Ner Chanukah: A Mitzvah Chaviva

I wrote this little d'var Torah (thoughts on the Torah) for Chanukah for one of the local synagogues and thought I'd share here, too! Enjoy.

Rambam says that the Chanukah lights are a mitzvah chaviva hi ad meod, or an exceedingly precious or cherished mitzvah (Hilchot Megillah v'Chanukah 4:12). This description didn’t strike me just because, well, my name is Chaviva, but because this type of language isn’t used for other mitzvot (commandments). So why is lighting the Chanukiyah considered a mitzvah chaviva? We have to start by looking back at Aharon and the Menorah.

Bonus: What's the Difference Between a Menorah and a Chanukiyah?

In Parashat Behaalotecha, we’re told that Aharon is commanded to light the Menorah in the Mishkan, and that “he did so” (Numbers 8:3). Although Aharon’s tribe had been the only one not to participate in gift giving to the Mishkan, the Kohen Gadol had many other vital responsibilities and, let’s be honest, Aharon did sacrifice his sons in the process. But perhaps he still felt a little jilted. After all, the Midrash says that each gift was spiritually specific and significant to each tribe. Perhaps Aharon felt that others were more whole after giving, perhaps in a way that he couldn’t be despite his service. Enter HaShem, who tasks Aharon with the Menorah.

Aharon saw this mitzvah as chavivut and did exactly as HaShem commanded, which, according to Rashi, was a compliment to Aharon and signified that he was uniquely qualified for this job. Just as the Menorah is made from a single block of gold, so, too, do all Jews originate at the same source. By taking on the mitzvah of the Menorah precisely as HaShem commanded, Aharon embodied and delivered on the essence of what the Menorah symbolized — the unity of the Jewish people. As Pirkei Avot 1:12, says, “Be of the disciples of Aharon, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving mankind and drawing them close to the Torah.” 

From Aharon and the Menorah to the miracle of Chanukah and the rededication of the Holy Temple, we have the Chanukiyah. Although the mitzvah of lighting the Chanukiyah could be performed through a spouse, partner, or shaliach, it's such a precious and cherished mitzvah that — like Aharon with the Menorah — we each want to perform it ourselves and thus are commanded to do so. We each want to feel responsible for this mitzvah and to embody what the Chanukiyah symbolizes. After all, this is the one time in the Jewish calendar that we can be a literal light unto the nations!

On this Chanukah, more than any other in recent memory, we must be a light and bring about the unity that this holiday symbolizes. We must light every night, with a care for our fellow — for their health and safety as well as our own. We must pursue justice and peace through a fire that brings light and guides all on the path forward and not a fire that burns down the world around us, leaving us in darkness and chaos. We must be the disciples of Aharon and fulfill the mitzvah of ner Chanukah — this mitzvah chaviva hi ad meod — with a sense of collective responsibility and the pursuit of a unified Jewish people.

May we all be safe, healthy, and content as we enter the darkest months of the year. Although we can’t be together as we would all love to be, everything comes from HaShem and everything that comes from HaShem is good. This, too, must be for the good. Chag Sameach!

True Story: I'm on an ISIS Hit List

Note: This story was original published on Medium in February 2017. I don't know why I chose to post it there instead of here, but I did. But now, I want to share it here, where people know me best. Can't wait to hear what you think about this one, friends!

When I was a kid, I wanted to be one thing: an artist. As I got older, this “future me” strove to be a photographer, poet, copy editor, and, ultimately, a writer.

Of course, one thing I never followed up “When I grow up I want to be …” with was “A target on an ISIS hit list.”

I’ve been an online blogger since the dark ages of LiveJournal, parlaying my love of storytelling into a blog back in the mid-2000s focused on my journey into and through Judaism. Yes, I’m a small-town girl from southern Missouri whose family relocated to Nebraska during my formative years. I went to and graduated from a Midwestern school, converted to Reform Judaism in 2006, and then I lived here, there, and everywhere around the U.S. Several years later, I converted to Orthodox Judaism, got a Master’s degree, got married, got divorced, moved to Israel, got married again, had a kid, moved back to the U.S., had another kid … you get the idea.

