Muse

How is Yom Kippur like Purim?

A midrash* compares and contrasts Yom Kippur and Purim by noting that the most solemn Fast Day on the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, is similar to Purim: the day of feasting, laughter and sending packages of goodies to  friends and to the poor. This comparison/contrast takes place via one  letter: the Hebrew letter "kaf", which in this case, is used in the name of the Fast Day: "k"  setting up a comparison of  "almost" opposites.

* Midrash: a Rabbinic legend used to explain a text

Did you know that the Hebrew word for the morning service comes from the word for "dawn"?

Here's a poem I wrote as a Shacharit prayer...

Shacharit on a Massachusetts Mountain 

Morning mist makes its presence known

Crickets pause their exuberant song

Tendrils of heavenly rays penetrate the lower spheres

This Godly manifestation we call home.

I, an interloper, observe 

Light Primordial

~Yael Fischman, August 2025 , Lee, Massachusetts

To see more of this or more of my writings or wire work, please click here

Teshuvah/Returning 

c. Yael Fischman, 2024

But I don't want

to return

to repeat the pattern

the circular staircase

ruin and recrimination.

I want- oh how I want-

to start again, (See more at https://www.renaissancewomankippot.org)

Legends concerning Miriam often involve a magical well which sprang up and followed her wherever she went. Some  stories even say that she was a water witch, gifted with locating actual water where there was none: a very useful skill in the desert, yes?

She was also the one who had the vision to have the women pack their timbrels in order to celebrate their redemption at the shores of the Red/Reed Sea.

If Miriam impresses you also, please take a look at this headdress style kippah created in her honor!

www.renaissancewomankippot.org

Who can forget the iconic Sabbath Blessing duet from the movie "Fiddler on the Roof"? The parents in each household in the shtetl, the Jewish village, make, in essence, (although in English) the same blessing over their children as their ancestors made, and as we say today,

" May God make you like Ephraim and Menashe", for boys, and

"May God make you like Sarah, Rivka, Rachel and Leah" (Some put Leah first, as she became Jacob's wife before her younger sister, who was promised to him, did, but that's another story), for girls.

Like many of you, I never thought to question or examine this more deeply,

June is a popular time for weddings, for many reasons. Marrying in the Jewish month of Elul (coming soon) is also considered lucky...