The meaning of traditions

When I was a girl, my grandmother told me that whenever her mother would prepare a brisket, she would cut a piece off the end and cook it separately. My grandmother thought it was simply a part of the preparation of a traditional Sabbath meal. Years later, when my grandmother was married with her own home, she found herself doing the same thing. It seemed a curious tradition, so she asked her mother,” why do you always cut that piece off the brisket?” To which my great-grandmother replied, “the butcher always gives me a piece of brisket that is too big for the pot I have!”

Lest any of my vegetarian friends become nervous, I am not cooking any briskets for Passover. But I was reminded of this story yesterday as I began to do some baking for the holiday. I always start with a lemon sponge cake that Barry likes.

When her sponge cake was done in the oven, my mother would invert the pan over a wine bottle (Manischewitz Concord Grape is what they always had) so it could fully cool without the cake collapsing. For the 30 odd years I have been making sponge cakes, I have done the same.  Over those years, my sponge cake pan had become rather sad, all bent and a bit leaky. This year I finally purchased a new one.

I have to say that coming out of the oven that lemon sponge cake was a vision of loveliness. I had the wine bottle (it was a kosher dry red) on the ready, but suddenly I could not seem to get the cake onto the wine bottle. Coming straight out of the oven, the cake was a bit hard to manage. Making a long story short, the bottle fell over and I nearly dropped the pan. I grabbed it with my oven mitts and managed to stand it upright on the little “legs” it has.

Ah, the little legs. My old one had these, too, but I never relied on them because of the family tradition to invert the cake over a wine bottle. When the cake pan was emptied and clean, I took the wine bottle and quickly confirmed that the diameter of the neck of the wine bottle was larger than the diameter of the hole in the sponge cake pan.

I think I was able to salvage the cake minus one small section. But I did pick up some more lemons and eggs and if I have the energy maybe I will try again. Sponge cake #2, the chocolate one that cooled in the inverted pan sitting on the counter, looks perfect.

Is there a lesson here? Try as we might, we will sometimes mess things up. We are just not perfect beings. The challenge is to accept our imperfections, do our best to correct them, and move on. My memories here are mundane examples of the charge to us on this most exhausting but richest holiday on the Jewish calendar.  

חַג כָּשֵׁר וְשָׂמֵחַ

Love,

Rebecca

Recognition

For many months now I have spent most Wednesday mornings attending a wonderful class given by one of the professional staff members of our synagogue. She has all of the knowledge of a Rabbi, but because traditional Jewish law limits the roles of men and women in some ways, she and her colleagues cannot be called “Rabbis.” Rather, Rabbi Avi Weiss, long-time rabbi of the synagogue (who is now in partial retirement and has taken the title “Rabbi in Residence”) who initiated the program to train women for such positions, has come up with the term “Rabba.”

Learning with Rabba Anat on Wednesday mornings has become a highlight of my week. She adds so much to the texts we learn. The class meets at Moss Café, a funky little restaurant a couple of blocks away from our house (close enough that I can zip over there on my scooter) that opened last summer. They serve healthy alternatives to the typical American diet, lots of whole grains and fruits and vegetables that our daughters and their friends call “crunchy granola” fare. The group and the setting are a perfect match.

It is fascinating to see what sort of customers come in to Moss Café on a typical weekday morning between 9 and 10:30 am. Almost every week I will see at least one person having breakfast there (not having anything to do with the class) that I know or recognize from the neighborhood. I think that these sorts of places are what make New Yorkers feel so attached to their neighborhoods, and you can see why. At this point, the wait staff at Moss Café all recognize me (again, that oxygen does help in this process) and they all know that I always like my hot chocolate very hot with low fat milk. I really do look forward to this outing each week.

Last week, I arrived a bit on the early side, ordered my food, and sat down where we usually gather. Another participant came in, someone I have known here for many years since our daughters were students together in junior high school here. Then a third woman walked in, someone who lived here, had moved away, and has now been back for a couple of years. It has been a bit odd that although I have chatted with her husband I have not interacted with her since they have been back. There were one or two times when I felt she was walking up to me or looking at me but she never said a word. I know that some people have a very tough time seeing that oxygen, but I was disappointed to think that she might be one of those people. She came up to my friend and had a big hello, and I felt that I just needed to see what her story was; maybe she just did not remember me. So when they were finished chatting, I greeted her with “I’m not sure if you remember me…”, and told her my name and that we have two daughters and had lived here for a long time. She lit up and smiled and said “Oh, my, of course Rebecca I remember you!” She went on to explain that she suffers from an inability to recognize faces, and that unless she knows someone very well or sees them quite frequently she will often not recall who they are without identifying information. She told me that her sister has an even more extreme case than hers.

So I typed “inability to recognize faces” into my browser, and found that there is a condition called prosopagnosia, also known as “face blindness.

