Traditional Jews
celebrate a calendar full of holidays, on many of which we disconnect
(literally) from many things that are part of our usual daily modern life
existence, such as automobiles, telephones, television, and computers.
Sometimes it takes a few days to catch my breath and get back on the treadmill.
I will spare you a
blow by blow account of the past week and instead provide a few highlights. In
the northeastern part of the United States, this has easily been the most
beautiful Sukkot ever! Except for a brief shower in the early morning hours on
Sunday, which ended early enough for the Sukkah to dry out before dinner, the
sky was clear blue and the temperatures mild but not too cold. As a result, we
were able to eat all our meals in our childrens’ Sukkot. And they are
predicting that this will continue through the upcoming weekend. I can never
remember an entire Sukkot this beautiful. We had a great time reminiscing about
our early days of observing the holiday as students at the University of
Rochester in Upstate New York, where I still have vivid memories of snowflakes
falling in a bowl of soup (we’re not entirely nuts, we did go inside when that
happened). Then there were the years in Dallas, where it was miserably hot in
the fall. This week was absolutely perfect, and they are predicting continued
glorious weather through the remainder of the holiday.
And oh the food….
Simmie and Ronen prepared a scrumptious feast for our ten the first night. Barry
and I prepared lunch the first day which the ten of us enjoyed in Dina and
Aaron’s sukkah. The other evenings we had soups that Barry and I had made. On
the second day we joined friends who serve a wonderful annual buffet (Mom and
daughter really outdid themselves) to a large group, pretty much all of whom we
have known since we lived in Sharon back in the 1980s, while the rest of our
crew had lunch with some of their friends.
On Sunday we took
Joshua and Ella to see Despicable Me 2. Barry and I are becoming experts
in animated children’s movies. We had never seen the first movie but you can
pretty much figure out how it must have gone. Like most children’s movies, there were bad guys and good guys and
the good guys, of course, won. Perhaps you could say that about adult movies as
well.
I received an e-mail from
a dear friend I wrote about back in March whose son has Down’s Syndrome. She
sent along a link to an article about upcoming changes in Disney World accommodations
for people with disabilities. I had shared with you some months ago the
shocking and disheartening news of healthy families who were shamelessly taking
advantage of these accommodations. Perhaps those reports actually had the unintended
effect of encouraging more people to
do this! Disney World, saying that they have no way to control the problem, is
pulling back on what they will do for such families. The details remain to be
ironed out, but almost assuredly they will result in either longer wait-times
or more limited flexibility. They appear to be proposing to do this by offering
“fast passes” for multiple rides in advance (up until now, you could only get
one at a time) to families with a disabled member. But that locks you in
somewhat, and I know that for some families with a member who is disabled this
can be quite problematic for a number of valid reasons. We will have to see
just where this all leads before we begin planning our next trip.
It is another
glorious day, and we are packing up a lunch and heading over to one of our
daughters’ Sukkot (they and the children have school during the intermediate
days of the holiday). Wednesday night begins Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, the
end of the fall holiday cycle. We will head back to New York on Sunday, likely
to a huge pile of catalogues that will make it difficult to find the real mail.
If you’re in the
northeast and you can find even a little time, go outside! Who knows how long
it will last?
Love,
Rebecca
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