And all of this? It’s online. My life is quite literally an open website. I’ve always been an early adopter, and every digital space I find online is a medium for me to share my story — not for selfish reasons, but because I’ve found that my voice gives other converts a voice and I’ve got hundreds of outreach emails from people around the globe to prove it. I used to speak on panels, make good lists like “Top XX Jewish Women on XX,” and be the go-to for all things Jewish and social media on the web. I lament that my days are now filled with poopy diapers and scut jobs needed to pay the bills, but my digital life is still very much active.

My truth is that I have nothing to hide, so I don’t have to hide. The government can pop my laptop camera (or microwave, of course) on and watch me if they feel like it, because everything in my life is safe, legal, open.

But let’s be honest. What you see out there in TV land is the “Candyland version” of my life (props to Rivka Malka Perlman for this concept). Although I like to think that everyone sees and experiences my life exactly as it is, that’s not the truth. It’s not even close to the truth.

So here I am, one year out from an incident that shook me to my core and made me question everything I thought I knew about being a super-public Jewish blogging mommy, and I still haven’t written about it — until now.

I usually leave my house in the morning, because if I attempt to do my various contract jobs from home my day becomes all about the laundry, the dishes, the cucumbers and potatoes embedded in the carpet, the filthy fish tank, and all of the things that distract a working mother from, well, working. But one day last summer when my baby was still a newborn, I came home mid-day for something, I don’t even remember what, and found a business card stuck in the iron screen door of our small home.

I plucked the card out, and it was just a blank card, with the handwritten words, “Please Call Me” and an arrow. I turned the card over and saw that it was from an FBI Task Force Officer. My first inclination was that someone was playing a joke on me, because the shiny gold seal looked absolutely fake as can be.

Me being me, I Googled the information on the card, half expecting to get a dozen links about some prank or phishing scheme.

The officer on the card was real.

My next inclination was that they obviously wanted to talk to my husband my husband, the British-Israeli Green Card holder, for some kind of immigration hangup. He had, after all, gotten stuck outside the country from October 2014 to July 2015 thanks to the bureaucratic mess that is immigration.

I sent my husband a text with a picture of the front and back of the business card and suggested he call the number because, it only made sense, they needed to talk to him.

A few seconds later, he texted me back: “They want to talk to you.”

Me being me, again, began to panic. I couldn’t fathom what the FBI would need from me, and then my husband followed up with, “A threat has been made.”

I started racking my brain. I thought about all of the online spaces where people bashed me, devoted entire threads of forums to talking trash about me and my life choices, and wondering if one of the trolls had actually turned into violent. But these were just anonymous whackjobs hiding behind their PCs in Suburbia, not the type to elicit a response from the FBI. Right?

my husband told the officer he could come over and then he came home from work because I was, understandably, a bit panicked. When the officer arrived, he came in, sat down, and got to it.

“You’re on an ISIS hit list.”

In a fog of WTF is happening to my life, the officer went on to tell me how easy it was to find me, physically, that day, despite the fact that my divorced name was on the list. The officer also said that there are a lot of these lists and that I don’t really need to panic. Not too much, the officer said. The list, I was told, was geared toward lone wolfs, extremists who want to do their individual part by knocking off a single person — me.

When I asked how I ended up on a list, the officer didn’t have a great answer. Was it because I’m Jewish? A blogger? On Twitter?

The officer left, saying that if we see anything suspicious or alarming, to be in touch with him immediately. He also reminded us that we had a good friend in the community at the FBI (“I should have just asked him where to find you, it would have been even quicker!”), and that we were in good hands.

So. There I was, in my single-family starter home, counting down the moments until I needed to pick kids up from daycare, wondering when I was going to get assassinated in the name of a Holy War I really don’t understand.

I reached out to the local ADL, just so they’d know they had an ISIS hit list member in their midst. The response I got: “There has not yet been a case of violence resulting from any of these lists, but it is very important for everyone to be smart, alert and vigilant.”

Even my rabbi seemed unphased. My neighbors, on the other hand, asked if they should relocate, move, perhaps go into witness protection. I think they were half joking (they have a dog named ISIS, which made for some fun jokes), but maybe they weren’t. Who wants to be associated with someone potentially in the crosshairs of a militant terrorist group?

I basically spent the next two months being completely irrational and paranoid. There was one day where someone came to my door that I didn’t recognize, so I hid and called my husband, who told me to call the FBI. The person outside the door started to peek in the windows of my home and I was pretty sure he was an operative sent to end it all. I felt silly calling the FBI about it, so my husband came home from work quickly and when I re-described the person outside the house to him he quickly said, “Oh, that’s our new neighbor! Maybe he lost something over the fence?”

