#Living a Jewish Life: Jewish Traditions Customs and Values for Today's Families

[rosen-dovecote]

Today, Challah generally refers to a braided egg rich loaf with a soft, almost cakelike texture. According to [Jewish] tradition, [however] Challah is any bread prepared for the purpose of making [the blessing called] Motzi- a process that requires breaking off and burning a small piece of dough and reciting a blessing [specifically for that purpose].

From Living a Jewish Life: Jewish Traditions, Customs, and Values for Today's Families (Revised and Updated), published 2023; Anita Diamant (My Ko-Fi Here)

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Goals for Kislev 5784:

Continue using notes for a local-ish conversion class to inform reading choices, and add in two more recommended books to read in chunks and/or re-read along the way:

-- "Living a Jewish Life: Jewish Traditions, Customs and Values for Today's Families" by Anita Diamant & Howard Cooper.

-- "The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays" by Irving Greenberg.

[unofficialchronicle]

On Ethical Wills

"The concept of ethical wills is not a new one. In fact this concept is said to date back almost three thousand years to the Old Testament book of Genesis in the Bible. In Genesis chapter Forty-nine when the Patriarch Jacob was dying, he brought his twelve sons together and on his death bed he told them stories, predicted their futures and imparted to each one of them the lessons he had learned during his lifetime. In the Jewish religion, ethical wills were an oral tradition; written ethical wills are said to date back to the Twelfth Century when it was a custom to give written directions for the religious and secular guidance of their children.

Today, ethical wills are experiencing a renaissance. Ethical wills are being written by people as a cherished and unique gift a person can leave to his or her family and community. They are written by people at turning points in their lives, when they are facing challenging life situations and at transitional stages of life. They are authored by people of all religious faiths as well individuals with no particular religious belief but who wish to pass on values to their loved ones."

✸

"Ethical wills are not legal documents. Rather, an ethical will is a letter written from your heart, sharing your most intimate life forming thoughts, experiences and values. These letters are a way of sharing values and beliefs, the most important lessons you have learned in your life, your hopes for the future, your most cherished memories, your love, your forgiveness and perhaps, your life’s purpose."

✸

Ethical wills are "an opportunity to establish a model for your family."

Link: https://legacycircle.cartercenter.org/documents/c/carter-center/downloads/ethical-wills-article.pdf

[babbushka]

Hey Mrs. Z! I apologise if you have already answered this before, but I'm thinking of converting and becoming Jewish, and I'm not really sure where to start, do you have any direction to put me in to start learning more? Like websites or books etc. Thank you so much :)

Oh hello there my dear anon!! First may I say I think it is so wonderful that you would like to convert, and I welcome you wholeheartedly to the tribe! :) 

Here are a online couple resources that will be able to point you in a better direction -- but my first recommendation is to always go find a synagogue and speak with the rabbi! They will be able to help you far better than me, and it’ll be a wonderful way to introduce yourself to the people you may be joining :)

My Jewish Learning: “My Jewish Learning is all about empowering Jewish discovery for anyone interested in learning more. We offer thousands of articles, videos and other resources to help you navigate all aspects of Judaism and Jewish life — from food to history to beliefs and practices.”

Hey Alma:  “When Alma launched in 2017, we called ourselves a publication for “ladies with chutzpah,” one that would cover everything from Jewish pop culture to what’s happening in the news to personal pieces about identity, feminism, and more. We still do all that, though these days we think of ourselves as a publication for anyone — regardless of gender — who cares about Jewish identity and culture and how they fit into everyday life. Still with lots of chutzpah.”

My Jewish Learning even has a special email mailing list for people thinking about converting! I’ve linked it here so if you click it should bring you right to that page! They’ll send you all sorts of wonderful information :)

Some books which I recommend (these have been recommended to me from other Jewish people, but I have yet to have time and read them myself so please accept my apologies if there’s content in there that might for whatever reason not be the most inclusive!!) 

Essential Judaism: A Complete Guide to Beliefs, Customs and Rituals by George Robinson

Living Judaism: The Complete Guide to Jewish Belief, Tradition and Practice (there’s a 2010 edition!) by Wayne Dosick

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Judaism by Benjamin Blech

Living a Jewish Life: Jewish Traditions, Customs and Values for Today’s Families by Anita Diamant

Becoming a Jew by Maurice Lamm (Convert specific)

To Be A Jew by Hayim Halevy Donin (Convert specific)

Choosing a Jewish Life: A Handbook for People Converting to Judaism and for Their Family and Friends by Anita Diamant (Convert specific)

I hope any of these resources help in some way! :)

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

I promised a Reform Judaism booklist so here it is.

So when my partner first started attending shabbot with me, it was with the understanding that they don't believe in any god, let alone mine, and they weren't especially a fan of organized religion, so while they were willing to come in order to support me and make connections with whatever community we ended up choosing that we would be raising our kids in, they weren't planning on being especially involved.

Two years later (going on 3 now) my partner has helped organize and work every Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and has started talking with the rabbi about conversion. This was in part because we were lucky enough to find a community that was welcome, open, and kind, and that included a number of Jewish people of color including a few other black Jews. My partner felt at home in our synagogue, but the question was how they would relate, as a QPOC with a complicated relationship to religion, to Judaism beyond our temple walls.

So I decided to put together a booklist through a combination of Reform reading lists, recommendations from local (and distant) rabbis, and my own judgement. Here are the choices I made.

Jewish Living: A Guide to Contemporary Reform Judaism by Mark Washofsky (featured on almost every recommended reading list as a solid introduction to reform judaism)

The New Jewish Baby Book: A Guide for Today's Families by Anita Diamant (to give some context for Jewish landmark rituals and practices throughout a lifetime and learn more about raising Jewish children)

Living a Jewish Life: Jewish Traditions, Customs, and Values for Today's Families by Anita Diamant and Howard Cooper (for broad knowledge of day to day and year round practices and traditions of jewish families)

How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household by Blu Greenberg (for the contrast of what more traditional forms of Judaism look like in order to provide more context for what Reform Judaism has done differently)

The New Jewish Wedding by Anita Diamant (you'll notice she's a repeat author, that's because she's one of the major names in Feminist Jewish thought. Her books are often very relevant to how reform and reconstructionist communities have approached modernization)

Lovesong: Becoming a Jew by Julius Lester (a book about conversion specifically as a black person becoming a jew by a major name in black and Jewish literature)

Choosing a Jewish Life: A Handbook for People Converting to Judaism and for their Family and Friends by Anita Diamant (a book more broadly meant to serve as an introductory reading for those considering conversion or for those who wish to support someone who is)

How to Be a Jewish Parent: A Practical Handbook for Family Life by Anita Diamant and Karen Kushner

Fast and Festive Meals for the Jewish Holidays: Complete Menus, Rituals, and Party Pla ning Ideas for Every Holiday of the Year (a massive amount of Jewish tradition and ritual involves - or even revolves around - food, and don't underestimate the value of Jewish cookbooks in perpetuating our culture and history)

Queer Jews by David Shneer and Caryn Aviv (queer perspective on Jewish culture and history, as well as input and experiences from a variety of Queer Jewish lenses)

The Tribe of Dina: a Jewish Women's Anthology (a fairly significant bit of feminist jewish literature that includes a variety of perspectives on women and Judaism)

Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi (for the same reason as the last cookbook, this one is valuablr, however it's less about ritual and holy days and more about history and the cultural mecca of Jerusalem. It doesn't just talk about Jewish history, and goes out of it's way to cover both Israeli Jewish and Palestinian gentile foods and context, as well as a number of other cultural groups and influences. There's an entire section called The Hummus Wars which my sibling and I both find delightfully appropriate to the cultural context of hummus)

This selection was just the first books I wanted to make available to my partner. I expect to collect a number of other titles as they work their way thru these. I expect to be able to add to this list as that happens. But in the meantime it's hopefully a good place for anyone else to start as well! Looking up queer Jewish texts, Jewish POC perspectives, and feminist and other reconstructionist approaches to Jewish spirituality and tradition is super doable. These books and authors are starting blocks only. And as always, me listing the title or author is not necessarily an endorsement of everything they might happen to say. It's simply that these authors and texts have contributed significantly to a conversation I feel it's wise for newcomers to begin with.

[theresabookforthat]

Happy Hanukkah!

This year, Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, began at sundown on Sunday, December 2nd and will last until sundown on Monday, December 10th. Hanukkah is Hebrew for “dedication” and commemorates the victory of the Maccabees over the Syrian Greek army, the re-dedication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, and restoring its menorah, or lamp.  The “miracle” of Hanukkah is that only one vial of oil was found with just enough oil to illuminate the Temple lamp for one day, and yet it lasted for eight full days. As families gather to light the menorah, enjoy latkes, and exchange gifts, we are highlighting the following popular Hanukkah titles for young readers:  

 ALL-OF-A-KIND FAMILY HANUKKAH by Emily Jenkins, Paul O. Zelinsky

The beloved characters from Sydney Taylor’s All-of-a-Kind Family return in this heartwarming picture book from a critically adored team—perfect for Hanukkah gift-giving! First published in 1951, Taylor’s chapter books have become time-honored favorites, selling over a million copies and touching generations of readers. In this time when immigrants often do not feel accepted, the All-of-a-Kind Family gives a heartwarming glimpse of a Jewish immigrant family and their customs that is as relevant—and necessary—today as when it was first written. Jenkins and Zelinsky’s charming compliment to Taylor’s series perfectly captures the warmth and family values that made the original titles classics.

 MEET THE LATKES by Alan Silberberg

Imagine James Marshall’s The Stupids celebrating Hanukkah, and you’d get the Latke family! Lucy Latke’s family is just like yours or mine. Except that they’re potato pancakes. And also, they are completely clueless. After they light the menorah and gobble the gelt, Grandpa Latke tells everyone the Hanukkah story, complete with mighty Mega Bees who use a giant dreidel to fight against the evil alien potatoes from Planet Chhh. It’s up to the Latke family dog to set the record straight. (To start with, they were Maccabees, not Mega Bees…) But he’ll have to get the rest of the Latkes to listen to him first!

 YITZI AND THE GIANT MENORAH by Richard Ungar

Children and adults will love this beautiful story about the magic of Hanukkah. On the eve of Hanukkah, the People of Chelm have received a special gift from the Mayor of Lublin. A giant menorah in which they place in the square for all they admire. Every night, the villagers meet to watch the lighting of a candle on the menorah. And every night, the villagers ponder what is the most fitting way to thank the Mayor of Lublin? The villagers come up with idea after idea, but their gift never quite reaches the Mayor. What will they do? Finally, on the last night of Hanukkah, Yitzi has an idea to orchestrate the surprise thank you gift.

 HERSHEL AND THE HANUKKAH GOBLINS: 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION by Eric A. Kimmel, Trina Schart Hyman

A Caldecott Honor book.

