Toasted Coconut Cookies

This isn't exactly Jewish subject matter, unless it is - because we like our sweets.  But I haven't posted in awhile (working and full time college - ugggh) and these were pretty darn wonderful.

Toasted Coconut Cookies

When I was in my twenties and struggling to follow a macrobiotic diet that promised me extreme health and zen composure, someone brought an enormous box of donuts into a work meeting.  I don’t like donuts.  But there was one toasted coconut in that box and I kept looking at it.  Everyone else picked the powdered sugar or custard or jelly filled (all good ways to ruin a nice suit).  That one toasted coconut donut looked back at me, like a sad dog at a shelter.  At the end of the meeting, I adopted that donut, took it to my desk and when no one was looking, ate all the coconut off the outside and threw the donut middle away.

These cookies were made in remembrance of that donut, twenty-some years later.  It’s funny what we remember.

Ingredients

• 4 1/2 cups shredded coconut  (I buy bulk unsweetened and sweetened and mix them together.  If you have a sweet tooth, use all sweetened)
• 1/3 c. dark brown sugar, 2/3 cup white sugar (or 1 cup sugar minus two tablespoons, which you can replace with dark molasses)
• Zest of 2 limes or one orange
• Pinch of salt
• Pinch of baking powder
• 1 stick cold butter, sliced into pats
• 1 large egg
• Flavorings – use either 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1 tsp coconut extract with lime zest - or 2 tsp. vanilla (or “vanilla, butter and nut”) flavoring with orange zest
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Directions

1. Turn oven on to broil.
2. Put coconut in a pan and toast it under broiler, watching carefully because sweetened coconut burns very easily.  Only toast the top of it to a light brown.  If you find you really like the toasted flavor, you can stir it up and put it back under the broiler. 
3. Put 2 ½ c. of the coconut and all the sugar in a food processor or high end blender (like a Vitamix) and grind it into a fine meal. 
4. Mix the salt and baking powder into the flour.  Place it and all the rest of the ingredients into the processor and process it until it is just barely mixed.  It should look crumbly like pie crust dough.
5. Cover and refrigerate an hour, until firm.  This helps the texture of the cookies later.
6. Turn oven to 350 degrees. 
7. Shape balls from the cookie dough, then flatten and push into the remaining toasted coconut. 
8. Place on baking sheets (I like using pizza stones). Bake until just beginning to brown, close to 25 minutes, but peek at the first batch at 20 minutes just in case your oven runs hot.  (Again, sweetened coconut likes to burn.)  Cool at least 15 minutes before transferring to a wire rack or they will fall apart. 
9. Enjoy!

First Passover

PASSOVER SEDER
Off to the side, you will see a picture of my new husband and me.  We will be celebrating our first Passover together and wondered what to do because we do not have any children at home.  Additionally, we were concerned about how long the traditional service takes and how many glasses of wine we are supposed to drink.  We decided to shorten the service to suit us, and to make it entirely positive.

Today I cleaned house.  I also emptied the house of Hametz in a non-traditional way.  When we moved here, we didn't know where to put the freezer, so we stuck it on the back porch.  It looks ugly there, but this morning, I realized it was there so I didn't have to feed all the bread to our chickens!  Ha!  (It's not correct, I know, but I'm a convert, so I'm cutting myself a little slack!)

Before dinner we will scatter a tiny bit of bread around for our dogs to find, which they will no doubt do with as much glee as children do. 

This morning I made some gluten free Matzah by blending three overripe bananas with some walnuts and pouring it in square-ish shapes on a dehydrator tray.  I marinated lamb in fresh squeezed grapefruit, basil, olive oil, garlic and onion flakes. 

I don't have a tablecloth, but I do have a nice piece of burgandy velvet, so it will suffice!

I put three pieces of Matzah on a platter a friend gave us at our wedding last month!  I will cover the Matzah with a cloth that was my grandmother's.  Another friend gave us a Passover platter, on which I will place a lamb bone and a few pieces of meat; dandelion and rosemary from our garden, chopped fine; a paste of apples, golden raisins and walnuts; a boiled egg, Miner’s lettuce from our hill; and a peeled orange. Nearby I will place a bowl of salt water. I will open a bottle of red wine and have 3 glasses on the table, one for Elijah.

Below is a script of sorts I wrote out for our reference.  The man of the house is supposed to lead the service, but I figure that may be tiresome and also, I want to participate more.  So I have him saying the blessings and me giving commentary.  If you use this script in your home, D. is the man and L. is the woman. 
We will start with Kiddush (Kadeish), pouring about 1/3 glass of wine, D. saying the blessing.

D. washes his hands, then dips miner’s lettuce in salt water and we both eat it.

D. uncovers and breaks ½ of middle piece of matzah and places it aside for later (afikomen).

L. opens the window and says, motioning to the remaining matzah:

This is the bread of poverty, which our ancestors ate in Egypt. All who are hungry, let them come in and eat. All who are needy, let them come in and celebrate the Passover. Now we are here; next year may we be in the land of Israel! Now we are slaves; next year may we be free!


D. says:

In every generation a man is bound to regard himself as though he personally had gone forth from Egypt, because it is said, and thou shalt tell thy son “it is because of that which the Lord did for me when I came forth out of Egypt.” We were slaves unto Pharaoh in Egypt and the Lord our God took us out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. If the Holy One, blessed be He, had not taken our forefathers out of Egypt, then we, and our children, and our children’s children would still be slaves unto Pharaoh in Egypt.

D. re-covers the Matzah.

L. says:

This night is different from all other nights. We eat unleavened bread because our people fled Egypt in haste and thus had not time to allow their bread to rise.  We eat bitter herbs to remind us of the bitterness of slavery in Egypt. We dip in salt water to remember our tears and in haroset to remember the sweetness of freedom. Tonight our home is our Temple.


D. reads from Psalm 114:
When Israel went forth from Egypt,
the house of Jacob from a people of strange speech,
Judah became His holy one, Israel, His dominion.
The sea saw them and fled.


D. pours second 1/3 glass of wine. We both wash hands. D. recites Hamotzi with the following ending:
“who sanctified us by His commandment concerning the eating of Matzah”

We each eat Matzah.

D. then recites Hamotzi, with the ending:
“who sanctified us by His commandment concerning the eating of bitter herbs.”

We each then eat a bite of bitter herbs with a bite of haroset.