I genuinely thought I was losing my mind.

Every time I’d be walking across an intersection and a cab driver was edging slowly into the intersection I was convinced that he or she was sent by ISIS to commit vehicular manslaughter. I realize now, outside the fog of irrational shock, that assuming every cab driver is either Muslim or an ISIS operative is pretty crazy. Probably racist, too. Being on an ISIS hit list was making me a paranoid racist who was losing her mind.

The worst part about it all was that I couldn’t talk about it. I didn’t tell anyone except my immediate family, my rabbi, my kids’ daycare director, and our neighbors. It wasn’t safe to write about it, to talk about it. And writing about it was my natural form of self-therapy. Storytelling is my drug.

And then? I woke up one day and had all but forgotten about it. Most days, I don’t even think about it. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m not likely to be tagged and bagged by a lone wolf out to fulfill his ISIS mission. There has to be a statistical analysis of the likelihood, doesn’t there?

But every now and again, the fear and paranoia sneaks up on me. Sometimes, like this week, when I open Twitter and I’m being trolled by a “Muslim cleric” who liks approximately 30 of my Tweets in quick succession, I start to fear for myself, my husband, my kids. I fall down the rabbit hole Googling the name, location, trying to figure out if it’s a credible threat or just a zealous Twitter user showing me some legitimate love.

Last week I got a series of emails from someone trying to “meet up” with me to discuss something. They even called me, although I don’t know how they got my number. Luckily, I hate talking on the phone and never answer. I Googled the name, the email address, any identifying information, and what came up was not what the email sender provided and I began to panic again. I cut off communication and am hoping it wasn’t a legitimate request to meetup that could help me make millions.

At this point in my life, I can’t hide. What I’ve put out on the web is there for all eternity. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t delete even a single step in my digital footprint, just like I can’t delete my name from that looming ISIS hit list.

And I know what the comments will say: “You’re crazy! You’re writing about it? Now they’re going to find you!”

Storytelling is my drug, remember? My reality is that, for better or worse, the only way to overcome being on an ISIS hit list is to write about it.

Judaism and Sparking Joy

I might be late to the party, as is want to happen when you've got three kids and a full-time job, but I want to talk about the Marie Kondo "KonMari" movement and that whole "does it spark joy" mantra. I've watched quite a few friends KonMari'd their houses and lives, and I got to thinking about the concept of joy and what sparks joy in my life, not to mention the amount of excess junk floating around my house that leaves me feeling like I'm drowning most days.

You see, I moved around a lot as an adult. I was never particularly attached to things. The stuff I was most attached to were my words, and those went with me wherever I was because of the magic of the interwebs. I remember losing a hand-scribbled poem I feverishly wrote in the back of a poetry venue in college and freaking out until I could actually locate the flyer (yes, the poem was written on the back of a bright orange flyer for another event). Paper was my enemy, things were my enemy, words were my voice and my power.

So, as I moved from Nebraska to Washington D.C. to Chicago to Connecticut to New Jersey to Denver to Israel, I took very little with me from place to place. I had my clothes, some books, a bit of Judaica, and that was it. I didn't need much. I never needed much. Things were replaceable, and they were just things.

Then I met my husband. Although he didn't have much in the way of stuff, he had a lot of stuff. Does that make sense? I feel like over the past six years we've collectively amassed an immense amount of junk and despite taking a bag or two to Goodwill every other week or so, we still have so much stuff. Is it because we have kids? Is it because we're settled? Why do we have so much stuff?

I'm sitting in the basement of our little house (seriously, our backyard is the same square footage as our whole house), looking around the room, and although I love this couch, I could live without it. Same with the TV and most of the books and the lamps and the other random things laying around. The photos, of course, would stay with me, as would the memory books from my kids' schooldays. I want them to be able to look at them someday and decide how and when to dispense of them.

But if I ask myself, do these things spark joy? That's different than asking if I need or even if I want them, isn't it? And it's definitely different than asking if these things make me happy, right?

According to some definitions, happiness is fleeting, while joy is long-lasting and deeply embedded in the mind, body, and spirit. So, although a quick trip out of state alone without having to worry about crying babies in the middle of the night might make me happy, will it bring me joy?

