Halfway there
Dec. 22nd, 2022 12:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livThe middle of Chanukah coincided with the solstice this year, so lots of people have noted the turning point symbolism. It also coincided with my OSOs testing out of Covid isolation, and everything is better when we're able to be in the same place.
With all my carefully laid plans scuppered by Covid, I was more antsy about the festival than looking forward to it. The weekend started badly, I was ill enough with a cold that I missed all our end-of-term cheder Chanukah activities. I mean I was actually too ill to go out, even without taking care not to infect others. Given symptoms and known exposure I have been testing every day so a string of negatives leaves me fairly certain it was a not-Covid cold, but still not fun. Also there was a really hard freeze, much colder than we usually get in early December, so it was icy out and difficult to keep the house warm in, which probably didn't help my immune system.
I joined the all-ages Shabbat service via Zoom, and my bnei mitzvah class were awesome at putting on their skit about the story of Joseph without me there to direct and prompt them. Their imaginations were really caught by midrash about Joseph's gender-bending so they decided to play Joseph as an extremely camp drag queen, and we were missing one of the principals and all the children who were supposed to be chorus in the crowd scenes, but those who were there managed really well with spontaneous doubling roles and ad-libbing.
Missed the last day of cheder and the cheder celebration, missed the community party, though I'd been in two minds about attending anyway as it was a lot of people eating in a smallish space. Insteadhatam_soferet and her husband and their excellent 5yo came over for first candle and latkes, and the plagued household joined us on Zoom. I cannot tell you how much I am enjoying having my best friend living just round the corner. Also they have made a non-fire chanukiah with the sun representing the shamash (both words are spelled שׁמשׁ in Hebrew so it's a clever word-play) and one planet for each of the 8 days. I had never thought of that connection, now that we have eight planets in our solar system.
Monday evening I lit second chezhatam_soferet and family, then came home to teach my GCSE Hebrew class the bit of Gemara where they set out the rules for Chanukah and define what it is (yes, in that order). We had a good discussion about the late appearance of the light miracle, I do like teaching kids who are old enough to be historically skeptical.
Monday night the temperature climbed by nearly 20 degrees and all the ice and slush was gone by Tuesday morning. Which is not good on a broad scale but it was much nicer being warm again. I did interfaith education lighting third at work (over Zoom, nobody's going in to campus this last week in the year.) Not many people are around at all, but the ones who did come were interested to hear the chanukah story. Then we had glorious fried dinner, fish-n-chips or halloumi from the good Turkish chippy withhatam_soferet and family, and stayed up late chatting after 5's bedtime and it was lovely lovely lovely.
And yesterday, fourth candle so my Hebrew birthday,cjwatson came over with his 14yo and 2yo and the two little girls were completely adorable together and we actually had a proper family chanukah. I made cheesy pasta bake and soda bread and alternatives for the people who can't eat that and we tried to sing 4 verses of Maoz Tzur for fourth night. There aren't normally eight verses but hatam_soferet knows a piyyut expert who dug up the really obscure ones. I had to jump out in the middle to teach my regular Torah reading class, who had fun reading the detailed description of the Menorah with all the obscure plant bits.
Tonight I'm going over to OSOs' to light fifth with all of them together including the people who still aren't well enough to come out. And if we're lucky there might be more latkes.
Two more days of work and then I'm off for the rest of the year. Might just make it through.
With all my carefully laid plans scuppered by Covid, I was more antsy about the festival than looking forward to it. The weekend started badly, I was ill enough with a cold that I missed all our end-of-term cheder Chanukah activities. I mean I was actually too ill to go out, even without taking care not to infect others. Given symptoms and known exposure I have been testing every day so a string of negatives leaves me fairly certain it was a not-Covid cold, but still not fun. Also there was a really hard freeze, much colder than we usually get in early December, so it was icy out and difficult to keep the house warm in, which probably didn't help my immune system.
I joined the all-ages Shabbat service via Zoom, and my bnei mitzvah class were awesome at putting on their skit about the story of Joseph without me there to direct and prompt them. Their imaginations were really caught by midrash about Joseph's gender-bending so they decided to play Joseph as an extremely camp drag queen, and we were missing one of the principals and all the children who were supposed to be chorus in the crowd scenes, but those who were there managed really well with spontaneous doubling roles and ad-libbing.
Missed the last day of cheder and the cheder celebration, missed the community party, though I'd been in two minds about attending anyway as it was a lot of people eating in a smallish space. Instead
hatam_soferet and her husband and their excellent 5yo came over for first candle and latkes, and the plagued household joined us on Zoom. I cannot tell you how much I am enjoying having my best friend living just round the corner. Also they have made a non-fire chanukiah with the sun representing the shamash (both words are spelled שׁמשׁ in Hebrew so it's a clever word-play) and one planet for each of the 8 days. I had never thought of that connection, now that we have eight planets in our solar system. Monday evening I lit second chez
hatam_soferet and family, then came home to teach my GCSE Hebrew class the bit of Gemara where they set out the rules for Chanukah and define what it is (yes, in that order). We had a good discussion about the late appearance of the light miracle, I do like teaching kids who are old enough to be historically skeptical.Monday night the temperature climbed by nearly 20 degrees and all the ice and slush was gone by Tuesday morning. Which is not good on a broad scale but it was much nicer being warm again. I did interfaith education lighting third at work (over Zoom, nobody's going in to campus this last week in the year.) Not many people are around at all, but the ones who did come were interested to hear the chanukah story. Then we had glorious fried dinner, fish-n-chips or halloumi from the good Turkish chippy with
hatam_soferet and family, and stayed up late chatting after 5's bedtime and it was lovely lovely lovely.And yesterday, fourth candle so my Hebrew birthday,
cjwatson came over with his 14yo and 2yo and the two little girls were completely adorable together and we actually had a proper family chanukah. I made cheesy pasta bake and soda bread and alternatives for the people who can't eat that and we tried to sing 4 verses of Maoz Tzur for fourth night. There aren't normally eight verses but hatam_soferet knows a piyyut expert who dug up the really obscure ones. I had to jump out in the middle to teach my regular Torah reading class, who had fun reading the detailed description of the Menorah with all the obscure plant bits. Tonight I'm going over to OSOs' to light fifth with all of them together including the people who still aren't well enough to come out. And if we're lucky there might be more latkes.
Two more days of work and then I'm off for the rest of the year. Might just make it through.