On the first night of Hanukkah, a weary traveler named Hershel of Ostropol eagerly approaches a village, where plenty of latkes and merriment should warm him. But when he arrives not a single candle is lit. A band of frightful goblins has taken over the synagogue, and the villagers cannot celebrate at all! Hershel vows to help them. Using his wits, the clever trickster faces down one goblin after the next, night after night. But can one man alone save Hanukkah and live to tell the tale? This 25th anniversary edition includes an insightful afterword from the author and publisher explaining the book’s origins and remembering Trina Schart Hyman, the illustrator who brought the tale to life.

 HANUKKAH BEAR by Eric A. Kimmel, Mike Wohnoutka

2013 National Jewish Book Award Winner

Bubba Brayna’s legendary latkes lure an unexpected visitor into her home in this playful Hanukkah tale from a master storyteller. Lively illustrations by Mike Wohnoutka, portraying the sprightly Bubba Brayna and her very hungry guest, accompany this instant family favorite, a humorous reworking of Eric A. Kimmel’s earlier classic tale, The Chanukkah Guest. A traditional recipe for latkes is included in the back matter, along with interesting, digestible facts about the history and traditions of Hanukkah.

 THE STORY OF HANUKKAH by David A. Adler, Jill Weber

Hanukkah is a wonderful time filled with games, food, family, and fun. It’s also the celebration of an ancient miracle, and retelling and remembering the story of that miracle is an essential part of the holiday, for young and old. The story of the courageous Maccabees is retold in simple yet dramatic text, accompanied by vibrant paintings of the battle, the Temple of Jersualem, and the oil which miraculously burned for eight long nights.

 DREIDELS ON THE BRAIN by Joel Ben Izzy

At last a great American Hanukkah story! This very funny, very touching novel of growing up Jewish has the makings of a holiday classic. One lousy miracle. Is that too much to ask? Evidently so for Joel, as he tries to survive Hannukah, 1971 in the suburbs of Los Angeles. That’s no small task when you’re a “seriously funny-looking” twelve-year-old magician who dreams of being his own superhero. And Joel’s a long way from that as the only Jew at Bixby School, where his attempts to make himself disappear fail spectacularly. Home is no better, with a family that’s not just mortifyingly embarrassing but flat-out broke. That’s why Joel’s betting everything on these eight nights, to see whether it’s worth believing in God or miracles or anything at all.

 HOLIDAYS AROUND THE WORLD: CELEBRATE HANUKKAH WITH LIGHT, LATKES, AND DREIDELS by Deborah Heiligman

With dazzling images and engaging text, readers learn about the historical and cultural significance of Hanukkah and why it is celebrated around the world. From the lighting of the menorah to the special foods that are shared to the spinning of the dreidels, they’ll get insights about this holiday’s traditions and the Jewish faith.

 To learn more about these titles and related titles visit Hanukkah

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Goals for Adar I 5784:

Thanks to Libby, read "Living a Jewish Life: Jewish Traditions, Customs and Values for Today's Families" by Anita Diamant & Howard Cooper.

Go back over the notes from the local-ish conversion class to pull out recommended sections and/or chapters.

-- Thanks to Pillowfort's update [it now has scheduling and a queue for personal blogs], I could try scheduling out my personal notes for the rest of said class.

[ofblessedmemory]

Levaya  – the funeral

The Hebrew word for “funeral” is levaya, which means “to accompany,” as that is what a funeral is believed to be. That we are accompanying the deceased to the grave, and easing their transition into the Afterlife. Neither the rabbi nor a cemetery worker buries them. Rather, that is considered the mitzvah of the family, with help from the community. While there are no set standards for what a Jewish funeral looks like, there are a few basic components that almost all will contain, and a quick service is considered the most respectful. The funeral is most commonly arranged by the family, who can consult a funeral home, rabbi, or chevra kadisha for assistance.

The funeral and burial should be held no later than 24 hours after death, preferably on the same day as death, though it’s understood that this is often not possible in today’s world. The funeral may also be delayed for various reasons, which include:

Legal reasons, such as if the body is being held in police custody

The chevra kadisha or funeral directors need time to prepare; particularly if there is difficulty in obtaining a coffin or burial shroud

The body is being shipped somewhere

To allow family living far away time to arrive

It is Shabbat, the High Holidays, Sukkot, Pesach, or Shavuot.

Even then, the funeral should ideally be delayed for no longer than 48 hours. The specific time (day, noon, night) the funeral is held is often dependent on what is convenient for the family. Times for visiting the shiva home may be announced at any time, but are commonly announced at the end of the funeral.

When greeting the family, it’s customary to say “May you suffer no more,” or “My condolences.” There is also an ancient rabbinic phrase, “May the place console you,” though it’s unsure of where this originated.

Where the funeral is held may depend on the customs of individual communities, though it may be held in the home, a funeral home or cemetery, directly beside the grave, or in the synagogue (some don't allow this unless the deceased was a particularly important member of the community, such as a rabbi.)

The service itself will typically begin with readings from the Torah and Mishnah, particularly Psalm 23, about death. At the funeral of a woman, the Eshet Hayil is commonly recited. Following that, there will be a hesped (eulogy,) which remembers the life and character of the deceased. Usually, the rabbi recites the hesped, but a family member may request to do it if they wish. After the hesped, the memorial prayer, El Male Rachamim, is chanted, which asks G-d to remember the good deeds of the departed and grant them peace.

At this point, if the funeral service did not start here, it will will move to the graveside. It is considered a great honor to act as a pallbearer, which can be anyone, but is most often close family members and friends, or chevra kadisha members. The coffin may be carried by handles or on a gurney-type platform. As they approach the grave, they will traditionally pause a total of seven times, symbolizing a reluctance to take final leave of their loved one. Following the pallbearers, a rabbi or cantor will recite from Psalms 91, and it is considered an important mitzvah by the community to follow the coffin to the grave for at least a few steps. Concluding the funeral, the attendees are asked to recite the Burial Kaddish (though this has become less common) and the Mourner’s Kaddish. Finally, attendees might be asked to help fill the grave. This is not done in every community, and usually the rabbi will announce if they plan to do so. This is traditionally done by having one person shovel a pile into the grave and then set the shovel into the ground, rather than handing it to the next person. Another tradition is to shovel dirt in with the shovel facing backwards.

Upon leaving the cemetery, it is customary to give condolences to the mourners, and to wash hands before leaving the cemetery.

What is forbidden at a Jewish funeral?

Holding a viewing or wake. Viewings are, at least in the west, a primarily Xian custom, and according to Jewish values it is considered incredibly disrespectful to put the deceased on display for the living.

The display of flowers, either because it’s believed a flower’s life should not be cut short for the sake of a funeral, or because it’s believed that symbols of life are an affront to the deceased.

How To Plan a Jewish Funeral

[dailykhaleej]

Religious leaders unite in prayer for humanity and healing from coronavirus

Shaikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, the UAE Minister of Tolerance, addressing Prayer for Humanity session on UAE Tolerance Youtube channel Picture Credit score: Virendra Saklani/DailyKhaleej

Abu Dhabi/ Dubai: United in prayer towards the coronavirus pandemic, leaders and representatives of assorted faiths got here collectively to mark the Day of World Prayer and Supplication on Thursday.

Organised by the Increased Committee for Human Fraternity (HCFC), the net prayer assembly known as on all non secular followers to mark the day with prayers, supplications and fasting to beat back the worldwide pandemic in accordance with their very own non secular rites and customs.

Amongst essentially the most distinguished non secular leaders who took half in the worldwide initiative have been Pope Francis and Dr Ahmad El Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al Azhar and chairman of the Muslim Council of Elders. Each leaders have been joined by a number of different non secular figures, diplomats and celebrities representing Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism.

The Prayer for Humanity session underway Picture Credit score: Virendra Saklani/DailyKhaleej

“On this day, we are all praying together and asking God to give us a cure and to be able to pass through this pandemic,” mentioned Dr Ahmad El Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al Azhar and chairman of the Muslim Council of Elders.

El Tayeb additionally known as on everybody to respect one another’s beliefs and variations. “We want this day to become an annual event to take part in, with people from across the world praying to God together as one, away from racism and hate, and instead based on love, respect, peace and coexistence between all humans,” he added.

The Prayer for Humanity session underway Picture Credit score: Virendra Saklani/DailyKhaleej

El Tayeb additionally mentioned to mark Might 14 because the “day to be the first step in the right direction on a new track abounding in love, respect and cooperation among all fellow humans”

“Let May 14 mark the beginning of a new world where peacemaking overcomes the industry of weapons, showing evidence of our ability to create a common environment where we can all live together as fellow brothers and sisters enjoying mutual love,” he famous.

United as brothers and sisters

The Grand Imam’s prayers have been echoed by Pope Francis, who additionally took half in Prayer for Humanity.

“Today, all of us, brothers and sisters of every religious tradition, we pray. It is a day of prayer, fasting and penance, as called by the High Committee of Human Fraternity,” mentioned Pope Francis throughout a Mass at Casa Santa Marta in Vatican Metropolis.

“Whatever religious tradition we belong to, we pray to God… We are all united as humans, as brothers and sisters praying to God according to our own culture, tradition, and according to what we believe,” Pope Francis added, highlighting the theme of non secular unity.

The session on UAE Tolerance YouTube channel Picture Credit score: Virendra Saklani/DailyKhaleej

Pope Francis additionally spoke of what he known as the tragic penalties introduced on by the coronavirus, and urged communities to do their half in serving to each other.

“This [day of prayer] joins us collectively in this time of struggling and tragedy. We weren’t anticipating this pandemic and it got here most unexpectedly. However it’s now right here and many individuals are dying.

“Sometimes the thought comes to us, that the [coronavirus] hasn’t affected me and I’m okay. But, think about other people, think about the tragedy and consequences – the economic consequences and the consequences for education,” he added.

The pinnacle of the Catholic Church had earlier mentioned: “Prayer is our greatest weapon against the virus. What will we remember from this time? The things that unite us. Let us pray to feel like Church, family, and to defeat the pandemic. Let us pray so as to love neighbour. In the face of the coronavirus, we cannot be demoralised.”

Higher connection to God

Shaikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, the UAE Minister of Tolerance, and non secular leaders from numerous faiths additionally got here collectively for the occasion. They included Dr Farok Hamda, non secular advisor from the court docket of the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi; Bishop Paul Hinder OFM Cap, Apostolic Vicar of Southern Arabia; Marcus Oates, president of the Abu Dhabi Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; Rabbi Yehuda Sarna, government director and college chaplain at The Bronfman Centre for Jewish Pupil Life at New York College; Raju Shroff, board member of the Hindu Temple Bur Dubai; and Surender Singh Kandhari, Chairman, Guru Nanak Darbar Gurudwara – Dubai.