In Hebrew, there are a number of words that are translated regularly as "joy," including:

• simcha (שמחה‎): broadly used for happiness, but also for special happy occasions
• osher (אושר‎): used for a deeper, more lasting happiness (also where we get our son's name Asher!)
• gilah (גילה‎): often refers to an ecstatic outburst of joy
• ditzah (דיצה‎): often translated as a sublime joy
• sasson (ששון‎): a sudden or unexpected happiness
• ... and many, many more

Simcha, in particular, is fascinating in the Torah, because it's never experienced alone. Simcha is joy that is shared. In this way, then, happiness is a larger concept while joy is what happens in the moment (contrary to the definition offered above). Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in a discussion of happiness and joy, quoted J.D. Salinger, who once said, "Happiness is a solid, joy is a liquid." And further, Rabbi Sacks says,

"Happiness is something you pursue. But joy is not. It discovers you. It has to do with a sense of connection to other people or to Gd. It comes from a different realm of happiness. It is a social emotion. It is the exhilaration we feel when we merge with others. It is the redemption of solitude."

This idea really resonates with me. Rabbi Sacks says that Judaism is an ode to joy, because through all of the ups and downs, tragedies and successes, the Jewish people have always found a way to be joyful, to gather, and to rejoice. Joy is found in the now, in the acceptance and appreciation of this very moment, and it all happens in the pursuit of happiness, I suppose. 

So, in a way, the KonMari approach of asking "Does this spark joy?" makes sense in the moment. It makes you consider the very instance in which you're living. However, if joy discovers you and not the other way around, the method makes no sense. 

Looking at my life, and knowing that I don't live in a world based on things, it's easy for me to see what joy there is in my life. People who come and go, experiencing the unexpected, moments that I could never have possibly imagined, those are all of the things that bring me joy, because it's about connections, engaging with words and emotions. It's bigger than things and stuff, it's all about something greater, something larger, something more important. 

And then, of course, there's the whole issue that the KonMari method might be venturing into animism, which presents a whole other issue ... but I'll let Jew in the City tackle that heavy topic.

Ask Chaviva Anything: Am I a Religious Jew?

Not related to this post, but ... I highly recommend getting this book. 

Ah another rousing installment of Ask Chaviva (Almost) Anything, and I got a few doozies. Let's start with the easy, yet incredibly offensive one, shall we?

Are you deeply religious? This seems like an absurd question given your conversion journey however it seems as though you mention surface things of a Jewish lifestyle (cooking, kids, Shabbat) but not the joy/love you have for the Gd of Jews and the actual faith itself. I suppose what I’m attempting to say is that you seem to be culturally Jewish without being religiously Jewish.

Well hello there. Now, I could get super offended at how completely offensive your question is, because you've asked a question based on reading some blog posts and not seeing me in real life or knowing me or really digging into the thousands of blog posts I've posted about my relationship with HaShem (which, by the way, is meant to be deeply personal and private) or things beyond the superficial, but that would be an exercise in futility. 

Making a statement suggesting that I'm not "religiously Jewish" is, well, gosh. I don't even know where to begin. It's presumptuous, it's offensive, it's hurtful, and, if you're a Jew, then you're breaking quite a few mitzvot regarding converts. 

I am a married, full-time working mother to three kids ages 5, 2.4, and nearly 9 months. On top of that, I do marketing work for my kids' preschool and work other side hustles to help keep our family on the up and up. First and foremost, I'm a Jew. Then I'm a mother. Then I'm a wife. Then I'm an Israeli. Then I'm writer. And so on. Capiche? 

This is the period in basically every Torah-observant Jewish woman's life where she can barely find five seconds alone to use the bathroom, let alone to spend hours online writing about her deepest inner feelings about HaShem and what it means to be a Jewish woman and mother and how I can't seem to find the brain space and focus to formally daven. That being said, I cry out to HaShem daily ... for strength, shalom, guidance. 

So, before you go throwing around things like "Oh you sure seem like a cultural Jew, but not a religious Jew!" take a step back and recognize that I'm a real human with a real human brain and a real human life that is a whole heckuva lot more busy that you can possibly imagine. My religiosity is my business, not yours, not anyone else's. 

I'll also say that I am sorry for whatever it is that you're going through that you have to project these sentiments on me. We often project our greatest struggles onto others as a means of deflection, so I hope you find your peace and direction as well.

