Rejuvenation: The Ultimate Fruitcake

[Music] hi everybody Eve Harrow rejuvenation on the land of israel Network it is October 20th 2019 the 21st day of Tisha lay 5780 kind of the middle of the night at this point already it's been a really crazy few weeks of the holidays and that's why you haven't heard my dulcet tones in a couple of weeks just could not get it together last week also just some crazy things happening and I don't know if I'm just more sensitive to it or if it's just statistically significant but in addition to the usual tragedies and the car accidents and friend of ours passed away childhood friend passed away from a brain tumor on Rosh Hashanah on and really the tragedies and people dying too young just seems like a lot of elderly people are also passing away like just tonight someone we know father passed away this morning they have the few 84 years old they had the funeral tonight in Jerusalem that's what we do in in Israel is bury as quickly as possible and even at night which is a very interesting experience to go to a funeral at night you would think it would be creepy like you know being in at a cemetery at night but actually it's not and just you know there's a lot of respect and it's just it's a very very interesting experience you should only have it when someone's died in their bed and at 120 it just seems like a lot of a lot of people that we know and because it's the holiday season it works out weirdly when it comes to sitting Shiva just starting the seven-day mourning period so there were a lot of people that we know who barely sat siob at all because the holidays stopped Shiva so if somebody passes away even like two hours before Yom Kippur that family sits for those two hours and that's it that's it the holiday stops in and it doesn't restart and then what happens on Sukkot is if somebody passes away in the middle of the holiday you don't start the Shiva until after the holidays over so we know a few people in now who've been in this like weird zone for the past few days because they're in mourning but they have an official and the person has been buried but they haven't officially started the mourning period they'll they'll do that on I guess on Monday night or Tuesday morning when the holiday is officially out here in Israel so it's like a lot of strange things going on as a matter of fact somebody that I was supposed to interview his grandmother died and therefore like he canceled the interview so just like whatever it should only be again people who've lived long full lives and and and have a have a peaceful passing but this has been like a very very strange couple of weeks but speaking of that my grandmother this would have been her birthday where we are right now in the Jewish calendar is a day called hoshanah Rabbah it's really the official last day of Sukkot Simchat Torah is an extra day and that's gonna be on Sunday night Monday where we start reading the cycle of the tour again and and dance with the Torah and it's a really beautiful and fun day but Rosh Hashanah rabo was my own grandmother's birthday she passed away a long time ago I think she would have been like a hundred and seventeen which is still not a hundred and twenty but she passed away when I was a teenager and she was only 74 which I realized now how young she was but if she's someone that I still carry with me it's been a long long time but she was someone she and my grandfather really showed me what a long-term loving relationship could be like they were incredible people never had a lot of money they used to say we're rich and maybe someday we'll have money because they had people they had loved they had faith they had both come over from Russia and their families had all you know followed the American Dream and intermarried and the brothers and the sisters and and their grandchildren like none of my second and third cousins I think are very very few from that side of the family are in any way living Jewish lives right now but my grandparents were the ones that kept the faith kept Shabbat even though my grandfather who was an accountant lost jobs because he wouldn't work on sad but they just felt that there were some more things that were important and and even though they really never had very much at all they had a lot and they showed me something incredibly important that I needed to see and a lot of what I do when when I do it I think about them especially my grandma Lily and I wonder what she would have thought and how much she would have loved my children and my grandchildren now and and I still miss her and still carry her legacy around and now that I'm myself of him grandmother so I realize how important that relationship is it's not talked about in the Bible too much like Natalia is not a great example of grandmother actually you have Naomi it's not technically her grandson but I guess it doesn't matter I think that's a beautiful message as well Ruth and Boas son ovett is not technically her grandson but she loves him and raises him according to the Book of Ruth and I think that that's a great message so grandparenting is not just biological it's the caring and it's the love and it's and it's showing it's a relationship and so I missed her but hopefully carrying on with my faith and with the way that I live my life in something that that she would be proud of so on her Shauna Rob I think of her especially so I know where you are grandma Lily and a few a month after she passed away is actually when I met my husband so I was thought like you know she went up and she she like said touch them okay you need to listen to me here we need to we need to send her someone special and and she made it happen so I feel that love even in a different dimension but what's interesting about hoshanah Rabbah in general is that it's seen as kind of the final the final judgment like what we pray for and that we will be forgiven and that we will