A Chance to do a Mitzvah in the New Year

Welcome back to a brand new year in Chayyei Sarah (and Chayyei You). May we all be sealed for a good and sweet year full of blessings.

OK, folks, here's a chance to do a big mitzvah, if you are lucky enough to live in our holy city of Jerusalem. These two fabulous bloggers are coming to Israel (one of them is a "refujew" from Hurricane Katrina, a Tulane student who is now going to Hebrew U). They are arriving tomorrow and neither of them has a place to stay yet! They need places to crash until they get an apartment! So, if you have a guest room or just a couch to loan out, now's your chance to earn brownie points before the Day of Judgement. Click on the link and offer them a roof and a smile!

My Rosh Hashanah was extremely meaningful and extremely filling. Somehow in between all the challah, honey, meat, kugels, chicken soup, rice, chocolate cake, pecan pies, pomegranets, and fish heads, I managed to actually think about God and repentance and growing and all that good stuff. I attended services with Shir Hadash, where once again the heat was enough to make one faint (though no one did) (there was, according to rumor, an air conditioner on, but I for one did not feel anything but sweltering heat) but the ba'al tefillah did a nice job. This year the ba'al tefillah for mussaf was Ahron Razel, who apparently is a big name in Jewish music -- I'd never heard of him -- but the key is that, especially on the second day (which was better than the first day) he kept everything moving while still sounding sincere, humble, and on-key. Kudos.

The other key is that there was a kiddush before shofar-blowing on both days, and we finished before 1:30. Thank God.

If they could just get the air conditioner to have an impact, it would be a really fantastic davening. Without a better a/c situation, though, I give it only a B+. I hate to say that when the Rabbi was nice enough to invite me for a meal on the last day, but hey, heat is heat.

In other news, I have absolutely no Shabbat plans. Hint, hint.

And finally, please keep an as-yet-unnamed baby, Tinok ben Efrat, in your prayers. He was born a few days ago here in Israel and, though he acts perfectly normal, seems to have some sort of abnormal pressure going on in his brain. They do not yet know whether it is serious or "nothing." Let's pray that it turns out to be the latter. I will try to keep you updated, if I get any updates.