F is for flotilla

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For fun, enlarge the photo and guess what the flotilla is fashioned from.
(Yes, it's  ABC Wednesday F-Day.)

I saw this at the Israel Museum and found it fascinating.
Materials?  Ready? --
Fishing wire, dental floss, aluminum, and ram's horn!

Israeli Uri Nir, born in 1976, made these ships in 2000.
He calls them  Yom Kippur Flotilla.

Here is how the museum explains:

Ram's horns (shofars) make up the core of Yom Kippur Flotilla.  The shofar, symbolizing the ram that was sacrificed in place of Isaac, is blown on the Jewish Day of Atonement to evoke the Lord's mercy and forgiveness.
In the olden days, the sounding of the shofar would signal entry into war--and, indeed, the title of the work alludes to the Yom Kippur War that broke out in October 1973.
Nir's depiction of the fleet is reminiscent of naval battle scenes from European genre paintings of the 17th to the 19th centuries.
The curvature of the horns resembles the rolling waves, forming an intimate bond between a solid from the realm of terrestrial animals and the flow of the liquid sea.
Finally the shofar constitutes an ancient musical instrument whose sound is produced by blowing it.  Here the carved horns refer to a different type of wind: the marine wind blowing the ships to an unknown destination.
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The shofar's sound of supplication

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For PsalmChallenge, centered at Daily Athens blog, here are selected verses of Psalm 28, the ones that I like to think are illustrated by the photo of my grandson Dean.
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2. Hear the sound of my supplication when I cry out to You, when I raise up my hands toward Your holy shrine.
. . .
6. Blessed is the LORD, for He hears the sound of my supplication.
7. The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him.
I was helped, and my heart rejoiced, so I will give thanks to Him with my song.
8. The LORD is His people's strength; a stronghold for the deliverance of His anointed is He.
9. Deliver Your people, bless Your heritage; shepherd them and raise them up forever.

Dean made the shofar out of a goat's horn.
Incredibly, at his tender age (this was a few years ago), he made soul-stirring sounds.
There is a little video of him blowing the shofar.
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Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is this Friday evening until Saturday night.
May everyone be sealed in the Book of Life.
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Shepherd and sheep on Yom Kippur

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Two of the stained glass windows of Renanim synagogue in Hechal Shlomo, Jerusalem.
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In a few hours Israel enters into both the Sabbath and Yom Kippur.
Everything shuts down and it gets very quiet all over the country.
This Day of Atonement is a time of intense prayer, total fasting for 25 hours, soul-searching, and repentence for many Jews.
(For many secular Jews, it is a time to stroll down the empty highways and for the children to bike ride or skate in the car-free streets.)
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As the beautiful Yom Kippur window shows, the Gates of Repentence are open.
Above Jerusalem is the traditional image of God's Book of Life, open, with quill ready.
The long liturgy of the evening and of the following day centers on our plea that he will inscribe us in the Book of Life and seal it for another year.
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The Rosh Hashana window (please do enlarge it) quotes from the moving and powerful piyyut (liturgical poem) Unetaneh Tokef which is sung in every synagogue both on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

כָל בָּאֵי עולָם יַעַבְרוּן לְפָנֶיךָ כִּבְנֵי מָרון. כְּבַקָּרַת רועֶה עֶדְרו. מַעֲבִיר צאנו תַּחַת שִׁבְטו .כֵּן תַּעֲבִיר וְתִסְפּר וְתִמְנֶה וְתִפְקד נֶפֶשׁ כָּל חָי. וְתַחְתּךְ קִצְבָה לְכָל בְּרִיּותֶיךָ. וְתִכְתּב אֶת גְּזַר דִּינָם:
בְּראשׁ הַשָּׁנָה יִכָּתֵבוּן וּבְיום צום כִּפּוּר יֵחָתֵמוּן כַּמָּה יַעַבְרוּן וְכַמָּה יִבָּרֵאוּן מִי יִחְיֶה וּמִי יָמוּת. מִי בְקִצּו וּמִי לא בְקִצּו מִי בַמַּיִם. וּמִי בָאֵשׁ מִי בַחֶרֶב. וּמִי בַחַיָּה מִי בָרָעָב. וּמִי בַצָּמָא מִי בָרַעַשׁ. וּמִי בַמַּגֵּפָה מִי בַחֲנִיקָה וּמִי בַסְּקִילָה מִי יָנוּחַ וּמִי יָנוּעַ מִי יִשָּׁקֵט וּמִי יִטָּרֵף מִי יִשָּׁלֵו. וּמִי יִתְיַסָּר מִי יֵעָנִי. וּמִי יֵעָשֵׁר מִי יִשָּׁפֵל. וּמִי יָרוּם וּתְשׁוּבָה וּתְפִלָּה וּצְדָקָה מַעֲבִירִין אֶת רעַ הַגְּזֵרָה
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"All mankind will pass before You like members of the flock.
Like a shepherd pasturing his flock, making sheep pass under his staff, so shall You cause to pass, count, calculate, and consider the soul of all the living;
and You shall apportion the fixed needs of all Your creatures and inscribe their verdict. "