also have a good year and like signed and sealed in the book of life for the next year so that really is a big deal that's the essence of Yom Kippur but it ends on hoshanah Rabbah that's like the final thing and that's where there's a whole lot of Jews who will be learning Torah going to Torah lessons and and doing good things even more than usual some people even stay up all night so to learn Torah especially to program especially the book of Deuteronomy and the Book of Psalms and so it's there's a lot of like lessons going on everywhere and people really connecting even more to the Torah and then an interesting things going to be happening in synagogue which is one of the last remaining rituals that we have from the temple which is Huck a foot or men walk around the synagogue and they use the Willows from the four species that we've been using on so cut and they you they like beat the floor with the willow and it's a very ancient ritual it comes like I said out of the temple times you know the word hug which we translate as holiday comes it's the same root as the word hug which is to encircle and that's where hug comes from because that's what you used to do is encircle in the temple and Hajj also which is of course the the Muslim ritual of going down to Mecca and circling the Kaaba so that's all the same word hug Hajj hug and and in the synagogues on rosh hashanah rama you see like the last remains of that and also tremendous prayers for rain this is going to be the beginning we hope of our rainy season we had a little preview of that last week actually oh and by the way though the thing about the encircling it because I didn't want to mention this especially because we're reading Psalms so Psalms 26 verse 6 says I all translate into English I wash my hands in purity and circle around your altar Lord so that's also hooks into the ritual that's going to be happening the same guys but anyway we had a little preview of the rainy season last week so what I try and do on the first day of the intermediate days is save that day for my family and we do something fun some kind of workshop so we did pop Tamela and keep observing here in Gush Etzion which is it's more than just bread making and I take people there all the time I take tourists there all the time so it's really fun to take my own family there and then we were going to go on a hike meet some family some of my cousins that we're gonna we were gonna meet them in the middle and the hills between where they live in Beit Shemesh or where I live in Gush Etzion and do I do a little hiking and the kids were gonna play in the trees and it we got there a few minutes before them and it started clouds came in and thunder and lightning so obviously we canceled the the hike but at the time so we were sitting there and my son-in-law Gedaliah Blum was very active on social media so he filmed me talking a little bit about soo cooked and it's got all over the place maybe some of you have seen it if not and you're interested I think I'm sure it's on my Facebook page but you could write to me just like really off-the-cuff some thoughts about to cut because again when you because when you live here in the land you feel the holiday in a different way Sukkot was probably the most important pilgrimage festival in the days of the temple and it's not just for the Jews like you know you had people that came from from all over the world and you have that today as well there was a big parade in Jerusalem of non-jews also they came they came to Jerusalem and came to Israel but you feel sooo caught in a way again because the transitional season between the dry season and the wet season between so-called summer and the winter but it's also the only time of year where you have all five of our fruits of the seven species of the Land of Israel aside from the barley and the wheat the very end we're having now the harvest of the grapes and the figs and the pomegranates weren't a lot of people's tables and incorporated into our menus on the holiday I made a cake with all seven of the species in it which was really good as a fruit cake how did I get the barley in there a little beer to the batter but it but in addition to that of course we also have the dates or at the peak now of the harvest of the dates and the holiday as we've discussed before we're sitting under stock we're holding a lulav we're sitting under the palm fronds so it's very very much about the of the date palms but it's also the very beginning of the olive harvest there are some of the trees that are already being harvested for the olives which even though the it's connected with our next holiday which is Chanukah which will be in two months the Chanukah is also like the end of the olive festival and so right now on so cut you're feeling you've got all those species you see what's going on in the land you feel the transition in the weather and if we see Hashem in or at least how I see em in three major things in the Torah so we have that of course this is the biblical festival in nature so we have that as well we're seeing what's blooming and in Jewish history which I live and breathe and of course you know talking about how we used to celebrate the holidays what remnants we still have the ancient way what are the new things that we've incorporated in so Sukkot really brings all that together and in addition to family in addition to people going on trips all around so the rain put a literal damper on things but it didn't rain all that much and people still got around so uh anyhow so I saw my film me talking about these things just because it's there it's just when when you're here and you feel it and you see it then it's all around you and the next day I had a one Israel fun bus trip we had a sold-out bus and went down to Quran so Quran was really hopping I'm sure a lot of you know that Ben Shapiro the famous conservative radio host was down there and yeesh