Pulpit

Just got back from an amazing pulpit visit. I led the seder on Saturday night and an adult ed on Sunday morning on God and "hardening Pharaoh's heart." GREAT discussions. I'm going to be sad to leave these people in May. :(

My mom had come with me, which was fabulous... and which also made the 5-hour drive more tolerable. On the way back we played tourist and stopped at Lincoln's log cabin! What fun. I feel like I know so much more about farming now.

Savta also sent us a package. It had all kinds of cool stuff in it, like Israeli charoset and oils and neat bookmarks. Thank you! Pictures to follow.

My midwife is fabulous, but she's also a harsh taskmaster and is very strict about my protein intake. I usually never eat this much meat, but I've been feeling really good, so I can't complain. We stopped for burgers on the way to Illinois, and then Subway on the way home. Who knew I would end up with so many cravings for roast beef?!

Few quick things

1) Our cats are in love with my mom. She plays with them, she pets them all the time, she meows back when they say something... Simcha's going to mourn when she leaves!

2) Being pregnant definitely has its advantages. I was jaywalking the other day and CARS SLOWED DOWN TO LET ME PASS. I was the one one jaywalking (moving quickly, but still)! Jonathan and I went to a sneak preview of Forbidden Kingdom last week and our line was moving slowly. The people in front of us said something, and nothing happened. I said something, the woman behind the counter took one look at my belly, and our line progressed immediately. It's amazing, like this kind of weird power.

3) The weather is beautiful! Spring is here for certain. Last night we had an impromptu porch party as Jan, Jonathan, myself, Sarah, Amy, her boyfriend and his nephew all sat on our front stoop and talked. What a midwestern thing... I can't remember *ever* sitting on our porch in California. It was fun though. I just felt like I was in a movie!

4) Passover is a good holiday. A good, good holiday. Except when your husband comes home with LaRosa's pizza leftovers from a lunch meeting. And pizza becomes very, very bad. And Passover becomes very, very hard. Sigh. Such tough life choices.

5) Just one more week of school! How very excellent. But I have sooo much work to do, oy!

Passover seder

We had a wonderful time last night at seder. I led the service while Jan organized the kitchen and the logistics of food - there was Ari's mom's homemade chicken soup with matzah balls (no sinkers!), followed by salad with gefilte fish, then Jan's chicken as the main dish accompanied by her sauteed carrots and sauteed mushrooms. Then this fabulous sweet potato dish that Sarah made and the matzah kugel that Jonathan baked. Dessert was Sarah's gluten-free kosher for Passover cake and Jonathan's chocolate toffee matzah. We all rolled out looking like matzah balls ourselves.

And I just realized I listed all the food first. Because that is the most important part of any Jewish event, apparently. The seder itself was wonderful, I thought - we used the "30 Minute Haggadah" (prayerbook) which, with embellishments, lasted over an hour. Jonathan and I had bought and received all this wonderful Judaica for our wedding, and last night was the first time we used our very own seder plate, matzah plate, matzah cover from Savta, candlesticks, and some of the kiddush cups. I felt very adult.

There were only eight of us total, which is small compared to what I'm used to, but it worked out perfectly for the first seder I led. Less people equals less intimidating, you know. :)

Table setting with Miriam's cup in the background. If you look closely (or click on the picture itself) you can see we personalized the haggadah cover to say "A Loving Pesach."

Full seder table.

From L to R: Ari, Chris, Sarah, me, Jan, Cecile, Charles. Jonathan's taking the picture.

Even the preparation was fun! Jan made charoset according to the song. For those of you who are unfamiliar, it goes "make charoset chop chop chop/ apples, nuts and cinn-a-mon/ add some wine, it's lots of fun/ make charoset chop chop chop." Then there was the prerequisite cleaning, which wasn't as much fun, but then it never really is.

The best part was after Jonathan made the kugel and was starting on the chocolate toffee dessert. He made one tray and was about to begin cleaning up. Jan and I both went, "What?! That's it?! Only one tray?!" He kindly explained that one tray was six full sheets of matzah. At which point Jan and I looked at each other, then at him, then at the tray, and said, almost in unison, "So?!" He laughed, and, needless to say, made another tray.

Here we are after everyone left. Excuse the rumpled looks on all of us, it had been a long night. (This is a good lesson: take pictures before people come over).

Jonathan and my expanding self.

Jan and me.


Jonathan and Jan. Hopefully you guessed that by now.

I hope you all are having a wonderful Pesach, wherever you are, or at least a good weekend. I am off to munch on leftovers and enjoy matzah with cream cheese and jam (which is really quite good, I can hear you scoffing from here.)

What a difference two weeks make

17 weeks today. I look in the mirror and don't recognize myself.

