Entries tagged with sukkot

Entry tags:

holidays

My synagogue has gone through some changes in the last couple years, on top of the changes forced on all of us by the pandemic. Last year we hired a new rabbi and this year we hired a new cantor, and in-person services are more of a thing than they were, so lots of stuff is new together.

The rabbi and the cantor work well together. I already knew this from the morning minyan, but it also carried over to the formal high-holy-day services with all their extra stuff. Later, when all the holidays are over (they aren't yet), I want to ask the rabbi about some of the choices he made, but it was generally fine. It was nice to be together again.

I was asked to read torah, even though I said I'd pretty much have to memorize it because of the vision issues that are why I stopped reading torah on Shabbat. The readings for Rosh Hashana aren't that long, so I could memorize it, and anyway I don't know the special trope for the day so I was going to have to learn the music by rote anyway. That all went fine. I had the last aliyah and I noticed that other people were translating after their readings, so I followed suit on the spur of the moment. Later I realized that most of the others were reading translations, not doing it on the fly. (I'm not fluent in Hebrew, but I knew this part.) Ironically, I did need to look at the scroll for that part and there were some stumbles as a result, but on Yom Kippur several people stopped me to tell me how much they liked my RH reading, with specific compliments. Wow.

We have programming all day on Yom Kippur so you don't have to leave if you don't want to. The "learning" slot had two class options, fewer than in the past but I think this worked together. I went to a very good class on the Vidui (confessional) prayer, taught by someone who used to be our associate rabbi 15-20 years ago. (He moved away for another pulpit and returned to Pittsburgh a couple years ago, taking an educational position rather than a pulpit.) We did a close reading of the text compared to the translation in our prayerbook and talked a lot about the word aval.

In some years I've gotten to the end of Yom Kippur on a high, feeling scrubbed clean and energized and stuff. That didn't happen this year. I think some of that is due to some liturgical choices they made. I wonder how much of it is due to having finally been to a traditional Yom Kippur service (last two years) and now I'm more keenly aware of the differences.

For festivals we combine with another congregation and Sukkot was there not here. "There" is a two-mile walk each way for me, so I went to Beth Shalom, a Conservative congregation that also has an occasional musical Shabbat evening service that I've gone to. The people there were very welcoming, the service was complete and yet efficient, and the leaders and speakers were good. I was surprised to be offered an honor (carrying the first torah scroll). I had pleasant conversations with several people I didn't know at the kiddush after. I wonder if I should try to go there next Yom Kippur.

We've been able to have most of our meals in the sukkah this week, though a couple got rained out. This late in the year I didn't have expectations.

Entry tags:

Sukkot

Well, I guess the silver lining in the pandemic for last week was that, since we're working from home, I had more meals in a sukkah than ever before. (There's no way to do that at the office.) And for bonus points, it only rained for one of the days! Neat.

Services were via Zoom. For both Sukkot and Sh'mini Atzeret (first and last days), both of which were on Shabbat this year, the Zoom setup actually worked -- cool. (There have been some other Zoom failures, where I set it up Friday before sundown and on Saturday morning I've been kicked out.) Even though it was all online, my synagogue continues to do combined festival services with another congregation whose standards are, um, not up to mine. And both times they had the lion's share. I'm done with that. Already I didn't go in person -- not even to my own, let alone to the other one that's a two-mile walk each way -- but now I realize the discontent runs deeper. I suspect we will still be doing this come Pesach in the spring, so, note to self, do something else.

It turns out that the hagbah that I recorded in advance was for our service Friday night, not Saturday morning. So I wasn't actually there (because you cannot cue up two different Zoom meetings on the same device). Oh well.

I miss the morning minyan. Even when it doesn't feel like a real service because of Zoom. This coming Shabbat should be back to normal, yay.

I bought some additional lights for my sukkah this year which, due to delays, didn't arrive until mid-week. The description said the lights could be chained -- which is true, but I had missed that they mean with like kind, through a special connection that is not a standard plug. So I'll need to remember to get some outdoor-grade splitter before next year; the idea here was to augment, not replace, my current lights.

Velcro cable ties make stringing lights really easy. Just sayin'.

And now, after a burst of holidays in the span of three weeks, we are back to "normal time" for a while.