Prosopognasia is a cognitive disorder of face perception where the ability to recognize familiar faces, including one's own face (self-recognition), is impaired, while other aspects of visual processing (e.g., object discrimination) and intellectual functioning (e.g., decision making) remain intact. The term originally referred to a condition following acute brain damage (acquired prosopagnosia), but a congenital or developmental form of the disorder also exists, which may affect up to 2.5% of the population. [Wikipedia]

We saw a new film called “Eye in the Sky” which stars Helen Mirren. This is one of those films I usually do not like to see: very intense and frightening. I did have to close my eyes a couple of times, but for the most part it was really very good. It really brought to light some of the difficult decisions about how to fight terrorism and terrorists, particularly when their home bases are interspersed in the midst of family homes. This movie, by focusing on one such family who are truly innocent bystanders to this incident, brings this point to light. How do you weigh the life of one innocent person versus the lives of tens or hundreds of others that may be lost if the raid is not carried out?

And last, to put life back into balance, our little Maya is still painting.

Love,

Rebecca

Alternate reality

Last week went by so quickly! We had a nice Purim with friends, although we really missed seeing the children in their costumes. One of our Riverdale friends invited a few couples for the festive meal. They also had one of their sons and his family, who now live in Riverdale and are members of the same synagogue as we are. Because of their four year old twins they are not able to stay in synagogue all that often, and this may have been the first time I had a chance to really chat with their son’s wife. I enjoyed getting to know her a bit better.

But before we knew it we were back listening to the news, which only seems to get worse rather than better, between the current political climate and the violence around the world. So thanks to my friend Randy who shared a recent communication with one of his friends that expressed so eloquently (with humor, of course) what so many of us have been feeling:

Randy wrote:

 I thought I’d passed into an alternate (bad or at least worse) reality when George Bush got elected over Gore.
Of course, he (and his brother) cheated. But, the thought of Trump as even a possibility in the oval office, fairly elected by the people, makes me expect to walk back into the living room and see Rod Serling sitting on the couch smoking a Chesterfield.

His friend responded:

About Trump - I think that he will go to the convention and when it's his turn to speak he'll say "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!"

I know that the convention is scheduled to be in Philadelphia, but I would not put it past Donald Trump to have it moved!

We saw the new Sally Field film, “Hello, My Name is Doris.” This is the story of a 60-something woman who took on responsibility for her mother years ago. The movie starts with her mother’s death, and little by little discloses how she got to where she is, alone by herself, unable to part from even the smallest trinket she has ever owned. There is also a clever technique used to share the version of her life story that she wishes she could live which can be a bit confusing at times. It was not a “cute” role for Sally Field (no Gidget or Flying Nun here), but she handled it quite well, and it reminds us that there are relatively few gracefully aging older actresses.

Our granddaughter continues to amaze us with her creativity. She showed us a scroll with a brief synopsis of the story of Purim neatly printed in Hebrew. We assumed she had done this at school but in fact she simply took it on herself to make her own Megillat Esther, asking her parents to help her with Hebrew words she did not know! And she has continued to paint; her latest is the still life shown here.

 

Love,

Rebecca

Reading two ways

When I started to type this post, it was the 16^th of March. I truly do not know where the time is going, but it seems to be zipping by quickly.

We have seen a couple of movies over the past month. The first is an animated movie with a quite touching story, Zootopia. In this movie, the animals have human traits and feelings, both good and bad. The main characters are a bunny named Judy Hopps and a fox named Nick Wilde. While these names represent a bit of over-the-top use of puns, remember that children, who may not appreciate subtleties, are included in the target audience for this film.

The story begins as the animals are preparing for winter and the holidays. These animals have established a society that for the most part has them living quite peacefully. Judy’s dream is to become a police officer, but as a small bunny she has a hard time being taken seriously. Her first assignment after graduating from the academy is as a traffic officer giving out tickets to cars parking after the meters have run out. She is conscientious about this and gives an enormous number of tickets hoping she will be promoted to real police work, but the powers that be.

Along the way, she meets Nick, a hustler who gradually becomes her friend, and helps her work on a case of 14 “missing mammal” cases despite her boss’ instruction to stick to ticket writing. The two of them decide to pursue the 14 crooks on their own. At one point, they go to the Department of Motor Vehicles where they are “assisted” by a group of sloths (the double entendres go along with the other wordplay).

The ending is, of course, happy. But Judy remains humble while holding on to the joyful energy that is uniquely hers.

The second film we saw was a documentary on the current situation in Israel, Colliding Dreams. This movie perhaps tries to cover far too much in far too little time. The issues are surely somewhat more complex than the way they are exhibited here. I am no expert on this so it is sometimes difficult to sort out honest from biased reporting. But what cannot be denied is that there are problems that can neither be easily fixed nor remain indefinitely the way they are.