D. then says:

Thus did Hillel, when the Temple was in existence:
He would combine some of the pashal lamb and some Matzah and some bitter herbs and eat them together to fulfill the Biblical command: “They shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.”


Then we combine Matzah, bitter herbs and a bit of lamb and eat like a sandwich. We finish with a bit of orange, which symbolizes the bringing of marginalized people into Judaism.

Then we eat our dinner, splitting the egg in half and pouring the 1/3 glass of wine. L. says, as she splits the afiklomen in two for our “dessert”: “When we break the bread of poverty and share it with a prayer, it becomes bread of the Lord.”

D. reads from Psalm 116:

I love the Lord, for He hears my voice, my pleas
For He turns His ear to me whenever I call
The bonds of death encompassed me
The torments of Sheol overtook me.
I came upon trouble and sorrow
And I invoked the name of the Lord…
You have delivered me from death
My eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.
I shall walk before the Lord in the lands of the living.

And from Psalm 136:

Praise the Lord, for He is good,
His steadfast love is eternal…
Who split apart the Sea of Reeds
And made Israel pass through it.
His steadfast love is eternal.
D. pours a sip more wine each. L. places the third glass on the window for Elijah. We clink glasses and say: “Next year in Jerusalem!”

Bet Din

My Bet Din 2/4

Several books about conversion prepared me for a bet din (a panel of rabbis or at least one rabbi with with community lay leaders) to ask me questions about learning, motivation, lifestyle, etc. Mentally, I knew I was well prepared. So why was I sweating? (In February!) My fiancé was not allowed in the room, but he stayed in the lobby because he didn’t want to wait at home, wondering what was going on!
Rabbi Yitz ushered me into a room where Rabbi Maurice and Joan Bayliss, a lay leader who sings (beautifully!) for holiday celebrations, were already seated. We exchanged pleasantries and I put my bag with my computer and typed spiritual journey next to my chair. I offered to show the approaching- encyclopedic note system I am making on Judaism in my computer, but no one took me up on it. They all know by now, I guess, that I live in my head. They wanted to know how I live in my life!
I told them I had written originally a twelve page spiritual journey to read aloud to them, but forced myself to cut out all the entertaining stories and pared it down to five pages of actual spiritual searching and growth.
I read the journey. I stumbled a few times at first because I was nervous. A copy of it is below, minus a few sentences removed in consideration of the privacy of those involved. The bet din smiled, chuckled, nodded and looked thoughtful in all the right places. Rabbi Yitz put his hand on his heart at the end and said thank you to me. They asked me a number of questions about how I was going to bring Judaism home. Reading was dandy, but I needed observance now.
So I told them David and I enjoyed observing Shabbat. We’ve been lighting candles, eating a nice dinner, going to services and not working for money. A couple weeks ago we talked about ways we could increase our observance. We decided to keep our cell phones on – because not only do we still text and call each other since we do not yet live together, but also because we do not want to exclude our non-Jewish friends and family members. We allow ourselves to use computers for Jewish study. We decided I should confine my school studies to topics of communal, spiritual and emotional issues. For instance, that morning I wrote a paper on whether Muhamad Muhamud, the bombing suspect in Portland, was coerced into illegal behavior by the FBI.
We talked about our upcoming move to a farmette an hour away. I said we were hoping to find another couple nearby to carpool with to services and classes. They brightened; they knew a family who lived very close to our new house.
Rabbi Yitz said he would miss us if we didn’t make it to Torah Study often. He would miss our heart. (I thought about that later – our heart. David’s and my heart. We are an entity, stronger together than when apart.)
We intend to make our home a place of Jewish study and Shabbat dinners as often as possible. We will have a large kitchen, where it will be possible to reserve one entire cabinet for dishes and cookware used for meat. We have been keeping biblically kosher, but not Rabbinically kosher.
One of the bet din said, “But biblically kosher includes separating milk and meat. It is mentioned three times.”
I said, “Well, that depends on how you interpret that. If you interpret it as an injunction against additional cruelty to the mother…”
She said, “Then you should also not eat chicken and eggs together.” I had wondered about that, earlier, because Torah says you shall not take the eggs/young from the mother without shooing the mother away first. So now we have more to think about together. No chicken with eggs? No meat and milk? Separate dishes?
I said I didn’t know if we were going to take our dishes to the Mikveh since I wasn’t too keen yet about getting in it myself. Nor did I know if I was going to stab knives into the dirt to kasher them.
Rabbi Yitz looked interested. “Did you read Blue Greenburg? Because she explains the reasoning behind all the details of koshering beautifully. It really makes the practices meaningful.”
I told him I have gotten bits and pieces of how to kosher a kitchen from books by both ends of the Jewish spectrum, from Reform rabbis who think kosher is outdated to Ultra-Orthodox rabbis who want you to use two tablecloths if one person is eating meat and one eating milk and you don’t have two tables.
He asked about my personal daily practice. I told him I was feeling guilty because I hadn’t bothered to learn the Hebrew prayers. I have an unfortunate block of desire for memorizing something I didn’t fully understand. I thanked him for recommending Zalman, who said the main point was just to begin… in any language, even if my prayers began “Dear God”. (And they do!)
He asked me if I knew that a Reconstructionist conversion would not be accepted by some factions in Israel. He said it was unfortunate, because may in America would consider it a valid conversion. He and others were working to make it acceptable in Israel, also.
He asked me if I ever intended to go to Israel. I answered I didn’t want to live there, but was hoping to go and explore. I wanted to see all of how Jewish people lived, even the extremists who throw stones. I want to stand in front of the Wall and see all the hundreds of thousands of scraps of prayers… I am hoping to feel very moved. All three of the bet din members said I would be; they were. Rabbi Maurice said it was almost a duty of Jewish people no matter where they lived to support Israel, through tourism, through donations, through working for peace. We all need to make Israel a safe home for Jews.

Rabbi Yitz asked if I knew that I was joining a community that was likely to continue being persecuted and hated. I said I did know. I said that I was a better person when confronted with discrimination against a group of people than against myself alone. It prompted me to speak up, to write, to be brave and thoughtful in ways I could not when defending only myself. I said I was honored to be able to support the community Israel in my small way.