I got to take him around which is really fabulous and so I went down there with the group and we had special permission to get up to a place called a boost Nana that's the picture that's accompanying this show is the view of the tomb of the patriarchs from Abu Celina Busse Nana is one of the hills that surrounds the tomb of the patriarchs which of course is in the valley because what is it it is the building that's over a cave at the edge of the field so it makes perfect sense that it would be in the valley of Quran and the city of Quran the ancient city of Quran which we now call tell Ramana is up on one of the hills but a boost Nana is another Hill that's right next to tell Ramada and there is fortunately now an army base of ours up there our current prime minister had given away parts of quran in a very misbegotten agreement about little over 20 years ago in the mid 90s and one of the commanders of the army who came on the scene a few years later after people had been shot at and killed like the baby shall have it passed in the vet who lived in the valley near the tomb of the patriarchs because from that hill you just have you know you can you'll see the picture you can just aim it whoever you want it and somebody did aimed at a 10 month old baby and killed her anyhow so dear Weinberg he got that back he was able to get the army to get the high places and to give security to everybody and I've run he himself was later killed in a in infiltration in a battle that happened in Tehran but he made a huge difference not just to the lives of the people living in Quran but to those of us who want to go and visit thousands tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of people who want to go to have run and want to go there safely so we first went and said thank you to the soldiers we brought them goodies we got to see Quran from how they see it I've been up there a couple of times one of my son's was stationed there and I wasn't there when he was there but there were other times that I got up there anyhow so he had special permission to get up there and that's how we started our day and we were able to really understand the topography which is a big thing of mine to like take away the modern buildings open the Bible and look at it as it would have looked during those days and understand why people walked a certain way why towns are built in a certain place and all of that then you get a real you can really reconstruct some of the activities in the context of what was happening during the biblical times and really in all the years since because Quran of course has a 4000 year history and things are being discovered there all the time so that was great then of course we went down to the tomb of the patriarchs specifically that day I'd arranged to go down because it's one it was one of only ten days a year where the Jews get access to the entire tomb of the patriarchs otherwise the most beautiful room which is allow me it's clock or Isaac's Hall is just for the Moslems really beautiful room Crusader pillars and and Mamaluke like the I block the red and white stone work that they did really really nice so we were able to go through the whole marathon of course the prayers that people say there and and just really being able to be in a place where even if you've gone many times especially to go on the holidays it's always important to have a reconnection and then we stopped it when at the pinna comma at the little warm corner there where soldiers come all the time and and get goodies and it's a project of initial funds and we left things for them there and heard from the guy who runs it who started it four and a half years ago when his father passed away and his father really loved the soldiers and and felt that what they were doing was so important and what he wanted so all farah wanted to do something in memory of his father so he started this warm corner and and he makes sure that all the soldiers are taken care of and you know they come home something come back sometimes two three in the morning after some activities to make sure that terrorists don't leave quran and go anywhere they want and and do terrible things and he makes sure that they come and they have something to eat and somebody to care for them so that was really great to understand that the things that we do is because other people are working very hard to keep us safe to keep us secure and very often in our lives when like we go into a situation and it's running smoothly it's because somebody worked really really hard to make sure that it was running smoothly and work and went easily i'm speaking here of course as a wife and mother as well right wear it like that stuff just doesn't happen i was in me me a couple weeks ago is the only woman in the meeting they were like ten guys at some point it got late i said i had to go home somebody asked me like why you have to leave i said cuz I don't have a wife at home so you know some of these things like still just have to be done anyhow we left Quran we came up to check machete on had a beautiful lunch in the souk on fire its own and then this is the first time I've ever done this went to a chocolate workshop in the kyboots she's always fun and fifty people of all ages from like three and told probably eighty had a great time making chocolate so that's a fun workshop to do because you know like the days have to be back Lily got to shake it up a little bit so you have the prayer and you have like the heaviness and the seriousness of the Quran and it's also important to have a little fun I think or a lot of fun and then we went over to a lunch shoot to speak to my friend Cheryl Mandel has lived there for a long time she is a bereaved mom her son Daniel was killed many years ago in sham Nablus looking for terrorists and she's an amazing woman the light in her eyes went out a little bit after he was killed but she's still by far one of