The day God created the world. 5775 years ago.

Today, 24 September, is National Heritage Day and National Braai Day in South Africa. A day of remembering our heritage. And feasting on meat in a way that reminded us of the Old Testament sacrificial practices.

Today,  24 September, at sundown, 1 Tishrei on the Biblical calendar, is also the start of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and the anniversary of the day God created the world. 5775 years ago.

The festival of Rosh Hashanah is observed for two days beginning on 1 Tishrei, the first day of the Jewish year. It is the anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, and their first actions toward the realization of mankind’s role in G‑d’s world.

Rosh Hashanah thus emphasizes the special relationship between G‑d and humanity: our dependence upon G‑d as our creator and sustainer, and G‑d’s dependence upon us as the ones who make His presence known and felt in His world.

But this is also the day we proclaim G‑d King of the Universe.

Rosh Hashanah observances include:
a) Eating a piece of apple dipped in honey, to symbolize our desire for a sweet year, and other special foods symbolic of the new year’s blessings.
b) Blessing one another with the words “Leshanah tovah tikateiv veteichateim,” “May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.”
c) Tashlich, a special prayer said in evocation of the verse, “And You shall cast their sins into the depths of the sea.”

© Chabad.org

 

 

Biblical Calendar

The rules for the Biblical Calendar and discovered that they are simple and logical:

1. Start and end days at sunset (Genesis 1:5).

2. Start weeks at day one and end on day seven, the Sabbath. (Leviticus 23:15-16). Sabbath end at sunset on Saturday.

3. Start months with the sighting of the new moon (Deuteronomy 16:1).

4. Start years in the month barley will be harvestable by the middle of that month (Leviticus 23:4-14).

 

These suggestions invite you to observe God’s creation – sighting a sunset or a new moon and looking at a barley crop. Psalm 33:8 says, "Let all the earth fear Yahweh: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him." Is there a better way than to get outside and look at some of these awesome, timekeeping sights of creation?

 

 

Written in Paleo-Hebrew, the Gezer Calendar dates from the 10th century BC,
the time of the construction of Solomon’s Temple. It contains the following text:

Written in Paleo-Hebrew, the Gezer Calendar dates from the 10th century BC, the time of the construction of Solomon’s Temple. It contains the following text:

"Two months of harvest

Two months of planting

Two months are late planting

One month of pulling flax

One month of barley harvest

One month of harvest and feasting

Two months of pruning vines

One month of summer fruit"

 

This calendar lays out the fundamental importance of the agricultural cycle in King Solomon’s day this can be seen in the temple festivals of Shavuot  ("Feast of weeks") or First Fruits in early summer (the "month of summer" fruit in line 8), and the Feast of Ingathering (the harvest) in the fall which culminates to the Feast of Tabernacles. The mention of feasting reflects the pilgrimages festivals which involved feasting.

 

 

Cupcakes

Tonight while my mom, Lenie, and daughter, Emmy, baked cupcakes, I wondered where the concept originated.

 

 

 

The first mention of the cupcake can be traced as far back as 1796, when a recipe notation of "a cake to be baked in small cups" was written in American Cookery by Amelia Simmons. The earliest documentation of the term cupcake was in "Seventy-five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats" in 1828 in Eliza Leslie's Receipts cookbook.

In previous centuries, before muffin tins were widely available, the cakes were often baked in individual pottery cups, ramekins, or molds and took their name from the cups they were baked in. This is the use of the name that has remained, and the name of "cupcake" is now given to any small cake that is about the size of a teacup. While English fairy cakes vary in size more than American cupcakes, they are traditionally smaller and are rarely topped with elaborate icing.

 

 

I admire . . . Corrie ten Boom

Cornelia "Corrie" ten Boom (born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 15 April 1892 and died on her 91st birthday, 1983) was a Dutch Christian who, along with her father and other family members, helped many Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War II and was imprisoned for it. Her most famous book, The Hiding Place, describes the ordeal.


The ten Boom family were devoted Christians who dedicated their lives in service to their fellow man. Their home in Barteljorisstraat (in Haarlem when Holland) was always an “open house” for anyone in need. During the Second World War, the ten Boom home became a refuge, a hiding place, for fugitives and those hunted by the Nazis.

 

The Ten Boom home on the corner of Barteljorisstraat and Schoutensteeg, Haarlem.

Ten Boom family members were eventually betrayed by informants and were sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp where most died, except Corrie ten Boom, who went on to tell the story of the family’s work with the Resistance movement. Her autobiographical book, The Hiding Place, was published in 1971 and made into a full-length feature film of the same name in 1975. 

The Corrie ten Boom Museum tells the extraordinary story of the Ten Boom family which saved 800 Jews in the "Hiding Place" from Nazi death camps in WWII.
https://www.facebook.com/corrietenboommuseum/info

http://www.corrietenboom.com/


 

Tea with a queen.