They shooed me out of the room to talk together. I went out to find David, who was full of questions I wasn’t yet ready to answer because I was suddenly nervous again. They called us back in a few minutes later. Rabbi Maurice was writing something on a form. I sat upright, arms clasped on the table until Joan laughed, “Are you waiting to find out if you passed?” They all chuckled. I relaxed and laughed, too. Of course I was. This was the culmination of more than half a life of searching.
Rabbi Yitz said I passed and that this bet din was more a formality than anything else, because they already felt I was Jewish and part of the community. Rabbi Maurice said he would send the form in to a safekeeping place in Pennsylvania as well as keep one here at TBI. After the mikveh, I would get a certificate.
David clasped my hand, beaming, as everyone wished me mazel tov.
We made a circle, all of us with our arms around each other. Rabbi Yitz offered a blessing in which he said the community of Israel had been waiting for me to join them!
When we stepped back, I told them they had just given me that other piece of paper for my pocket.

Spiritual Journey

I have removed a few paragraphs that I read to the rabbis in order to respect the privacy of those involved.
Otherwise, here is the spiritual journey I read aloud at my bet din. 

Spiritual Journey


Both of my parents grew up in religious households, but they raised me in a completely secular environment. My next door neighbor first described angels to me when I was 8. I ran inside and asked my mother if angels were real. Her answer: "Angels are real if you believe they are!"

Although I was afraid of any crowd consisting of more than two people, I started asking schoolmates if I could tag along to their various places of worship. I visited a large Catholic church first. My friend confessed to someone who didn’t know her middle name but expected to be called Father. I was favorably impressed by the architecture, but negatively by the saints people prayed to for various reasons like getting well and selling a house. God was atop an enormous staircase, with uncountable religious officials blocking the way. Then there were saints, Mary, Jesus and finally God.

Seeking a new perspective as an adult, I visited the National Cathedral twice. I lingered in the blue marble room where a white marble Mary bristled like a porcupine with gilded rays, searching the faces of other women present. I saw mostly boredom, concentration and impatience with the wrigglings of children, but on a couple of faces, I saw dewy transcendence.

I wanted to feel what those women felt. I also unrealistically wished for a dramatic vision like I had during my epileptic fits. Since I felt nothing, I wanted to belt out “It Ain’t Necessarily So” from Porgy and Bess. Maybe if God were present in the Cathedral, He would rattle those magnificent stained glass windows in answer.

I continued to visit churches until I was 30. I usually felt like Huckleberry Finn. I toured the public part of the Mormon Tabernacle in Maryland. I whispered to a guard: did he know David Ben Gurion was converted to Mormonism posthumously? I climbed aboard a Moonie bus, where I very cautiously nibbled on a cookie. I attended an End Times lecture on campus. I engaged in a friendly debate on vegetarianism with an orange-robed man at Dulles Airport. I listened aghast as a Moonie woman in a sushi bar described her marriage to a man she had never met in California. She said she loved him. I wondered at the cost of the gilded dome of the Buddhist Temple in northern Virginia. I enjoyed the rose gardens and chants in the Franciscan Monastery in DC. (I grinned over the Chuck Taylors and Nikes the monks wore under their plain brown robes.) I pondered the charisma of Jim Jones and the Bakers. I read the King James Bible four times and the New Revised Standard twice, cover to cover, wincing often. I sought out religious paintings in the National and Virginia galleries of art. I read about Buddhism, Shintoism and Native American beliefs. I became friends with Rastafarian musicians in Richmond, even visiting their makeshift church on the third floor of an un-airconditioned brownstone on the day Louis Farrakhan spoke there. The band told him I was cool, even though I never partook, because I was a dj for a reggae radio show.

At 21, while driving through Maryland, I saw a synagogue and impulsively pulled into the parking lot. I had never attended a single service; in fact, I had virtually no experience with anyone Jewish. (There was one girl in high school who was too thin for her enormous glasses and boys would yank her gym shorts down to see if she had any pubic hair.) I can’t say what motivated me to tell the office staff I wanted to join. A woman disdainfully ushered me into an office where I spoke with a man I assume was the rabbi. He said I needed a mother, not a new religion. Embarrassed, I left and didn't set foot in a synagogue again for 23 years! It occurred to me only recently that since I was very thin and looked 15, perhaps he meant what he said literally.

I was married briefly to a Buddhist who rotated bouts of drinking with bouts of meditating in front of an altar with candles that made me wheeze. I was also married briefly to a Shinto who didn’t participate in any religious ceremonies.

I dated the son of a minister from a Baptist church in a poor neighborhood. I attended Revival and was impressed that the congregation was so involved. The minister, in a beautiful tenor, spoke of peace, love and helping family and neighbors quit their vices. The congregants sang gloriously, arms around each other, sweating, smiling and crying. It was better than a movie. I wanted to be saved, too. But when Revival was over, they sat quietly in their pews, listening or nodding off. Within two weeks, I was bored.

I also dated the son of a Methodist minister. Every sermon he gave moved me. I thought they came easily to him, but when I caught him frowning in his studio, he told me he often spent 15 or more hours on them every week. He wished I believed in the divinity of Jesus, but he knew better than to try to convince me. (Once I cornered him and asked, since Jesus kept kosher and said "I came not to change the law," why was a whole new religion based around him?)

I believed that not God Himself, but the searching and longing for God made people like this minister good. God no longer reached out to us because we made a terrible mess of religion. I myself only felt God in the absence of other people. When I moved away from big Virginia cities out into the country, I looked at the stars and felt God.

After moving, I stopped visiting churches, thinking since I had little talent for religion, I could be excused for expending little effort. I did begin to pray in thanks, but never for assistance. I thought praying for favors was like putting money in a celestial slot machine. The machine had no reason to care what I wanted and the odds were great I wouldn’t receive it.

I started telling people I was a secular Jew while I lived on the farm in Virginia. When I got pigs, I thought, “I shouldn’t be doing this”… but I made money on them. While eating sandwiches with health conscious Christian friends, I was tempted to ask if they knew how the Ezekiel 4:9 bread was baked.

After I moved to Oregon to be near Mom, I began having dreams about being Jewish. They were rare at first, but frequent by the summer of 2009. After a major health scare in September, the dreams became relentless, as if I were being nagged. In one of these dreams I was lobbying on behalf of Jewish interests in Congress. In another, a public figure I have admired for a decade divorced his wife and asked me to marry him; I said I could not because he was Christian and I was Jewish! I told him my religion was as important to me as his was to him and I knew we'd never be happy.