Al Nahyan mentioned: “At the moment we include a typical hope, frequent spirit and frequent want. Allow us to be part of collectively in our group to hope for a decision to this pandemic, wellness for sick, safety of well being care staff, offering inspiration and success to these devoted in discovering exams, vaccines and cures.

“We have a reason for great hope as we have seen countries come together in unprecedented ways, people respond to the need of others with generosity and compassion. In the UAE we are proud to witness the growth of tolerance. We have different religions, cultures, nationalities and have shown compassion and strength. We have come together as one human family and deeply honoured to be part of this prayer meeting,” he added.

Emphasising on the collective energy of prayer, Kandhari mentioned : “Most of us do pray in our homes but a prayer meeting with different faiths has a lot of power and a greater connection to God. A value in interfaith prayer lies in its power to unify hearts. Where there is a prayer there is unity. Prayer meetings bring about changes. Praying with one another believers can witness God, produce miracles and change hearts.”

Thanking the UAE leaders, Shroff, for his half emphasised on the ability of unity in the instances of variety. He mentioned throughout these unprecedented instances, the world should come collectively as one. He additionally provided his prayers the Shanti Paath in Sanskrit, which is a mantra for common peace.

Excellent steadiness

Earlier in the day, round 75 folks joined in the Prayer for Humanity organised by the Jebel Ali Church Advanced and Interfaith Committee in Jebel Ali.

Dr Omar Al Muthanna, CEO of Neighborhood Growth Authority, started the session with a prayer for the rulers and leaders of the UAE, all frontliners and residents and residents of the nation and the world.

He highlighted the necessity for balancing religion and science and appreciated folks of all faiths coming collectively towards one enemy for the primary time.

“Whatever the efforts and confidence we put in the scientific advancement, we should always remember that we should surrender ourselves to God. We should maintain a perfect balance between faith and science and pray to the Almighty to help us to find a successful breakthrough to end this pandemic,” Al Muthanna mentioned.

Ashok Kalidas Kotecha, director of the upcoming BAPS Hindu Mandir in Abu Dhabi, added: “A call for prayer has united the entire mankind and today we will see a smile on the face of God as his creations have united.”

Aside from praying for the frontliners, Kotecha provided prayers for all those that have misplaced their lives, and all those that miss them dearly.

Ahmed Hamed of Al Manar Islamic Centre in Dubai prayed with verses from the Holy Quran and teachings of Prophet Mohammed (PBUH).

“After praising Allah Almighty, I appreciate the wise leadership of UAE for their compassion, concern and care for the people of UAE and humanity,” he mentioned.

Rev James Frank Burgess, senior pastor of the Fellowship Evangelical Church, for his half, learn reassuring passages from the Bible.

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[romancatholicreflections]

16th October >> Fr. Martin's Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Luke 11:37-41 for Tuesday, Twenty-Eighth Week in Ordinary Time: ‘Give alms from what you have’.

Tuesday, Twenty-Eighth Week in Ordinary Time.

Gospel (Europe, Africa, New Zealand, Australia & Canada)

Luke 11:37-41

Give thanks for what you have and it will all be clean

Jesus had just finished speaking when a Pharisee invited him to dine at his house. He went in and sat down at the table. The Pharisee saw this and was surprised that he had not first washed before the meal. But the Lord said to him, ‘Oh, you Pharisees! You clean the outside of cup and plate, while inside yourselves you are filled with extortion and wickedness. Fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside too? Instead, give alms from what you have and then indeed everything will be clean for you.’

Gospel (USA)

Luke 11:37-41

Give alms and behold, everything will be clean for you.

After Jesus had spoken, a Pharisee invited him to dine at his home. He entered and reclined at table to eat. The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not observe the prescribed washing before the meal. The Lord said to him, “Oh you Pharisees! Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil. You fools! Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside? But as to what is within, give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you.”

Reflections (7)

(i) Tuesday, Twenty-(Eighth in Ordinary Time

We are familiar with the sayings, ‘do not judge a book by its cover’ and ‘all that glitters is not gold’. Both sayings express the truth that what is visible to the naked eye is not always a good guide to the true reality of something. Image and reality do not always match. When Jesus’ host at a meal expressed surprise that Jesus did not first wash his hands in accordance with custom, Jesus declared that Pharisees like him were more concerned with externals than with what was within the human heart. The preoccupation with external, ritual cleanliness, distracted them from that deeper cleanliness, what Jesus calls elsewhere purity of heart. Jesus was very concerned with the core of the person, often referred to as the heart in the Jewish Scriptures and in the gospels. In that culture, the heart was understood not just as the seat of the emotions, but also as the seat of the intellect and of the will. If the heart was right, so much else would be right. In the gospel reading, Jesus declares that the heart of someone can be filled with wickedness and extortion or greed, even though a certain religious preoccupation is visible to all. Jesus encourages us to ask ourselves, ‘where is my heart?’, ‘what lies at the deepest core of my being?’ Elsewhere Jesus suggests that it is our way of living, our way of relating to others, that reveals what is in our heart and what lies at our core. At the end of the gospel reading, he calls on his host to give alms out of what he has. This will show that at his core is not extortion but generosity. We all need to keep working on what is inside ourselves, in the words of the gospel reading. Indeed, more fundamentally, we need the Lord to keep working on what is inside ourselves. We need him to keep creating in us a new heart and a new spirit.

And/Or

(ii) Tuesday, Twenty-Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

In the gospels Jesus is often offered hospitality by a variety of people, including influential people of the day. He sometimes showed himself to be a rather disconcerting and awkward guest. In this morning’s gospel reading he is a guest at the table of a Pharisee, a member of a group who were zealous to keep God’s Law it and apply it to all the details of daily living. There were understood to be over 600 regulations within the Jewish law of the time and some of them related to ritual cleanliness, various washings on a variety of occasions such as before meals. Jesus did not appear to follow these regulations faithfully and, as a result, he was suspect in the eyes of people like his host, the Pharisee. Normally if someone invites us to their home for a meal, we would be slow to be critical of our host. However, Jesus did not play at being nice because it was socially expected of him. In the gospel reading, he challenges the tendency of his host to be preoccupied with external cleanliness while being much less concerned with being clean within. Jesus is saying that when it comes to our relationship with God there is something more important than the keeping of regulations and that is what is in our heart. Jesus would be asking us, ‘How is your heart before God?’ ‘What fills your heart?’ ‘Is it greed or generosity?’ The first reading suggests that Paul might ask the same question in a different way, ‘What is it we worship? Is it divine truth or is it a lie?’ These are questions that are always worth returning to.

And/Or

(iii) Tuesday, Twenty-Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

We know from experience that different things are important to different people. What is important to me is not necessarily important to someone else. We can get upset when something we think is important is not taken seriously by someone else who has a connection with us. In the gospel reading, Jesus is invited to a meal by a Pharisee. The Jewish ritual of washing in a certain way before meals was clearly a matter of importance to Jesus’ host, but it wasn’t an issue of any significance to Jesus. Other matters were more important to him. He tells his host that external ritual washings are far less important to him than the values and attitudes that we carry within us. Jesus looks for that inner disposition that finds expression in almsgiving, for example. This was a very important Jewish practice for Jesus, the willingness to give generously from our resources to those in need. The gospel reading reminds us that what we think important is not necessarily what the Lord considers important. What we value is not always what he values. We spend our lives trying to imbibe his values, his priorities, and allowing them to shape our hearts and minds. As Paul says, we are to put on the mind of Christ. We need to keep turning to the Scriptures, and to the gospels in particular, if our priorities are to be in keeping with the Lord’s priorities, if our mind and heart are to reflect something of his mind and heart.

And/Or

(iv) Tuesday, Twenty-Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

We often speak of people missing the wood for the trees. That is what Jesus accuses his host the Pharisee of in today’s gospel reading. The Pharisee expresses surprise that Jesus did not wash his hands in a certain way before eating, in accordance with the tradition that the Pharisees lived by and tried to get others to live by. Jesus accuses them of focusing too much on what is not essential while at the same time neglecting what is more important in the Jewish tradition, such as giving alms to the needy. We can all get too preoccupied with the non-essentials, even in the area of religion and faith. We may have to step back every so often and to ask, ‘Would this matter which is so important to me be of the same importance to the Lord?’ Jesus keeps sending us back to the essentials. On one occasion he said, ‘Seek first the kingdom of God’. We are to seek the values of the kingdom above all else. In this morning’s gospel reading Jesus speaks of almsgiving, the service of those in greater need than ourselves, as one example of such values. We can be anxious and distracted about many things and forget the one thing that is needed. This morning we ask the Lord to keep us focused on what matters.

And/Or

(v) Tuesday, Twenty-Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

In Luke’s gospel we find Jesus sharing table with a great variety of people. He shares table with his own disciples; he eats with tax collectors and sinners; in this morning’s gospel reading he is the guest of a Pharisee, whose table he shares. In that scene Jesus is criticized by his host for not following the washing rituals prescribed by the Jewish Law before sitting down to table. In reply Jesus criticizes the Pharisees for being over concerned with externals and not sufficiently concerned with what is within. We live in an age when externals are every bit as important as they were among certain groups in the time of Jesus, even if externals are important in a different way today than then. Today appearances and image have become hugely important, among young people especially. If people don’t look good they don’t think of themselves as good or worthwhile. Yet, those who have more experience of life know that, as Jesus declares, what is within is more important than what is without. As followers of the Lord we are constantly inviting the Spirit to renew us from within, to renew our hearts and our minds, so that they mirror in some way the heart and mind of Christ.

And/Or

(vi) Tuesday, Twenty-Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

We are familiar with the expression, ‘missing the wood for the trees’. We find an example of that in this morning’s gospel reading. A Pharisee who had invited Jesus to a meal was taken aback when Jesus did not observe the usual Jewish rituals of washing before eating. Jesus then accuses the Pharisees as a group of being preoccupied with non-essentials, such as external cleanliness, while not paying enough attention to essentials, what God would consider to be true cleanliness, such as the giving of alms to the poor. When it comes to our faith, we constantly need to keep returning to the essentials. You could say that the Second Vatican Council was a collective effort on the part of the whole church to get back to essentials. The current Synod on the Family is trying to do the same. Saint Paul had a great nose for the essentials when it comes to the Christian calling. In Galatia, he was up against some Jewish Christians who were insisting on the necessity of the Jewish rite of circumcision for converts from paganism. This for Paul was a clear case of focusing on non-essentials. In this morning’s first reading Paul states clearly what he considers to be the essentials, ‘what matters is faith that makes its power felt through love’, or, ‘faith working through love’. We are called to faith, an entrusting of ourselves to Christ who gave himself for us in love on the cross. Our faith is to find expression in a life of love, in a life that allows the love of Christ to flow through us and touch the lives of others. Paul would say that everything else is secondary.

