Pro­duc­ing con­tent on the Web since 1995.


some say­ings of ר‘משבצונה“ל

For many years I have worked hard, and strug­gled with mas­ter­ing virtuous. Now, in addi­tion, I’m work­ing on becom­ing more virtual.
This is an expres­sion of that effort.
* * * * * * *

השיבנו ה‘ אליך ונשובה חדש ימינו
כעוד לא היו
* * * * * * *
ומביא גאלה…
לצאצאיהם

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All pho­tographs are by Mark Hurvitz unless they are obvi­ously not.

The pho­tos in the ban­ner at the top (only a shal­low sliver of a much larger photo) are either from our home or our trav­els and are offered for their beauty alone (though a brain-teaser for me: “Where was that?”).

st. paintings

At least three col­ors of painted mes­sages on the pave­ment. By the time there are three col­ors that fit within the photo, none can have any “mean­ing” what remains is the pattern.

3 pavements

Three pave­ments poured next to each other (con­tigu­ous), but not at a prop­erty line.

jewish environmentalism and tu b'sh'vat

a thought regard­ing the his­tory of Jew­ish environmentalism

In Jan­u­ary of 1970 I needed to make (what for me then was) a sig­nif­i­cant per­sonal deci­sion. I was born on Jan­u­ary 22 on the Gre­go­rian cal­en­dar. How­ever, the year I was born, that date cor­re­sponded with Rosh Jodesh Sh’vat. I noticed then, that in 1970 Jan­u­ary 22 would coin­cide with Tu b’Sh’vat. […]

#blogelul : counting

the num­bers’ game
[Note: not all of the but­tons used to illus­trated this game rep­re­sent the con­cept expressed in the num­bers; some are used because they dis­play that number.]

The chil­dren played by the shore, allow­ing the ball to bounce lightly on their fin­ger tips before they popped it over to the other side of the line. Now […]

#blogelul : inventory

keep­ing track of…

We each need and want to keep track of dif­fer­ent things. We all need to track our behav­ior. Some of us like to know what music we’ve lis­tened to, what con­certs we’ve heard. Oth­ers pay close atten­tion to the books we’ve read. There are many peo­ple who col­lect var­i­ous kinds of items. For these […]

#blogexodus : future (tweet #torah at sinai)

aim­ing toward the future

How do I long for Your pres­ence? Let me count the days:

הִנְנִי מוּכָן וּמְזוֻמָּן לְקַיֵּם מִצְוַת עֲשֵׂה שֶׁל סְפִירַת הָעֹמֶר.

Hin’ni muchan um’zuman l’kayem mitz­vat aseh shal s’firat ha’Omer.

I am ready to move from free­dom to respon­si­bil­ity, as I count the Omer days.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵנוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ עַל סְפִירַת הָעֹמֶר.

Baruch […]

#blogexodus : questions

the four questions

Our peo­ple has lived all over this earth. Wher­ever we go, we ask ques­tions. These are some of our most famous ques­tions, expressed in a grow­ing vari­ety of languages.

The youngest able recites:

Hebrew

מַה נִּשְׁתַּנָּה הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה מִכָּל–הַלֵּילוֹת
שֶׁבְּכָל–הַלֵּילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִין חָמֵץ וּמַצָּה; הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה כֻּלּוֹ מַצָּה
שֶׁבְּכָל–הַלֵּילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִין שְׁאָר יְרָקוֹת; הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה כֻּלּוֹ מָרוֹר
שֶׁבְּכָל–הַלֵּילוֹת אֵין […]

#blogexodus : numbers

the num­bers’ game

The chil­dren played by the shore, allow­ing the ball to bounce lightly on their fin­ger tips before they popped it over to the other side of the line. Now and then one of them dove into the sand try­ing to keep the ball from bounc­ing on the ground. Judy took […]

#blogexodus : spring (karpas)

כרפס | karpas | eat the green vegetables

Dip sprigs of pars­ley in salt water and dis­trib­ute them to all present at the Seder table while read­ing the fol­low­ing para­graphs and singing the following songs.

My heart over­flows with joy! I finally see more day­light than dark­ness and a full moon glows tonight. Cel­e­brate with me the flow­er­ing of the […]

#blogexodus : spring (springtime holidays)

prepa­ra­tions for pesach

Prepa­ra­tions for Pesach could begin as early as Tu b’Shvat. Some peo­ple have prac­ticed grow­ing their own pars­ley for their seders begin­ning by plant­ing seeds at the “birth­day of the trees.” The tim­ing is about right, but pars­ley can be a bit fussy to start from seed. There may be other plants that you […]

#blogexodus : plagues (a word search puzzle)

make room in your haggadah/seder for the younger people:

p.p1 {mar­gin: 0.0px 0.0px 2.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px ‘Book­man Old Style’; min-height: 14.0px}
p.p2 {mar­gin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px ‘Book­man Old Style’; min-height: 14.0px}
p.p3 {mar­gin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: cen­ter; font: 19.0px Optima}
[…]

#blogexodus : (the cup of) redemption

the sec­ond cup — the cup of redemption — כוס גאולה

Think of each cup of wine as a toast to the gen­er­a­tions of our peo­ple who com­mit­ted them­selves to the strug­gle for lib­er­a­tion in their own day.

With the sec­ond cup of wine we recall the sec­ond promise, the sec­ond stage, of our redemp­tion, the actual res­cue from […]