During my recovery, I was visited by people of multiple religions, trying to convert and save me in case I died. They came to my home and both of my jobs. I told them I was Jewish, which instead of stemming the tide of proselytizers, actually increased the flow of Jehovah’s Witnesses. One afternoon a Baptist lady who had herself come to preach to me (and told me I wasn’t a very good Jew) watched three people come in during one hour. She said, "Wow, God must really want you!"
The light bulb came on.
I switched it off.
Weeks later, I started reading about Judaism online. I bought the CD "Songs in the Key of Hanukah" and played YLove’s Yiddish rap over and over so I could sing along! I watched videos of Hasids performing a dance that resembled a Cossack dance my father used to do after a few drinks.

During Christmas, I was visited by a Jehovah's Witness at my night job. He preached for hours, leaving when morning customers arrived. The following night he came back. I told him that I was happy with Judaism and didn't want to endure another three hours of his proselytizing. He unleashed a violent torrent of "Jesus killer" insults until I got my mace out and threatened to call the police. He wrote a seven page letter to my employer saying I behaved badly towards him because I felt guilty for killing Jesus. I made a copy just in case he turned into a stalker and I needed court evidence later. Thankfully, I haven't seen him since.

On January 3rd, the first day I came home from the library with a stack of six big reference-type books, the excessive dreams and attempts to convert me stopped. I soon exhausted both county libraries and began buying books whenever I found them inexpensively on Amazon. By this time I wasn’t doing it to keep the proselytizers away. I was hooked.

I was still struggling to find God when I found Maimonides, who may have considered himself the next best thing. Maimonides said no human could understand God. This worked for me; I reasoned that if humans were capable of knowing God, we would have only one religion. I decided there was something holy in the attempt to learn the unknowable.

In the book Finding a Home for the Soul, Temple Beth Israel was mentioned favorably so I decided to move to Eugene. I enrolled in TBI’s Intro to Torah class while I still lived an hour away. I was invigorated, surrounded by real Jews (!) in a real synagogue! I cornered Rabbi Maurice after the third class and told him I wanted to convert. I was disappointed to hear I'd have to wait a year!

The Egyptian Habiru means "stateless people." The Greek diaspore means milkweed. Milkweed seeds, in a tuft of down-feather fuzz, travel far from the mother plant. For nearly my whole life I wandered from city to city and through assorted religious institutions. Only my hair stayed the same. After talking with Rabbi Maurice, I dreamed that I cut my hair short. I understood this to mean my conversion would require obvious personal change.

I published an article on Biblical Kashrut laws in Douglas County News. I also posted it online on my food blog, which has a pretty decent readership, and on my Jewish blog, which does not. This was my public coming out.

I asked my family about the religious backgrounds of our relatives, who have lived in New Mexico and Oregon 200 years. Those for whom we do have religious records were Christian – except for one on my mother’s side. He might not count, though, since he converted to Episcopalianism and was buried with honors by the Ku Klux Klan.

The first Friday night after I moved near Eugene, I drove to town, armed with my Kol Haneshamah and Torah, but suddenly decided I was underdressed. I went home, said a little prayer over wine I’d bought just for my first service, blessed my dogs to be like Ephraim and Manasseh and felt ashamed of myself. In the morning I procrastinated, but finally went to Torah Study for the first time. I was late. I tiptoed in and sat off to the side. Rabbi Yitz motioned me to the table, where there was an empty seat between two men. I blushed, but within a few moments, I was participating in the discussion.

After class, I sat by myself in the sanctuary. Rabbi Yitz came over to introduce himself. He said I may be disappointed because sometimes we didn’t even have a minyan at Saturday morning services. I answered that I was scared of crowds. He brightened, “Well, then, this is the service for you!”

I was stunned when a man with tattoos and leathers was called to carry the Torah scroll! Apparently I wasn’t underdressed the night before!

I was also amazed by an elegant Sephardic looking girl at her bar mitzvah in June. She sang hundreds of words in Hebrew. She carried the Torah scroll in the procession. She gave a devar. I checked the expressions of the others attending. I noticed the man in tattoos and leathers. His face shone with sweet pleasure. No one else looked surprised over the poise, intelligence and lovely voice of this young girl. This is not an unusual occurrence, I thought. Singing before us was justification for the extraordinary effort to keep the Jewish faith and culture alive.

I confessed to a friend at the conclusion of service that I wanted to give a devar, but felt inadequate. It seemed to me that Jewish people were born with the confidence to speak and sing beautifully before a crowd. Perhaps, I said, the culture creates that poise. He smiled, “If you come to services for ten years, you learn.”

In Torah study on Saturday July 17th, Rabbi Yitz, who came to Oregon in a VW bus in 1971, confessed his discomfort in knowing that some anti-Semitism is influenced by how Jews are portrayed during a surface reading of the Torah. I was glad to hear him speak thus. It bothered me, for instance, that Hitler adopted the name of Pharaoh’s murderous plans, “The Final Solution.”

Something I have struggled with my entire life is feeling like I’m just another speck of dust here on earth – I never had the other piece of paper, that I was also the stars. Only dust. It’s hard to be motivated to do much if you think it won’t matter. Early in my studies I read that we are here to deal with the character flaw we need most to work on, and that Torah law gives us the tools. It is true. Torah prescribes many small virtuous actions, which if done daily by everyone, would build a society worthy of the stars in the heavens.

During the Tish’a B’Av service, I wondered if some ancestor of mine caused pain to an ancestor of someone in the room. I remembered the conclusion of Middlemarch. The protagonist, an intelligent woman with grand desires, contented herself with reaching out kindly to her community. On the way home, I thought, can I begin a little domino effect? If I become able to radiate peace, can I influence others to radiate peace? First I must find peace myself, which will require being satisfied with who I am.

Also as I drove home I decided to commemorate the 9th of Av by eating small quantities of flavorless livestock fodder like people ate in concentration camps. I didn’t know that fasting was part of the holy day. Just in case there was a Heaven, I wanted to show an honest effort to understand the pain of those in it who suffered.

For several days I ate rice or potatoes. I had no revelations from on high, but I wasn’t exactly starving, either. On the 4th morning I was reading a Talmudic discussion about Passover. As they were wont to do, the rabbis digressed. Could people be responsible for mice who carried hametz into their homes? A gluttonous man would make his wife a widow, his children orphans and bring “himself, his children and all his grandchildren for generations into disrepute…Abbaye said people will call his children ‘Son of the oven heater’… Rav Papa said ‘Son of the pan licker’… Rav Shemaia said ‘Son of the one who collapsed on the ground.’”