Entry tags:

daf bits,
sukkot

daf bit: Sukkah

Today's daf bit is a seasonal diversion into tractate Sukkah. During the week-long festival we are commanded to "dwell" in sukkot (booths), which the rabbis understand to mean eating and sleeping. But we learn in a mishna (Sukkah 25a) that casual eating is permitted outside the sukkah. What is casual eating? In the g'mara (26a) R' Yosef says the volume of two or three eggs, but Abaye says this sometimes suffices for a whole meal! Rather, Abaye says, it's only as much as a student eats before proceeding to the college assembly (a small breakfast, it sounds like). The g'mara continues: casual eating is permitted outside the sukkah, but not casual sleeping (a nap). Why not? Because you might sleep soundly and it turns out to be a real sleep, which you were required to do in the sukkah. Rami b. Ezekiel says a casual sleep means the time it takes to walk one hundred cubits.

Today's daf is Menachot 48.

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sukkot

a brief Sukkot teaching

At Sukkot services on Monday I heard a teaching I liked, and I forgot to include it in my earlier Sukkot post. I heard this from Rabbi Yisroel Altein, who taught it in the name of the last Lubavhicer rebbe.

On Sukkot we take up the "four species"; this is one of the obligatory mitzvot of the holiday. The rabbis (I'm not sure where and he didn't say) compare the four species to four types of Jews:

- The etrog (this is a citrus fruit) has both good taste and good fragrance; this is like a Jew who both has learning and performs mitzvot.

- The myrtle has fragrance but is inedible and the palm is edible but has no fragrance. One of these represents a Jew with learning but no mitzvot, and one represents a Jew with mitzvot but no learning (one who does the mitzvot because he's been instructed to, but lacks deeper torah knowledge).

- The willow has neither fragrance nor taste, and represents a Jew with neither learning nor mitzvot.

But, the rabbi said, just as you can only perform the Sukkot mitzvah if you have all four -- if you're missing one of them it's not kosher -- we as a community aren't complete if we don't include all four types of Jews. Not, heaven forbid, that we should encourage people to stop learning or doing mitzvot but, rather, that there are people with neither, and they are still Jews and deserving of being included in the community.

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high holy days and Sukkot

The high holy days went very well for me this year. It's hard to explain in words, but they did what they are supposed to do. I feel like I'm in a good place for 5777.

I co-led the Ruach service on both Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur mornings again (with the associate rabbi). That went well, and I was particularly tickled by the person who privately asked me if next year I could do it all by myself. (She likes the way I lead.) I pointed out that it would be rather awkward for me to bring that up with the folks in charge.

We started this service several years ago because the sanctuary service, still being done out of Gates of Repentance which has many deficiencies, was hard for some of us to engage with. It's not about formal music; I'm all about some of the formal music of the season. But it sometimes felt like we were being performed at instead of being invited in. So we started this service to do things differently. This year we bought the new machzor, Mishkan HaNefesh, for the whole congregation (previously we had enough copies for the Ruach service, and previous to that we used draft photocopies). And we've just concluded our first year with a real cantor, who is working hard to make the sanctuary service more engaging. So, it is possible that in the not-too-distant future we could get to a point where we no longer need this service. Some (like my fan from the previous paragraph) might think that's a bad thing for me, but I'd actually be delighted to bring more of the congregation to the level that our smaller cohort strives for. We shall see. None of this has been discussed yet; it's just ideas kicking around.

On Sukkot morning I went to Chabad. I met the Chabad rabbi a few years ago when I took what would be the first of (so far) three classes that I've taken from him. He's friendly and welcoming and he encourages women to learn. So I showed up (unannounced) and I felt welcome. There was one other woman there at the beginning, and we got two more by the end, with maybe 15 or 20 men. (Kind of hard to see with the mechitza and some left immediately after.) Most of us went to the sukkah after for a little food and drink, and the conversation was friendly. I chatted with a woman who's a cancer researcher (i.e. she works, in a professional position) and we talked about technology and medicine and conducting clinical trials and stuff.

I only had one problem. Well, two I guess -- I can never keep up with Orthodox prayer; I'm just not that fast. So that wasn't unexpected. But the other was the language barrier. Not Hebrew; while I'm by no means fluent I do ok there. No, I mean that even though they were praying in Hebrew I found it really hard to follow because of pronunciation. There were times when I knew exactly what words I should be hearing, had the siddur in front of me -- and couldn't match up what I was hearing with what I was reading. I wouldn't have expected that to be the steepest learning curve...

