Conversation – 16

Hanukkah – The Jewish Festival of Lights

It is customary to place the lit Hanukkah Menorah next to a window so that the light can be seen by passers by.

The Jewish Festival of Hanukkah (Heb: חנוכה) begins on the eve of the 25th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev and is celebrated for 8 days. Hanukkah is known as the Festival of Lights, a Jewish holiday that commemorates the Israelites (the Maccabees) victory over the oppressive Syrian-Greek rule by the king, Antiochus and the re-dedication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

The Temple needed to be cleansed, a new altar needed to be built in place of the polluted one and new holy vessels to be made. When the Israelites went to light the Temple’s menorah (candelabra), they found only a single measure of olive oil that would burn for only one day. Miraculously, that one-day’s supply burned for eight days – enough time for new oil to be prepared so that it was suitable for this ritual.

The Dreidel game

At the heart of the festival is the lighting of an 8 branched menorah or Hanukkiah every night: a single flame on the first night, two on the second evening, and so on till the eighth night of Hanukkah, when all eight lights are kindled. A 9th branch and candle, called a shamash is also lit each night and its purpose is to light the other candles. It is given a distinct location on the menorah, usually above or below the others.

Hanukkah customs include eating fried foods; latkes (potato pancakes) and sufganiot (jam filled doughnuts); playing with a dreidel (a spinning top on which are inscribed the Hebrew letters nun, gimmel, hei and shin, an acronym for Nes Gadol Hayah Sham, “a great miracle happened there”); and the giving of money gifts to children or Hanukkah gelt.

We learn some timeless lessons from the story of Hanukkah: light triumphs over darkness, purity over desecration and freedom over oppression.

Yep it sure is 2018 I don’t want to think about this year. 😘😎

Last Christmas – Wham

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart
But the very next day you gave it away
This year, to save me from tears
I’ll give it to someone special
Last Christmas, I gave you my heart
But the very next day you gave it away
This year, to save me from tears
I’ll give it to someone special
Once bitten and twice shy
I keep my distance
But you still catch my eye
Tell me, baby
Do you recognize me?
Well, it’s been a year
It doesn’t surprise me
(Merry Christmas!) I wrapped it up and sent it
With a note saying, “I love you, ” I meant it
Now, I know what a fool I’ve been
But if you kissed me now
I know you’d fool me again
Last Christmas, I gave you my heart
But the very next day you gave it away
This year, to save me from tears
I’ll give it to someone special
Last Christmas, I gave you my heart
But the very next day you gave it away
This year, to save me from tears
I’ll give it to someone special
A crowded room, friends with tired eyes
I’m hiding from you, and your soul of ice
My god, I thought you were someone to rely on
Me? I guess I was a shoulder to cry on
A face on a lover with a fire in his heart
A man under cover but you tore me apart
Now, I’ve found a real love you’ll never fool me again
Last Christmas, I gave you my heart
But the very next day you gave it away
This year, to save me from tears
I’ll give it to someone special
Last Christmas, I gave you my heart
But the very next day you gave it away
This year, to save me from tears
I’ll give it to someone special
A face on a lover with a fire in his heart
A man under cover but you tore him apart
Maybe next year I’ll give it to someone
I’ll give it to someone special

hi

Happy Holidays to all in the Community.

Club Sheba Holiday Edition 😘

@sheba2011

We had a nice, quiet Thanksgiving. My turkey came out real good along with the stuffing that at the last minute decided to make on top of the stove. I had picked up a shoo fly pie from the market so didn’t have to make a dessert. Good thing. There is a weather change coming and I sure felt it yesterday and today. Cannot begin to tell you the pain I felt. Hubby also had problems. Suffice to say, I am much better this evening. Weather either changed or is about to.

To answer your question from yesterday. I’ve been a night person from the time I was born. My mother had to change her sleeping habits because of me. I surmise there were many mornings that my dad went to work without sleep. In college, like most students, I pulled all nighters. I will never forget helping my dormmates prepare for an anatomy exam as they were preparing to become audiologists. Their exam was made quite difficult because the professor would try to out smart them. Not a good thing. Each facial muscle and neck muscle attached to different nerves, muscles and tissues. They had to navigate through a maze and come up with the correct answer. Not an easy feat. Many did not pass this course and had to repeat it.
I surmise I could have passed that course with the amount of time I had put into the memorization. Today, if I fall asleep during the day, then I’m up most of the night. My hubby is complete opposite. He can sleep all day and then sleep through the night.

Tonight is trivia. See you soon.

Choose Love

Make all decisions from pure love and the world will change.

Love is often presented as the opposite of fear, but true love is not opposite anything. True love is far more powerful than any negative emotions, as it is the environment in which all things arise. Negative emotions are like sharks swimming in the ocean of love. All things beautiful and fearful, ugly and kind, powerful and small, come into existence, do their thing, and disappear within the context of this great ocean. At the same time, they are made of the very love in which they swim and can never be separated. We are made of this love and live our whole lives at one with it, whether we know it or not.

It is only the illusion that we are separate from this great love that causes us to believe that choosing anything other than love makes sense or is even possible. In the relative, dualistic world of positive and negative, darkness and light, male and female, we make choices and we learn from them. This is exactly what we are meant to be doing here on earth. Underlying these relative choices, though, is the choice to be conscious of what we are, which is love, or to be unconscious of it. When we choose to be conscious of it, we choose love. We will still exist in the relative world of opposites and choices and cause and effect, and we will need to make our way here, but doing so with an awareness that we are all made of this love will enable us to be more playful, more joyful, more loving and wise, as we make our way. Ultimately, the choices we make will shed light on the love that makes us all one, enabling those who have forgotten to return to the source. Happy Holiday’s! 😎

This world makes it easy to forget this great love, which is part of why we are here. We are here to remember and, when we forget to remember again, to choose love.