Although I laughed, it occurred to me that no one would ever call anyone “son of a pan licker” today. We are all pan lickers, unless we are instead bottle drainers and match lighters. Although the quality of my diet is excellent, I eat because food tastes good, I am bored or because I am trying to substitute food for sleep. I suffer from subtle gluttony. This was my revelation. I turned this light bulb off, too.

I finally worked up the nerve to attend Erev Shabbat services on July 23rd. David and I said hi in the foyer and sat together. We didn’t know each other yet and spoke very little. The mandolin in Adon Olam reminded me of my father’s balalaika music; I tried to hide my tears from David. He saw and insisted I not drive home. So we walked in a park. Within the hour, I began wondering if he could be my beshert. I mention this because our love inspired several major spiritual epiphanies.

When I later read that God arranges marriages, I was stunned by the thought that David could have been preordained to marry me before I was even born. Moreover, if God arranges marriages, He must indeed care how we live our lives and even becomes an interested third party in the marriage. I stopped wondering why it took so long for us to find each other. David had been coming to synagogue off and on for only three years; he got serious a few months before meeting me. You’re already familiar with my talent for avoidance. Once we began coming to services and classes, reading, praying and working to improve ourselves, then we merited each other.

David is attracted to Hasidism. At first I was afraid to be a Hasidic wife; I read books in which women, like female goats, were always pregnant or in milk. I watched videos in which grooms placed on their brides veils so thick they could have been dishcloths. Women who could neither see nor be seen leaned on others on the way to the Huppah. As I read more and watched lectures on Torah Café, I began to understand. I recently met an Orthodox and Hasidic wife; neither seems like they would stand for being blindfolded. I am no longer afraid.

It is amazing how much braver and more social I have become in a year of living as a Jew. If I had come alone to the High Holy Days, when cars stretched around several blocks, I wouldn’t have even have gotten out of my car. Now I am itching to visit the synagogues in Ashland and Corvallis. One day I was daydreaming aloud about traveling in a motorhome to Jewish communities throughout the country, writing about the disparate ways Jewish people live and worship for one book and recording the stories of the children of immigrants for another. David told me I was like someone born again except that I wasn’t obnoxious.

I started posting devars on my blog, even though no one reads them. They are long, comparing and contrasting Torah and Midrash, and also contain a lot of my personal thoughts. I also posted a link to my epiphanies on love on Twitter, and within a week I had four rabbis following me. Perhaps one rabbi read it and liked it and sent it to another. Once a couple began following me, I became searchably Jewish! When a female rabbi chose to follow me, I thought, “Score!”

Several times I’ve caught myself wishing I had started this process earlier, when I was young enough and healthy enough for rabbinical school to be a viable option. I would like to learn more about the services themselves so I can eventually give a devar, sing a song, carry a scroll. Starting late has given my studies a sweetness I may not have felt as a Hebrew school student: I anticipate eagerly my future religious duties.

Torah Portion Exodus 25.1-27.19 Terumah

Torah Portion Exodus 25.1-27.19 Terumah


The study materials for this parsha: JPS Tanakh, Etz Hayim, The Midrash Says: S'mos. I did not go to TBI Torah Study this week.

Terumah (t'rumah) means gifts, especially goods set aside specifically for sacred purpose. Etz Hayim says t'rumah comes from the root for elevate. When one gives to God, one not only physically lifts the object up in offering, but also lifts oneself up to a higher level. (Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev). This parsha begins with God telling Moses the types of contributions the Israelites should bring to Moses, who will accept them on God's behalf. With these articles, the people were to build a sanctuary, "that I may dwell among them." Then specific directions follow for the size and ornamentation of the ark that will hold the Ten Commandment tablets, the cherubim, a table, a lampstand, etc. The word for dwell shakhan, literally means to rest rather than to live within.

When I first read this parsha, I was fascinated by the descriptions given. The sanctuary materials were very expensive items, and God wanted them used in very specific ways. One of the items God required was dolphin skins. In the desert? Etz Hayim says, however, that the Hebrew word t'hashim means dyed sheep or goat skins, which is certainly more reasonable! (So now the mystery is not why God would expect the people to be carrying dolphin skins with them in their desert wanderings, but why the Bible says He expected dolphin skins! I wonder if perhaps the dyed goat and sheep skins were a bluish gray, and were given a colloquial name that remained past our understanding of it, or if this were simply a poor translation. Midrash, however, says that these were unicorn skins.) The enormity of the physical labor demanded of vagabond people also amazed me.

Once I read this parsha once, I didn't feel a particular need to do anything other than skim it again. Then I read Kugel's Being a Jew, a conversation between a Sephardic Orthodox banker and his totally (at first) secular American nephew. When the nephew complained that he did not feel anything spiritual, The uncle said he needed to build a mishkan within his heart, to make space for God, before God would come in. How to do this? By saying the prayers, even before you understand them, by following halacha as much as possible. Thus, through action, you open a space to let God in. Rabbi Mendele Kotzker said The Shema says to place the words upon your heart because God recognizes that our hearts are not always open. But when we open our hearts, the words there will be able to drop in.

Armed with this understanding, I was able to read again with full kavanah.

One of the things that bothered me upon an earlier reading of Exodus is how people could receive the mind-blowing revelation at Sinai and then make and bow down to the Golden Calf! I'm sure I am not the only person whose jaw dropped in "how-could-they-be so-dumb" disbelief! With the reminder that even pious hearts are not always open, I was able to reach into myself to try to imagine the hearts of the Israelites.

These were people adrift a long, long time. Yes, they were redeemed from slavery. Yes, the received the grandest of revelations, a definitive proof of God's existence that so many long for. However, then they went back to their wandering. How anticlimatic could that have been! They were again hungry, thirsty, tired and dirty. Although they had Aaron and Miriam to help, they relied greatly on Moses... who left them to sit alone atop a mountain for 40 days, without even one phone call or text. Could some of them been whispering that Moses was dead? Or had abandoned them? What, then, would they do, a huge band of hungry and thirsty vagabonds?

Perhaps the incident of the Golden Calf has already happened; some rabbis argued that the order of the Torah was not necessarily chronological. (Midrash says the building of the Mishkan was presented before the sin of the Golden Calf to teach us that we must prepare in advance to rectify any sin we might do.) In any case, God recognized that the people were restless and that he was going to take Moses away. Without a spiritual leader among them, they might falter. So he gave them a project that would make them feel like active participants in their worship. The people responded with great generosity - giving not only valuables, but also their time and talents.

