Yes, here I am, home with the flu.  I can probably join countless thousands others right now who are lying at home coughing, feeling exhausted and getting a bit tired of television, games and email.  I’m home with my youngest daughter who also has the flu.  I understand half her school has the flu so I guess it’s not too hard to figure out how we got it.  Yes we both feel miserable and compare how many times we’ve coughed and who has the worse headache.  She’s 9 years old so we alternate between turning the television to watch reruns of Frasier or reruns of Spongebob Squarepants.  When both of us can’t take anymore reruns, we make endless lists of our favourite characters, smells, colours, books (I read hers, she doesn’t read mine), and anything else we can think of.  Yesterday our fever broke and we were both sweating buckets – we compared whose shirt was sweatier…

Last night I found her in my bed huddled in a fever-free sweat stained little ball. I seized the moment and did something she would never let me do if she were awake.  I got into bed next to her, put my arms around her, hugged her and smelled her hair for a long time.  I listened to her breathe and for the first time since I started feeling sick I felt relaxed and calm.  While the rest of the household was hustling and bustling trying to meet schedules, deadlines, shopping and meal preps, my little one and I created a flu cocoon and made each other feel better.  It’s times like these that I understand why the Rabbis always said that Shalom Bayit, Peace in the Home, is the core foundation for everything else.  We think it refers to people arguing, but I think it refers to everything – including finding peace when every ounce of your strength is fighting a virus.

Yesterday I was asked a question that has since stirred quite a bit of reflection about my sense of my own Jewish identity. The question was: “what is your first Jewish memory?” My first instinct was to scan my mental data bank for childhood images of Shabbos candles, a seder, first day of Jewish day school etc.  Within seconds though I realized that something about my search for an answer didn’t feel right. It hit me that what was presenting the challenge was the assumption that subtly underlay the question; that is, the notion that one’s experience and/or memory of experience can be parsed out into categories and then labeled Jewish or non Jewish. The logical corollary of the question is that there is ‘non’ Jewish memory. At first glance, the question might seem straight forward enough. But when I had to actually answer it, it inevitably brought up the more fundamental and difficult question about what is Jewish? and what does being Jewish mean to me? What quickly became clear, which I now realize is a prominent theme in the blogs that I have written, is the idea that for me being Jewish is not something that I experience as separate and distinct from other aspects of my life or identity. It informs my sensibilities and world view, and as such, is one of the central lenses through which I experience the world.

So, in the end, I was unable to answer the question. For even if I thought broader, beyond looking for memories of obvious Jewish rituals, where would I stop broadening my reach? What about memories of my parents or Bubbie speaking to me in Yiddishisms? Does language fall within the realm of ‘Jewish’? What about the fond memories of my Bubbie’s food, recipes from the shtetle? Does food fall within what we consider Jewish? What about hearing talk about the ‘war’ and ‘Europe’ (code for the Holocaust)? When does history and politics count as Jewish? What about memories of earliest friendships, when all my friends were Jewish, and my neighborhood was Jewish? When does the social count as Jewish? For me anyways, the answer is that it is all Jewish.

Between the recession and the high cost of living in the GTA, not to mention my spending habits, I decided that it was time to get a roommate.  A quick cash solution and a new experience.

I organized, cleaned and prepped my place for a few days leading up to the big move in day and while slightly anxious about sharing space for the first time in 4 years, I was also in need of a good purge.(Thanks ma!)

My tenant, an international student from Brazil, asked if I had any “rules”. I consider myself pretty laid back and easy to live with, so aside from the standard what I like to call common sense rules, I couldn’t really think of any.  After we signed the agreement, I was asked if there are any cooking rules.  Even though I was about to say that it was a free for all in the kitchen, I caught myself.  While I don’t observe strict Kashrut, I do not cook or consume seafood or pork products.  I proudly exclaimed that I am Jewish and that in my apartment, I keep kosher to a degree.  This lead to a brief discussion about Judaism and the laws of Kashrut. As I found myself stumbling with the literal meaning of the word and the implications of the laws, I consulted Rachael’s segment entitled, Keeping it Kosher.  Check it out to brush up on your knowledge!

Now that the High Holidays are over we focus our attention to the beginning of the Torah as we begin again at Genesis; Creation, Adam & Eve and the Cain & Abel saga.

Please take a look at my current article below from the Canadian Jewish News.

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During the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, we’re told we should build a hut and dwell in it, and not recreate a past experience through stories like we’re told to do during other holidays. We experience our past by actually doing it.

I’ve just read that Germany’s largest women’s magazine, Brigitte, is swapping supermodels for REAL women to be featured throughout their glossy pages.   I wonder if this is an attempt to cater to the average woman in the modern world or because of these tough economic times.

The plan of is explained here:

http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.brigitte.de/&ei=BWfLSu_PK47WlAfa6YjLBQ&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dbrigitte%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

Here we are, just barely after Yom Kippur and already I have an apology – I haven’t sat at the computer and blogged for a while – sorry.  I’m tempted to say I’ve been swamped but then here we would be, barely after Yom Kippur and not only do I have something to apologize for but I would also be offering excuses for it as well.

So I’ve decided to break my pattern and not offer excuses and maybe not offer the apology but to actually fix the situation and get back to blogging.

It’s Sukkot and the weather here is not great.  It’s rainy, cloudy, at times in the evening almost 0 degrees and during the day quite windy.  The Sukkah that my family builds every year is made of canvas walls with a metal frame.  Every year we worry about the wind and that our Sukkah will soon become airborne and bring the commandment into a whole new realm.  This year we decided not to build it since the winds were quite strong.  We are now relying on the Sukkah at the shul (made of wood) and the Jewish schools.  This year we are the ones visiting in the Sukkah.  From being the hosts we are now the ‘ushpizin’ – the guests.

Aside from the question of whether or not it’s polite to ask your Sukkah host if you can sit inside because you’re freezing and shivering and your teeth are chattering…the wonderful thing about Sukkot this year is that in not building our Sukkah we didn’t realize it, but we had forced a change in perspective.

It is difficult enough to be a guest in someone else’s home but being a guest in someone else’s hut has its own set of standards.  It is a total change in perspective and if anything, that is what I want to take away with me from Sukkot this year.

Barely after Yom Kippur and being the ‘ushpizin’ at Sukkot, I realize that it’s not just about breaking our routine patterns – it’s also about changing our perspectives.

Such a flimsy little hut with so much potential for personal growth…who knew?

Many of us have been named after individuals, relatives and influential historical figures – but our names are rarely associated with an asteroid that has a diameter of 7 kilometeres.   In a decision made by The International Astronomical Union (IAU), Miep Gies, the Dutch woman who preserved Anne Frank’s diary after the Holocaust was honoured with an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter being named after her.   How appropriate that the Miep Gies asteroid consists of rock?!

The full article can be viewed here:  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1118683.html

At this time of year, Jews all over the world prepare for the holiday of Sukkot by building a Sukkah, a temporary dwelling. Rachael explains.