Fine Arts Friday: Parshat VaEra Edition

Israelis were divided into two groups today: those who were privileged to have snow in their own backyards and those who were forced to brave the icy roads in order to get their winter wonderland fix.

Although security considerations (ah, the travails of semi-anonymous blogging… ;-)) prevent me from telling you if we belong to the first or the second group, the halachot of snow day blogging apparently require me to share a picture of the Shiputzim kids’ snowy masterpiece:

And speaking of the Shiputzim kids and their handiwork…

About a month or two ago, ACSK (=a certain Shiputzim kid) had to do a project for school about one of the Ten Plagues and chose Makat Dam (the Plague of Blood).

Seeing as we will IY”H be reading Parshat VaEra this coming Shabbat, I figured that it would be appropriate to post the final result:

As always, feel free to click on the picture for a much better view.

In addition, here are a few close-ups of some of the details:

An Egyptian is upset, because his cup of water has turned to blood.

The well on the Goshen side has clear, sweet water.

An Egyptian has to buy water from a Jewish man.

A bathtub on the Egyptian side is filled with blood.

Special thanks to ACSK’s older siblings for all their help.

!שבת שלום ומבורך

Rains of blessing

As the amazing storm of the century continues unabated and the Kinneret’s water level continues to rise, our Rav has instructed that one recite the thanksgiving blessing for rain.

He added that both men and women should recite the blessing, which can be recited either in public (i.e. as part of a congregation in shul) or in private.

Here is the Hebrew text followed by an English translation*:

ברכת הודאה על הגשמים

מוֹדִים אֲנַחְנוּ לָךְ ה' אֱלֹקינוּ וֵאלֹקי אֲבוֹתֵינוּ עַל כּל טִפָּה וטִפָּה שֶׁהוֹרַדְתָּ לָּנוּ.

ואִלּוּ פִינוּ מָלֵא שִׁירָה כַּיָּם, וּלְשׁוֹנֵנוּ רִנָּה כַּהֲמוֹן גַּלָּיו, ושִׂפְתוֹתֵינוּ שֶׁבַח כּמֶרְחֲבֵי רָקִיעַ, ועֵינֵינוּ מאִירוֹת כַּשֶּׁמֶשׁ וכַיָּרֵחַ, ויָדֵינוּ פרוּשׂוֹת כּנִשְׁרֵי שָׁמָיִם, ורַגְלֵינוּ קַלּוֹת כָּאַיָּלוֹת, אֵין אֲנַחְנוּ מַסְפִּיקִים להוֹדוֹת לךָ, ה' אֱלֹקינוּ וֵאלֹקי אֲבוֹתֵינוּ, וּלְבָרֵךְ אֶת שִׁמְךָ עַל אַחַת מֵאֶלֶף אַלְפֵי אֲלָפִים, ורֹב רִבֵּי רבָבוֹת פּעָמִים הַטּוֹבוֹת, נִסִּים ונִפְלָאוֹת שֶׁעָשִׂיתָ עִמָּנוּ ועִם אֲבוֹתֵינוּ.

מִלּפָנִים מִמִּצְרַיִם גּאַלְתָּנוּ ה' אֱלֹקינוּ, מִבֵּית עֲבָדִים פּדִיתָנוּ. בּרָעָב זַנְתָּנוּ וּבְשָׂבָע כִּלְכַּלְתָּנוּ. מֵחֶרֶב הִצַּלְתָּנוּ, מִדֶּבֶר מִלַּטְתָּנוּ, וּמֵחְלָיִם רָעִים ורַבִּים דִּלִּיתָנוּ.

עַד הֵנָּה עֲזָרוּנוּ רַחֲמֶיךָ ולֹא עֲזָבוּנוּ חֲסָדֶיךָ.

עַל כֵּן אֵבָרִים שֶׁפִּלַּגְתָּ בָּנוּ, ורוּחַ וּנְשָׁמָה שֶׁנָּפַחְתָּ בּאַפֵּנוּ, ולָשׁוֹן אֲשֶׁר שַׂמְתָּ בּפִינוּ, הֵן הֵם יוֹדוּ וִיבָרְכוּ וִישַׁבּחוּ וִיפָאֲרוּ אֶת שִׁמְךָ מַלְכֵּנוּ תָּמִיד. בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' אֵ-ל רֹב הַהוֹדָאוֹת.