This was genius - not only occupying them while Moses was gone, but also giving them a structure that would be a source of great pride to them whenever they worshipped. Each Israelite family could say they donated something - gold jewelry, perhaps, their carving skill, or woven wool dyed in the rare colors blue, purple and crimson. (Remember, they had only natural sources for dye at that time. The rarity may also be why the corner fringes on prayer shawls are to be blue. The best blue at that time was produced by marine snails, which were of course difficult to obtain in the desert!)

What if every time I went in Temple Beth Israel, I saw something I had myself made? How could I not feel a sense of ownership as well as a sense of belonging?

The Rabbis said the mishkan was the reason the Israelites were instructed to take gold and other precious metals and stones from the Egyptians. God never intended these to be used by the Israelites for vain purposes such as their own personal ornamentation. Midrash says that the vast quantity of gold required is to atone for using gold to make the golden calf. It says that if not for the golden calf, a simple altar would have sufficed.

To show how important the tablets were, God required the ark to be made first. It contained three chests, with the inner and outer being made of gold and the middle, of wood. It had two long poles on each side to allow people to move it without touching it. These poles were slid through four rings, which Midrash says represent the four habits of a true Torah scholar: Torah study, mitzvos, good deeds and modesty. The rods were never to be removed from the rings, not even in camp. God asked for the people to make the ark, but only for the priestly class to make the menorah.. Midrash says this is because Torah study is available to all, but the priestly duties, symbolized by the menorah, were only available to a few. There is a nice drawing of the ark on page 245 of The Midrash Says: S'mos. The drawing includes the cherubim on top of the ark; they are not the fat little boy angels we are accustomed to seeing in paintings. The cherubim here do look young, maybe preteen, but they are not babies. Midrash says when God is pleased with us, they don't just merely look at each other, but embrace. When He is displeased, they turn their heads away from each other. When He speaks to the Israelites, His voice rises from between the cherubim.

The Midrash Says also has an illustration of the holder for the twelve loaves of bread to be offered to God (p. 257). It has removable loaf holder drawers, one atop another, and somewhat resembles and apothecary cabinet except the drawers are not covered. One family of kohanim was in charge of baking the bread every Friday and refilling the drawers, which were never to be empty. Of course, the Israelites were responsible for bringing the grain that would be baked.

The details here and later, in descriptions of the Temple, have been used in the creation of Jewish ceremonial objects ever since. The description of the menorah in Exodus 25:20 makes it clear that this is to be a very important ceremonial object, made of pure gold, most of it comprised of one piece of hammered work, not pieced together. I have earlier mentioned a special type of sage that looks like a candelabra. It is called Salvia Judaica - literally Save Jews. Here is a good picture of it: http://www.holidayinisrael.com/ViewPage.asp?lid=1&pid=289. Aaron and his sons only were to be in charge of lighting the menorah, again showing the importance of it. There were no candles of that time, so I assume that woven thread was used for wicks and needed to be replaced regularly. I am allergic to candle smoke, so maybe the answer to the candle lighting at home is not the battery operated candles we have now, but lamps with wicks, lit with a lighter rather than a match.

Midrash says that after God caused an ark and a bread offering table to descend from Heaven, Moses understood his directions and was able to copy them here on earth. However, the precision of the Menorah was too much for him, even after seeing one made in Heaven. So God allowed him to cast a brick of gold into a fire and from this, the Menorah emerged fully formed. This reminds me of the Golden Calf, which Aaron insisted sprang from the fire already made.

There is an illustration of the layout of the completed mishkan on 267, which disproves my belief that this was a small building, big enough for only three priests at a time, close up. This is a big affair, with a courtyard/tent of meeting as well as the inner chambers for the offerings and the ark. Although it had walls of woven cloth and leather, the frame was cedar wood. I can't imagine how difficult it must have been to move it with them so many years. I don't recall reading about it's being on skids anywhere, but as a farm girl, I can tell you empirically that a very long hoop house (frame and cloth building) can be pulled by two draft horses if it is on skids (long wooden poles that are angled up so they don't dig into the soil and run lengthwise below any other piece of the building). I wonder if they removed the skins to lighten the load before pulling the building? And this leads me to a long daydream of how the entire party travelled; they must have taken apart their tents in the morning and laid components on the backs of horses and oxen, much as the American Indians did, stopping just before dark to set up their shelters again.

I moved across country once, camping every night. It sounds like a big hassle, but it was fun, even if we got stung by mosquitos in the few warm dusk hours, right before we froze in New Mexico, the state in which my wallet was stolen. Even if we got pulled over twice by cops who thought we might be hiding illegal aliens. I will never forget it. But then again, I only had to pack a small amount of water and food with me because I always knew I could get more.

Torah Portion Exodus 21.1-24.18 Mishpatim

Torah Portion Exodus 21.1-24.18 Mishpatim


This parsha is called Mishpatim, for laws, because it begins: "These are the rules that you shall set before them:" These are primarily civil laws, but there are a few religious laws. For easy reference, I have sorted the laws into categories, which are not necessarily in order and or in the categories others have used. Below the listing of laws, I will give some explanations from Midrash, from various rabbis and from my own thoughts and experiences. I am not attempting to cover each law.


The physical placement of laws throughout the Torah piqued the interest of the sages. Nachmonides said the placement of this particular group of laws, right after the Decalogue and Revelation at Sinai, proves particular importance. These laws were considered absolutely necessary for an orderly society. Later in Torah we will receive laws regarding the priesthood, family purity, sacrificial offerings, business deals and treatment of the ill or dead.

Also, the laws are deliniated in the text before Moses is called up the mountain to receive them in Exodus 24:12. God said to Moses, 'Ascend to me up the mountain, and be there, and I will give you the tablets of stone, the Torah, and the command, which I have written ... From this, the rabbis deduced that Moses received verbally the whole Tanakh and oral law in summary. Talmud, Barachot 5a: "And Rav Levi bar Chama taught in the name of Rav Shimon ben Lakish: What does the verse mean? Tablets refers to the Ten Commandments. Torah is scripture, the Five Books of Moses. Command is Mishna. Which I have written are the works of the Prophets and other Writings. To instruct thereof is the Talmud. This teaches us that all [the above] were given to Moses from Sinai".

Perhaps God thought that the people would be overwhelmed to suddenly recceive the entire 613 Commandments at once, already written. Or perhaps, since the two stone tablets couldn't have been small, God thought Moses couldn't carry any more! Another reason only these laws were presented here is because Moses had to commit them to memory and teach them orally. This was a man "heavy of tongue"not long ago.