Oh, one more thing, this:

And now for the tougher one ...

Did you know you have a huge “Messianic” following? How do you feel about that and what do you think of their lying by omission to be in Jewish places (such as mikvas)?

Wait, WHAT?! No, I had no idea. How do you know this? Where do I find this following? How, what, where, when ...? I'm baffled here. 

Okay, now to compose myself ... I'm not sure that there is such a huge problem with these people making their way into mikva'ot, because that's such a personal experience it's not like they're influencing others while they're there. Messianics who go door to door or work their way into Jewish preschools or organizations and slowly plant materials and ideas among communities, that's what seriously bothers me. The sneaky factor of Messianics drives me nuts. I'm an advocate of being loud and proud about who you are and what you believe, not sneaking around and defining yourself by what you aren't or by some kind of mask of who you are. If Messianics want to be Messianics, they should own it and stop trying to sneak their way into people's minds. 

But seriously, who are these people and where is this following!?

Are you in imamother? Favorite topics?

I'm not. Should I be? What are YOUR favorite topics?

---

Want to ask me something? Try not to be an offensive jerk about it, okay? Ask away!

#MomLife: Yom Kippur Edition

Zusha and the Big Fish!

Now that we're well stuffed with the gluten-free lasagna I made, it's time to start shutting things down, bathing everyone, and getting ready to shut down for the most important day on the Jewish calendar. I have to mention that the lasagna was actually made for Shabbat lunch, but our plata didn't turn on, so we had to have challah, lox, and cream cheese instead, so I decided to heat it up for our erev Yom Kippur meal. Why? Well, the traditional pre-Yom Kippur meal includes kreplach, which are little meat-stuffed dumplings. The idea behind them is that the meat is "hidden," and it comes from this verse in Isaiah 1:18:

“Come, let us reach an understanding, —says the LORD. Be your sins like crimson, They can turn snow-white; Be they red as dyed wool, They can become like fleece.”

Meat = red. White = the pasta. Boom! Except that we don't do meat, but the spinach and sun-dried tomatoes were hidden between layers of pasta. It works! IT WORKS!

Anyway. Am I ready? No. Does it matter? No. At least, that's what I keep telling myself. But you know me. I know me. It does matter, but I'm trying really hard to not let it matter.

Yom Kippur is hard. Neither Mr. T nor I fast well, and we've got three small kids who need us to be at our very best all. day. long. So, I'm trying to pull some understanding and forgiveness to myself based on this article on Chabad.org:

Let go of expectations for how a “real” Yom Kippur should look like. There are many ways to honor and celebrate Yom Kippur, and each year will be different, depending on the ages and needs of your children, as well as your own physical and emotional capabilities. Intense prayer may be out of the question for you, but you will still be experiencing Yom Kippur to its fullest.
The sages tell us that on Yom Kippur, itzumo shel yom mechaper—the essence of the day atones for us. Regardless of our prayers, meditation or hard work, Yom Kippur itself reveals that part of us that is always connected to G‑d, the part that doesn’t need to do anything or be anything other than what it is. This is our etzem, our essence.
Spending the day caring for your children is no less G‑dly than spending it in the synagogue. Wherever you are, you are at one with G‑d.

So, here I am, pounding Little Secrets and water instead of, well, anything else. My husband is bathing the kids, I put the baby down for bed, and now I'm anticipating what 5779 holds for me and whether I can honestly and truly commit to Daf Yomi while also blogging every day. 

It's all about carving time out, having a schedule, prioritizing. Things I'd like to prioritize better? My husband, my kids, my self-care, my learning, my career growth, my happiness, my health. It's about time that I put everything in perspective and start prioritizing what matters. And the nice thing? I think my job gives me that space. I just have to take advantage of it and stop treating every work assignment like it's the end of the world. 

Anyway, candle lighting is coming soon, and it's time to sip the last of my water and refocus myself for Yom Kippur. To really think about who I am, to celebrate these moments where we are closest to HaShem. 

“For on this day He will forgive you, to purify you, that you be cleansed from all your sins before G‑d" (Leviticus 16:30).

As I plead for forgiveness, I also ask for strength to be inscribed in the book of life in the year to come. 

I'm wishing one and all a g'mar chatimah tovah -- may you be inscribed in the book of life and have a meaningful fast. Catch you on the other side!

Parashat Vayelech is Coming ... and My Daughter is Eating Soap!