The Thanksgiving Blessing for Rain

We gives thanks to You, Hashem, our God and the God of our fathers, for each and every drop which You sent down for us.

And were our mouths as full of song as the sea, and our tongues as full of joy as the multitude of its waves, and our lips as full of praise as the expanse of the heavens, and our eyes as radiant as the sun and the moon, and our arms as outspread as the eagles of the sky, and our legs as swift as hinds, we still could not thank You enough, Hashem, our God and the God of our fathers, or bless Your Name for even one of the thousands of thousands and the myriads of myriad favors, miracles, and wonders which You performed for us and for our fathers.

From Egypt, You redeemed us, Hashem, our God; from the house of slaves, You liberated us. In famine, You nourished us, and in plenty, You sustained us. From the sword, You saved us; from the plague, You rescued us; and from malignant and numerous diseases, You spared us.

Until this point, Your mercies have helped us, and Your kindnesses have not forsaken us.

Therefore, the organs which You fixed in us, and the spirit and the soul which You blew into our nostrils, and the tongue which You placed in our mouth – they will thank and bless and praise and exalt Your Name, our King, forever. Blessed are You, Hashem, God of bountiful thanksgivings.

_______

* The Hebrew-to-English translator who provided the above translation has asked me to announce that she’s available for translation work. For more information, please contact me at OurShiputzim at gmail dot com, and I’ll gladly forward all serious inquiries to her.

Prophetic blogging

So, here’s the question: Do you believe that anyone live-blogged the Exodus from Egypt?

On one hand, the historical evidence suggests that no one did. After all, the Biblical era forerunner of modern blog editing software wasn’t really worth the papyrus it was written on, and even today, few – if any - spellcheckers can handle hieroglyphics.

But on the other hand, it was the Exodus!

We’re talking the Burning Bush! The Ten Plagues! The Splitting of the Sea!

Is it really possible that not ONE person who witnessed those earth-shattering events thought to him- or herself, “Wow! This would make an AWESOME post! My readers would LOVE to hear all about it! I am SO blogging this!”

Well, as it turns out (and as YZG pointed out after shul this past Shabbat Parshat Shmot), Sephardim and Ashkenazim obviously disagree on this topic.

The former apparently feel that blogging played no part in the Exodus, but the latter clearly hold otherwise.

I say this, because while Sephardic practice is to read the haftarah of Parshat Shmot from Sefer Yirmiyahu (Chapters 1-2), Ashkenazim traditionally read from Sefer Yeshayahu (Chapters 27-29).

And if one takes a quick look at Yeshaya 28:11 – i.e. right in the middle of the haftarah - one sees the following:

“כִּי בְּלַעֲגֵי שָׂפָה וּבְלָשׁוֹן אַחֶרֶת יְדַבֵּר אֶל הָעָם הַזֶּה.”

Admittedly, certain literal-minded translators may claim that this verse means:

”For with distorted speech and in another tongue, he will speak to this nation.”

But we here at Our Shiputzim believe that a much better translation is:

”For [on] blogs of (‘bloggei’) language and in another tongue, he will speak to this nation.”

Your thoughts?

Freshly Baked Goods Friday: Apple Cinnamon Cupcakes Edition

Deliberately – and recklessly - altering a recipe beyond recognition to the point that it requires a new name is a fairly common occurrence around these parts.

For instance, longtime readers may recall that the same thing happened with our no-name bars and our kosher for Pesach choco-nut bars.

This time, however, the baker in question had every intention of sticking to the original name.

After all, in a perfect world, there would be no reason to make any changes whatsoever to something called “baked apple cider donuts”.

But, alas, the baker was stymied by the insurmountable limitations of the kitchen here in TRLEOOB*.

Lacking a donut pan, apple cider, or even allspice (all of which, I’m told, are key elements in the baked apple cider donut production process), she was forced to admit that a rebranding would once again be in order.

Yet, fortunately, this story has a happy ending.

