Well...Bayli and I had a great chat on "Cup of Joe" today even though I coughed about every third word. We just wanted to let you all know that next week, Clear will be on Cup of Joe to tell us about his experiences in New York and his visit with Rabbi. You won't want to miss that! I'll tag a few regulars, but know that anyone (mostly women, but we have at least one guy that joins us).is welcome to join this casual discussion group. It's not a time of study, just a time to get to know each other. Hope you can join us, too.
@Julie.brunner, @the Jordan family, @ rivkah.Holland, @Dr. Kathleen Oden, @Kristina. Herrera, @Amy-Jeff McCullar, @ Amy.Philson

Ze yom She-ni! Ze TOV!!!!! I was reading this week's Torah portion: Vayikra 26: 3 - 5. It says (Complete Jewish Study Bible) "If you live by my regulations, observe my mitzvot and obey them; then I will provide the rain you need in its season, the land will yield its produce, and the trees in the field will yield their fruit. Your threshing time will extend until the grape harvest, and you grape harvesting will extend until the time for sowing seed. You will eat as much food as you want and live securely in your land.
Now...I'm not equipped yet to go into a "deep" discussion on this, but this really jumped out at me because we read practically the very same words in the prayers each morning just after the Shema.
We're not just supposed to read the prayers and then go about our day like nothing special happened. Hashem expects us to put ALL his words into practice in our daily lives. Daunting for someone like me who barely grew up in the church let alone understood any of it. I was well into my 50's before that started to happen. And now...23 years later, I'm learning from a whole new point of view. YIKES!!!! I'm still pretty p'shat, but, like with anything worth doing, if we keep at it, it WILL make sense.
Thanks for reading this and being a supportive family.

Nothing particularly profound to share today other that the fact that as we read the prayers every day, it amazes me how many of the words directly from the Siddur are found in much of the music that I taught over the years. It was difficult teaching music in a public school setting. I mean, really, music began in the Torah!!! What do you think, going forward through the centuries, our music would be built upon? I'm really happy that I'm no longer teaching in the venue during this phase of my life. It simply would not work!

Having said that, although I'm not too consistent during the "teaching portion of my year" I try to be on prayers whenever I can. It would be awesome to see some others from A-T joining us each morning. It's such an important part of our lives. 6:30am Sunday through Friday. 9:00am on Shabbat. Give it a try

Happy "preparation day" everyone. I'm ready to go, so time to get a few errands done and then sit down with a good book and put my feet up. In visiting with a friend this (much younger than me, by the way) I realized that I'm really enjoying this phase of my life. Although I'm not completely retired yet (still working approximately 5 hours a week), I have more time for doing some of the reading that I have put off for years. Still enjoying learning Hebrew, although it's getting a bit tougher in this mid-level class. Will finish up this level in a few weeks then taking a break before tackling the last level. Have a restful Shabbat. See you all again on Sunday

@aandjherrera Hey dad welcome

@aandjherrera

Just a quick update on our Kings & Prophets class. Tuesday evenings at 6:30pm CST. We've finally finished up 2 Samuel and will be starting in 1 Kings. Since we're working through this study chronologically, we'll be also looking at Chronicles along with Kings. Really an interesting study. I encourage anyone to join us on this Skype call on Tuesday evenings. Hope to see you there