And/Or

(vii) Tuesday, Twenty-Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

The gospels, especially the gospel of Luke, suggest that Jesus was often invited to people’s table. He shared the table of his friends, like Mary and Martha. He shared the table of tax collectors, like Zacchaeus, much to the disgust of many. He also shared the table of those at the other end of the spectrum to tax collectors, the Pharisees who wanted to live their lives according to God’s Law. This is the scenario in today’s gospel reading. When Jesus was at the table of tax collectors and sinners, they found his presence a comfort. When Jesus was at the table of Pharisees, they often found his presence unsettling. In the gospel reading, Jesus does not follow the washing rituals that were so important to the Pharisees. Furthermore, he accuses his host and fellow guests of being more concerned with external cleanliness, the ritual cleansing of cups and plates, than with inner, moral cleanliness, which finds expression in almsgiving. Jesus suggests that his host and fellow guests had a somewhat skewed hierarchy of values. They gave too much attention to what was unimportant and too little attention to what was really important. This is a human failing and we are all prone to it in all sorts of ways. We all need to keep going back to the words and deeds of Jesus in order to keep rediscovering what is really important in God’s eyes and what is less so.

Fr. Martin Hogan, Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin, D03 AO62, Ireland.

Email: sjtbclontarf@eircom.net or  frmartinhogan@gmail.com

Parish Website: www.stjohnsclontarf.ie  Please join us via our webcam.

Twitter: @SJtBClontarfRC.

Facebook: St John the Baptist RC Parish, Clontarf.

Tumblr: Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin.

[skinflesh97-blog]

All Out of Luck

Last week, many felt that a line was crossed when the Instagram account of a new restaurant in New York City’s West Village, called Lucky Lee’s, purported to serve a “clean” version of American Chinese food, sans MSG and the supposed “oily,” “salty,” and “icky” feeling with which American Chinese food leaves you. Owner Arielle Haspel argued to Eater NY that the concept “celebrated” Chinese food, but positioned Lee’s version of it in contrast to the Chinese-American food developed over decades to cater to, well, American palates: “I made some tweaks so I would be able to eat it and my friends and other people would be able to eat it,” Haspel said. “There are very few American-Chinese places as mindful about the quality of ingredients as we are.” She has since apologized. But the controversy has made clear a divide over the co-option of the term “lucky” by modern restaurateurs, and brings into question its relevance in Chinese food culture.

Perhaps Haspel could have been more mindful of her restaurant’s name, too. Lee is the first name of owner Haspel’s husband, and they are both Jewish American. As Esther Tseng pointed out in an Eater NY op-ed, “It does not signal respect when Haspel uses her non-Asian husband’s first name in her alliterative branding in a manner that suggests Chinese ownership.”

“Lucky” is a common word used in Chinese restaurant names in the U.S., likely coming into prominence in the early 20th century, as restaurant owners tried to grow beyond their all-Chinese clientele and chose names that were Western equivalents, instead of transliterated versions, of their business names. It’s now ubiquitous enough that its use is an almost-immediate signal to diners that it’s a Chinese restaurant. That shorthand is so pervasive that it’s increasingly common among white owners of Chinese restaurants, some of them controversial: Andrew Zimmern’s Lucky Cricket, Gordon Ramsay’s upcoming Lucky Cat, and Jacob Hadjigeorgis’s Lucky Pickle Dumpling Company, in addition to Lucky Lee’s.

For many Asian Americans, a white business owner cherry-picking parts of Chinese culture for their own version of Chinese food can feel like it’s poking fun at longstanding traditions: In an interview that started the appropriation conversation surrounding Zimmern’s Chinese concept, the celebrity chef responded to questions about appropriation by noting the restaurant sold shirts printed with “Get Lucky” on the back. “It is interesting that all these people think it’s clever and funny to refer back to these classic tropes, and no, it’s not, it’s stupid and it’s not even that clever,” said Diane Chang, a Brooklyn-based personal chef and caterer of Po-Po’s. “When I read about [Lucky Lee’s] I was like, ‘Why is she trying to convey that feeling that you’re going to an old takeout place, but then you’re getting this other experience that is purporting to be better for you?’”

Chinese restaurateurs, especially in earlier generations, often give their businesses auspicious names based on beliefs dating back to antiquity. The word “lucky” holds deep meaning and significance in traditional Chinese belief systems. The Chinese character 福, or “fu” in Mandarin, can be translated as “luck,” “prosperity,” or “fortune”; anyone who might want to bless their restaurant with success might use the word luck, or something symbolic of it. In a 2016 Washington Post survey of Chinese restaurant names in America, “lucky” and “fortune” appear prominently in the word cloud, as does “fu,” albeit less frequently. (When transliterated from Cantonese, “fu” is actually spelled “fuk,” which is probably why it’s not in too many names stateside.) These words figure into many Chinese restaurant names, as do other traditional Chinese auspices of good luck, such as bamboo (symbolic of strength and resilience), jade (which represents 11 Confucian values of virtue), and the number eight (which sounds similar to a word meaning wealth or fortune).

“I just think good fortune and auspiciousness is essential to every aspect of Asian culture,” said Danielle Chang, founder of Lucky Rice, a lifestyle brand that hosts the Lucky Chow dining event series. She explained that luck is intertwined with everyday living in China, and has a strong connection to food. “Back in the days when China was primarily an agricultural society, praying for a good harvest — much of that has to do with good luck, like the amount of rainfall you get, and so on. So it’s tied to the harvest,” she said.

Chang doesn’t think that the full meaning of “fu” is very well understood in the United States. There is often hidden meaning and wordplay in Chinese restaurant names, she notes, even in how they’re written. Traditional Chinese characters can be written with an intricate combination of strokes that are considered beautiful to the eye, including those for “luck” and “happiness.” “That’s part of the beauty of Chinese language,” she said. “Everything is a pictograph and has all these different connotations.”

There is also a trio of deities known as the “three stars,” which are fu, lu, and shou (roughly “luck,” “status,” and “longevity”); combined, they represent cultural values about success. In fact, “fu lu shou” was the Chinese name of Cecilia Chiang’s pioneering San Francisco Chinese restaurant, the Mandarin. It isn’t so unusual for restaurants to have different English and Chinese names — “the Mandarin” was perhaps much more salient for a non-Chinese American audience because it called out the fact that the restaurant specialized in Northern Chinese cuisine at a time and place where that wasn’t the norm. (Place-specific names have always been common for American Chinese restaurants, too — Nom Wah refers to Southern China, which its cuisine is based on, says its owner, Wilson Tang.)

Restaurant owners would also find that use of words like “Lucky” drew in non-Asian customers, growing restaurants’ consumer base. As John Jung, a professor emeritus in psychology and a historian of Chinese-American history, writes in Sweet and Sour: Life in Chinese Family Restaurants, Chinese restaurant owners courted tourists “with remodeled restaurants designed with a stereotypical Oriental motif both inside and outside” as early as 1900. In addition to decor, they’d attract non-Chinese customers, who would struggle to remember transliterated Chinese names, by selecting restaurant names “that evoked images of the exotic Orient to appeal to Westerners’ romantic images of China.”

However, by the mid-20th century, changing conditions in both countries saw a shift. When Mao Zedong and his People’s Republic of China party took power in 1949, the country was declared an atheist state; as part of the Cultural Revolution he led, social values were upended, ancient religions were banned, and traditional Chinese pictographic characters were simplified to fewer strokes. Meanwhile, in the U.S., Jung writes that “as non-Chinese customers became better acquainted with Chinese names and more tolerant toward Chinese culture, it became fashionable after 1950 to return to Chinese names.”

That leaves the “lucky” name with a smack of old-timeyness, but there are still plenty of them — American-Chinese restaurants often don’t change names when a new owner takes over, for consistency’s sake. In other cases, restaurant owners might lean in on the “lucky” name to intentionally create a sense of nostalgia; many of the new restaurants from non-Chinese owners employ it alongside a cheeky, retro feel to their decor and branding. Think old-fashioned poster art or cigarette labels with women in Mandarin dresses, old Chinese newspapers, or Tiki bar aesthetics. Nostalgia is a big ticket in U.S. restaurants today: It’s the secret sauce in everything from dishes to decor to cocktails at such esteemed restaurants as the Grill and Rocco Dispirito’s new Standard Grill, both in New York.

For Chinese restaurant owners, many might look to the example of Nom Wah Tea Parlor, a restaurant in its 99th year of existence in New York City’s Chinatown; it hasn’t modernized its look. Perhaps for many non-Chinese restaurant owners, “lucky” evokes an era of Chinese restaurants that they grew up in. But Chinese restaurants stateside are evolving and expanding, and these nostalgic sensibilities can feel like an inaccurate representation of where the cuisine stands today. Coming from high-profile restauranteurs like Gordon Ramsay and Andrew Zimmern, who are already immensely popular — and powerful — it can look like the spotlight is in all the wrong places.

And when the food at a pricey restaurant from non-Chinese owners isn’t even very good — even the rice isn’t cooked properly, as Soleil Ho noted of Lucky Cricket, and as Gothamist observed of Lucky Lee’s — yet the restaurant proclaims that it’s “saving” people from “horseshit” Chinese food (as in Zimmern’s case) or from “icky” and “bloated” feelings afterward (as in Haspel’s case), well, that can zap any intended fun out of the experience. In other words, it can leave you with an “icky” feeling.

Danielle Chang says she’s noticed the word really cross over to non-Asian restaurant owners in recent years, citing Lucky Bee, a now-shuttered New York City Thai restaurant. She thinks that David Chang’s Momofuku, which from Japanese translates to “Lucky Peach” (also the name of its former magazine) and its mainstream success may have something to do with it. For her, using the word “lucky” in her company name was a way to bridge cultures. She thinks of it as fun and universal — something that everyone can grasp to some extent.

This all goes to say that the associations of “lucky” may be generational, and have everything to do with where you’re coming from. Today, there are plenty of young people who want to shake up that sense of old-fashioned branding when it comes to Chinese food. Diane Chang named her business Po-Po’s, which translates to “grandma’s” in Mandarin. “I couldn’t think of a better name because that’s why I started cooking, it’s a tribute to my grandma and her recipes,” she said. She was well aware of the confusion and unfortunate connotations that the name might cause for an American audience — the results when you Google “eating po-po’s” are unsavory — but she felt it best represented her.

“To this day I still have to explain whenever I call in orders, but for me, it was like, why should I bend with a quirky, cute name, because that’s just not me,” she said. She’s come to embrace the confusion, owning it with a smile when people mistakenly call her “po-po” thinking it’s her name. And on the flip side, she describes the warm feeling of familiarity as a “secret handshake” when people understand the meaning.

