Preparing for the New Year!

Like my sisters and brothers around the world I am busy getting ready for the upcoming Rosh Hashana holiday. This year the New Year begins on Wednesday night and on Thursday and Friday we gather in our synagogues to hear the shofar blown. Then without any further ado we go right into Shabbat. All this heralds a marathon of eats and on Rosh Hashana we go all out with symbolic foods signifying all the good things we wish for ourselves and our community in the coming year. For a thoughtful discussion of these symbolic foods you should read this post by The Rebbitzin's Husband . You might also be interested in this post of Leora's about the symbolic foods. 

While we're on the subject of cooking for this amazing holiday let me remind you to take a look at the Tishrei edition of the Kosher Cooking Carnival at Cooking Outside the Box a delightful blog with lots of interesting ideas while the Elul edition of the Kosher Cooking Carnival is up over at Me-ander . 

Batya Medad

Rabbanit Yemima intoduced by Tzofia Dorot

 And speaking of Batya, my favorite Shilo resident, I had a lovely experience at Tel Shilo  where both she and I attended the Tfilat Hannah and heard the inspirational Rabbanit Yemima Mizrahi. I hope to write separately about this moving experience.  She was followed by concert given by Leah Shabbat and Tal Bril.
The event was organized by Ancient Shilo which runs tours of the archaeological dig at the site where the Tabernacle stood. Besides Batya I also ran into a very good looking reservist who was called up especially to guard us and the approximately two thousand other women and young girls who attended this event. This particular reservist also worked as a guide at this site when he lived in the nearby settlement Eli. He also happens to be my son. How thoughtful of the army. 

Reservist Shayke Tzohar