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high holidays

The On-Ramp to Meaning

In Los Angeles, the hardest part of starting a big trip can be getting from the entrance ramp onto the freeway.

Unsolved Mysteries

Over the High Holidays, somebody scrawled Nazi swastikas and the epithets \”Cursed evildoers\” and \”Evildoers, you will die\” on the front door of the Reform movement\’s Har-El Congregation synagogue in midtown Jerusalem.This was only the latest act of vandalism against Har-El, Israel\’s oldest Reform synagogue, in recent months. Over the summer, someone smeared human excrement on the synagogue door. On two other occasions, somebody poured acid on the synagogue garden, turning the grass yellow. All these incidents took place when the building was closed.

It’s Time to Talk

It\’s High Holiday speech season. Rabbis prep, call each other withideas, exchange jokes, insights, and witty stories. They ponder thegreat issues of the day and get ready for prime-time talking in therabbinical world. Synagogues may not be full throughout the year, butcome Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, there is hardly an empty pew. Thisyear, attendance will be a bit higher, as Yom Kippur falls on aweekend.

Challah-palooza

At first glance, the round challahs of the High Holidays mightseem to be no more than the ritualized version of a GeneralMills-like strategy. How could a bread that is braided 11 months ofthe year suddenly taste different the month it is made round? Eggsare eggs, flour is flour, yeast is yeast, etc., right? But, somehow,the challahs of the High Holidays — domed crowns of golden dough,studded with raisins, sitting atop a holiday table like a princess\’pillow — do taste different.

Chabad’s Shofar Factory…It’s a Blast

Quick, what\’s a kosher animal with horns that can be used to makea shofar?\n\nUh, well, everyone knows the answer to that. A ram, right?\n\nOK. Right. But name another kosher animal with horns good formaking a shofar.\n\nBzzzzzz! Your time is up.\n\nBut the several thousand Los Angeles-area day- and Hebrew-schoolchildren participating in Chabad\’s Traveling Shofar Factory know theanswer: The long, spiraling horns of the male kudu, a type of Africanantelope, are often used to make the shofarim employed in Sephardicsynagogues.

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Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.