Pen-Elayne on the Web

Songs of Miriam, Deborah and Trees

I spent this morning at shul with various relatives, as my cousin Marc celebrated the 25th anniversary of his bar mitzvah by reading from the Torah about the Exodus. This week's reading was the cool special effects story, with the pillar of fire and parting of the Red Sea and Yul Brynner slumping back to Egypt muttering "His God... IS God" and the manna and all that. And the supplementary reading (haftorah) was about one of the few heroines mentioned in the Bible, Deborah. She made up pretty decent song poetry, too; here's a loose English translation of her ditty. It also happens to be Tu B'Shvat, kinda the Jewish Earth Day (or "Jewish Arbor Day" for those of you who remember Arbor Day), and it was kinda fun to listen to the rabbi bitch about how anti-environment our current administration is. And the kiddush had lots of Israeli-indigenous foods, as is customary - carobs (which I still haven't figured out how to chew on after all these years) and nuts and figs and olives and even a pomegranate (uncut so it wasn't like I could just swipe it). Love me them pomegranates. In fact, right now I'm finishing off a bottle of this from the fridge. Anyway, because Tu B'shvat is the New Year for the Trees in Israel and elsewhere, here's a nice link to the Tent of Nations' tree planting campaign.