While reading "Good morning, Mr Mandela", I also visited Buckingham Palace with Zelda and Madiba; to have tea with the queen!

With the possible exception of the Duke of Edinburgh,

Nelson Mandela must have been the only man on Earth

 who called the Queen “Elizabeth”. He was certainly the first and last human being to greet her with a cheery, “Oh Elizabeth, you’ve lost weight!”

Mandela in old age could get away with just about anything. As he travelled the world in his ninth and 10th decades, doing good works, dispensing homilies and sprinkling stardust over all he met.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/10927182/Good-Morning-Mr-Mandela-by-Zelda-la-Grange-review-compelling-and-ultimately-heartbreaking.html

 

From Bloem to Bordeaux

Tonight I went to the first ultra-local event since I'm back in Bloem:
the annual PnP wine-tasting!

And there I met John X Merriman 2007




Winemaker: R. Christian
Variety: Bordeaux Blend

A Bordeaux wine is any wine produced in the region around Bordeaux, France. Average vintages produce over 700 million bottles of Bordeaux wine, ranging from large quantities of everyday table wine, to some of the most expensive and prestigious wines in the world.

 

The vine was introduced to the Bordeaux region by the Romans, probably in the mid-1st century. Red Bordeaux is generally made from a blend of grapes. Permitted grapes are Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec and rarely Carménère. The vast majority of Bordeaux wine is red. The 60 Bordeaux appellations and the wine styles they represent are usually categorized into six main families, four red based on the subregions and two white based on sweetness:

 Red Bordeaux and Red Bordeaux Supérieur.

 Red Côtes de Bordeaux.

 Red Libourne.

 Red Graves and Médoc.

 White Dry.

 White Sweet.

Vintage demijohns

Heatlh & rejection

Today, during ABC (Apply Bottom to Chair) or RESEARCH,
I found this interesting information on REJECTION.

This scene of the Admonitions Scroll shows an emperor turning away from his consort,
his hand raised in a gesture of rejection and with a look of disdain on his face.

Social rejection has a large impact on a person’s health. An unsatisfied need to belong would inevitably lead to problems in behaviour as well as mental and physical health. Numerous studies have found that being socially rejected leads to an increase in levels of anxiety. Additionally, the level of depression a person feels as well as the amount they care about their social relationships is directly proportional to the level of rejection they perceive. Rejection has an impact on the emotional health and well being of a person as well. Overall, experiments show that those who have been rejected will suffer from more negative emotions and have less positive emotions than those who have been accepted or those who were in neutral or control conditions.

In addition to the emotional response to rejection, there is a large effect on physical health as well. Having poor relationships and being more frequently rejected is predictive of mortality. Also, as long as a decade after the marriage ends, divorced women have higher rates of illness than their non-married or currently married counterparts. In the case of a family estrangement, a core part of the mother’s identity may be betrayed by the rejection of an adult child. The chance for reconciliation, however slight, results in an inability to attain closure. The resulting emotional state and societal stigma from the estrangement may negatively impact psychological and physical health of the parent through end of life.

The immune system tends to take a very impactful hit when a person experiences social rejection. This can cause severe problems for those with diseases such as HIV. One study investigated the differences in the disease progression of HIV positive gay men who were sensitive to rejection compared to those who were not considered rejection sensitive. The study, which took place over nine years, indicated significantly faster rate of low T helper cells, therefore leading to an earlier AIDS diagnosis. Interestingly, they also found that those patients who were more sensitive to rejection died from the disease an average of 2 years earlier than their non-rejection sensitive counterparts.

Other aspects of health are also affected by rejection. Both systolic and diastolic blood pressure increase upon imagining a rejection scenario. Those who are socially rejected have an increased likelihood of suffering from tuberculosis, as well as dying by suicide. Rejection and isolation were found to impact levels of pain following an operation as well as other physical forms of pain. Rejection and exclusion cause physical pain because that pain is a warning sign to help us survive. As we developed into social creatures, social interactions and relationships became necessary to our survival, and the physical pain systems already exsited within our bodies.

I met him at the Dead Poets Society in 1989.

 

Robin Williams

(July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014)

 

 

Robin Williams was an airman, a doctor, a genie, a nanny, a president, a professor, a bangarang Peter Pan, and everything in between. But he was one of a kind. He arrived in our lives as an alien – but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit. He made us laugh. He made us cry. He gave his immeasurable talent freely and generously to those who needed it most – from our troops stationed abroad to the marginalized on our own streets. The Obama family offers our condolences to Robin’s family, his friends, and everyone who found their voice and their verse thanks to Robin Williams.

- Barack Obama

Sister's Day.

On the first Sunday in August, we celebrate being or having a sister.

