Candles on the Sill

This evening we will light three Chanukah candles, and today I share the newest release from an acapella group called The Maccabeats who got their start as students at Yeshiva University 10 years ago and have released new songs for each Chanukah for the past five years. “The Sill” refers to the custom to light the candles in front of a window to publicize the holiday.

The Maccabeats: Candles on the Sill

Ten years ago we played our first set
We were singing for just family and our friends
And our hearts beat with the rush that comes from a cheering crowd
We were younger then
Who could know that then
We’d rise at dawn for early shows
Praying backstage before we go
Cry together tears of joy and hope
Who knows where this goes
We just hope you come along

We find our way
Led by the light of those eight nights and days
Singing to Al Hanissim
And we bless the days each year
Thankful we got here
Beautiful memories lighting the candles on the sill

A week in deep dark winter's when we celebrate
Shining bright on the shortest days with the ones that we love
Don’t know what we did to deserve this light
Hoping we learn to use it right
But we were younger then
Take us back to when
We found our voice despite our fears
Through ups and downs over the years
We never dreamed of being here for so long
And as we grow
We just hope you come along

We find our way
Led by the light of those eight nights and days
Singing to Al Hanissim
And we bless the days each year
Thankful we got here
Beautiful memories lighting the candles on the sill (3)

One for teachers of song

Two for those who sing along
Three for new friends who share
Four for old friends that care
Five for partners by our side
Six for sources of our pride
Seven for those who raised us and eight
Can’t wait to go home

We find our way
Led by the light of those eight nights and days
Singing to Al Hanissim
And we bless the days each year
Thankful we got here
Beautiful memories lighting the candles on the sill (3)

I had no idea where this song came from, so I did a little snooping around and found that the original song was done by a fellow named Ed Sheeran, who wrote and recorded “Castle on the Hill” in January of this year.

Ed Sheeran: Castle on the Hill

When I was six years old I broke my leg
I was running from my brother and his friends
And tasted the sweet perfume of the mountain grass I rolled down
I was younger then, take me back to when I

Found my heart and broke it here
Made friends and lost them through the years
And I've not seen the roaring fields in so long, I know I've grown
But I can't wait to go home

I'm on my way
Driving at ninety down those country lanes
Singing to "Tiny Dancer"
And I miss the way you make me feel, and it's real
We watched the sunset over the castle on the hill

Fifteen years old and smoking hand-rolled cigarettes
Running from the law through the backfields and getting drunk with my friends
Had my first kiss on a Friday night, I don't reckon that I did it right
But I was younger then, take me back to when

We found weekend jobs, when we got paid
We'd buy cheap spirits and drink them straight
Me and my friends have not thrown up in so long, oh how we've grown
But I can't wait to go home

I'm on my way
Driving at ninety down those country lanes
Singing to "Tiny Dancer"
And I miss the way you make me feel, and it's real
We watched the sunset over the castle on the hill

Over the castle on the hill
Over the castle on the hill

One friend left to sell clothes
One works down by the coast
One had two kids but lives alone
One's brother overdosed
One's already on his second wife
One's just barely getting by
But these people raised me and I can't wait to go home

And I'm on my way, I still remember
This old country lanes
When we did not know the answers
And I miss the way you make me feel, it's real
We watched the sunset over the castle on the hillOver the castle on the hill

Over the castle on the hill

Love,

Rebecca

More Chanukah greetings

Yesterday, I forgot to give credit to Patricia, a former Pfizer colleague, for posting a link to the Mayim Bialik video on Facebook, which is how I first saw it.

Today’s link is from our daughter Simmie: Happy Chanukah from the Space Shuttle Discovery!

Chanukah in Space

Love,

Rebecca

Happy Chanukah!

Mayim Bialik has recorded a charming video that tells everything you need to know about Chanukah. I could not have done it better, so here it is!

Happy Chanukah!

Love,

Rebecca

First snow

We awoke to snow falling on Shabbat morning. We were unable to make it as far as synagogue, but managed to make it to our friends Judy and Lanny, who live just a block away and had invited us for lunch. I had contributed a batch of “birds nest cookies,” which these days seem to be called “thumbprint cookies.”  I had not thought about these cookies for years until Simmie made a batch of them a few weeks ago. They are beautiful and delicious but extremely time consuming to prepare!

By the time we came home from Shabbat lunch just a few hours later, Barry had a hard time pushing the wheelchair through the rapidly accumulating snow. Fortunately, by Sunday morning the streets were fairly clear, so we were able to keep our Sunday plans.