(This isn't just about Ashkenazi versus Sephardi pronunciation; I've got a reasonable handle on that. Chabad seems to change vowels compared to other Ashkenazim, so that's two steps removed for me and my Sephardi pronunciation.)

This Chabad, unfortunately, doesn't have their own Friday-night services; part of the reason I'd gone was to scout for alternatives to what are often unsatisfying Friday services at my own synagogue. Bummer. But there will be other occasions to visit; I went on Sukkot because my congregation and another join forces for the festivals, alternating locations, and I wasn't interested in walking two miles each way to the other synagogue.

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sukkot

Sukkot (reminder to self)

I realized today what I need for my sukkah for next year: cable ties.

Not for the sukkah itself, but for the lights. I use strings of lights of the "plug one into the end of another" variety, to make a long chain of them, but they all lead with a fairly long expanse of cord without lights. That makes sense for the first set of lights in a series, if they're assuming these would be plugged into a wall somewhere (instead of my outdoor-rated heavy-duty extension cord run from the garage), but the result is expanses of non-light or wrapping up that extra cord length somehow. I wrapped up the extra cord length in a suboptimal manner, and then remembered that a solution exists.

Onto the shopping list, then.

Sukkot starts pretty soon here, so chag sameach to all who are celebrating.

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sukkot

Sukkot weather

It's been rainy all week here, which made putting the sukkah up (holiday begins tonight) challenging. I briefly considered doing it last night after Shabbat, but I didn't want to bother the neighbors with late-ish noise from assembling the metal frame. I figured if it was still raining this afternoon I'd do it then anyway. I won't melt.

The rain stopped today around 2:30. Huzzah. I've got assembly down to an hour, which is why I could try to wait out the weather. (I had previously hauled all the parts out of the garage onto the patio.)

While the lattice walls are attractive, I'm starting to think that cloth walls would be easier to manage. I can probably find attractive cloth. (Though I'd have to, *gasp*, sew.)

Chag sameach to those who celebrate.

Entry tags:

misc,
sukkot

busy

Come Thursday I will have read torah four times in three weeks. Fortunately none of the portions were new to me (Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur afternoon, Shabbat during Sukkot, and coming up, creation for Simchat Torah). And I led a good chunk of a service on Yom Kippur, which was nifty but of course required prep.

There has been a great deal of cat-herding surrounding the congregational web site, publicity for an upcoming Shabbat dinner (or rather, the lack of same when it was expected), committee and board meetings, etc.

I'm glad to report that we've had some respite from the rain; I've been able to eat in the sukkah four times so far. The new ~~christmas~~ sukkah lights are working out ok (previous ones were failing).

And, of course, work and household stuff demand their usual attention.

This stretch of fall is hectic, but we're coming into the home stretch now. Sorry if I've seemed to be ignoring anybody.

Entry tags:

sukkot

not fair!

Tomorrow night begins the week-long festival of Sukkot (aka "Booths"), during which we "dwell" in booths outdoors. ("Dwell" has been interpreted to mean "eat, and if you live in a place where it's safe you should sleep out". This city-dweller declines the latter.) I've been watching the little booths bloom across Squirrel Hill during my commute.

Number of days among the next eight when rain is not forecast: one.

Pbbbtht! Well, we'll see what happens.

The rabbis are very practical. Since Sukkot is called "zman simchateinu", or "season of our rejoicing", and since soggy dining is not very joyous, if it's raining you stay inside (except on the first night when you still should at least go out and have some bread to fulfill the commandment).

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morning minyan

Today I led morning services. That's not unusual. Today this included Hallel; that's kind of unusual, and something I've only done about three times before. During Sukkot, Hallel includes some extra stuff, which I had not led before and was a little uncertain about. In particular, since I always just follow the leader on when to wave the lulav, and since work commitments prevented me from getting a refresher earlier this week, I wasn't sure I knew it correctly -- and in fact, Joe had to point out one place where I would have missed it otherwise (that final Hodu). There is also the small matter of not being able to hold the siddur at a good reading distance (for me) while also dealing with the lulav, so I did the best I could but had also memorized the key passages there. (For those who are wondering, David the torah reader always leads the special Sukkot processions, so I didn't do that.)

Before the service I asked Joe (the usual Hallel person, until he pushed me) a couple questions and he agreed to come up on the bimah with me for that part. But aside from that one correction he didn't have to do anything. I am pleased. Joe seemed very pleased, which makes me happy because he's my teacher there. Joe is the person who pushed me to start leading a weekday Conservative service at all, years ago, and more recently is the one who pushed me to lead Hallel (I'd always deferred to him).