Rabbi Yitz of Temple Beth Israel in Eugene said it is especially important to read the commentary when studying this parsha. The intent of the text is easily misunderstood on a surface reading. When we read of slavery, for instance, we must not make snap judgments. We all come to Torah with the lessons life has taught us and our modern understanding. The commentary opens our minds to other ways of understanding. Rabbi Yitz said studying Torah was not meant to be easy. If we are to grow mentally, emotionally and spiritually, we must challenge ourselves with the text.

Immediately below are the laws presented in this parsha. Further below are explanations.

Worship of God:

1. You shall set aside your first born sons to serve God

2. You shall also set aside the first born cattle and flocks, leaving them with their mothers 7 days and giving them to God on the 8th.

3. You shall be holy and not eat flesh torn by beasts, but must cast it to the dogs.

4. You shall not revile God

5. You shall hold three festivals a year for me, The Feast of the Unleavened Bread, the Feast of the Harvest and the Feast of Ingathering.

6. Do not offer any leavened item along with blood offerings to God; also do not leave fat lying until morning.

7. Bring the choice first fruits to Temple

Black magic, idol worship:

1. You shall not tolerate a sorceress

2. If anyone engages in idol worship, they will be ostracized. (Steve's text says he shall be ___ but only to God alone)

3. You shall not curse a chieftain among your people.

4. Don't even mention other gods!

Sabbath:

1. Six days you work and on the seventh you will rest - not only along with your ox and ass, but in order that your ox, ass, bondsman and stranger may also rest.

2. Six years you shall gather harvest but in the seventh year even the land is allowed to lie fallow.

Treatment of slaves:

1. Hebrew slaves shall go free on the 7th year, with his wife if he was enslaved with him.

2. When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she is treated differently. She must be given the chance to be redeemed within the community rather than cast away and if he marries another, he can not deny her food, clothing or conjugal rights. If he does so, she shall go free.

3. If a man strikes his slave in the eye, blinding him, or knocks out a tooth, the slave shall go free.

4. If a man kills his slave immediately by striking him, the slave must be avenged, but if the slave survives even a day or two, there is no punishment.

Treatment of parents:

1. Anyone who strikes his father or mother - or even insults them shall be put to death.

Kidnapping, violating women:

1. Anyone who kidnaps another shall be put to death.

2. If am man lays with a virgin without paying the bride price, her father may refuse to give her to him as a wife, but the man must pay the bride price whether he gets the girl as a wife or not.

Treatment of others:

1. Do not wrong or oppress a stranger - with the reminder that they were oppressed in Egypt.

2. Do not ill treat any widows or orphans.

3. If you take a poor man's cloak as a pledge that he will pay a debt, you must return it to him at night, or he won't be able to sleep in the cold

4. You must not carry false rumors or join with the guilty to act as a malicious witness

5. You shall not join the powerful in doing wrong

6. You shall neither favor the powerful nor the poor in a dispute

7. If you find your enemy's ox or ass loose, you must still return it him

8. Do not take bribes

9. Do not give false witness so an innocent person dies

10. Let the needy eat of your field, vineyard and olive groves in the 7th year, during which time you must not ather harvest.

Treatment of animals:

1. You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.

2. If your enemy's ass is overburdened and on the ground, you must help your enemy lighten the load so the ass may stand again.

3. See the Sabbath prohibition against working ox and ass

Maiming, killing or results of street fights:

1. Anyone who fatally strikes a man shall be put to death - unless it were by accident, and then he shall be allowed to flee.

2. Anyone who premeditates and murders another shall be put to death.

3. When men fight and one strikes another, causing him to take to bed, the assailant must pay for the idleness and medical treatment

4. If fighting men push a pregnant woman, who miscarries, the one who pushed shall pay a fine set by the woman's husband. If further damage occurs, the penalty is higher - eye for eye, tooth for tooth, etc.

Damage to property or resulting from property:

1. If an ox gores a person, the ox shall be stoned and not eaten, but the owner is not to be held liable unless the ox has previously gored and the owner did not take action. In this case, the owner, too, shall be put to death. If there is a ransom, the owner must pay it. If the person gored is a slave, the owner of the ox has to pay 30 sheckels of silver to the master and the ox is still stoned.

2. If a man steals an ox or sheep and slaughters it or sells it, he shall pay five oxen for the ox and four sheep for the sheep. If the owner seizes the thief while he is tunneling and beats him to death, the owner is not liable, but if he kills him the following day, he is liable. If the animal is found alive in the thief's possession, he must pay double. If he can not, he must be sold as a slave.

3. If a man digs a pit and does not cover it and an ox or ass falls into it, then the digger has to pay the owner restitution but gets to keep the dead animal.

4. If someone lets his livestock loose long enough for them to graze another's field or vineyard bare, he must make restitution.

5. If someone lights a fire and it consumes grain, he shall make restitution.

6. If property entrusted to another is stolen, and the thief is caught, the thief pays double. But if the thief is not caught, they shall both appear in a court of God. If an animal entrusted to another's care dies or is injured and there is no witness, both parties shall appear before God. If the animal is stolen, the person entrusted with its care has to pay the owner restitution. If the animal was torn by beasts, he has only to bring evidence.

7. If someone borrows an animal from another and it dies or is injured in his care, he must make restitution unless the owner was present when it happened. The owner, is, however, entitled to the fee if the animal was hired.

Assorted other issues:

1. Anyone who lies with a beast will be put to death.
2. Do not delay the first skimming of your vats.

God warned the people to obey the angel he sent to lead them to the Promised Land. He promised that if they obey both Him and His angel, He would be an enemy to their enemy and a foe to their foes. He promised to throw the enemies into confusion and terror, and to cause plague in their midst. He promised that if they detroyed any idols they found and served only God, He would annihilate the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. They must not allow any of these people to remain in their midst, less they be corrupted by them.

He said he would drive the enemies out little by little rather than have the land suddenly be barren. He promised them the land from the Sea of Reeds to the Sea of Philistia and from the wilderness to the Euphrates.

If they obeyed, He would bless their bread and water, remove sickness from their midst, allow no woman to go barren or miscarry AND will allow them the full life span, which you will remember, is quite extended over our own. What fabulous promises!!