Oh how I love these two crazy blond monkeys. 

I'm two days into my self-care regimen of writing every day, and as Shabbat approaches I'm feeling stressed. This is the opposite of self-care, right? Self-care is supposed to be relaxing, rejuvenating, refreshing ... calming?

Instead, I'm sitting in the bathroom on a tiny Target clearance chair from last season trying to give my daughter a bath. I go to quickly wash her hair and body using one of those pouf things and she, my 2 year old wild child, dips her finger in the soap and takes a big lick.

"No! That's soap! We don't eat soap!"

I've taken a brief moment to recognize that I say "we" like the royal "we" and every time I do I think, "Good lord I'm one of those parents." But it always just comes out. "We don't do this, we don't do that." Why is that? Maybe another time.

"But mommy, it's yummy! Yummy soap!"

She didn't even cringe. She didn't make a face. She enjoyed the soap. She asks for more, and I have to remind her, "Don't eat it!"

I had really wanted to sit down and read this week's parashah, Vayelech, and try to do some learning, but like all well-laid plans, that one fell apart before 10 a.m. In the time that I probably could have sat down and turned everything off and read the portion and tried to glean something meaningful and relevant, I was running to the dry cleaners (I forgot to take stuff before Rosh HaShanah and felt like a jerk) and to the store to pick up a few loaves of sourdough for Shabbat.

And now we're on the couch. T is watching Daniel Tiger and I'm trying to suss out something from the parashah. Here we have Devarim 31:16-18:

And they will forsake Me and violate My covenant which I made with them.
And My fury will rage against them on that day, and I will abandon them and hide My face from them, and they will be consumed, and many evils and troubles will befall them, and they will say on that day, 'Is it not because our God is no longer among us, that these evils have befallen us?'
And I will hide My face on that day, because of all the evil they have committed, when they turned to other gods.

The thing is, I've been having a hard time connecting lately. To the universe, to HaShem, to my family, to my work, to just about everything. Everything feels big, overwhelming, exhausting, like I'm walking in sand. I have these moments of pure clarity where I feel caught up, calm, like I'm finally getting somewhere, but then I just get overwhelmed again. 

I look at these verses like most people probably do: I did something bad, I'm being punished, HaShem is a million miles away and more. You can expand it and look at global warming, disease, murder, poverty, and every other major catastrophe and wonder, "What did we do?"

When I'm having a hard time, I have to remind myself that Judaism, my core set of beliefs, my religion, my internal dialogue, my heart, my soul, are not qualified by an "if, then" statement. If I don't daven (pray) every day then HaShem will make me feel despair and loneliness. If I don't remember to make all of the right brachot (blessings) over food, then HaShem will make me feel empty and sad and unappreciated. It just doesn't work like that. It's a hard reality, but that's the reality. Yes, if you rob a bank, then you'll go to jail. If you smash into someone's car, then you'll have to pay damages and potentially go to jail. But the Torah doesn't work that way, not exactly. 

The truth is, those other gods that we turn to, those other gods that we worship and covet that send HaShem into a fury and disrupt the equilibrium that we all so desire in this totally jacked up world varies from person to person. They're not literal gods. Our gods are money, the newest phone, brand new clothes, the nicest car, the most organic and non-GMO foods we can't afford. Our gods are jealousy and vanity and anger and everything else that we let consume us on a daily basis. That's what sends HaShem into a fury, that's when He hides his face and makes us feel like we've been completely abandoned. 

At least once every few weeks, I have this conversation with Asher:

A: Mommy, how did people destroy HaShem's house when it's in the sky?

Me: Well, at one time it was in Jerusalem. That's where HaShem talked to us and we heard Him. 

A: Oh. And then they destroyed it?

Me: Yup. And now we're waiting to rebuild it. 

A: Well, I already rebuilt it. 

Me: You did?

A: Yeah, I built it, and now I can hear HaShem every day. 

I feel like, if only I had such a clear, beautiful view of the world, I'd feel less overwhelmed, less like I'm constantly being punished for not doing enough of the Jewish stuff because I'm doing so much of the being an adult stuff. It's one of the reasons, I think, that while reading Ilana Kurshan's If All the Seas Were Ink, that I started to have a physical reaction to reading about her experiences in Israel. Living in Israel, learning in Israel, living the dream I once dreamed and lived so vividly. Part of me thinks that if I were living back in Israel, all of the ways that I'm feeling empty and lacking would be filled up again. But then I remember that what I feel here is what I'll feel there, our baggage is internal and it follows us around -- it's not location specific, Chavi!