On Sunday afternoon we saw “Darkest Hour.” The film spans a few weeks during the spring of 1940, when Winston Churchill took over as British prime minister. His predecessor, Neville Chamberlain, had tried to appease Hitler, who was moving closer every day to taking over the United Kingdom. Hitler’s forces had invaded Belgium and France and pushed the British army to Dunkirk in France. History tells us how the story ends, but the movie takes us through the agonizing decisions Churchill was forced to make.

I would be surprised if Gary Oldman, the actor who played Churchill, is not nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor. To be honest, the name sounded faintly familiar but I had to look him up this morning to figure out what other work he had done. It seems that he has played a wide variety of dramatic roles, captured in a Variety piece entitled “Gary Oldman on His Path from Sid Vicious to Winston Churchill.” Mr. Oldman’s earlier role was a reference to a 1986 film, “Sid and Nancy,” which received an 87% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I do not think we had seen any of his earlier films.

After the movie we met our friends Ava and Jason for dinner. They had some great suggestions for things to do with Maya on her upcoming visit, and even offered to take her ice skating (she is now taking lessons), a quintessential New York winter activity but something we are obviously not able to do. Ava and Jason are so charming and so much fun I am only concerned that, if she meets them, Maya will just want to spend the week with them rather than her old grandparents!

After dinner Barry and I headed over to the 92^nd Street Y to see “Paul Krugman in conversation with Chris Hayes.” The discussion was primarily about proposed revisions to the US tax plan. I should have been taking notes because there were a lot of fascinating observations but I cannot accurately quote anything. What is clear is that often the things we think make perfect sense with respect to predicting the outcomes of various approaches to taxation simply do not turn out as anticipated. One example he gave was tax deductions for charitable contributions. Other countries have removed such deductions amid gloom and doom predictions that donations would plummet, and in fact that does not seem to occur. Interesting.

Lastly, I just saw some pictures on Facebook that make me want to ask: which of these guys would you rather have carving your family’s Thanksgiving turkey? Let’s just say that I prefer the first one unless he tries to sing while he’s carving, and then I’d go with the second!

Love,

Rebecca

Got lucky despite bad wager

There were a couple of interesting things on Jeopardy last evening. The first was in the category of “Religions” (at least I think that was the category), and the answer was something like “In 3032, this Jewish holiday falls in January.” The correct question? “What is Chanukah?” I just looked it up, and sure enough there is no Chanukah in 3031, rather Chanukah (25 of the Hebrew month of Kislev) begins on the 1^st of January 3032. Of course, none of us will be around for that but it does qualify as a “fun fact.”

That leads to the next question: what is the latest civil date on which Chanukah begins? Oh, don’t you just love the internet, where you can quickly find such things? For the next 2,269 years, at least, the latest date is January 6^th; Chanukah begins on January 6^th for the first time in 4286. Beginning in 3450, starting dates in January occur more regularly: once every fifty years or so.

In 2013, the first day of Chanukah was on Thursday November 28^th, which was also Thanksgiving that year. This is apparently as early as Chanukah can fall.

The second interesting thing on Jeopardy last evening was that the winner won despite a foolish mistake. Kyle Becker from Nashville, TN, had won two games and was playing his third. Going into Final Jeopardy, Kyle had $13,200 and both of the other contestants had $6,600. What could have happened was a three-way tie. But what did happen is that the neither of the two other contestants, who both wagered their entire $6,600, knew the correct question. Kyle provided the correct question, so of course he won. But here’s what made no sense: he had wagered $1. Why did he do that? If either of the other contestants had known the final question and he had not, he would have lost the game by $1. He should have wagered nothing, because then at least he would have tied one or both players and returned to play them again. I guess his nerves got the better of him in that moment.

The Final Jeopardy answer?

This manual resulted from a military engineer’s attendance at an unruly 1860s church meeting

The question?

What is “Robert’s Rules of Order”?

I know there was far more serious news than the Jeopardy outcome yesterday. I refer, of course, to the news that America plans to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move its embassy to that city. I am just struggling to process it, praying that calm minds and negotiations can prevail, and that Israel will also get lucky despite what may or may not have been a bad wager.

Love,

Rebecca

Before and after

For the past month or so I have been having some trouble with Google mail. I was often receiving messages that read:

Delivery incomplete

There was a temporary problem delivering your message to xxx@yyy.zzz. Gmail will retry for 20 more hours. You'll be notified if the delivery fails permanently.

Not only would I receive hundreds of these messages, but I could see that the number of page views were much smaller than I had previously been receiving. Try as I did, I could simply not figure out what was causing the problem. The good news is that the problem may have fixed itself, and my most recent post clocked 93 page views yesterday. I am just happy to have everyone back!

After a number of weeks of listening to and watching almost endless political discussions, Barry and I decided we needed to take a break, so he went through an enormous pile of movies we have recorded on DVD over the years and pulled out ones included in the American Film Institute’s various lists. Among the top ten romantic comedies, we have seen (but may not remember too well) all of the ones released after 1971 but none of the earlier ones.

