Lughnasa Waning Summer Moon
At 7 I’m off to Evergreen to Rich Levine’s. We’re going to harvest honey from one honey super and try to use the flow hive. The flow hive is an invention by an Australian beekeeper that has the bees put honey in plastic frames instead of a honey super. An ingenious torquing mechanism uncaps the honey and it flows through a tube into jars or a bucket. Mine came just after Kate and I decided to move to Colorado, so I’d hung up my beesuit. I have it Rich. Hope it works. That was five years ago now, and they’ve come up with improvements. Rich has one of the new ones, too.
Kate’s growing more frustrated with her nausea and I don’t blame her. Imagine if, on any day, you could be debilitated, often without warning. Imagine, further, if that debilitation resulted in weight loss and as a direct result, loss in strength and stamina. Her gall bladder ultrasound came back normal. We’re in an odd situation now of hoping that at least some test will show something. Normal is usually a good result in any medical test, but when you have something unexplained. Well. What we want now is something diagnostic, and that something treatable.
I put up 7 lesson plans, or at least what qualify in my very rookie way, as lesson plans. Each lesson plan has to relate to the overall theme for the year, reconstruction and the b’nai mitzvah experience, yet stand alone. Here’s an example. Might be used before Simchat Torah, when the reading of the Torah finishes and then starts over again.
Understanding the centrality of Torah in Jewish life
Intro. What is Torah? Why is the Torah read through, then repeated? Discussion
Lesson content:
a. Write, in Hebrew, the names of the books of the Torah
b. A conversation about the broader and deeper meaning of Torah.
c. What stories shape your life? Family stories? Childhood stories? Books, movies, anime
Finish: Dance with the Torah scrolls. (a common practice on Simchat Torah)
I’m moving further and further into the life of Beth Evergreen. Kabbalah, mussar, Jewish Studies Sampler Sundays (or, as Rabbi Jamie said at the annual meeting on Thursday: Jesuss) teaching bar and bat mitzvah students about this central ritual in Jewish life. Participating in a mussar group focused on spreading mussar in congregational life. Getting to know well at least a few members: Marilyn, Jamie, Tara, Rich, Alan, Anshel, Sally, Ron, Susan, Sheri. Seems both odd and normal. Odd in that I’m a pagan; normal in that I love this community and want to help sustain it.
