion of a holy endeavor), and included a ceremonial breaking of the axes, which gave the day its name, the Day of the Breaking of the Ax.
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Why break the axes? Why not store them for next year’s cutting? Because the ax represents the very antithesis of what the altar, and the Temple as a whole, stood for.
Regarding the making of the altar, G‑d had instructed: “When you build a stone altar for Me, do not build it of cut stone; for if your sword has been lifted upon it, you have profaned it” (Exodus 20:22). “Do not lift iron upon it . . . The altar of G‑d shall be built of whole stones” (Deuteronomy 27:5–6). If any metal implement so much as touched a stone, that stone was rendered unfit for use in the making of the altar.
Our sages explain: “Iron was created to shorten the life of man, and the altar was created to lengthen the life of man; so it is not fitting that that which shortens should be lifted upon that which lengthens” (Talmud, Middot 3:4). Iron, the instrument of war and destruction, has no place in the making of the instrument whose function is to bring eternal peace and harmony to the world.

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 From the Chabad website.  Based on the teachings of the

 Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson; adapted by Yanki Tauber.

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See also http://jerusalemhillsdailyphoto.blogspot.co.il/2009/08/dancing-in-vineyards-in-moonlight.html
and for fun look at  http://jerusalemhillsdailyphoto.blogspot.co.il/2008/06/woodpile.html

Happy Tu B'Av!

(Linking to Our World Tuesday.)

Down to earth again

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OK, the holidays are over.
It's back to everyday life.
So for That's My World and ABC Wednesday O-day, let's observe my ecology-minded neighbor's new OUTHOUSE.
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Actually, it is a really nice composting toilet.
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All you have to do is sprinkle some sawdust.
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When the container is ready to be emptied, it can be pulled out through this little back door.
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I should add that the neighbor also has a normal house with conventional plumbing, but this little outhouse is good for visitors.
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It is clean and OK-smelling, nothing like the pit latrines I've seen in my travels. This one is not a pit at all.
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But speaking of pits, I just have to say this well-known expression from the Talmud:
in Aramaic it is מאגרא רמא לבירא עמיקתא Me-igara rama lebeyra amiqta.
Literally:
From a high rooftop to a deep pit.
Meaning:
A person lost his former greatness and got into deep, uh . . . , trouble.
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The Global Day of Jewish Learning -- today!

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Every day is supposed to be a day of learning.
But today, November 7, is the first-ever Global Day of Jewish Learning, meant to unite Jews from across the globe in celebration of our shared culture, texts, and history.
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With the motto "One world, one people, one day," Jews in hundreds of communities in 45 countries are going to sit together in groups or in families to study and discuss "The Big Questions."
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The Global Day of Learning is a project of the Aleph Society, which has drawn many organizing partners into the effort.
Today is the day that Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz will bring to completion his monumental commentary on the Talmud.
A Time magazine article explains his work and his surprising life story.
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Photo from the Aleph Society website

Rabbi Steinsaltz is a world-renowned teacher, philosopher, social critic, and author.

He is a champion for open access to Jewish learning, and his life's mission has been to give Jewish texts and learning back to the Jewish people--in a way that we can understand it.

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Click here to learn what's inside the Steinsaltz Center in Jerusalem pictured above.

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If you'd like a sample shiur (lesson) in English, see this video of the Rabbi teaching the Talmudic page about Tu B'Av, when the girls of Jerusalem go to dance in white in the vineyards.

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Floating in oil

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Yet another batch of soofganiot frying in hot oil!
What would Chanuka be without them?
Today I caught sight of these jelly-donuts-in-progress as I walked down Jaffa Road, near the shuk/souk/market.
The smell of calories attracted my attention.

(Enlarge the photo to see the finished product on the left.)

Soofgania comes from the Hebrew word that means sponge, sfog, which comes from a similar Ancient Greek word.
And indeed this dough absorbs hot oil like a sponge, as do latkes (grated potato pancakes), that other traditional Chanuka treat.

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The holiday was instituted not to celebrate the 165 BCE military victory of the Jews over the Seleucid Greeks (who defiled the Temple with pagan worship), but rather to celebrate the miracle of the olive OIL.
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When the victorious Jews came to rededicate the Temple, they found only one small vial of still-pure oil (i.e. with the seal of the high priest intact). They needed to rekindle the menorah and keep it burning throughout the night every night; but to press, prepare, and consecrate a fresh supply of oil would have taken eight days.
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The Talmud (in tractate Shabbat) says:
"What is Hanukah? The rabbis taught: . . . The vial contained sufficient oil for one day only, but a miracle occurred, and it fed the holy lamp eight days in succession. These eight days were the following year established as days of good cheer, on which psalms of praise and acknowledgment (of God's wonders) were to be recited."
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So that's why our "days of good cheer" are now filled with oily tasty soofganiot.
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Dancing in the vineyards in the moonlight

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Happy Tu B'Av, the Jewish holiday of love!

Last night the full moon signaled the beginning of the 15th day of the month of Av.
Originally a post-biblical day of joy, Tu B'Av served as a matchmaking day for unmarried women in the second Temple period.

In the glow of a full summer moon, young women, robed in white, would dance in the fields outside the walls of Jerusalem. The men would follow in hopes of finding a bride

(Modern Israel does have vineyards, but I couldn't find any close to Jerusalem; so permit me to post my pictures from Switzerland instead.)

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We read in the Talmud, in Tractate Ta'anit:

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Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel said "Israel has no days as festive as the 15th of Av and Yom Kippur....," and adds "On these days, the young maidens of Jerusalem would emerge in the streets wearing borrowed white clothing [so as not to embarrass the poor who did not have garments of their own]. They would form a circle (and dance) in the vineyards. What would they say (while they danced)? 'Young man, lift up your eyes and appreciate whom you are selecting (to marry). Don't look at our beauty. Instead, look at the family (from which we descend).'

After the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. this minor festival went almost unnoticed for many centuries.

But in the past few decades the non-religious Jews in the State of Israel have brought Tu B'Av back to life as a time to celebrate love and enjoy music festivals. It is even becoming something like the Valentine's Day known to other countries, red roses, gifts and all.

Or at least so they tell me . . .
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Hoshana Rabba

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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.
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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.

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A hole in the wall

I guess this old building on Jaffa Road, across from shuk Mahaneh Yehuda market, needed a new opening. If you click on the picture you can see the man inside is working with a sledge hammer. But the poor guy with the heavy drill--his long drill bit was stuck in the old cement and stone! He tried and tried but saw no way out.
I snapped the picture in stealth mode and hurried off to my bus stop, not wanting to add to his embarrassment. Pirke Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers in the Talmud, wisely said a long time ago: "Do not seek to see your friend in the time of his humiliation."