Anyway, this has been really, really long and wandering. I'm not sure what my ultimate point is, which, as a writer, makes me feel a bit like I suck at my job. But hey, I fulfilled my push to write every day! Day three down. Stay tuned for a post-Shabbat post when maybe I'll have something coherent to say about it being Shabbat Shuvah and how this entire post was perfectly on-theme!

Shabbat shalom and g'mar chatimah tovah -- may you be inscribed in the book of life!

Recipe: Pumpkin-Pomegranate Muffins (Gluten Free)

I attempted to be crafty. It kind of worked.

Although Rosh HaShanah is now behind us, I figure it's never too late to share a delicious recipe featuring two of the simanim or symbols for the holiday that we say a special yehi ratzon over. The origin for this practice comes from the Talmud Masechet Kritut (6a)!

"Abaye said: ‘Now that you have said that an omen is a significant thing, [a person] should always be accustomedto seeing / to eating at the beginning of the year (on Rosh HaShanah) a gourd, green beans, leek, beets and dates'." 

And thus, the Rosh HaShanah "seder." The yehi ratzon prayers translate as "“May it be your will, HaShem our G-d and the G-d of our forefathers…” followed by each of the different simanim that we eat during Rosh HaShanah, which include:

• Apples dipped in honey, that we be renewed for a good and sweet new year
• Leeks, that our enemies be decimated
• Carrots, that our merits increase
• Beets, that our adversaries be removed
• Dates, that our enemies be consumed
• Gourd (pumpkin), that the decree of our sentance be torn up and may our merits be proclaimed before you
• Pomegranate (seeds), that our merits increase like (the seeds of) a pomegranate
• Fish, that we be fruitful and multiply like fish
• Fish head, that we be as the head and not as the tail.

So, this year, wanting to be as streamlined as possible because we try to work the simanim into our meal rather than having an actual "seder" or ceremony like many do (think: the Passover seder, but shorter and tastier), I decided to combine things! 

Our dinner for the first day of Rosh HaShanah included:

• Pumpkin-Pomegranate Muffins
• Apples and honey
• Tzimmes with sweet potatoes, carrots, and dates
• Roasted beets
• Salmon loaf
• Gummy fish "heads"
• Split pea soup (the leeks were in here)
• Round sourdough loaf

Second night looked like this:

• New fruit
• Apples and honey
• Pumpkin-Pomegranate Muffins
• Tzimmes
• Gummy fish "heads"
• Split pea soup (leeks)
• Fish pie (featuring the carrots and the fish)

And now for the recipe! It's gluten free, and the pumpkin made these so incredibly moist I can't even begin to describe to you how light and flavorful they were. I even gave one to a neighbor who raved about the fact that, come on, "They don't even taste gluten free!"

This recipe makes about 15 muffins, which, I know, is weird. Basically I made a dozen regular-sized muffins + two large muffins, but just know that you can double this to make 30 regular-sized muffins or just use the recipe as is for roughly 15. 

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups Cup4Cup-brand gluten-free flour
• 1 Tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1.25 cups granulated sugar
• 1/2 can (7.5 ounces) pure canned pumpkin
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 3/4 cup frozen pomegranate seeds 

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and prepare your muffin pan. I prefer silicone because it doesn't require greasing and these muffins slide out with ease.
2. Combine flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda and salt in large bowl. 
3. Combine sugar, pumpkin, eggs, oil, and orange juice in large stand mixer and beat until just blended. 
4. Add flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture and stir until just moistened. 
5. Pour the batter into the prepared muffin cups until each is 3/4 full. Note: You'll have some extra, so save it for a second round or fill larger muffin tins for a few extra. 
6. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Note: It took me a few additional minutes, but I'm at elevation, so just be conscious and set your timer for 25 minutes and keep checking back in. 

I wouldn't keep these on the counter for too long, but they are DELICIOUS straight out of the fridge. They also freeze really well. As a variation, you could bake this in a loaf pan for a great pumpkin-pomegranate bread, too. 

Do you do the traditional Rosh HaShanah "seder"? Or do you work the simanim into your meal? How do you combine the different foods to streamline your meal?