 

Sister's Day is a day reserved to the sister or sisters

whom you distinctly love although you also fairly fight with sometimes.

 

My two granddaughters Nina (27 months) and Gweni (15 months) are  citizens of Australia and are living an idyllic life with their stay-at-home mum Magi and dad Michael. They are expecting their new sister, Elli, early in November.

 

Making faces in the mirror of the grannies' room;
A room with visitors twice a year.

 

Water-fun in the notorious heat of the Australian Outback.

A sissy-hug op the trampoline.

A Day of Mourning, A Day of Hope



In the Jewish nation, and especially in JERUSALEM, the 9 th of Av (4/5 August) has a violent reputation.



Terrorist attack on 9th of Av in Jerusalem.

Tisha B'Av is the day the Jewish nation morns the destructions of their temples. The First Temple was also destroyed on the 9th of Av (423 BCE). Five centuries later (in 69 CE), as the Romans drew closer to the Second Temple, ready to torch it, the Jews were shocked to realize that their Second Temple was destroyed the same day as the first.

 

According to the Hebrew Bible, Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple, was the Holy Temple (Hebrew: בֵּית־הַמִּקְדָּשׁ‎: Bet HaMikdash) in ancient Jerusalem, on the Temple Mount (also known as Mount Zion), before its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar II after the Siege of Jerusalem, when the Jews of the Kingdom of Judah went to exile, known as Babylonian Captivity.

 

Destruction of first temple. Painter unknown.

 

Destruction of the second temple. A painting by David Roberts (1796-1849).

The Second Temple was an important Jewish Holy Temple (Hebrew: בֵּית־הַמִּקְדָּשׁ הַשֵּׁנִי‎: Bet HaMikdash HaSheni; Arabic: بيت القدس‎: Beit al-Quds) which stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem during the Second Temple period, between 516 BCE and 70 CE. It replaced the First Temple. Jewish eschatology includes a belief that the Second Temple will in turn be replaced by a future Third Temple.

The Third Temple, or Ezekiel's Temple (Hebrew: בית המקדש השלישי‎: Beit haMikdash haShlishi), is a Jewish Holy Temple architecturally described and prophesied in the Book of Ezekiel, a house of prayer for all people with a sacrificial service. It is noted by Ezekiel as an eternal edifice and permanent dwelling place of the God of Israel on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Good morning, Mr Mandela

I just came from a funeral. Madiba's.
I just finished Zelda la Grange's book on the 19 years she served her Khulu. 



Good Morning, Mr Mandela
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LocEnSvynGU

On 6 December last year, just after midnight the captain of flight SA7861 on route to Minchin announced that Mr Mandela passed away.

My reaction was relief.
And thankfulness that he could rest.
At last. 
The South African government kept the world in the dark about Mr Mandela's life and death for more than six months by then. We don't know to interpret the official statements. We only know for certain that everything was not as ordinary the statements made then out to be. And the eruptions of lust after power and money from the inner circles, confirmed the undignifying politics that surrounded the issue.    

My personal belief that Madiba died six months earlier was changed by Zelda la Grange's account of the last year of his life. Although Zelda did not saw him during the last six months, she belief the accounts of some of the members of is inner circle that did, including Mrs Graça Machel, the wife that adored Madiba.

Zelda also confirmed the disrespect that Madiba, his wife and some of his dearest acquaintances were bullied with, just as we suspected.

The most vivid example of the disregarding of the humanness of Madiba is seen on this ANC publicity stunt below. This was a disgrace; to  impose on his privacy and to use him when he could not stood up for himself. How shocked we were when this public-exposure-at-all-cost picture appear.

Zelda la Grange served as Mandela’s secretary, gatekeeper and constant companion for the best part of 20 years.

The public deaths of two giraffes.

Two very sad giraffe stories . . .

COPENHAGEN:

A bid to save a young giraffe from destruction at Copenhagen Zoo has failed, and the giraffe was put down on a Sunday morning in February.

Thousands of people had signed an online petition appealing for a change of heart over the two-year-old called Marius.

The zoo said it had no choice because of its duty to avoid in-breeding.

Marius was killed by a bolt gun, not a lethal injection, which would contaminate the meat.

A post-mortem examination was broadcast live on the internet.

A crowd of visitors, including children, watched as the carcass was skinned, cut up and fed to the lions.

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26098935


JOHANNESBURG:
Those responsible for the death of a giraffe whose head struck a South African highway overpass while it was being transported in a truck will likely be prosecuted under animal protection laws.

Prior to the giraffe accident, startled motorists took photographs of the truck, which was carrying two giraffes whose long necks were visible above the sides of the vehicle.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/08/01/south-africa-giraffes-head-hits-highway-overpass/13452203/

They travel together once again.

In silence I watched the naked body of a dead baby in a open stretch of land. Everything in the scene was wrong. No movement. No parents. No blanket. The baby did not even cry. So unreal.

