I promised several gals I would post the recipe for Jalapeno Cranberry Sauce:
12 ounces cranberries (fresh or frozen), 1 cup of water, 1 cup of white sugar, 3 jalapeno peppers seeded and minced, 2 tsp. lemon juice, 1/2 cup cooking sherry.
Rinse berries in cold water and drain.
In a saucepan, mix water and sugar; ;stir to dissolve sugar. Bring to a boil. Add cranberries, Jalapeno peppers, and lemon juice and return to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add sherry and stir will. Remove from heat and let cool completely at room temperature.
Refrigerate in a glass container with a cover. Serve with turkey or chicken.
Enjoy!@

This article really spoke to me regarding all the religious versus spirituality we observe. I don't know which category it could go under, #hanukah or #rituals maybe #religion, how about #connectingwithhashem. No matter what category it would go under it may be an eye opener. It is for me. Especially now that I understand what it means to be a light, a vassal and kelipot.

#verseoftheday
Psalms 32:1-2
A song of David to teach wisdom. Happy is he whose sin is forgiven and his transgressions covered over. Happy is the man whose wrong-doing G-d will not hold against him, because he has truly repented and he has no intention of deceiving either G-d or man.

Boker tov everyone! It's a fun-filled day! 12:30 pm EST is Hebrew; 1:00 pm EST is Basic in keeping a Kosher Kitchen with Rebbetzin Sima Siegel ; then 7:30 pm EST is Basic Talmud with Rabbi Jeffrey Siegel.

Don't forget, every morning except Shabbat is Learning to pray in Hebrew. 8:00 am EST. I find that the Shachrit each morning starts my engines so I can fly thru the day.

Have a wonderful and blessed day.

The message here gives me hope. HaShem cares about the smallest of details, like a sciatic nerve. That G-d loved Yaacov so much that when the evil Angel of Esav touched his hip, HaShem prohibited anyone from eating that part of an animal. It is just so awesome. Well enough of what I think. This is from Azmut.com, Rabbi Alon Anava.

It’s Not Petty When It’s Your Child

“….Therefore, the bnei Yisrael may not eat the Gid Hanasheh, which is on the socket of the hip, until this day, for he touched the socket of Yaakov’s hip, in the tendon which became displaced….” – Bereishit 32:33
״…על כן לא יאכלו בני ישראל את גיד הנשה אשר על כף הירך עד היום הזה כי נגע בכף ירך יעקב בגיד הנשה…״ – בראשית לב, לג

This mitzvah is to serve as a reminder to the Jewish people that though they will suffer many hardships in their exiles, at the hands of the nations and at the hands of the children of Eisav, they will be confident that they will never be lost. —Sefer HaChinuch, Mitzvah 3

Vayishlach
It is remarkable that such a crucial aspect of Jewish faith, our eternal hope of survival, is commemorated with a law so narrow in scope. The prohibition of eating the sciatic nerve seems to be a mere technicality in the laws of Kosher, applicable only to the precise nerve that the angel wounded in Yaakov, which is in and of itself only a minor detail in the story of Yaakov’s miraculous salvation!

The emphasis on detail in this mitzvah is extremely significant. It highlights that G-d’s intimate concern extends even to the most negligible details in the life of a Jew!

Truly, the Baal Shem Tov taught that every single aspect of creation is governed by Divine Providence, and serves a specific role in the Divine plan for the universe. Nevertheless, in the rest of creation, the significance of the role played by each blade of grass is still minor in comparison to that played by the sun or the clouds, or by animals and humans.

Not so in the details which transpire in (and effect) the life of the individual Jew; the health of even a nerve in his hip is as important and cherished by G-d as is the whole of the entire universe and even more so. Each Jew is uniquely chosen by G-d to be a part of His treasured nation, each member of which He loves like His very own biological child. Therefore, even the seemingly trivial details of a Jew’s life are of infinite and essential importance to Him and are His most pressing issue and concern.