(It's not that I don't want to lead services; I enjoy that and would like more opportunities in my own congregation. But even though I'm a regular I still think of myself as a visitor to this congregation; I'm not a member there nor even a member of that movement. I'm comfortable in this minyan but am mindful of the norms of hospitality, including that guests don't try to take over.)

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random bits

Sukkot started with rain, as in this thematic haiku from

richardf8. Saturday I noticed that the lights in the sukkah were out; Sunday we determined that power to the entire garage (from which that extension cord was run) was out. The garage outlet doesn't have a GFI and the breaker wasn't tripped; I had not previously known that a GFI might be elsewhere on the circuit. It turns out that the line from the basement to the garage goes through an outlet in the furnace room that has a GFI, and something -- presumably the rain and my lights -- tripped it. (Mind, I've been using that configuration of lights for ten years without prior problems...) There is now an annotation in the breaker box about this.

Last week Rabbi Symons and I completed our study of midrash on the Akeidah. (I still owe a couple write-ups.) Saying kaddish d'rabbanan at that point was quite satisfying. He asked me what's next, I said I picked last time, and he proposed something that sounds good to me. (I'll reveal it after he confirms that there is a sufficient body of interesting material.)

A new Dunkin' Donuts opened in Squirrel Hill last week. I knew they were getting kosher certification for the doughnuts; I hadn't realized that they were getting it for everything. So they sell breakfast sandwiches but that's not really bacon or sausage. (I haven't heard if it's turkey or soy.)

Two interesting links from

magid: the referendum (or mid-life re-evaluations) and watching whales watching us.

From

chaiya: Improve Everywhere does invisible dogs. Nicely done, including some of the community response. :-)

From a coworker: unfortunate domain names.

Entry tags:

sukkot

Sukkot

Monday night at Sukkot services our new educator rabbi did something nifty. Monday night is a school night (for the teens), so he told them they wouldn't be skipping that for the holiday. Instead, they all gathered in the congregational sukkah for dinner before, and partway during, services. The whole group came in after the introductory prayers, and during the "sermon slot" they explained what they'd been doing.

There is a tradition during Sukkot of metaphorically inviting extra guests to meals -- the patriarchs, Moshe, King David, etc (one per night). It's sort of like how Eliyahu is invited to the Pesach seder (among other things). Egalitarian-minded Jews have added prominent women to this list. The rabbi explained that while the class knew all that (and did so), tonight they had focused not on reaching back but reaching "sideways". Groups of students then got up and talked about members of the local community who were significant in various ways -- a teacher, a leader in social justice, and so on. These people, unlike the historical guests, were actually present. It was nifty because while, yes, it did honor those people, it seemed like it was more focused on teaching the values for which those people were being honored.

My rabbi invited me and one other married-but-there-solo person onto the bimah for "candles and kiddush", though it turned out to be just candles because there's a special kiddush for the holiday and the rabbi chanted it. (I could have, but it's his prerogative.) This invitation is significant because this is usually owned by couples, and I've commented to my rabbi that this feels a little isolating to those of us who aren't. So yay! Maybe I've been heard.

Tuesday morning my rabbi asked me to be one of the readers for Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), the special reading for this holiday. (We read in English, so this can be given to anyone, so I never volunteer -- I defer to people who would be challenged by other roles.) We read from the JPS translation (which isn't online so I can't easily share), and there was some stuff at the end of chapter 7 that I found challenging (seeming to say that women are traps for men who would be wise, and stuff like that). But here's something interesting: this Jewish translation seems different in small but important ways, and tracks with another I found of unknown background. So what's up with this, I wonder? Time to see what I can glean from the Hebrew myself, it seems. I want to improve my text skills anyway.

The weather for the opening days of Sukkot has been lovely. It's supposed to get colder now, though, and it rained today (but was clear by dinner-time). So we'll see. But at least I'll have gotten a few meals in my sukkah.

I met a new neighbor while I was putting the sukkah up, by the way. The house next door apparently changed hands this spring (based on the appearance of realtors and moving vans), but I hadn't actually seen anyone yet (other than the crew doing renovations). There's a fence between the houses in the back, so usually we can't see each other, but one of the new owners happened to be walking out while I was standing on a ladder rolling out my s'chach (roof). I think she was startled to see me. :-) So at some point we'll spend more time talking; she was on her way out and, well, I was standing on a ladder putting up my sukkah. But it's nice to know that we do in fact have neighbors.