Rich Ho, chef-owner of the Taiwanese noodle soup restaurant Ho Foods, can relate to the confusion with vendors, because his restaurant sounds similar to “Whole Foods” — then, there’s the other, slang usage of “ho.” But he thinks his restaurant’s name is evocative of its clean, pared-down aesthetic, and it’s a sort of “dad joke” that it sounds like Whole Foods.

Growing up, Ho says he was made fun of a lot for his last name, even, he thinks, by his fourth grade teacher. But he’s come to embrace the name with pride. “At the end of the day it’s my name, and it’s just an Asian name and I’m proud of it, so I’m not gonna change it.”

Whereas earlier Chinese restaurants tended to stick with contrived Chinese restaurant names for mass branding’s sake, these relatively young, American-born business owners are picking names that are personal to them, despite the confusion or so-called negative connotations they may provoke for a Western audience. As Jung wrote, “Changes in the characteristics of Chinese restaurant names occurred over time provide a barometer of the acceptance of the restaurants in the larger society.”

In the end, it’s not so much the nomenclature as the superior marketing positioning that’s problematic for these white-owned Chinese restaurants today. One need not understand all the nuances to enjoy something. But there are layers of complexity in the “lucky” terminology, and meanings and generational attitudes evolve. And as a young group of Chinese Americans fights an uphill battle to be seen amid the stereotypes associated with their culture, they may be more inclined to leave “lucky” behind.

• How Lucky Lee’s Could Have Gotten an ‘American Chinese’ Restaurant Right [ENY] • Gordon Ramsay Hit Back at Criticism of His ‘Vibrant Asian Eating House’ [ELON]

Cathy Erway is the author of The Food of Taiwan: Recipes From the Beautiful Island, The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove, and the host of the Heritage Radio Network podcast Eat Your Words and the upcoming podcast Self Evident. Emily Chu is an illustrator and visual artist from Edmonton, AB, Canada. Editor: Erin DeJesus

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Source: https://www.eater.com/2019/4/16/18311375/lucky-lees-cricket-cat-chinese-restaurant-controversy

[frmartinshomiliesandreflections]

30th December >> Fr. Martin's Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Luke 2:41-52  for the Feast of The Holy Family: ‘Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs'.  

Feast of The Holy Family

Gospel (Europe, Africa, New Zealand, Australia & Canada)

Luke 2:41-52

Mary stored up all these things in her heart

Every year the parents of Jesus used to go to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up for the feast as usual. When they were on their way home after the feast, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem without his parents knowing it. They assumed he was with the caravan, and it was only after a day’s journey that they went to look for him among their relations and acquaintances. When they failed to find him they went back to Jerusalem looking for him everywhere.

Three days later, they found him in the Temple, sitting among the doctors, listening to them, and asking them questions; and all those who heard him were astounded at his intelligence and his replies. They were overcome when they saw him, and his mother said to him, ‘My child, why have, you done this to us? See how worried your father and I have been, looking for you.’

‘Why were you looking for me?’ he replied. ‘Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?’ But they did not understand what he meant.

He then went down with them and came to Nazareth and lived under their authority.

His mother stored up all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom, in stature, and in favour with God and men.

Gospel (USA)

Luke 2:41–52

His parents found Jesus sitting in the midst of the teachers.

Each year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom. After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances, but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them. He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man.

Reflections (5)

(i) Feast of the Holy Family

Christmas is very much a family time. Most of us will have made contact with our families over the Christmas. If we cannot meet up in person, we will phone, or email or text or send a card. We instinctively feel that Christmas is a time to connect with our family. Today we celebrate the feast of one particular family. We traditionally think of it as a family of three, Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Yet, these three would have thought of their family in a much wider sense. The extended family was very important in Jesus’ time and culture. There were aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins, nephews and nieces in Jesus’ family. Many of us will have happy memories of our extended family. I was fortunate to have had two wonderful aunts who never married, and who lived here in Clontarf, on Oulton Road. When I was a child, they used to come to our house to stay with myself and my brothers for a few hours while my parents went to the pictures. They were like a second and third mother to us in ways. I am sure many people here would acknowledge the hugely significant influence of members of the extended family on their own upbringing, be it grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins.

Much as we value our families, we all know from experience that tensions within families are inevitable. The family whose feast we celebrate today had its own tensions, as is evident from today’s gospel reading. This is the only story we have in the gospels of the child Jesus acting on his own. Jesus was twelve years of age; in the Jewish tradition this was considered to be the age when the child began to live as an adult. He would probably also have begun his apprenticeship in Joseph’s workshop at that age. The gospel reading suggests that at this significant age, Jesus was beginning to assert his own identity, staying behind in Jerusalem while the rest of his family began the journey home. Like many a twelve year old, he wanders off on his own, oblivious to the worry he gives his parents. As children mature in response to the love of their parents, they begin to forge their own path, as Jesus is portrayed as doing in the gospel reading. This can create tensions in the family and distress for parents. Something of Mary’s distress is evident in her words to Jesus when she and Joseph finally found him after much anxious searching, ‘Child, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety’. There is a tone of rebuke there, but it is clearly coming from a loving heart. Jesus’ response to Mary, ‘Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?’, only increased her and Joseph’s bafflement at their young son’s behaviour. ‘They did not understand what he meant’. Mary spoke to Jesus of ‘your father’, meaning Joseph. Jesus replied by speaking of ‘my Father’, meaning God.

Luke, the evangelist, is suggesting that, even at this early age, Jesus’ relationship with God was the most important relationship in his life. The young Jesus judged that being busy with his heavenly Father’s affairs meant staying behind in the Temple, listening to the doctors of the Law, and asking them questions, Jesus was being faithful to his searching, enquiring spirit, even if that meant causing distress and worry to his parents. Jesus was finding his identity by affirming his relationship with God as the primary relationship in his life. It was a painful struggle for Mary and Joseph to allow their young son to grow into his God-centred identity. Yet, the ending of the gospel reading says that Jesus subsequently went back with his parents to Nazareth where he remained under their authority, and where, within their loving embrace he grew in wisdom, stature and favour with God and others. There was no fundamental conflict between his relationship with God and his relationship with his parents. Indeed, it was the faith of his parents which helped Jesus to recognize the primary call of God in his life.

Because Jesus’ deepest longing was to do God his Father’s will, as an adult, he set about forming a new family. He would go on to declare that those who seek to do the will of God the Father, as he does, are his brothers and sisters and mother. This is the family of his disciples, the family of those who hear and do the word of God as proclaimed by Jesus. We all have a desire to belong in this family, the church, which is why we are here at this Mass. Within this family of faith, we look to Jesus as our brother and to God his Father as our Father. This is the primary family to which we belong and it is a great gift from God. In the words of today’s second reading, ‘think of the love that the Father has lavished on us by letting us be called God’s children’. We spend our lives trying to live out of this graced identity, as sons and daughters of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus, and temples of his Spirit. If we are trying to be true to this faith family identity, then we will be sources of blessing within our own blood families.

And/Or

(ii) Feast of the Holy Family

One of the most distressing experiences for parents must be when their children get temporarily separated from them. It can happen easily enough in places like busy shopping centres, especially when the child has got to an age when he or she likes to ramble off. When the child is eventually found, firm words are often spoken by the parent. That kind of tension-filled experience is part of normal family life.

In the gospel reading this morning, Luke describes a similar kind of experience in the family of Joseph, Mary and Jesus. Jesus’ parents expected him to travel with the extended family, and even at first presumed he was doing so when they did not see him. However, the 12 year old had a different set of expectations for himself. Luke suggests that even at the relatively young age of 12, Jesus was more concerned with the expectations of his heavenly Father than with his parents’ expectations. As a result, the one who came to seek out and to find the lost, was himself considered lost by his parents, and was sought for until he was found. In reality, Jesus was not lost. He was where he was supposed to be, and it was his parents who ended up somewhat lost as they tried to come to terms with his words to them, ‘Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?’

The experience of loosing and searching is one that most families struggle with over time. The child who rambles off in the busy shopping centre is only one expression of that experience. The older teenager, the young adult, can head off in a direction that parents find hard to understand; they can take a path in life other than what parents might have wanted. As a result, parents can struggle with a sense of loss, as their hopes and expectations for their son or daughter don’t appear to materialize.

The tensions of family life, and the arguments that such tensions often lead to, can also result in family members moving away from each other, separating from each other, not only in a geographical sense but sometimes in an emotional sense as well. Even in the absence of any major row, the differences in temperament between family members can sometimes leave them feeling strangers to each other, sensing that they have never really found each other in any meaningful sense. It can be quite late in life before there is any true meeting of minds and hearts.

One of the challenges of family life is dealing with difference, trying to come to terms with the different paths that different family members take in life. When a family member takes a path that is unexpected, and that causes others some pain, it can be tempting to ask them the question that Mary asked Jesus, ‘Why have you done this to us?’ It is an understandable question, one that comes out of love and that reveals the pain of love. Yet, it is a question that can also reveal a failure to see a bigger picture, one that is more complex than our particular expectations of the person allow for.

There was something much bigger going on in the life of their young son Jesus than Mary and Joseph realized. There was a mystery to her son that Mary would not fully fathom until Pentecost. There is a sense in which that is true of all of us. There is often more going on in the life of a family member who seems very different from us that we could ever understand. From our perspective they can seem lost. Yet, in reality, they may be struggling to be true to something very deep in themselves, something that is of God. Our primary task may not be to find them and to put them right, but to recognize and to honour whatever is of value in the path they are taking.

Although Mary did not understand the path her son took at the age of 12, the gospel reading says that ‘she stored up all these things in her heart’. She ruminated on all that had happened. It was only over time that she came to understand more fully. That is often the way in our own families. What a son or a daughter or a parent says or does can leave us very perplexed, and even deeply hurt. It is only over time that we can begin to see what was really going on in all that was said and done. Deeper understanding often only comes after much reflection, as a result of the storing up of memories and, perhaps, the sharing of those memories with others, or the bringing of them to prayer. Our deeper understanding can then lead us to make a more compassionate response to the family member in question. Even though we may think we know members of our family very well, it is often the case that we have a very limited insight into what is really going on in their lives. That realization should prompt us to suspend judgement.

Mary and Joseph were faithful to their son Jesus, even though they did not understand him. We are called to be faithful to each other as family members, even when we remain something of an enigma to each other. The second reading speaks of the love the Father has lavished on us by letting us be called God’s children. We are not only sons and daughters of our parents. More fundamentally, we are sons and daughters of God who is always faithful to us in his love. We are called to reveal something of that faithful and lavish love of God for his children in the ways we relate to each other within our families.

