5769
We had a truly delightful Rosh Hashanah. For the first time, my parents came down to spend it with us, so I was able to both share it with my family, and with my home congregation.
On Monday, I went to D’s classroom and read them the story of Engineer Ari and the Rosh Hashanah Ride (which we discovered from the PJ library) and shared apples and honey with the class. It was a nice chance to meet his classmates and the teacher. Unlike his old school, I don’t think D’s the only Jewish kid in the whole school, but he’s certainly the only one in his class.
At services, the rabbi said that today is the birthday of the world, and N asked me how old the world was. I told him we’d talk about it later, and at dinner we talked about how it was the year 5769 in the Jewish calendar, but that science indicates that the world is a lot older. Somehow wound up promising the boys that we’d take them to Dinosaur National Monument someday.
It was a gorgeous day, so after services we went down to the beach and did tashlich, naming the bad things that we wanted to get rid of. For the boys, it was mostly things like hitting and not listening. I started with things like yelling and not listening, but when T offered up "cynicism" I had to ask for the bag of crumbs back.
Tashlich, 5769
October 1st, 2008 at 7:43 am
Lovely post. Shanah tova….
We’re fortunate that the girl is in a Jewish nursery school so that she does “celebrate” with her little classmates.
October 1st, 2008 at 1:56 pm
that was really touching to read. thank you for that, elizabeth.
October 1st, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Our school district planned a teacher workday for Tuesday, to allow for the holiday. We went to the zoo and promptly encountered five different families from our district — mind you, the zoo is a 90-minute drive away. But we were the only district in the area (probably the state) that had a holiday.
L’shana tova to you and your family, Elizabeth.