Entry tags:

leining,
sukkot

oh, that makes it easier...

Yesterday the person in charge of this asked me if I can read torah in two weeks, which will be the Shabbat in the middle of Sukkot. All the holidays (and their intermediate days, as in this case) have special torah readings, so I asked what it was. No one present remembered. I said sure, I'd take care of it; I could look this up at home. I hoped I wasn't biting off something that would be too hard on that timescale, but figured I could roll with it, whatever it was.

I pulled it up in Trope Trainer today (forget about its cantilation features; it lets me print nice big copies to practice from!) and started to read. I fell into chanting it easily -- too easily. Err, wait a minute, I recognize that turn of phrase. Heh -- I chanted this exact passage last winter. Ok, this just got easier. :-)

The Sukkot portion is from Ki Tisa, after the incident with the golden calf when Moshe talks God into giving the people another chance and they make the second set of tablets. There's a reference to Sukkot somewhere in there, which might be why it was chosen for this holiday, but I can't help noticing the parallel between the servicable fragility of the sukkah and the fragility of our people's relationship with God at that point in time -- and, perhaps, individually since then. So maybe I'll work that idea up into a d'var torah.

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sukkot

Sukkot

Tonight begins the week-long festival of Sukkot. (That's "booths", for those who were wondering what all the little huts springing up on lawns in Squirrel Hill are about.) Chag sameach to those who celebrate, and happy fall to everyone else.

Naturally, in a week when we're supposed to take our meals outdoors under the fragile roofs of these booths, it's slated to rain more than a little. :-)

(Oddly, according to my favorite weather site, the equinox is today. Isn't that rather late? Or should I automatically view with suspicion a site that tells me that there are "11:60" hours of daylight today?)

Entry tags:

short takes

(The web interface is being wacky. If you saw a mis-formmatted post from me -- I didn't do it. Let's try again.)

Domain names to avoid, from dagonell.

This conversation is funny in that oddly-familiar way (from xiphias).

Quote of the day from dglenn: "The country is run by extremists, because moderates have shit to do." --John Stewart, on The Daily Show. (Meta: I tried to email this to myself and the filter at work blocked due to profanity.)

Last night Dani was explaining the cult of Eye of Argon, an astonishingly-bad SF story, to a friend. Naturally there is a Wikipedia entry. Dani called my attention to the following comment about the author from there: "a malaprop genius, a McGonagall of prose with an eerie gift for choosing the wrong word and then misapplying it".

The new furnace has a display with buttons and a numeric read-out... and no user documentation (but lots of installation documentation). How odd. Fortunately, furnaces usually don't require a lot of user intervention: turn on in October and off in April (or whenever, adjusted for your locale).

Well, we had a few good sukkah nights before rain and cold ended that. And note to future self: the week of Sukkot has the longest morning (weekday) services of the year; anything you can do to expedite (without rushing) will be looked upon with favor by the congregation.

Entry tags:

weekend bits

I heard a great comeback the other day. Someone had moved in with an SO before marriage, and a holier-than-thou relative was giving her grief. The relative reported that she'd learned about this sinful situation from some mutual acquaintance who also disapproves, and what did she have to say for herself? Her response: "Were you... gossiping?"

Sukkot morning there was a bar mitzvah. I wasn't thrilled to hear that; usually that means the bar-mitzvah family takes over and the regular congregation feels pushed off to the side. So that's not a nice thing to do at a service that is the only option for the greater congregation. (On most Shabbatot we have two services, the one the regulars go to and the bar-mitzvah service that the family pretty much owns. I wish it weren't that way, but it is. On holidays we don't do that, though; there's one service.) However, it worked out; the bar mitzvah was very good and gave one of the best talks I've heard from a kid so far. I hope that was intentional -- that a particularly promising student was given the honor of having his bar mitzvah at a holiday service -- but I don't know if it was. They schedule those pretty far in advance, so he would have had to have been particularly promising two years ago.