And/Or

(iii) Feast of the Holy Family

Christmas is very much a family feast. Family members return from all over the world to be together. We try to connect with members of our families at this time. Because Christmas is such a family occasion, it can be a difficult time for those who do not have family, for one reason or another, those who live alone because family members have died or are living abroad. The blood family is not the only unit to which we belong. Through baptism we belong to a wider family, the family of faith, the family of the church. That wider family of the faith can be very important to those who have little in the way of blood family members. Early in his ministry Jesus set about the formation of a new family, the family of his disciples, whom he called his brothers and sisters. In this morning’s second reading, Saint John declares that we are already the children of God, the sons and daughters of God, sharing in Jesus’ own relationship with God, as his brothers and sisters.

Important as our blood family is to all of us, we need that wider family of faith as well. Our parish community is the local expression of that wider family of faith, and our parish church is where that local family of faith gathers for worship. We gather together as family in our parish church, as brothers and sisters in Christ, sons and daughters of God. The parish church is the house of God where we are all welcome as the family of the Lord’s disciples. The blood family has much to receive from this wider family of faith. It has much to give to that wider family as well; the parish community needs the gifts and energy of the members of the families that make up the parish. Ideally we need the gifts, energy and experience of every age group, if our parish life is to be rich and full. The richer and fuller the life of our parish is, the more the parish family, can be a support to the individual families within the parish.

Jesus was born into a family, as most of us were.  His family would have been very conscious that they were members of a wider family of faith, the family of the Jewish people. This family of faith met weekly in the local synagogue to hear the word of God proclaimed. They went up to Jerusalem for the great feasts that were celebrated in the Temple there. In this morning’s gospel reading we are told that every year the parents of Jesus used to go to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. Jesus’ parents were careful to initiate him into the traditions of this wider family. They had him circumcised on the eight day; they brought him to the local synagogue in Nazareth every Sabbath, and occasionally brought him to Jerusalem for the great feasts. Parents today make efforts to initiate their children into the traditions of the wider family of faith to which they belong, starting with bringing them to the church for baptism. Many parents bring their children to the family Mass here on a Sunday, and encourage them to get involved in the programmes for First Communion and Confirmation.

Yet, as parents know better than I do, when it comes to that wider family of of the church, children do not always take the path that parents might like them to take. They often stand up to their parents in relation to belonging to this wider family, especially when they get to a certain age. We find something similar happening in today’s gospel reading’ Jesus stands up to his parents. They had certain expectations of him. When the feast of Passover was over they expected that he would return immediately with them to Nazareth. However, Jesus, even at the age of twelve, seemed to be walking to a different drum beat to that of his parents. He stayed on in Jerusalem after his parents had left, asking questions of the doctors of the law and listening to them. He is portrayed as a young adolescent, full of questions, and those questions would eventually set him on a path that his parents struggled to accept and understand. When Jesus’ parents eventually found him, his own questions to them left them perplexed; ‘they did not understand what he meant’. His questions were, ‘Why are you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?’ There was a mystery to Jesus that his parents struggled to come to terms with. There is a sense in which that is true of every family member. Parents often find their children something of a mystery; although flesh of their flesh, they are profoundly other. Children will often experience their parents in the same way. The presence of mystery can be disturbing but it often indicates the presence of the Lord. It has been said that being family is an intimate involvement with the divine and that family living is a sacred process. The portrait of Jesus in today’s gospel reading suggests that those family members who are full of questions and who seem to travel to a different drum beat may be closer to the Lord than we might think.

And/Or

(iv) Feast of the Holy Family

The Sunday after Christmas is a very good time to be celebrating the feast of the holy family. Christmas is very much a family time. Most of us try to make some effort to connect with our family members at Christmas time. There is something about Christmas which brings us together as family. That is also true of the wider family of believers we call the church. There are certainly more people than usual at Mass on Christmas day. There is something about the feast of Christmas that brings together the members of the family of faith. Moving out further beyond the church family to the human family, Christmas is a time when we become more aware of the members of the wider human family, especially those who are in greatest need. There is no doubt that Christmas draws great generosity from people. Charities are the beneficiaries of such generosity at this time of the year. Our own very large collection for the St Vincent de Paul society on the third Sunday of Advent bears witness to that.

Perhaps one of the reasons why we have such a stronger sense of family at Christmas time, of our personal family, of the Christian family and of the human family, is because at the heart of the feast of Christmas is a family. Jesus was born into a family, a family that consisted not just of Mary and Joseph but of many other relatives as well, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. This morning’s gospel reading makes reference to Jesus’ ‘relations and acquaintances’. The way of referring to Jesus’ family as the ‘holy family’ can have the effect of making this family seem rather remote from us. Yet, Jesus’ family was a human family, like any other family of the time in many ways. The gospels suggest that the people of Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown, did not see his family as all that different from their own families. When Jesus went back to Nazareth as an adult to preach his gospel, the people of his town asked, ‘Where did this man get all this?... Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?’ They were really saying, ‘He is just like us, so how come he seems to have all this wisdom and is capable of performing all these mighty deeds?’ As a baby, as a child, as a teenager, as a young adult in Nazareth, Jesus did not seem to have stood out in as all that different to others of his age. In a small town like Nazareth at that time, everyone struggled to survive, and Jesus and his family would have been no different. His father Joseph had a skill which he passed on to his son and which they both used to try and make ends meet.

The story about Jesus’ family we have just heard in the gospel reading describes an experience which is not all that far removed from the experience of families today. Jesus was twelve years of age. In the Jewish culture of the time that was the age when children began to take on the responsibilities of adulthood. The gospel reading suggests that Jesus began to show an independence of spirit at the age of twelve. As devout Jews, his parents had brought him to Jerusalem for the great feast of Passover. They returned from Jerusalem with their extended family, relatives and acquaintances, presuming that Jesus was somewhere among this wider family network. Not a bit of it! He had stayed behind in the Temple. He was fascinated by the teachers of God’s Law that he found there. The gospel reading says he was listening to them and asking them questions. His questions emerged out of his listening. If Jesus was fascinated by these learned men, they were astounded at his intelligence and his replies. Jesus, it seems, was lost in a world that his parents did not inhabit to the same degree. When his parents finally found him, the exchange between them highlights the extent which Jesus and his parents were on different wavelengths. Addressing Jesus, Mary refers to ‘your father and I’, meaning Joseph and herself. In reply, Jesus refers to ‘my Father’, meaning God. Even at this young age it seems that Jesus knew himself to be subject to a higher authority than his parents.

The gospel reading says that his parents did not understand what he meant, but, nonetheless, Mary stored up what Jesus had said in her heart. She didn’t dismiss what he said but mulled it over in her mind and heart. Perhaps there are lessons here for us all today in our dealings with each other, whether it is blood family members or those who belong to the wider families of the church or of humanity. We don’t easily understand one another; we remain strangers to one another. There was clearly a mysterious quality to Jesus, which his parents would have been most aware of, but there is a mysterious quality to each one of us. Just as God was clearly at work in Jesus’ life from an early age, God is at work in all of our lives. Sometimes all we can do is respect the mystery of each other, and, like Mary, learn to ponder that mystery which we will never fully grasp.

And/Or

(v)  Feast of the Holy Family

We all make special efforts to connect with our family members at this time of the year. Those who live abroad try to get home for Christmas. We go out of our way to visit family members in their homes at this Christmas time, and family members visit us in our homes. Many of us move on from our families of origin when we get to a certain age, but our families of origin remain important to us, and it is above all at Christmas that we recognize that. We may not see eye to eye with our brothers and sisters and even our parents about everything, but they will always matter to us, and they seem to mean more to us at this time of the year than at any other time. Our relationship with family members remains strong, even if those relationships change over the years, as we individually grow and change.

Jesus did not appear on the scene fully grown. He was born an infant and he spent the first thirty years of his life with his family in his home in Nazareth. He grew up in a family setting with all its joys and pleasures, its pains and problems. He learned from his family the same things that all children learn from their families. He learnt his faith, his religion, from his mother and father who were very devout Jews. According to this morning’s gospel reading, his parents used to go to Jerusalem every year for the feast of Passover, taking their son with them. From a very early age Jesus was introduced to the religious heritage and traditions of his people; he was formed in the faith. Like other Jewish boys of devout parents, he was opened up to the Jewish Scriptures, the stories of God’s dealings with his people. He learned to pray the psalms, which generations of Jews before him had prayed. If his parents brought Jesus the long distance from Nazareth to Jerusalem once a year on the feast of Passover, they almost certainly brought him the much shorter distance to the local synagogue in Nazareth, at least once a week on the Sabbath. His parents passed on their faith to him. Yet, this morning’s gospel reading suggests that Jesus did not simply accept without question everything he was told by his parents. As soon as he came of age, he began to question things. In this morning’s gospel reading we find him in the temple sitting among the doctors of the Jewish Law listening to them and asking them questions. Jesus would emerge into adulthood with a great appreciation of his Jewish religious heritage, but he would also reinterpret that heritage in ways that would disturb many people, especially the religious experts of the day.

This morning’s gospel suggests that Jesus’ independent approach to his religious heritage and tradition left his parents somewhat disturbed as well. I know that many parents today can be very disturbed when their own sons and daughters don’t go on to practice the faith in the way that they as parents have always done. Many parents feel helpless in the face of this; nothing they say or do seems to make any difference. Parents can begin to blame themselves for what they perceive as their failure to pass on the faith to their children. This can be a source of great sadness for many parents. Yet, when children get to a certain age it is natural for them to question everything and to critique what they once accepted without question. This independence of spirit seems to show itself in the area of religious belief and practice more than in any other area of life. We have come to appreciate more fully in recent years that faith, as well as being a gift from the Lord, is also a choice. We have to say our own ‘yes’ to those fundamental religious values that our parents said ‘yes’ to on our behalf when we were baptized. Saying our own ‘yes’ to what is most fundamental in life can take time. It can involve a long and sometimes tortuous journey, a journey that cannot be plotted by others, even by loved ones. The Lord respects our freedom; he never ceases to call us, but he waits for us to respond to his call, and he allows us to respond in the way that is most personal to each of us.

I find the exchange between the twelve year old Jesus and his mother in this evening’s gospel reading very thought provoking. Jesus’ parents had brought him to Jerusalem on pilgrimage, but Jesus did not return with them. Instead, he went his own way. This independence of spirit was quite distressing to his parents. ‘Son, why have you done this to us?’ his mother asked him. Jesus’ reply did not reassure them; it simply left them more confused, ‘Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?’ Perhaps for the first time Jesus’ parents began to realize that they could not chart their son’s religious journey. God was at work in Jesus’ life in a way they, as parents, did not understand and they had to let him go. God is always at work in all of our lives, even in the lives of those who take a different religious path to the one we expected them to take, and wanted them to take.

Fr. Martin Hogan, Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin, D03 AO62, Ireland.

Email: sjtbclontarf@eircom.net or  frmartinhogan@gmail.com

Parish Website: www.stjohnsclontarf.ie  Please join us via our webcam.