—Likutei Sichos vol. 30, pp. 148-154

First day of Winter BREAK! #winterbreak2017

I love Sephardic Jewry history. I have been able to trace my line to early 1400's #sephardichistory

#modernhebrewtips
I get these in my email all the time and I it occurred to me I should be sharing them. So here it goes.
עַל קוֹצִים
Al Kotzim

Literally: On thorns
Idiomatically: On edge

This modern phrase is basically slang. The word "kotzim" is found in Genesis (3:18), and is part of God's curse on Adam and all of humankind. A "kotz" in general refers to any kind of thorn. Now if someone tries to sit on a thorn bush - he won’t very comfortable , and as such he will be well, on edge , hence the phrase.
A more popular thorn phrase is "kotz betachat" קוץ בתחת) ( which is gently translated into English as a thorn in one's side. In Hebrew we use a more descriptive word that refers to a body part further south.

הוא ישב על קוצים עד שהוא קיבל את התשובות של המבחנים
"Hu yashav al kotzim ad shehu kibel et hateshuvot shel hamivchanim." He was on edge until he received the results of the test. Anyone have a pair of tweezers?

This article is quite long but very detailed. I copied and pasted one part which speaks on converts.
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The covenants with Abraham are unconditional and eternal. But they are limited only to the offspring of Abraham. The covenant at Sinai, on the other hand, included many people that had joined the Jewish people in their exodus from Egypt. Indeed, even those who were biological descendants were required to enter into this covenant—so that all Jews at that point were effectively converts.

From this we know that it is possible to become an heir to Abraham even if you are not a biological descendant. Indeed, a convert is called “a child of Abraham” for ritual purposes, including marriage. You need only to enter into the same covenant as the Jewish people did at Sinai, in the same way as they did. These, indeed, are the requirements of Jewish law.21

#verseoftheday
I don't know if anyone has noticed but the verses I am using are from the 10 Psalms that Rabbi Nachman asked us to recite as a remedy to sin, teshuvah. The Tikkun HaKlali. It is good for me to go through them like this because I am getting a lot out of them. When I get all 10 Psalms done I hope to post them here in a separate section. One Fridays, though, I go looking for a verse in our weekly Parashah that would be meaningful.

#likuteimoharah65 #baalshemtov
About to call it a day however I came across something I wanted to share. I am reading to catch up for the Likutei Moharan class and in the commentary (annotated by Chaim Kramer) on section 1 in the paragraph that states, "a soul is rectified through someone's death," it say this,
Rabbi Nachman told this story in Uman in 1810. The Baal Shem Tov once arrived in a certain town where he fell into a very deep melancholy and despair. Though alarmed by his despondent state, the townspeople did not dare ask him about it. After a day and a half the Baal Shem Tov requested that all visitors to the town be brought to him. Two individuals were found and quickly taken to where the Baal Shem Tov was staying. The townspeople later heard him arguing with these two visitor. Rebbe Nachman then said that although he did not remember all the details of the story, the essence of the matter was that there were souls that had be trapped in this town for three hundred years without being able to ascend. All these years they had looked for a person of stature, capable of effecting their tikkun but had not found anyone who could undertake the task. When the Baal Shem Tov arrived in the town, these souls came to him seeking rectification. This was the reason for his depression, since it was indeed a very weighty task. It seemed that the only way the Baal Shem Tov could accomplish this mission was if he were to die. But this was not the right time for that, and so he involved the two visitors in order to bring about the rectification of all those many souls. (tzaddik #87)

Wouldn't it have been cool to have been a fly on the wall and found out how this story ended.

All this make so much sense of the writings of Yeshua's life and death. The agony of torture and death itself to rectify souls that were trapped. It is said that many souls walked the earth at Yeshua's resurrection. I just bet they ascended he did also. I just think it is so cool that Rabbi Nachman can explain what Yeshua was doing better than years spent in the church. There is one other commentary that I thought was a good explanation of what Yeshua was doing and why he said what he said at the time of his death but I will save that for tomorrow.

Matt. 27:51-54
Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. So when the centurion and those with him, who were guarding Jesus, saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they feared greatly, saying, ‘Truly this was the Son of God’!