Mazel tov!

To Shawn and Kristie, on the arrival of baby Kara.

And of course, hugs must go out to Auntie Lois on her first grandbaby!

Ode to Sheryl

Ah! Librarian of knowledge,
of wisdom,
of power.
Thank thee in spades for recommending books to my mom
so that mine library can be enhanced and fulfilled.
The joys of Buber, of Rosensweig, of Idelsohn
never shall again pass me by.
The importance of JPS commentaries
cannot be overestimated
nor can the beauty of Millgram and history resource texts.
The spines sit on my shelves ever so sweetly.
Like children aching to be let out to play
they wait for their moment of grandeur and citation.
In the words of dear friend William,
from the mouth of Prospero,
"Knowing I lov'd my books, [s]he furnish'd me
From [her] own library with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom."

Thank thee, thank thee, thank thee, and may thy Shabbat and Pesach be blessed.

PANIM and my mom

So I realized I never wrote about PANIM! The conference was seriously magnificent. The social justice educational sessions were really good, and I learned a lot about community organizing, how to use rabbinic/Biblical text in a project, and more. But the most interesting part for me was the people.

It was interdenominational, meaning there were about 30 students there of all ages (oldest was 60something) from all the movements in Judaism: Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (Modern Orthodox seminary in New York), University of Judaism (Conservative in LA), Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative in NY), HUC-NY, LA, and Cincinnati (all Reform), Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Pennsylvania, ALEPH (Renewal movement based in Massachusetts), Hebrew College (nondenominational in Boston), and the Academy of Jewish Religion (another nondenom in NY).

I've never been in an environment like that before, where everyone was so open and willing to talk about real issues. We did quite a bit of "relational learning," where we would be paired off with someone from another movement and ask each other all kinds of questions to get to know the other better. In one session, we asked each other about how we came to the rabbinate and what we saw in our future. Another was more general: "what keeps you up at night?" Yet another activity was an open session where we could stand up and announce a topic, and then form groups based on what topic we were interested in. Options that people suggested included: Social Justice and the Iraq War, "My Ideal Congregation Looks Like....," Being a Single Rabbinical Student, etc. I joined the "Family/Career Balance" group, and formed very deep connections with the people in it. By the end we were laughing and crying comparing stories.

I told someone at school about this and they said, "that was an expensive mixer!" but I really think it was more than that. If anything, it taught me much about myself that I think will make me a better person and better rabbi. Like, that I had previously conflated liberalism with open-mindedness, and how that is a complete fallacy. The people from the more conservative movements were so honest and willing to share, they really shattered my stereotypes. Also, I think I've always felt slightly embarrassed about my level of Jewish education - compared to an Orthodox yeshiva student, I don't know Talmud or liturgy or a host of things that I felt I "should" know. The weekend taught me that yeah, so I don't know those things, but I do know a host of other things that they DON'T learn. So I guess it all works out.

By the time I got home at 10pm Sunday night I was exhausted. Then of course school started with a vengeance. Today is the first official day of spring break, so I get the next week off. And Jan is here, hooray! We picked her up at the airport last night. The plan for today is to go food shopping for the upcoming seder, do laundry, and hang out.

I'm back

I'm back from CT and the most amazing weekend. I'll write about it in detail later. Right now I'll continue to study for a midrash test, prep Biblical Grammar, and figure out what I have to do for a wedding presentation in Life Cycles. You know I'm dedicated to school when I get up at 5am to do homework. :)

Belly pic

Alright, so I'm posting a picture. Though honestly folks, when I pull my shirt down I look almost exactly the same.



I'm also off blogging til next week, as tomorrow morning I leave for Connecticut for a conference on "Spirituality, Social Justice and the Rabbinate." I'll tell you how it is when I get back.

Recap of a busy week

So much to say, where to begin. Let's go chronologically.

I have been having power lunches with all the HUC moms on campus, schmoozing and asking all kinds of questions about being a mom in Cincinnati. I'm also forming all kinds of new friendships! Thanks to Erica, Carri and Shena for the informal lunch-and-learn.

Shabbat this week was lovely, at Beth and Uzi's house. In a sad "wow the stereotype is true" moment, at dinner I ate all the pickles in the dish but one. They were Osem pickles in brine, I couldn't help it! Uzi insisted on giving me a can when we left. So between the Osem and Josh's Fire and Ice pickles, I'm apparently defining a pregnant woman. (But really, pickles can be eaten with everything... alone as a side dish, in a sandwich, in egg salad... so many possibilities).

On Saturday I participated in a panel along with a fifth-year and third-year student talking to the local branch of Women in Reform Judaism. The three of us sat at a table in front of 60 rabbis, cantors, temple presidents, and lay leaders and answered questions ranging from the HUC curriculum to our thoughts on interfaith marriage. It was very interesting, for all parties involved, and I felt quite honored to be a part of it.