But it was very real. And very wrong.

I read the passenger list and realised hat it could have been anyone of us, or our loved-ones on that list. I listened to the rebels' excitement as they hit the target. I saw how locals stole the valuables, even before the bodies were removed. And then, in silence, I saw the train leaving with the passengers who boarded MH17 a few days ago. They travelled together once again.



Police officers secure a refrigerated train loaded with bodies of the passengers as it arrives in Kharkiv.

I watched all of it on Aljazeera - which I consider the most objective news channel available.
And the war continues, and the killing of fact  . . .

Aljazeera just reported that the MH17 Wikipedia entry was edited by a Russian government IP address. After Russia edited changes about who is responsible for the disaster, their motives are questioned.

 http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201407211855-0023944

The house I call "home" now . . . (5)

Jou kombers en my matras

A tassel is a pendant ornament that is seen in varying versions in many cultures around the globe, according to the Webster's Complete Reference Dictionary and Encyclopaedia of 1949 that I saved from the waste paper pile last week.

The earliest reference to tassels, fringes or zitziot (singular: tzitzit) is made in the Bible. Around 1406 B.C. God gave the Israelites the design for their prayer shawls or talitot (singular: tallit).

. . . tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a blue thread in the tassels of the corners. And you shall have the tassel, that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the LORD and do them, and that you may not follow the harlotry to which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined, and that you may remember and do all My commandments, and be holy for your God. Numbers 15:38-40 (NKJ).

The purpose of the tallit is to bear the fringes (tzitziot) commanded by God in Numbers 15. The tzitziot are therefore far more important than the tallit itself. The tzitziot at the four corners of the tallit are tied into knots using a complex procedure with number-related symbolic meaning.

To make tassels remained serious business.  Passementerie or passementarie (the art of making elaborate trimmings or edgings for clothing or furnishings). In the 16th century an apprenticeship of seven years was required to become a master in one (only one!) of the subdivisions of the guild of passementerie.

 

Tassels illustrated in A Handbook of Ornament (1898)

 

Last week I took this picture of postgraduate students in ceremonial wear at the graduation ceremony of the University of the Free State. The tassels or liripipes are clearly visible on the mortarboards.

And after this elaborate introduction, thanks for holding you tassels (being patient), I'll gladly introduce you now to some tassels in  our home.

 

I was the passementerie weaver of this tassel.

and of this one . . .

and of this one . . .

This black beauty was a gift from my sis Magda.
The white feathery reminds me of a cabaret costume! 

Is this magnificent, magnificent or munificent?

Perfect combination between this vintage tassel and the drape (made from a sari we bought in Singapore's Little India).

Some of our  embroidered Chinese charm tassels.



 

 

Perpetual tea-time. Perpetual winter.

 Alice approaches a large table set under the tree outside the March Hare’s house and comes across the Mad Hatter and the March Hare taking tea. They rest their elbows on a sleeping Dormouse who sits between them. They tell Alice that there is no room for her at the table, but Alice sits anyway.

The March Hare offers Alice wine, but there is none. Alice tells the March Hare that his conduct is uncivil, to which he rejoins that it was uncivil of her to sit down without being invited. The Mad Hatter enters the conversation, opining that Alice’s hair “wants cutting.” Alice admonishes his rudeness, but he ignores her.

The tea party sits in silence until the Mad Hatter asks the March Hare the time. When he discovers that the March Hare’s watch, which measures the day of the month, is broken, the Mad Hatter becomes angry. He blames the March Hare for getting crumbs on the watch when the March Hare was spreading butter on it. The March Hare sullenly dips the watch in his tea, dejectedly remarking that “It was the best butter.”

The Mad Hatter calmly explains that Time is a “him,” not an “it.” He goes on to recount how Time has been upset ever since the Queen of Hearts said the Mad Hatter was “murdering time” while he performed a song badly. Since then, Time has stayed fixed at six o’clock, which means that they exist in perpetual tea-time.

 

 

I have not murdered time, but since I approached December 2013, I'm in perpetual winter-time.

I landed in an icy hurricane in Copenhagen in the beginning in December, lived across the frozen Emdup lake, could not believe my eyes when I saw the frozen Nohavn (a 17th-century waterfront close to Copenhagen), tried not to slip on frozen snow in Gentofte , and got soaking wet in an just above zero hail storm in Aarhus.

And since Im back in South Africa, we experience a harsh winter. Sutherland's  -13 is cold, and Bloemfontein's -8 is also quite uncomfortable.

Rooikloof Guest Farm (Picture from www.rooikloof.co.za)

Snow on the Drakensberg Mountains at Champagne Sports Resort
(Picture from Snow Report SA)

Snow-capped Protea at Jonkershoek
(Picture from Snow Report SA)