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[fr-martin-gospel-reflections]

2nd Sept - ‘You put aside the commandment of God’, Reflection on today’s gospel reading (Mk 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23)

Twenty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

While he was hear, Pope Francis spoke a lot about family life. Our families of origin tend to have their own traditions. In being born into a particular family, we inherit traditional ways of doing things that have been part of the story of our family. When a family member breaks with those traditions and does things differently, it can often create some initial tension in the family. Yet, every generation of a family has to creatively shape the family tradition in response to the culture and times in which they live. Tradition is not a kind of dead weight to be passed on faithfully from one generation to the next. Any tradition that is worthwhile has to be living and vibrant, open to change and development. A living tradition is one that keeps within it the wisdom of the past while being open to new wisdom that comes from further reflection on experience.

If every family has its tradition, this is even more so of the family of the church which is two thousand years old. Within the Roman Catholic Church, in particular, tradition has always been recognized as a source of God’s revelation. God speaks to us through the Scriptures, which are the earliest and most authoritative expression of the church’s tradition. God also speaks to us through all those who from the earliest days of the church have allowed the Scriptures to shape their way of life. One expression of the tradition of the church would be the lives of the saints, who, even though they belong to the past, still have something to say to us about what it means to be a follower of the Lord today. Other examples of the church’s tradition would be how believers have worshipped over the centuries, and the many ways the church has given official expression to its understanding of the faith in its creeds and catechisms from earliest times. The church’s tradition is a living tradition. Like a human body it grows and develops. There is always continuity with the past but also change and development. Pope Francis embodies that understanding of the church’s tradition. Looking back over the history of the church, it is possible to identify moments when the church’s tradition underwent a very significant development in a relatively short space of time. The Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s was one such moment.

Jesus was born into a Jewish family and he inherited the traditions of his Jewish faith, those laws and customs which, according to the first reading, made the people of Israel wise and prudent. Yet, the gospels suggest that Jesus also wanted to renew his Jewish tradition so that it could more fully express God’s purpose for the Jewish people and for all of humanity. This mission to renew and reshape the Jewish tradition brought him into conflict with those who wanted to maintain the tradition as it was. In today’s gospel reading, the Pharisees who were committed to preserving the traditions of the elders accused Jesus and his disciples of riding roughshod over these traditions. Jesus in turn declared that the Pharisees give more importance to human traditions than to God’s commandments. While they were very concerned about traditions relating to food - what is eaten and how it is eaten – they had neglected what Jesus refers to elsewhere as ‘the weightier matter of the law’, namely, mercy, justice and love. Jesus challenged the upholders of the tradition to pay less attention to externals and to attend more to the attitudes that reside within the human heart and to the actions that flow from them. Jesus was calling on them to get back to basics, to return to the core values of their tradition, as found in the message of the prophet Isaiah, whom Jesus quotes at lenght.

The Second Vatican Council was the church’s attempt to get back to basics, to return to the sources of our faith, Scripture and the earliest traditions of the church. Today’s readings invite us as a church and as individuals to keep on returning to the sources of our faith, in particular, the Scriptures, the word of God.  In the second reading, St James calls on us to ‘accept and submit to the word which has been planted in you’. Such submission to God’s word, he goes on to say, involves not just listening to God’s word but doing what that word tells us. For James, central to God’s word is the call to show care and concern for the needy and most vulnerable, exemplified by the widows and orphans of his day. In returning to the sources of our faith, we will always hear afresh the call to serve those in greatest need. Today’s gospel reading shows that Jesus’ primary concern was those attitudes of heart which shape how we relate to each other. At the end of that reading he lists attitudes of the heart that were destructive of human relationships. Jesus understood the core values of his own Jewish tradition. He proclaimed those values in the ways he related to people, especially those who were on the margins for one reason or another. We live in an age in which loyalty to religious tradition can be a very destructive force. Today’s readings remind us that for us Christians, the real traditionalists, those most faithful to our Christian tradition, are all who live in ways that give expression to the Lord’s healing and life-giving presence.

Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland

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[erp1080160-blog]

First hair cut I have always believed that my have magic hands, that everything I do turns to gold, when I put that to use and I cut my son's hair for the very first time. Thank goodness it wasn't a mess up. Now many religious cultures have their own ideals surrounding a child's first haircut. Hinduism Haircutting is a sacred event For Hindus, haircuts are part of a series of cleansing rituals known as saṃskāras. A baby’s hair is seen negatively, as it can carry undesirable traits from former lives. Hindu boys get their first haircut — typically a complete shave — during odd months or their first or third year. For Hindu girls, their first is usually around 11 months and doesn’t involve getting sheared. In either case, families usually travel to a temple for the ceremony, which signifies purity and an auspicious future. Mongolian Take Turns With The Clippers Mongolian babies, depending on the lunar year, get their first haircut between 2 and 5 years old. In a ceremony, family members and guests take turns cutting a piece of the kids’ hair and offering wishes — like “Have a happy, healthy life” — toys, and cash. Orthodox Jewish Families Take Cues From Sacred Texts Never let it be said that Orthodox Jewish parents aren’t patient. According to their traditions, babies don’t get their first haircut until they turn 3, in a ceremony known as upsherin (Yiddish for “shear off”). Why 3? The tradition stems from a verse in the Torah that states a man is like a tree, and in Israeli law, trees cannot be harvested until they’ve matured 3 full years. An upsherin, held at temple with friends and family members, marks the start of a child’s formal education and shows that he is ready to start studying the Torah. Traditional Muslim Don’t Wait Long To Bring Out The Clippers Muslim babies get their first haircut a mere 7 days after being born. The hair is shaved to show that he or she is completely cleansed and thus ready to begin life as a Muslim. Typically, the hair is weighed and its value is donated to a charity. If the hair doesn’t amount to much, families can simply make a small donation Now being that I am a colored mother, I just didnt want my son to have kroos hair, (corse, ethnic, pronunciation: k-r-u-s) that is a very big thing in my family. I don't especially know where it stems from but it is paramount our hair be straight. It stands to reason because my hair is very European, sleek, straight and glossy. But when it's wet, it's curly much like my son. But I am the type of mother that waiting until after my son's first birthday, something my parents didn't do for my siblings and I. I never heard a real reason why you should cut a child hair after their first birthday. It was just something I knew to be true from having heard so growing up. I believe it had something to do with letting the hair grow in fully and then giving it a trim to help remove some of the baby hair and let new hair grow. But, again, I’m not entirely sure. It was just a given and definitely something I followed. I asked my mother and she said that “I cut my children's hair when it needed to be cut,” and she went on to tell me that “It’s an old wives tale – ‘they’ say their hair WILL NOT grow ever again [if cut before the first birthday].” Wow. That is a pretty drastic outcome if baby gets a haircut before his first birthday, don’t you think? Of course, I don’t believe that to be true, but it’s interesting to think about baby traditions and how and why parents follow the customs that they do. For me, it's so difficult to disgaurd of Jordan's first hairs because it has such remarkable value that, that hair grew whilst Jordan was in my womb. Today we walk into a barber shop, and walk out with a comb over hairstyle and not worry about the hair that is sheared off, we don't regard that as sentimental. But being able to take Jordan to have his hair cut and see his reaction to how he looks just makes it so worth it because that reaction I never got when he was little, he didn't even know what was going on when I had cut his hair after his first birthday. His reaction now is that he wants to be cool and I will do whatever it take to make this little boy feel cool

[afterthineownheart-blog]

Chag haMatzot Sameach!

This was written as part of a series of letters to my family explaining the appointed times of Yehovah in a way that would be (hopefully) easy to understand. I will send these letters out on the date of each day in question, to help them understand the Messianic perspective of all the “Jewish” holy days.

If I have kept up with these as I planned, then you should be getting this on Aviv 13—that is, thirteen days after the biblical New Year’s Day. That is actually the day before Passover (Pesach); I will explain why I’m a day early soon. We have a lot to cover in this section, so I will do my best to keep it within four pages.

As you all have grown up in church, my hope is that you already know the story of the Exodus. For brevity, I won’t recap that story, except for the parts directly related to the Passover.

The people of Israel were slaves in Egypt for 215 years. God used Moses as his mouthpiece to free Israel from Pharaoh, but Pharaoh refused to let them go. God cursed Egypt with ten terrible plagues, each of which was an attack on one of the gods of Egypt. The final plague was the death of every firstborn son and male livestock in Egypt. This was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, and Pharaoh agreed to let Israel go.

When God described this judgment to Moses, he told him that he would bring it upon all of Egypt, even the Israelites, unless they performed a certain act of obedience. You can read the full story in Exodus 12, but God told them to bring a yearling male lamb without blemish into their homes on the tenth day of the month. After four days, they would slaughter it in the afternoon; then they would eat it that evening (the evening meal marked the beginning of the 15th day). They were to paint their doorframes with the blood of the lamb. When the angel of death came to kill the sons, he would see the blood over the houses and pass them over. Any Hebrew or Egyptian who obeyed this command was saved.

Israel spent the next week running, finally reaching the Red Sea on the 21st day of the month. In Leviticus 23, God gives the most detailed instructions of his holy days that we find in the Bible, and there he tells us to observe the entire week following Passover (the 15th through the 21st) remembering his deliverance by eating unleavened bread, since baking with leaven is a day-long process, and Israel didn’t have time to sit around waiting for leavened dough to rise during their escape.

In addition, he gave us another command, that of the Day of Firstfruits. Unlike Passover and Unleavened Bread, this isn’t a holy day; it’s the day Israel begins to harvest the barley crop. It falls on the first Sunday after the Sabbath during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It always falls on a Sunday (although remember that in the Bible, days begin in the evening, so technically Firstfruits begins on Saturday evening and ends Sunday evening). This day is part one of a two-part command to remember how God spared the firstborn sons of Israel. Before Israel could begin harvesting their barley, the high priest had to cut down the first bundle of barley and present it before the altar as an offering. It symbolizes the firstborn sons of Israel being set apart for God. The second half of this command regards individual offers that every family must make for their firstborn son. Since we don’t have a temple today, we can’t really do either of those things, but this commandment is why Joseph and Mary offered two little birds as a sacrifice when Jesus was forty days old (Luke 2:22-24).

There is so much depth in these mo'adim, I will do my best to condense it all. The history of it is pretty straightforward, but this is where the events in Jesus’ life become extremely important.

To start it off, John the Baptizer was born on Passover. There is a long-standing Jewish tradition that Elijah the Prophet will appear to Israel on Passover to prepare them for the Messiah, and that is exactly what John the Baptizer came to do. I won’t go into it here, but when you do some calculations regarding Gabriel’s visit to Zechariah in Luke 1, the most likely date for John’s birthday is Passover.