the most bubbly and upbeat and incredible people that I have ever met and she's a dancer and she just even walks like that she bounces around and she took us to one of the new neighborhoods and our lunch food is actually not such a new neighborhood but it's about to be refurbished where there are Peruvians people from Peru who felt connected to Judaism who came to Israel who converted to Judaism and and you know I've lived here already for a long time anyhow they need a new Park it's something that we're involved with so the kids got to burn off a little bit of their chocolate sugar energy on the swings and on the slides and she told us a little bit about the community and about the people there and then we drove through my town through a fried which where I rarely take people there isn't much to do here tourism wise but a lot of people have heard of it so we drove through and saw the new neighborhoods and I pointed out the Dagon Hill where I was busy in the summer of 1995 making sure that it wasn't handed over to Bethlehem because it's right between it's right next to Bethlehem and at the time the Israeli government was gonna give it over to our fight and a bunch of us mainly women fought very hard on the hill that summer physically settled there and lived in tents and and did whatever we could until we got dragged out but now we go there and there are families living there including one of my sons and his wife and two kids so such a great feeling to to feel like you know I did something maybe somewhere maybe not as much as I could have but we can all make a difference you just have to you just have to get out there and try so it was a really nice day and a great bunch of people on the bus and it's so funny because some of the people who come on my trips were new never met them before some some there was a family that had heard me speak in Harbor last month in Florida and so they signed up for the trip and we spent the day together delightful family great kids and but there's other people who are more regulars and they come to Israel and they come on my bus trips and I see them all the time and a few of them also listen to this podcast regularly and it's just so funny to talk to people who know me well and like talk about certain interviews that they listen to at home and because they know me they know that I'm holding back like they know that I don't agree with something that the person that I'm interviewing is saying but they they said to me you know we we admire the fact that you held back that you gave the person space and they it's important that people are able to air your views but we know you and we know that there's no way that you agreed with what he said we're just true it which is true but I said but I was happy about that that when I obviously not on a monologue like today where I'm taking up all the air space but that when I interview I try not to talk and I try really try and let the person that I'm interviewing talk and that's what they're there for and share and yeah it does not always mean that I agree with what they have to say but definitely want to give them the respect and learn and maybe they'll change my mind and maybe they won't but I want you guys to be able to learn from everybody that a interview and since it kind I hope it comes across how much I like people how much I'd like interviewing and how much I'm concentrating on what they're saying and and really trying to you know make it come not not everybody that I interview is this going to be a smooth speaker some are fantastic and I just have to sit back and say uh-huh occasionally and but others not so not everybody who writes a book is necessarily a great speaker and be able to facilitate their getting their ideas out because I think that that's what this platform is for and I feel privileged to be able to choose who comes here and and that would interest me I hope interest you as well so so that's kind of it for today I tired had lone soldiers at over Shabbat not just at my table but sleeping in the house which is always a really great thing to do but it's and a lot of cooking it's gonna be a little bit more tomorrow and more friends are coming and we're getting together and I just think it's cool that we're starting the cycle of reading the Torah again just at the time that we pray for rain it's like you know with the cycle of nourishing of our souls and but also asking for nourishment for the ground which was also at some point going to nourish our bodies I read somewhere years ago that the fact that it rains on the ocean means that the rain wasn't just created for us for people and for agriculture what it beans it rains on the ocean do the fish need the rain I'm not sure but there's a bigger picture here in the world it's not all about us and so I thought that was I thought that was a cool thing I know that I'm going to cry in synagogue when I read about Moshe Rabbeinu about Moses dying I know it's coming every single year it happens but the older I get the more I realize what an incredible leader he was how he inspired us to this day despite the fact that he was not eloquent and the Torah makes it a point to say that he stammered his words still resonate and the relationship that he had with Hashem the special relationship and the special prophet that he was it still still stands out even after these many thousands of years and and I was in Jordan as I've talked about before a few years ago standing on Mount niveau standing where Moshe or Boehner stood looked into the promised land and then died and was told he couldn't go in and then he was taken to the to the eternal world and to stand there and to know that in a few days time I was going to be able to go into the promised land that I have been chosen to live here to make my life here to do whatever I can here is just really overwhelming and that feeling just doesn't go away that just tremendous gratitude