#	Film	Year
1	City Lights	1931
2	Annie Hall	1977
3	It Happened One Night	1934
4	Roman Holiday	1953
5	The Philadelphia Story	1940
6	When Harry Met Sally	1989
7	Adam’s Rib	1949
8	Moonstruck	1987
9	Harold and Maude	1971
10	Sleepless in Seattle	1993

One we happen to have on DVD is “Adam’s Rib,” starring Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Let’s just say that this film is seriously dated. You really have to put yourself back in the past – the 1940s, before I was even born - to appreciate this story of a married professional couple, both attorneys, who find themselves representing clients on opposite sides of a messy divorce. Of course, the acting is superb and there is much witty repartee. I do have to admit that it was a welcome relief from the usual MSNBC evening line-up!

Time does fly, doesn’t it? We seem to be having some problems with our Sub-Zero refrigerator. The refrigerated food is cold and the frozen food is frozen, but it is making some very strange noises. Our regular appliance repair person does not work on Sub-Zero products, so I had to search for repairs, and we now have someone coming later today. When I called, they asked the age of the refrigerator. I wasn’t sure but I didn’t think it was more than a few years old. But as I later pondered the question, I realized I was a bit off.

I can divide most of the events of the past ten years into “before” and “after,” where the dividing line is my CNS lymphoma diagnosis in 2012. I should have realized that this was a “before” event, and I finally managed to find the receipt and owner’s manual and discovered that in 2009 we replaced the Sub-Zero that was in the kitchen when we bought the house in 1999, and had probably been installed by the previous owner around 1991 during the gut renovation she had done. So that Sub-Zero lasted about 18 years, and I just hope whatever is going on with this one is just something relatively minor, because they charge a small fortune just to come out and diagnose the problem!

Looks like the cold weather is finally starting to settle in. Stay warm!

Love,

Rebecca

A difficult topic

There has been so much news these past weeks, and I have tried hard to stay away from politics on this blog. But aside from politics both here and abroad, the other major news stories over the past couple of months have related to abusive behavior towards women by their male counterparts in the entertainment industry.

In synagogues around the world there is a regular schedule of readings from the Torah (five books of Moses) that begins every fall after the holiday of Simchat Torah. The portions are known by names that are usually the first word or two in the portion. This past week, in synagogues around the world we read  Genesis 32:4–36:43, וישלח Vayishlach, “and he sent.” This is a reference to the message that Yaakov (Jacob) sent to his brother Esav (Esau) to mend the rift that we read about two weeks ago in Genesis 25:19-28:9 תולדות Toldot, “generations,” when, with the help of his mother Rivka, Yaakov used subterfuge to receive the blessing from their father that had been intended for Esav, the older of the twin sons.

Included in the portion of Vayishlach is the story of Dina, the daughter of Yaakov, who is attacked by a man named Shechem. Yaakov strikes a deal with Shechem’s father that, if all their males are willing to undergo circumcision, their offspring can marry Yaakov’s offspring. The men agree to undergo the ritual to become Jewish but while they are recuperating from the procedure, two of Dina’s older brothers murder all of them.

I suspect that this story was the topic of sermons in many synagogues around the country this past Shabbat. The whole story is deeply troubling from many different perspectives. Rabbi Steven Exler spoke movingly and has graciously allowed me to share his words here.

Rabbi Exler Drasha

On Sunday we saw a new documentary called “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story.” To be honest, I do not think I have ever seen any of her films, but the name is certainly familiar. Born in 1914, her career began with a 1933 film called “Ecstacy” which included some rather explicit footage. She made numerous films, the most famous of which was 1949’s “Samson and Delilah.” She was a strikingly beautiful woman but, based on seeing some of those film clips, her acting ability was not especially impressive. What made her particularly interesting was that she was quite intelligent, and has been given credit for a number of interesting technological inventions: she has been called a pioneer in the field of wireless communications. Despite her talents, she was a troubled person who was married six times and spent years addicted to amphetamines. In an effort to maintain her youthful beauty she had numerous plastic surgeries that left her looking rather unattractive; there were limited photographs of her from her later years. It was certainly an interesting documentary about a celebrity whose name was familiar but about whom we had known very little.

 

It is not difficult to see a connection between the biblical events, the Hedy Lamarr story, and the recent news, all of which relate to the way that women have been regarded at various times throughout history. Apparently, we are still not quite getting it right. But I remain hopeful. Perhaps the current events will finally allow us to get past the negative aspects of our characters and better learn to treat all people with the respect and dignity that every human being deserves.

Love,

Rebecca