On the way home from the panel I called Jonathan and he told me to meet him and Ari at a pub. A pub?! I asked. Yes, "THE Pub." It's the name of a local restaurant/bar. They were enjoying greasy food so I joined them, ordered my Shirley Temple, and we stayed til it got dark just talking about life.

Sunday my third-grade lesson went swimmingly. It was on Passover and the kids really got into acting out the story of Moses and the exodus. The big hit near the end of the day was when we made origami frogs. I had found instructions online, and Jonathan and I had practiced the night before so I could show the kids. It's fascinating to me to watch students participate in different activities and be able to see their strengths and weaknesses; e.g. the best reader in the class could not fold paper at ALL, but the kid who never seems engaged in any other activity finished every step of his frog almost before I finished showing it. I feel badly now; if only I had realized he was that kinesthetic earlier I could have engaged him more throughout the year.

Oh, and as an aside to how much I love kids - when I was asking them what they had done over break (they had had two weeks off of Sunday school), one boy's big news was, "I got a cup for baseball!" I blinked, pausing a second to figure out what he meant. Three or four responses flitted through my mind at once: "Wow, you're really growing up." "Good job, protect yourself well." etc etc. Instead I quashed my smile, said "Mazel tov!" very sincerely, and moved on to the next student. It's just that he was so proud when he told everybody, it was adorable.

Let's see, now we're onto yesterday. Eh. It was fine. It was class and class and more class. I did attend a tutorial from 4:30-6 on how to use my Bibleworks computer program, which was highly worth it in spite of getting home so late. Now I know to how to enlarge my Hebrew fonts and how to copy and text wrap correctly into a Word document!

Today I met with the head of JELC, the Jewish Early Learning Co-op on campus. It takes kids from 3 months to 3 years, and its educational philosophies jibe with my own. The only problem is money; who knew daycare was so expensive?! I understand now why some families remain a single-parent income, because the amount of money a parent would make is about the same that would be spent on childcare.

Spring is here, finally. There are buds on the trees, grass is starting to sprout on lawns. And allergy season is kicking in, it feels like a good handful of my class is sick. Darned flora and fauna.

Last but certainly not least, shout-out to Jessica and Michael, who have started their own Cincinnati restaurant review blog. Go check it out to see which restaurants you want to go to when you come visit us. :)

Really cool gifts

I feel so loved lately.

1) Gwen and Sylvan tried to send us strawberries from an organic food company. It didn't end up working out (the why is a very long story), but strawberries, yummm......

2) Josh bought me fiery pickles at his pulpit in Mississippi. He handed them over with a "happy pregnancy!" It was neat. :)

3) I didn't say so earlier, but Holly gave me lotions and good pregnancy books. Baby Bargains is awesome, I've already bookmarked multiple pages!

4) Becca brought back Korean goodies! Aside from what's pictured, there was also a very cool calligraphy/illustration that we're gonna put in our guest room.

From L to R: cookies with chocolate filling, cell phone dangles (a gemstone and a beaded purse), Crunky chocolate bar, alcoholic drink in a juice box (!!) , and Buddha and lion bookmarks.

I forgot to put this in the other picture - gummies! They were four different flavors, but were all the same clear color.. very odd. But they tasted great.

5) Jan also sent us a big box, filled with all 10 volumes of Midrash Rabbah. Plus cookies for Jonathan, and, of course, a gift for Simcha and Osher. Here they are doing their thing.

Simcha is out of breath from jumping. Osher is watching from the box. Boxes are the best presents, he thinks.

I caught it!

And that there be life...

A relatively easy week

The CCAR, or Central Conference of American Rabbis, is this week, and 400 rabbis have landed in Cincinnati. Conference sessions were held on campus yesterday, and this has provided the impetus for new paint, spiffy retiling, and a whole bunch of campus updates. I like that the place is looking so good, but really, couldn't they have done it anyway? Then again, I don't usually thoroughly clean either unless company is coming over. Pot, meet kettle.

Yesterday in my mini-break I did four loads of laundry, advertised a bunch of random items on craigslist, and finally organized all the paperwork on my desk. I also read The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs, which my mom had sent over, and The Origin of the Modern Jew by Michael Meyer. No offense to Dr. Meyer, but the Knitting Club was a lot more fun to get through! It was a good "fun book," in the genre of Joy Luck Club or How to Make an American Quilt. It almost (but not quite!) made me wish I knew how to knit. Modern Jew just depressed me. Jewish history's kinda sucky, isn't it? The more I learn, the more I agree with the half-joke of "They tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat." Bagels for everyone!