Today Dani and I went to the Shadyside home tour. We've never been to one of these before. Other neighborhoods have them too (though I've never heard of one in Squirrel Hill). The tour consisted of seven homes, all of which are clearly objects of obsession for their owners. I had assumed the tour would consist of big impressive mansions (there are several in Shadyside), but it was a mix of mostly "normal-person" homes, though with often-impressive restoration work. One small house was obviously a bachelor pad; the "bedroom" was in a loft visible from everyplace except directly below it, with no curtains or the like. Not the sort of place you live with a non-romantic roommate, or your kids. :-)

Tomorrow we are getting a new furnace. It's the sort of thing you shold do every half-century whether you need it or not. :-) Seriously, we think our current furnace is running at about 50% efficiency, and the new one will be abut 95%, so that should bring some relief on the winter gas bills.

( Hebrew minutiae )

Entry tags:

parsha bits,
sukkot

parsha bit: Sukkot

The torah tells us to celebrate Sukkot because Israel dwelt in sukkot in the desert. The talmud records an argument about what those sukkot were. Rabbi Akiva said that they were physical booths, like we build today. Rabbi Eliezer disagreed, saying that the word "sukkot" refers to the clouds of glory, the divine presence that protected Israel. Both agree that the sukkot (whatever they were) signified Israel's special relationship with God. (Sukkot 11b)

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sukkot

do not think of pink elephants

Or, alternatively: do not think, mostly through sukkah-building, "Hey! I've gotten through this so far without any boo-boos!"

Tonight the sukkah is up and valid, if listing a bit to Forbes. (Uneven patio. The frame is made out of pretty hefty metal pieces, so I don't think anything's bent.) Tomorrow, I hope, it will be lighted and furnished.

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Sukkot (mostly)

( Read more... )

Then we came home and watched West Wing, thanks to a coworker's tape. Yup, we both thought we'd correctly identified the leak. And is it my imagination, or is more of current-day American politics creeping into that show? I mean, it always rang true or it wouldn't have worked, but it feels a little more like I'm seeing last week's newspaper stories on the show this week, and that feels different.

Entry tags:

weekend

Naturally, yesterday (when I couldn't put up the sukkah) the weather was wonderful, and today (when I could) it was colder and threatening rain. But I got it up and I didn't get wet, so that worked out. It only took half an hour to put the frame and roof (s'chach) together. The walls took another half hour. I'm sure I could expedite if I'd just use plastic walls like lots of other people, but I like the look of the lattice pieces that I use much better, so it's worth some fussing. Besides, the lattice makes it easier, in principle, to have decorations; one of these years I'll get some of those.

Sukkot begins tomorrow night. Chag sameach to all who celebrate!

Yesterday was the wedding of two SCA friends. I think the SCA people outnumbered the relatives at the reception. Everyone seemed to be having fun, even the pinch-hitting cooks. (The original cook got into an accident on Wednesday and is still in the hospital. We planned to visit him today, but he was moved back into the ICU so we couldn't. I really hope he's ok!)

Yesterday morning I chanted torah. There was no bar mitzvah, so my rabbi stayed for the whole service and acted as my checker. He had chanted the portion the previous night; I'd tried to call him on Friday to talk about that but didn't reach him. (It was a very busy week. I had learned the portion anyway. I was calling to offer to save him the time preparing it, which I suspected he wasn't going to do until after Yom Kippur anyway.) He usually doesn't chant but did this time, though, so I suspect he wouldn't have taken me up on the offer. And he is, as you might expect, much better at it than I am. Still, mine went ok -- forgot one trope and had to be prompted but fine otherwise. My comments on the portion were well-received. Some people commented on my having read for Rosh Hashana and wanted to know if I'd really learned this portion since then; mostly, but it was short. But hey! I can learn a torah portion more quickly than I used to be able to.

Most dates are taken for the next several weeks, except one week when I'll be out of town (Thanskgiving), so I'm next reading for Vayishlach in mid-December. I'll ask to read Friday night too; I last did that at the end of August. I'm glad that we've got people siging up again for Shabbat morning; there were some rough spots during the summer, I guess due to vacations.

Tonight's dinner included a culinary mystery. When I was last at the store I picked up a package that was labelled "California lamb chops". I didn't know what that meant (origin? applied seasoning?) but they looked like lamb chops so I shrugged and put the package in my basket. Tonight, in preparing to cook them, I saw that they looked like they'd been fabricated from ground lamb -- but they had bones! What was that all about? I cooked them and they were ok (but not as good as actual chops), but I'm still a little puzzled by what I was eating. Is this some novelty I'm unaware of, or was the packaging meant to be deceptive? Next time I'll look more closely, I guess.