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I'm launching my journal again for 5768/2008.

In this omer journal, I take a Jewish-mythic point-of-view which presumes that I, personally, together with all Jews past, present and future, left Egypt and stood at Mt. Sinai together. This perspective challenges each Jew to join the Jewish experience and not be limited by the actual historical time period in which one lives. This perspective places human imagination at the center of religious engagement.

Our leaving Egypt is only the beginning of our path to liberation. Free from the bonds of Pharaoh, we seek a better, more human life. We begin this journey by the shores of the Nile. We look back in awe at a sea now appearing normal after having miraculously parted. But what now?

What law will replace Pharoah's law? What kind of society will replace one founded on slavery?

Boaz Searches for Chametz

[You can listen to an audio version of this post.]

The night before the first Passover seder, or in this case two nights before the seder, because the Passover starts on a Saturday night), it is a traditional Jewish custom to search for chametz (Yiddish pronunciation—chometz.) Chametz is all the stuff you can't eat on Passover, bread being the most famous food in that category.

After clearing one's house of the offending foods in advance of Pesach, there is a formal chametz clearing ceremony in which one actually places chametz onto areas one has just cleaned. You then turn out the lights, and by the light of a candle, and with the help of a spoon and feather (some save the lulav palm frond from the Sukkot holiday), the young, or young at heart, sweep up the violating materials that have just been put out.

Lunar Eclipse in Process. 9:57 P.M. EST - 10:16 P.M. EST

Total Lunar Eclipse, from Outside the Henry School, West Mt. Airy PA. 10:14 P.M. EST

Sarah remembers
there is an eclipse tonight.
We all go outside.

Earth in front of Moon.
Sarah, Gabriel, Sophia.
Boaz is not with us.

Earth in front of moon.
My camera mediates.
Cold air stings my hands.

See Dave Bonta's wonderful pics and description of the eclipse.

I've uploaded the the set of photos to Flickr if you want to look at them in a slideshow or closer up.

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Occassionally I get gas near my kids' school after I drop them off. It's an old gas station that that has not been updated with the latest and greatest. It's one of the only places I know of that still has those vapor-recovery units (an anti-smog device that seemed to fail in its environmental efforts while succeeding in splashing gasoline on customers).

I just read a really fun blog post on See What's Out There called This is Michael Hoffman which was followed up recently with, I am Still Michael Hoffman. Unlike me, Michael Hoffman has quite a common name. Not only does he share his name with a movie producer, or two, but there is also an anti-semite in the mix whose web site used to show up first, and now shows up second on Google searches of "Michael Hoffman."

Golden Eagle in Plummer's Hollow: pic by Dave Bonta
Dave Bonta, blogger/poet/naturalist at Via Negativa and Plummer's Hollo, documents the capture of a young golden eagle. His land is right on the path of a regular golden migration route. Scientists were on call, ready for the capture in order to put a transmitter on one of the birds for purposes of study.

With awe, reverence, and excitement Dave masterfully documented the happenings in words and photos.

She spent four or five minutes trying to straighten her ruffled feathers and get used to the feeling of the harness against her skin and the strange new backpack. Finally, she launched herself into the air, circled low over our heads once, twice, then headed off to the south along the ridge. We were awed and humbled by the experience, and still have a bit of a hard time believing that our far-from-wild ridge twice a year becomes a highway for these archetypal denizens of the northern wilderness.

Happy 3rd night of Chanukkah.

Mt. Sinai by Shar's Photos, taken on September 20, 2007
[An additional paragraph was added on 10/3/07, just after the 6th paragraph.]

At the end of my last post I asked the question,

How can a community maintain reverence for Jewish traditions and Jewish law while seeming to dispute the authority that stands at the core of those laws and traditions?

Jewish tradition, it would seem, makes a claim, that the "Oral Law," which forms the basis of Jewish Law, was authored by God and received by Moses at Sinai. (See the entry for Oral Law in the Jewish Encyclopedia from 1906 for an explanation of the Oral Law in line with an Orthodox approach.)

The meaning of a claim for divine authorship of a sacred text depends upon the cultural context from which it emerges. That claim cannot be imported into another cultural context without first attempting to translate it. When the rabbis say "The Written and Oral Torahs were authored by God and delivered by Moses" it means something different in our cultural context than it did in theirs.

The claim that sacred texts were written by human beings, not God, is most commonly thought of as serving a secular agenda.

For me, acknowledging the human hand that touches sacred texts strengthens my religious tendencies and feelings.

When I imagine the Torah as written by God, I become angry at the Torah and at God. The God-character in the Torah is male, is angry, and vengeful. How limiting of what is supposed to be infinite. How flawed of what is supposed to be perfect. How particular of what is supposed to be universal.

Penguin Bloggers: I imagine each penguin in the photo being an author of one of my favorite blogs

When you blog, you make yourself vulnerable—almost begging for validation. That validation can come through comments from readers, page views, and ideally a combination of both.

I really enjoy commenting on blogs that I like. It feels satisfying to provide the validation that someone has implicitly asked for by writing a blog post.

Lately I've noticed that some of my comments are kind of on the long side. Validation, great, but am I being rude, taking up a whole couch in my host's living room?

I think what I'm supposed to do is make shorter comments and then take the leftover ideas I have and write a post on my own blog. That post would include a linked reference to the blog that inspired my post.

How come nobody ever taught me that in blogging school? Do I have to learn everything on my own? Is there a guide to blogging etiquette anywhere?

I don't think that I've made myself unwelcome at any of the blogs that I've been commenting on lately. I think more to the point is that I have a lot to say and I've been frustrated by my inability to write and post pics on my own blog.

But hey, it's a new year, no better time to start than now. And it's been three days since I've eaten any junk food. It's going to be a great year!

Making my point: "I've got something to say!"

[Images in this post are by me, from my trip to the Galapagos in late June of this year. See more Galapagos pics.]