that I get to live in the land I get to eat the fruits of the land I get to learn Torah to guide people to do it all here is really something absolutely extraordinary so we're then going to be changing in the clocks and we're going to be getting into the shorter days of winter I he said two months no holidays which is just fine cuz I gotta hit the gym after the last month of holidays but Thanksgiving Day November 28th which is a Thursday as usual also it's part of the weekend of Polish Iassogna of the Torah portion of the life of Sarah where a lot of people come in and go to have run arcing back to have run again so I'm doing diving for when Israel funds a joint trip with a brig Aviv fabulous organization that's tracking the illegal Arab building all over Judea Samaria and also in Israel so know me Conover Gavin and I for the first time are going to be Co leading the tour so if you're going to be around it the flyer is up on the windows real fun site you can go you can sign up it includes lunch I'll be talking about the legal things and the legal project that when is well fun does and she'll be showing us some of the illegal things that the Palestinian Authority is doing being funded by the European Union far away from the main roads far away from the eye of the media that probably knows about it but doesn't want to report on it anyway to see what's really really happening on the ground here in Judea and Samaria and never resting of course in trying to make that difference in trying to change the situation and weak people up to what's really happening because if you're just asleep at the wheel it's not good and you have to be aware of things that may not be comfortable but we have to be aware of them otherwise the people who are trying to put facts on the ground that are inimicable not just for the Jews here but for Christians here and also for the good Muslims here because Israel having sovereignty in Judea and Samaria is good for everybody involved and that's a message that we have to keep getting out and and hopefully we'll continue to do that spent a lot of time on the bus actually talking about the Bar Kokhba revolt the failed revolt of the second century because his headquarters was Gossage on and his coins had the four species on them of Sukkot and the letters that were found in the 1960s where we finally figured out what his first name was because he signed them shame on talk about bringing up the lulav iime and the from the firm ain't getting where the palm trees grow and about tithing the Etzel games so even in the middle of everything that was going on they were concerned about surcoat so he was connected to the trip he was connected to the area and of course connected to the holiday and and you know thinking about when it is wise to to want independence and when the forces arrayed against you are too great but we have our independence we have our sovereignty and little Israel and it's time it's time to extend it out so got our work cut out for us in 5780 not me you guys as well and of course if you're living in the land to just appreciate every minute and if you're not make your plans for when you're coming if you've never been it's high time and if you have been then it's time to come back as things are changing all the time and there is just something about this place that will recharge your your soul batteries like nothing else so if you're into like some some kind of New Year's resolutions that might be a good one in the meantime I am gonna go to sleep because I have a long day ahead of me but I did want to turn into you guys so you shouldn't miss me too much so seem hot to us a Mac and thanks for listening Eve Harrow rejuvenation on the land of israel network I want to thank Tabitha and Ben especially during the holidays for getting this show out you can always write to me Eve at the Land of Israel calm and oh I need some advice from some of you out there I love gardening I love planting flowers I love how they look and and just the act of gardening and getting the dirt under my fingernails is something really therapeutic for me but I had there is a cat in my neighborhood that digs up my flowers and it's making me crazy so if any of you someone told me that if you plant lavender that takes them then they'll go away I've tried chili powder I've tried all these smells I'm about to commit feline aside is that even a word no I'm not gonna do that I'm not gonna go kill the cat but it's very frustrating because it's such a beautiful thing to have pots of flowers around and it's not just the money and it's not just the effort they're all like scattered around when I wake up in the morning so if any of you have any ideas on how to stop this cat from digging up my flowers I would really appreciate it so drop me a line take care of everybody you can always take out my website Yves Harold calm for last shows if you're a new listener and for where I'm gonna be I'm gonna be on the East Coast in December I just booked my tickets Baltimore and in the New York New Jersey area February two trips to the United States one for the winners a fun dinner in early February but I'll also be out in Sacramento for a couple things before that end of February going to a pack and hopefully they will let Judea and Samaria become the topic this year I don't know we'll see but in the meantime planning to go so here I thought I was going to sign off five minutes ago and I'm still blabbing on thanks for listening thanks for staying with me Yves herro take care everybody have a wonderful week goodbye for now [Music] he who reigns within himself says John Milton and rules passions desires and fears is more than a king I'd like to believe I have quite a grip on myself though I can't claim any royal descent I'm rod like fire and this is the Jewish story join Roth Mike foyer for the best Jewish history podcast the Jewish story on the Land of Israel network at the