The Israelites promise, "Everything that God says, we will do and we will hear". We know they later falter, but at that moment, the people chose God as much as He chose them. They agreed to be his Chosen, even though many responsiblities accompany this privilege. The word segulah, which means chosen, is elegantly explained by Samson Rafael Hirsch - " Is it not Israel's unceasing duty to proclaim, through the example of its life and history, Him as the universal Lord and Sovereign? The Bible terms Israel segulah, a particular treasure, but this designation does not imply, as some have falsely interpreted, that Israel has a monopoly on the Divine love and favor, but on the contrary, that God has the sole and exclusive claim on Israel's devotion and service; that Israel may not render divine homage to any other being." Segulah means a property belonging exclusively to one owner. God does not belong only to Israel but Israel belongs to God.

Midrash answers the question why other nations were only required to follow the seven Noahide laws, but Israelites were given hundreds of laws. Midrash tells the story of a doctor who restricted severely the diet of a patient he thought showed promise to get well but allowing the patient for whom he held no hope to eat whatever he liked. Because the Israelites were capable of spiritual purity, they were given laws to regulate every aspect of their lives, to help them attain this purity.

There are quite a few laws regarding slaves, including when to release them, the proper treatment of a girl slave when an owner has tired of her, payment or revenge for a slave that has been killed, etc. Moreover, God says twice not to oppress a stranger, because the Israelites were themselves oppressed and enslaved while strangers in Egypt. Midrash says even when a slave choses to remain with his master, he must state this in front of the Bet Din and in the Yovel year, which is every 50th year, he shall go free anyway. Midrash explains the use of the front door post as the place to pierce the slaves ear thus: God had the Israelites smear blood on their doorposts to show their servitude to God; so must a slave show servitude to his owner. Moreover, the slave must really want to stay in order to endure having his ear bored in public.

Midrash says if a man is very poor and has already liquidated his possessions, only then may he sell a daughter under 12 years old into slavery. It is a mitzvah for the purchaser to either marry her himself or to give her to his son in marriage, thus providing for both the poor father and the girl. The purchase price for the girl becomes her bride price. If neither the purchaser nor his son wants to marry her, and the father has become financially stable, the father must redeem her. Otherwise the girl must be offered for sale again, with the years she served deducted from her bride price. A girl goes free once she has matured, when six years or the Yovel year have arrived, or if her master dies. She does not have the option of having her ear bored on the door post!

Midrash says the laws of capitol punishment for harm done to parents apply to a boy above the age of 13 and a girl above the age of twelve, and only if they have previously been warned and two witnesses can verify the harm done.

The "eye for an eye" punishment is often misunderstood as cruel and unusual. Torah does not intend for someone to literally gore out another's eye in punishment. There are five levels of injury - causing physical injury, causing pain, causing medical expenses, causing absence from work and causing humiliation. The Bet Din calculates how much the injured party's value would be diminished on account of the handicap if he were sold as a slave to perform the same profession. A manual laborer receives more for his hand than an intellectual. Above the payment for physical damage, the aggressor must also pay for pain, medical expenses, financial losses from inability to work and also for shame! Thus, an eye for an eye actually means the value of an eye for an eye.

Midrash says God warned against harming widows and orphans: "A wronged wife is able to complain to her husband and an oppressed son usually calls to his father for help. Since a widow and orphan have no one to defend them, they complain to Me. I will take revenge for every single one of their outcries..." God details a number of punishments, including: "Your wives will become widows for life. They will be unable to remarry because since their husbands will be missing, but their deaths never ascertained; their children for this reason will never be able to inherit their fathers' estates."

Regarding the prohibition against bearing false witness, Midrash clearly states a Judge must remove himself from a case in which witnesses may be lying, even if he can not prove it. Moreover, if he has a colleague he knows is dishonest, he should refuse to try a case with him. Torah uses the word "distance" to emphasize that if one cannot stop it, one must at least show no inclination to participate in it and protect oneself from being close enough to accidentally become embroiled in it. Rabbi Gefen, in Truth and Falsehood on Aish.com, explains well that distancing oneself from falsehood includes not engaging in words and actions that are technically true but intend to deceive.

It sounds totally egotistical of me, but I disagree with Midrash and other forms of "Oral Law" on the subject of mixing milk and meat. Midrash says the reason it is not specifically written in Torah that God did not want us to eat milk and meat together was because God foresaw a time when other nations would try to say they were the chosen people, not the Israelites... And therefore, some commandments could not be written but must be transmitted orally. However, I see that there are many places in Torah where God, who does not expect us to be vegetarians, does expect us to show compassion for the pain of mother animals separated from their babies. Therefore, we do not kill a calf in front of its mother, take eggs or young from a mother bird without shooing her away... or boil a kid in its mother's milk. (During my bet din, this subject came up and one of the judges said I should consider whether or not to eat eggs in the same meal with chicken.)

I raised a variety of goat breeds and know firsthand that does mourn deeply when their kids die. My angoras seemed confused more than anything else, but my pygmies and pygoras would wail. That's right, wail, like human mothers.

Torah makes clear that punishment is much stricter for premeditated crime and is less strict or even lenient when there is no premeditation. For instance, when a thief enters your home if you strike him and kill him, it is like he doesn't even bleed. If you kill another by accident, you may flee to another city. If your ox gores a human and you don't know it may happen...

I am very impressed by the fairness of these laws in comparison to laws of other societies of the time.

Odds and Ends of Hasidism

I learned today that my favorite high school teacher, Bernis von zur Muehlin, was related to Schneur Zalman of Liadi!  And also to Herb Alpert, a trumpeter whose style I tried to copy in my band days.  No WONDER I loved her so! 

Bernis had a great talent for finding beauty in "ordinary" people and also in perhaps less-beautiful emotions.  I was a shy kid with a terrible self image. She encouraged my writing and took photographs of me in which I was stunned to find myself looking fierce and powerful.  I was delighted to also discover she is still exhibiting her photography. 

An essay on a Hasidic rabbi who teaches an Israeli immigrant - a dog: 
http://petandpractice.blogspot.com/2010/12/yes-miky-there-are-rabbis-in-montana.html

For an amusing lecture on Jewish Marriage, watch Rabbi Yosef Jacobson's The Unlikely Couple on Torahcafe.com.  I also liked Dr. Treat's lecture with the same title and have enjoyed everything from Rabbi Manis Friedman.  Also Rivke Slonim gave a wonderful lecture on the mitzvah of mikveh.  I have two dunkings coming up and needed the inspiration.