Because thanks to the baker’s celebrated resourcefulness, a different but equally delicious dessert was the final result:

Apple Cinnamon Cupcakes

Loosely adapted from here.

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ½ cup apple juice
• ¼ cup canola oil
• ½ cup apple sauce
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Glaze

• 2 TBSP apple juice
• 1¼ cups powdered sugar

Topping

• ¼ sugar
• 1 TBSP cinnamon

Directions

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Add apple juice, oil, applesauce, eggs, and vanilla extract, and beat well until smooth and creamy.

Place paper cupcake liners into cupcake pan. Pour the batter into the cups, and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until done. Let cool slightly.

While baking, prepare the glaze and the topping.

Dip each cupcake into the glaze and then into the topping.

Yield: 16 cupcakes

!בתאבון

__________________

*TRLEOOB=the real life equivalent of our blog

An incredible Kiddush Hashem

Warning: The following post may exceed the recommended daily allowance for maternal boasting. Proceed at your own risk.

Due to various and sundry real life endeavors, I wasn’t able to write the traditional fast day food post on Sunday. Hopefully, however, THIS post will more than make up for my blogging lapse, because I think you’ll agree that it’s highly appropriate for the week of Assarah B’Tevet.

About a month after the CTO began his military service, he was traveling home from his base and found himself sitting next to another soldier from his unit.

They started talking, and during the course of their conversation, the soldier shared a wonderful story with the CTO.

As it so happens, this particular solider comes from a non-observant home and considers himself to be completely secular. (Although the unit in question was a hesder unit, there were a few secular soldiers there as well.)

Furthermore, in what can be taken as an unfortunate commentary on Israeli society, the soldier had apparently had very little direct contact with Orthodox Jews of any stripe.

Indeed, his impressions of his religious countrymen were largely gleamed from the media and basically consisted of stereotyped images of rock-throwing fanatics.

Thus, on the first day of basic training (i.e. tironut, for the Hebraically-oriented amongst you), when he noticed that most of the other new recruits were not only religious but yeshiva guys (i.e. beinesh”im, for the Hebraically-oriented amongst you) to boot, he got very nervous.

Panicked, he approached the commanders and requested that they transfer him to a unit with, in his words, “fewer kippot.”

But the commanders brushed him off with a dismissive “we’ll see what we can do,” and the soldier saw that he had no choice but to deal with his predicament.

So, he settled into army life and waited for the anticipated missionizing and religious coercion to begin.

Except that nothing happened.

In fact, as he admitted to the CTO during their ride home a month after their induction, he realized that he had been very wrong about the CTO and his fellow Torah scholars/soldiers.

They never tried to shove their beliefs down his throat.
They never looked down at him.
They never acted as if they thought they were better than him.
And at no point did they try to force him to do anything.

Instead, he said, the hesdernikim proved to be a group of nice, friendly, and nonjudgmental guys.

When the CTO got home and told us this beautiful story, YZG and I were amazed and, BA”H, incredibly proud.

Sadly, different sectors of Israel’s population don’t always have a chance to meet, and as a result, we are often left with false impressions.

Therefore, IMHO, the CTO and his friends caused an incredible Kiddush Hashem (a sanctification of Hashem’s Name), because thanks to them, the soldier now equates being a ben Torah with being a mensch.

“’ואהבת את ה' אלהיך.’ - שיהא שם שמים מתאהב על ידך… מה הבריות אומרות עליו? אשרי אביו שלמדו תורה, אשרי רבו שלמדו תורה. אוי להם לבריות שלא למדו תורה. פלוני שלמדו תורה ראו כמה נאים דרכיו, כמה מתוקנים מעשיו. עליו הכתוב אומר: ‘ויאמר לי עבדי אתה ישראל אשר בך אתפאר.’”
(יומא פ”ו.)