The piyyut is traditionally attributed to a medieval Rabbi Amnon of Mainz, who spoke the words while he was being martyred. More here.
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You can read its translation in the ArtScroll Machzor.
Here is part of it:
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"On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed
how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created;
who will live and who will die;
who will die at his predestined time and who before his time;
who by water and who by fire,
who by sword, who by beast, who by famine, who by thirst,
who by storm, who by plague,
who by strangulation, and who by stoning.
Who will rest and who will wander,
who will live in harmony and who will be harried,
who will enjoy tranquility and who will suffer,
who will be impoverished and who will be enriched,
who will be degraded and who will be exalted.
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But REPENTANCE, PRAYER and CHARITY
[tshuvah, tfilah, tzedaka]
Remove the evil of the Decree!
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Don't you love that idea that by our re-turning, praying, and doing acts of kindness we can change everything?!
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Before shutting down the computer for its yearly day of rest, I leave you with the traditional blessings--Shabbat shalom (Sabbath peace), tsom kal (easy over the fast), and Gmar chatima tova (May you be have a good inscription)!
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P.S. My little grandson made his own ram's horn for these Days of Awe!
Here is a short and sweet video of Dean blowing the shofar.
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Sound the shofar!

OK, in a few minutes we will enter into the Day of Atonement. I will be shutting down the computer until tomorrow night. Israel has closed the border crossings with Jordan and Egypt, the country's airspace is closed to all flights, a closure is imposed on the West Bank. No mode of transportation moves. Nothing is open except the synagogues. It is silent, in expectation of our entering the "gates of repentance" and hopefully being inscribed and sealed in God's Book of Life for the new year.

At the closing prayer service tomorrow night, a blast of the shofar will be heard and will enter the soul of every Jew.

Dean, my dear grandson who lives in Australia, made his very own shofar at a neighborhood Chabad workshop for kids. It is very hard even for an adult to get any sound out of a ram's horn. But Dean has a great gift for blowing the shofar. Listen!

Shalom and gmar chatima tova!

The Sabbath of Sabbaths: Yom Kippur

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Our village synagogue. Women have to sit upstairs, behind a curtain.

Shofarot on sale in Jerusalem's Ben-Yehuda Street pedestrian mall. Only $10 for a shofar, a ram's horn.

Jews have the religious obligation not to blow the shofar but rather to HEAR the shofar on Yom Kippur. Many of us who hardly ever set foot in a synagogue during the year will be sitting (or more often, standing) in our neighborhood synagogue this Wednesday evening and Thursday day for the on-going prayers.

Yom Kippur is a day of fasting. No food or drink from late Wednesday afternoon until 5:50 p.m. Thursday (Jerusalem time). It is a solemn day of communal prayer for forgiveness and atonement.

Israel virtually shuts down for the Day of Atonement. Even Ben-Gurion International Airport is closed. No one drives. An ambulance would be the only vehicle on the street. No TV, no radio.

Can you believe?--I will even be shutting down my computer.

Food for thought

The first day of the two-day holiday of Rosh Hashanah has been very full. Full of God, prayer, symbolism, food, fellowship--all those good things that start the new year.

  The soul-stirring call of the shofar was sounded in synagogues around the world.

 

Three friends came to have roast beef lunch at my table. We began with some of the symbolic foods for this day: dates, a round challah (for the cycle or "roundness" of a year), apples dipped in honey with the blessing that asks God to renew us for a sweet new year, pomegranate (may our merit be multiplied like the many seeds inside the fruit), and wine for the Kiddush blessing.

  On this day Jews walk to a river or other body of living water, preferably containing fish, to do the Tashlich ceremony. I am lucky to have a spring and fish pond just ten minutes walk from home.

Following the ancient tradition, I read the proper Psalms and prayers from the prayerbook. Tashlich in Hebrew means "You will cast off." In the biblical book of Micah (7:18-19) it says:

"Who is a God like thee, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? . . . Thou wilt cast all our sins into the depths of the sea."

Trying to name a year's worth of sins (so many "sins of omission"), I took the little pieces of bread from my pocket and cast them one by one upon the water. The fish surfaced and devoured them in a flash!

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S scenes from Jerusalem

Silwan Arab village, site of Shiloach or Siloam Spring.
Stranger with shofar at the Jerusalem Hug event.
Security for the warm-up to the "Hug the walls of Jerusalem" event.
Section of the "separation barrier"--a sorry situation.