Meanwhile, I have continued combing through the hundreds of pictures and tried to organize them. We just found three more scrapbooks that Barry had taken out during Shiva and forgot he had stashed them in a closet in one of our extra bedrooms. I am glad we bought a binder-type scrapbook, which makes it easy to insert extra pages without moving too many individual pictures. And I have decided to work on pictures only until the early 70s, before any grandchildren were born. I still have a long way to go!

One of the days last week I had medical appointments in both the morning and the afternoon, leaving a gap that straddled lunchtime. So we brought a couple of sandwiches and headed over to the Conservatory Garden in Central Park. Things are just starting to grow, so there is not a lot to see, but we started reading the plaques on the benches, and this one amused us:

I guess you can read that two ways. Did she rescue the garden from her black-thumb family, or did her family give her this honor?

Meanwhile, we are having friends for lunch tomorrow who have been in Florida for a few months, along with friends who live around the corner. The six of us always enjoy each other’s company. This is the first Sabbath after the time change, so while Friday is less stressful, Saturday night quickly becomes a bit late for us.

Love,

Rebecca

The real birthday gift

We left the house early this morning to head down to MSKCC for an MRI and a visit with Dr. DeAngelis. The news continues to be good!

Next visit: in 8 months!

Love,

Rebecca

LXIV

I’ve borrowed this song for my birthday today from The Beatles.

Now that we’re older, all our hair grey,
Aging day by day.
Will you still be buying me my chocolate dark,
Wine in bottles closed with a cork?
If I stay out ‘til quarter to three
Will you lock the door?
Do you still need me, will you still feed me
Now that we’re sixty-four?

You’ve grown older too
And if you say the word
I’ll still stay with you

You may not be handy, mending a fuse
When our lights have gone
I won’t knit a sweater by the fireside
But off to Sharon we’ll go for a ride
Calling the gardener to dig up the weeds
Who could ask for more?
Do you still need me, will you still feed me
Now that we’re sixty-four?

Every winter we can rent a villa near the beach on St. John
If the airfare’s low.
We shall scrimp and save.
Grandchildren on our knees
J, E, G, M, J

Send me an e-mail, or maybe a text,

Stating point of view.

Indicate precisely what you mean to say,

Yours sincerely, wasting away.

Give me your answer, fill in a form,

Mine forever more.

Do you still need me, will you still feed me,

Now that we're sixty-four?

Here is a picture of ½ of my birthday present.

Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Rebecca

An extra day

Since 2016 is divisible by 4, it is a leap year, which means that February has 29 days, rather than the usual 28. Some people were all excited about the extra day, particularly those who were born on the 29^th of February. I had never paid much attention to it until this year, when I could only see one thing: an additional day of listening to the endless barbs thrown by the various presidential candidates. I am not sure how I will make it until November! It would be alright if it were just tiresome and annoying. Instead, it is growing frightening. I am not sure what scares me more: the idea of a President Donald Trump or the fact that so many people seem to think that is a good idea. So I will continue as I have, listening enough to be aware but not enough to become clinically depressed.

A couple of weeks ago, in an art class Maya has been taking, she painted this.

Barry and I were absolutely enthralled with this, with the way she managed to turn the two-dimensional sheet into a three-dimensional image, and to capture the light of the sun in the distance. We were with Maya at home for a while on Sunday, where her bedroom has become a mini art museum of Maya’s paintings and drawings. It is quite a thrill to watch her develop her creative talent.

On Sunday we took Ella and Maya to something called the Kid’s Mega Challah Bake. A Chassidic sect known as Chabad is sponsoring these events all over the country (maybe beyond?). In a large room there are tables set up. At each table place there is a large bowl holding small containers of ingredients: flour, sugar, salt, yeast, water. One of the organizers provided instructions for each of the children to mix and knead their own dough. During the waiting periods, they led the children in singing songs and telling stories. At the end, each child took home their creation to bake. This was a bit juvenile for Ella, who often bakes delicious challah with her mother, but she had a good time, as did Maya. Here are a couple of pictures we took.

Now I am about to undertake a huge project. Barry’s mother (may she rest in peace) accumulated family pictures over the years. Many of them are in albums but in no particular order, and the ones of our family are pictures we already have. So my goal is to go through, sort them out, and make up a couple of scrapbooks for the family to have. I cannot even imagine how long this might take. It’s all sitting in our extra bedroom downstairs, and the first thing I have to figure out is where to set up to work on it. So far I have ordered a scrapbook with inserts for various size pictures. That should arrive shortly, and then the work will begin.

And finally, this week Will Shortz provided a word challenge for us math geeks:

Next week's challenge: What two 8-letter terms in math are anagrams of each other? One word is from geometry, the other is from calculus. What words are they?

Have a good week.

Love,

Rebecca