SICHA IM HA'ISHA

but that doesn’t have to be a physical object!!

dips for matzah:

cashew cream cheese (soaked cashews blended with lemon, dill, garlic, salt, white wine)

pate (sauteed mushrooms, onions, sage, ground walnuts)

guacamole

salad

normal salad ingredients (leaves, tomato, olives, avocado, cucumber, herbs, celery, etc etc etc) plus quinoa / hearts of palm / boiled potato / roasted sweet potato, for some bulk

mains

sauteed mushroom and ground walnuts with onion and basil in tomato sauce - serve with potatoes or quinoa

use the above, with optional spinach etc., as a faux meat to layer with slices of roasted aubergine to make a moussaka

just roast some vegetables tbh

lots of soup (carrot, mushroom, onion, tomato, etc)

dessert

1:1 ratio of dark chocolate and coconut milk/cream (i.e. for 1 400ml can you would want 400g chocolate), melt together and chill

Torah ark curtain made from a woman’s dress

Izmir, Turkey, dedicated in 1929

Velvet silk in a satin cotton frame, couched metal threads and coils embroidery on cardboard cut-outs, sequins

Inscribed in Hebrew with dedication in memory of Jacob Haim son of Mazal Tov

From the late nineteenth century, it was a common practice for Sephardi Jews living in urban communities of the Ottoman Empire to donate precious, embroidered home textiles, such as bed coverings, pillowcases, and especially dresses, particularly wedding dresses, to be reused as curtains and coverings in the synagogue. From the 1850s through the turn of the century, Jewish women adopted a new style of wedding dress from the Turkish bourgeoisie. Heavy couched metal thread embroidery on dark velvet or pastel satin, depicting flowers spreading from vases or other stylised vegetal motifs, covered gowns known in Turkish as bindalli (a thousand branches) dresses. By their tailoring, as well as their embroidery motifs in what is known as the “Turkish baroque” style, these garments showed strong European influences. This wedding gown marked a transitional phase between the traditional entari dress and the white European wedding dress introduced in the early twentieth century.

Depending on local custom, brides wore this type of dress either for the kiddushin (wedding ceremony) or on the morning after the wedding, known as the sébah. The bindalli dress was one of a whole set of lavish gold embroideries in the bride’s trousseau to be used throughout her life. Like other gold embroidered articles, these dresses ultimately reached the synagogues, where they were converted into ark curtains, Torah mantles and binders, reading desk (bimah) covers, and the like, frequently with added dedicatory inscriptions.

The lyrics of this video are an alphabet chant, very Kabbalistic, combined with the Hoshanot prayer. The words are found in Hebrew in the description of the video and an English translation is here, in someone else’s Tumblr post.   

The prayer she’s manipulating is sung during the holiday of Sukkot, the harvest festival (every morning but especially during the service for Hoshana Rabbah, the seventh day).   It is a song of salvation, of thanksgiving for harvest, and the deep desire for rain, the hope of earning God’s blessing.  It’s one of the oldest and most important prayers written when Judaism was largely an agricultural community, rightfully obsessed with the need for rain.   The leafy branch she beats against the blackboard at 1:43 is an aravah branch from the lulav, which is an actual religious ritual that many Jews still observe, albeit on the floor of the synagogue, not in a classroom.   That act of bending over and beating the aravah is alluded to in the choreography of the schoolgirls in several places, including 3:01.  

When all the girls draw marks on the board at 3:23, they’re drawing the rain, the healing source, the life-giving source, which the video animates to depict a storm, complete with sound effects.  But it’s drawn on a green chalkboard and that color is also important:  don’t those dancing marks equally resemble grass growing, springing to life after the rain?

The arc of the video also mimics the shape of a holiday prayer service, from a simple beginning where most are sitting down and following one person chanting, to communal song, when all voices rise up together in melody and action (Sukkot services in particular are full of organized movement, learned choreography) to pierce through to the glory of Heaven and obtain the blessing of rain.  In order to receive the falling rain, we move our own bodies around and around.  Stagnation is drought.  Staying still is empty prayer.   

This song is deeply religious artwork, reimagining and reinvigorating old traditions for 21st-century presentation.    And it’s equally important that Victoria Hanna is reclaiming a prayer written by and for men, asserting her right to create art and perform prayer in a cultural space that historically excludes her.

The letter ע (Ayin- eye) shown on a girl’s forehead, the blackboard, and the singer winking all elude to a constant theme of eyes and watching. Within Charedi Judaism girls are told to dress as plainly as possible to avoid the gaze of not just men, but the Ayin Hara (Evil Eye) as well. Girls are told not to wear flashy colours, flashy hairstyles, speak too loudly, lest the Ayin Hara be tempted to cause harm. I would also suggest that the ע on the forehead is also a reference to the letter branded on Cain’s forehead- symbolizing the ostracization women and girls face if they step out of line.

She is also emphasizing the “hard” pronunciation of ע, which is absent from Ashkenazi communities but is retained in some Mizrachi communities. In the beginning of the music video she is also demonstrating the range of Hebrew letter vocalizations and vowels, which includes other Mizrachi pronunciations. She is teaching not just Hebrew to the class, but her culture as well.

The honey dripping on the books with Aleph-Bet (Hebrew Alphabet) on them is a reference to an old tradition of when a child (read: boy) first begins his education, he is welcomed by honey being dripped onto the pages of his books to symbolize the sweetness of Torah. The honey being dripped onto the girls’ books is symbolic of girls rebelling and learning Torah.

intro post | tag | AO3

It happened in the days of Robert Baratheon—the Robert Baratheon who reigned over a hundred and twenty-seven provinces of Westeros from the Iron Islands even unto Dorne.

In those days, when King Robert, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, occupied the Iron Throne in the imperial city King’s Landing, in the third year of his reign, he gave a banquet for all his councilors and courtiers – the elite of the Seven Kingdoms, the great Houses and the bannermen of the provinces in his service.  For no fewer than a hundred and eighty days he displayed the vast riches of his realm and the splendid glory of his majesty.

At the end of this period, the king gave a banquet for seven days in the Great Hall of the Red Keep for all the people who lived in King’s Landing, the imperial city, lords and smallfolk alike.