“‘And you shall love Hashem, your God.’ (Devarim 6:5) - [You must ensure] that the Name of Heaven shall become beloved through you… What do people say about him? Fortunate is his father who taught him Torah; fortunate is his teacher who taught him Torah. Woe onto those people who did not learn Torah. Ploni – who learned Torah – see how pleasant are his ways; how refined are his deeds. Regarding him it says, ‘And He said to me, you are My servant, Yisrael, in whom I take glory.’ (Yeshaya 49:3)”
(BT Yoma 86a)

May we all be privileged to reach out with love to our Jewish brothers and sisters and to bring achdut (unity) to Am Yisrael.

Nov

Warning: The following post may exceed the recommended daily allowance for other people’s vacation pictures/videos. Proceed at your own risk.

Longtime readers know that unlike most Israelis, who tend to visit Eilat during Chanukah vacation, the extended Shiputzim family prefers to head in the opposite direction and spends Shabbat Chanukah up North.

This year, our specific destination was Nov, a religious agricultural moshav, located right next door to Avnei Eitan in the southern Golan Heights, and B”H, we had a wonderful time.

Which was nice for us, of course, but unfortunately, not so nice for you.

Because after all, it wouldn’t be the week after Chanukah here on Our Shiputzim without me forcing you to sit through, er, sharing our vacation pictures.

And so, without further ado, here are the threatened promised photos:

As always, please feel free to click on the pictures for a much better view.

Exterior of our tzimmer

The kitchen/eating area

The bedroom

The sleeping loft

A view of the indoor swimming pool

A flock of sheep

And as if all those pictures weren’t fascinating enough, and on the off chance that I haven’t yet managed to bore you all to tears, here’s a short video from our drive up to Nov on Friday. If you listen carefully, you can even hear the day’s weather report:

Have you ever been to Nov?

________________

P.S. Speaking of Shabbat Chanukah, don’t miss my tribute to my Zaidy z”l. (It’s especially noteworthy, because it’s the first time I ever posted a picture of myself here on the blog…)

P.S.S. The latest Kosher Cooking Carnival is available here. Special thanks to Batya for including my “ceasefire pie” (aka chocolate mousse pie) post.

Euphonic Friday: Chanukah 5773 Edition

Here’s the Maccabeats’ newest Chanukah video:

!שבת שלום וחנוכה שמח

Ceasefire Pie

Look, I get it. I really do.

Matters of state are extremely complex, and every policy/military decision depends on countless factors.

But would it really have been too much to ask for the government to at least acknowledge that the recent ceasefire would impact the dessert situation here in TRLEOOB (=the real life equivalent of our blog)??

I mean, surely our prime minister, who’s justifiably known as a brilliant strategist, should’ve foreseen that the affair would play out as it did?

After all, once the IDF launched Operation Pillar of Defense and a certain hesdernik was called up to serve along the Gaza border, it was inevitable that we would send along a batch of chocolate swirl blondies.

And given the fact that there was a war going on, it should’ve been obvious to this country’s leaders that the aforementioned hesdernik would be too busy doing whatever it is that one does during a war to have time to eat - or even to share - most of the aforementioned blondies.

And therefore, once the war came to an abrupt halt and the hesdernik in question returned home on erev Shabbat, it was only to be expected that we would suddenly find ourselves in possession of a mostly-full container of stale blondies.

But (and here’s the surprising part…) although this chain of events should have been highly predictable, not. a. single. person from Israel’s military and political echelons contacted us to advise us about the disposal of the contents of said container!

Shocking, isn’t it?!

Fortunately, however, a certain bat sherut happened to be home at the time, and BA”H, she too has earned quite the well-deserved reputation for brilliance. </gratuitous maternal boasting>

And sure enough, she came up with an ideal - albeit not particularly healthy - solution:

Chocolate Mousse Pie (aka “Ceasefire Pie”)

The chocolate mousse recipe comes from my friend E.

Ingredients

• Cookie crumbs
• 1 container parve whipping cream – whipped up
• 2½ TBSP sugar
• 300 grams chocolate chips
• ¼ cup boiling hot water
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

Press cookie crumbs on bottom and sides of an oiled pie pan. Set aside.

Melt sugar and chocolate chips in the microwave. Add hot water and vanilla and mix well. Carefully fold  the chocolate mixture into the whipped topping.

Gently pour the mousse into the pie crust. Refrigerate for a few hours or even overnight before serving.

!בתאבון