Next, the 13th and 14th days of the month are considered days of preparation. Yes, the 14th is the Passover, but the Passover meal was eaten at the beginning of the 15th day, at sundown. Now if you compare Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, it is difficult to figure out the exact timing of these events. But the outline below pieces them together accurately.

Since the four Gospels are somewhat tricky to understand, here is the breakdown of the events of the last week of Jesus’ life:

Saturday, 10th – Jesus enters Jerusalem on the back of a donkey foal. This took place at the same time as the spotless yearling lambs entered Jerusalem. For the next several days, Jesus is grilled by the religious authorities, who are desperate to find a flaw in him somewhere. They can’t. Also during this time, the same religious leaders also examine the Passover lambs to make sure they’re perfect. Did you catch the symbolism there?

Tuesday, 13th – Jesus instructs two of his disciples to prepare for the Passover.

Tuesday evening, 13th/14th – This is the Last Supper. It is not the Passover, even though some of the Gospels give this misleading impression. After dinner, Jesus leads his disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane, where he is betrayed by Judas.

Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, 14th – Jesus is tried by the Jewish leaders in an illegal trial. In the morning, they take him to Herod and Pilate, who sentence him to death.

Wednesday afternoon, 14th – Around 3:00 p.m., Jesus has been on the cross for six hours. He cried out, “It is finished!” and gave up his life. This is the same time as when the priests would begin to sacrifice the Passover lambs.

Wednesday evening, 14th/15th – Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea bury Jesus.

Thursday, 15th – This was the first day of Unleavened Bread, which is considered a High Holy Day. No work can be done on it, just like the Sabbath.

Friday, 16th – The women buy and prepare the spices to properly bury Jesus’ body.

Saturday, 17th – This is the weekly Sabbath.

Saturday evening, 17th/18th – Jesus is resurrected.

Sunday morning, 18th – Mary gets to the tomb early and meets Jesus. He tells her not to touch him yet, because he has not yet ascended to his Father and God. Later, he meets the other women and most of his disciples, and he allows them to embrace him. Something significant happened between those times…

As you can see, his Wednesday crucifixion and Saturday evening resurrection don’t match the Christian holidays of Good Friday and Easter. Because of this, I have chosen not to celebrate those holidays, in favor of the holy days which God gave us in the Bible. I don’t say that to be boastful, but there is value in reconnecting with the faith practiced by the saints in the Scriptures. I hope you will consider joining me in this next year.

At the beginning of this letter, I said this is a day early. Tonight is the memorial of the Last Supper, and there is a lot going on at this meal that we can overlook when we read the stories.

Every year after the Day of Firstfruits, Israel would begin harvesting barley. From this barley, they would make a soupy concoction of fermenting flour called leaven. Leaven is what you use to make sourdough bread. As the flour soaks in a bowl of water, yeast from the air begins to digest the sugars in the flour. As the yeast eats, it turns the flour into leaven. When you bake sourdough, you mix some of that leaven into your fresh flour and oil. Then you set your dough somewhere warm, and the yeast release gases that cause the dough to expand. This is how we get loaves of fluffy bread.

Now leaven can survive for centuries if maintained well, but God commanded us to throw out our leaven every year on the day or two leading up to the Feast of Unleavened Bread. In the New Testament, leaven is likened to pride (1 Corinthians 5:6), sin (ibid. 5:8), and bad doctrine (Matthew 16:5-12). This annual ritual was clearly meant to be an object lesson for Israel.

At the Last Supper, we see that Jesus and those with him ate leavened bread. This means the meal had to take place on the 13th/14th, not as the Passover meal itself (14th/15th). This loaf of bread was probably made from the last leaven in the house. Jesus told them that the bread represented his body, which was broken on our behalf. Fast forward a few decades, and Paul referred to Christians as the “Body of the Messiah”. I will go into more detail on this in a couple of months with my next letter, but for now, just know that the bread from the Last Supper and us being the “Body of the Messiah” are closely related.

At the Last Supper, Jesus shared a cup of wine with his disciples. This is a Hebrew engagement custom. A young man offers a glass of wine to a young woman (after getting her father’s permission). If she accepts, then they both drink as a sign of their engagement. He returns to his father’s house to begin building a new room for them to live in. Once his father says it is ready, then he returns to his fiancée and takes her to their new home. When they arrive, they hold a week-long wedding feast. This kind of marriage language is all over in the New Testament. I won’t go into it now, but feel free to ask, and I can explain it more in depth. Maybe you even picked up on some of it yourself.

Moving forward, Jesus died at 3:00 p.m. on the following Wednesday afternoon. This is important because he is called our Passover Lamb. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul instructs the Gentile church in Corinth to keep Passover and the other feasts that fall during this time. When we choose to faithfully follow Jesus, his blood is figuratively painted over the doors of our hearts so that God’s anger for sin will pass over us on the day of judgment. And the unleavened bread we eat during the next seven days reminds us to remove sin, pride, and false teaching from our own lives.

You may recall that Matthew writes a spurious remark in 27:52-53 that at Jesus’ death, graves around Jerusalem broke open, and after he was resurrected, the bodies within them came out and preached around Jerusalem. After this, they are never mentioned again. It is my belief that these people were the Firstfruits offering made to God by Jesus in his new role as High Priest (more on this in six months, Lord willing). When Jesus told Mary not to touch him, it was because the high priest was not supposed to be touched from Passover until after he presented the bread offering to God. So sometime early Sunday morning, Jesus apparently took those resurrected people up to heaven. Throughout the Bible, we are privy to several descriptions of the throne room in heaven, but from Revelation 4 and onward, we see twenty-four elders who haven’t been mentioned before. I believe these are the saints whom Jesus presented before the Father before returning to greet his disciples that evening.

There is so much more I could say. These spring mo'adim are so important to us today because of what they tell us about Jesus and the hope of the Gospel. I greatly abridged the information and left out most Scripture references to cut down on space. But I do want to end on the End Times importance of these days.

Ezekiel 40-48 describes Israel during the Messianic era, aka the Millennial Kingdom that we discussed in the note about the Sabbath day. When Jesus reigns as King, there will be a temple in Jerusalem that dwarfs the ones that came before it. Jesus himself will be its high priest, and the descendants of Aaron the priest will serve under him.

When there was a temple in Jerusalem, all the nation was required to go to Jerusalem for Passover, as well as two other feasts (which I will discuss later). It will be no different in the future. Since Paul tells us to celebrate Passover and Unleavened Bread now, and Ezekiel tells us that we will do so during Jesus’ reign on Earth for 1,000 years, we ought to begin practicing now. You can begin by removing all the bread in your house and eat unleavened bread for a whole week. You can buy it at the store, but last year I made my own by mixing flour, water, salt, and olive oil. Next, take a day of rest on Saturday the 31st and Saturday the 6th. If I’m right (as of February 9), those are the first and last days of this feast. Take these days to remember the history of God’s redemption of his people—whether Israel from Egypt or all of us today from the curse of our sins.

The Catholic Church has set up its own holidays to celebrate Jesus’ death and resurrection. However, these holidays have been bogged down by many traditions that have dubious origins, some of which even come from other religions. I don’t begrudge anyone for celebrating Good Friday and Easter, but I urge you to consider giving up those man-made traditions in favor of God’s Appointed Times. There is such great worth in them that no human holiday can ever match.

[sa21-group3-shelfawareness]

中文的父母

By: Issa 

Translation of title: Chinese parents

      In Elli Schacter’s reading, Identity Agents: Parents as Active and Reflective Participants in Their Children’s Identity Formation, she talks about how certain role models we have in our lives can become “identity agents”, or those who actively interact with children and youth with the intention of participating in their identity formation, and who reflectively mediate larger social influences on identity formation. She explains how children have adults or elder figures that constantly interact with them and in turn, help them construct their own developmental niches and shape them into who they are today. I would like to discuss this reading in context of my own life, and how various elders or “identity agents” in my life have shaped and developed me into who I am today.

      To compare my own experiences with that of the reading, Schrater provides Jewish orthodox parents as an example for potential identity agents and I believe that being raised by a traditional Chinese parent has a very large similarity to this example. Growing up, the main parent figure I had was my father since my mother passed away when I was two years old. My father basically raised me all on his own and taught me everything he could so I could grow up in this world fully prepared. Since he was raised in a traditionally Chinese culture, he was expected to raise me in a similar way and did so. All the customs and traditions that were taught to his family by his own traditionally Chinese parents were passed down to his generation and were taught to me and my cousins in my generation. Examples of these customs and traditions that were (and still are) being taught to me by my father are: wearing red on birthdays or special occasions for good luck, practicing and speaking Fookien Chinese at home, respecting elders (specifically elderly males because they are respected more in Chinese culture), practicing offertory rituals and praying Buddhist prayers on All Souls’ Day and Chinese All Souls’ Day, and many others. There are also some values and characteristics that Chinese parents exemplify and teach to their children that are quite different compared to other cultures, with discipline being one of the biggest values that they wish to instill in their children. There are also the values of respect, courtesy, hard work, and obedience – these values are some that stand out for me as values that  Chinese parents teach that differ from values that are normally taught by other cultures because my family has always made it a priority that the younger generations exhibit these values (more than other values such as kindness, optimism, or compassion) because this is what their parents taught them, and these are values that the Chinese culture takes pride in.

      The Chinese culture really values continuing tradition and legacy, and sticking to their roots when educating their families, more specifically the youth. This is similar to the Jewish people (Jewish unorthodox parents were used as an example of parents as identity agents in the reading) valuing the preservation of their identity and their continued priority of creating a strong cultural commitment to continuity as a value in and of itself. Despite this value of continued tradition and legacy, Chinese parents and families are also open to other cultures and the continuing trend of globalization. With my family being a pure Chinese family but also citizens of the Philippines being exposed to various Filipino cultures and traditions, we like to stick to our own culture but also understand that we are around these cultures and are open to them while respecting them. I think this was also a big understanding that my family instilled in me while I was growing up – that I was supposed to stick to my family’s culture while being respectful and understanding of the cultures of the people around me. In my personal opinion, I think that this constant reminder from my family is what shaped me into becoming proud of my own culture while being more empathetic and knowledgeable of what other people are going through and how they behave with respect to what their culture is and what family they were born into. I also believe that the values that my family (specifically, my dad) taught me are what shaped me into who I am today – these values also influence my beliefs and opinions on various aspects of my life and have helped me make very important decisions that led me to where I am today, and can possibly lead me to where I can become in the future.

      Despite me sometimes loathing my father’s disciplinary, Chinese-based parenting style for being too disciplinary or overprotective, I’ve come to learn to appreciate the way I was raised because it shaped me into who I am today,  in terms of being more cautious when it comes to facing obstacles and problems, and more organized when it comes to working on tasks in my daily life.