Guten Erev Shabbos

8:40 AM - It's three months since mom died - on the English calendar. I just got a related email about how my postings made this friend cry, which made me cry. Today is the first day of Pesach break from work. I led the whole Shacharis. Timing in life is key, and in davening too. Timing can be wonderful, timing can be wrenching.

I had held back on posting the scrabble scores for some time. I am grateful to the friend who told me to post it because it would be meaningful to others. That seems true.

8:58 AM - I could have baked kosher matzah in the time since I started the section above. I didn't just write that in these past 18 minutes. I read and answered emails, thought, breathed.

9:10 AM -

While Dozing on the Train to Wasaic

~

Altered states

frighten me:

sleep, dreams, love,

The After Life

;

There's also

a sweetness,

kindness of

a kindest kind

;

When I wake up,

almost fall asleep;

that something else

I feel, I like

I found that poem while searching this blog for Zelda's poem about names. I wrote it last year (feeling tired from havng run two days of yom tov and and and) during the morning of the second day of Chol HaMoed. I had it written into my contract at the retreat center I was working at that I had a day to visit my parents. I left after breakfast on the first day of Chol HaMoed (with a box filled with pesachdik cake and pancakes and cookies - oh my). I returned the next morning. In between the mashgiach and chef were both fired by the CEO who told me so when we spoke on my cell in mom and dad's basement.

10:10 AM - Someone just called and asked, "Did I wake you?" I said the truth, "No." The response was, "Oh, because you sound tired." I am tired, and hungry, fasting before my doctor's appointment. I was awakened by my new virtual alarm clock at 6:40 AM. Fifty minutes to go now. I could use a nap, but am forging on with wakefulness.

1:41 PM - Why is there always a long wait at doctors' offices? Should I have known 11 meant 12? Can you ever know? Anything? Blood pressure is in normal range - 110/70 - thank G-d. The rest is mostly tests. My doctor is a pleasant fellow and we had a nice chat.

3:25 PM - My computer guy came by. I hung out with my neighbor Avigayil. We watched a video. Of Elmo. She's three.

Where does the time go?

4:44 PM - My computer guy stayed for a while, restoring wireless on my laptop and putting into my computer all of my blogposts, which he had downloaded into a hard-drive for me. Did some school work toward the quarter ending right after Pesach. I need to clean up my floor, it looks like a three year old was playing on it...

My doctor read me the riot act about my weight. So I'm trying to eat wisely today. I am hungry.

5:14 PM - In From Twilight to Dawn, Rabbi Shlomo Kahn, who I was blessed to call a colleague and even a friend, cites Yishayahu 1:28, which sates “Tzion bemishpat tipadeh – veshaveha bitzedakah – Zion will be redeemed through justice and her returnees through righteousness.” We start off the seder by inviting and embracing guests. Thus, following our declaration that all who are in need are welcome at our Passover feast, we affirm with confidence, “LeShanah ha’ba’ah beYerushalayim.” The merit of tzedakah – righteous kindess to others, will lead to our redemption.

-

Nathan Laufer wries that kadeish is the idea of consecrating our minds and rechatz is consecrating our bodies. There is no bracha on rechatz because it is about the body, not the mind. Rechatz is the only section of the hagaddah that starts with a vav, because it is intrinsically connected to the section that preceded it; kadesh and rechatz are two inseperable parts of one whole. Kadesh is the sanctification of mind before entering sacred time and rechatz is sanctification of body before entering holy space. Our washing at this moment is similar to the washing of the kohein before his service, and of the washing the Jewish People were commanded to do before receiving the Torah. Those two times required a washing and purification because they were moments of direct encounter with G-d. G-d took us out of Mitzrayim Himself and the experience was a direct encounter with G-d. At the seder we relive that moment and directly encounter G-d.

Soon Shabbos and I am not ready. I need to cut myself off from blogging...for now.

My Queen approaches

Don't say it's only Shabbos

She's quite the beauty