The Dreaded Question

The purpose of this blog is to bring some color to the Shabbat table. Please print and share, or forward or...
 

Last week's hurricane post (if you got past the dad-jokes) made a surprise connection between hurricanes and Rosh Hashana.

This week begins with a question that our 11-year-old daughter asked me last night.

 

She asked the Dreaded Question.

It's that question that parents know is coming sooner or later and hope that it will be later rather than sooner.

Some parents are pro-active and don't wait until they're asked.

But many parents put it off as long as possible.

On any other subject, we're the experts we have all the answers.

But when this one comes up - especially when we're not expecting it - it catches us tongue-tied.

The question I'm referring to of course is:

"Abba, why is the sky blue?"

Try asking that one at your table. How many people can answer it?

How many think they can answer it, but when you press them on it, they clearly don't understand?

How many are willing to admit, they really have no idea?

So to save you from any further awkwardness, here's your "blue sky for dummies" crib notes:

Sunlight looks white, but it is actually made from a mixture of colors (like a rainbow). See (picture above) how each color has a different wavelength?

This white sunlight travels super fast — it leaves the sun at 186,000 miles per second, racing towards us across 93 million miles of space.

But just before it reaches us it crashes into something — can you guess what? The atmosphere! When it hits those tiny molecules of air, the shortest wavelengths don’t make it through – they bounce off those air molecules and scatter, like rain splashing off your windshield. Look at the diagram: What color has the shortest wavelength? Blue! The air is just dense enough to scatter some of the blue, causing the sky to look blue.

Did you get it?

Let's see: If you were on the moon, where there is no air, what color would the sky be?

Here's a trickier one - How does this knowledge explain why sunsets are so beautiful?

(As the sun gets lower and lower, that sunlight has to pass through more and more atmosphere; so more wavelengths get filtered: first green, making the sun look more yellow; then yellow, making it look more orange; then finally the orange, leaving only the red. Sunrise is the opposite – it’s getting higher and higher, red to orange to yellow.)

Last question for your table: What does this topic have to do with Rosh Hashana?

The best way that I know to experience Rosh Hashana is to hear the shofar and concentrate on the end of the year - not concrete resolutions but a bigger picture vision of what kind of person you want to become - you know you can become - in the next 12 months.

If you'd like this year's edition of our "Questions to think about from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur", shoot me an email. Or our "Significant Omens for Rosh Hashana". Or anything else.

As the year ends, I know that I haven't pleased all the people all the time, but I hope that I've pleased all the people some of the time. If any of my missives fell short for you, please forgive me.


Wishing you and yours a healthy and happy, connected and uplifting 5778!


Shabbat Shalom

L'Shana Tova — May you be written and sealed in the Book of Life!


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Spring Springs When It . . .

The purpose of this blog is to help conversation bloom at your Shabbat table. How about printing it?

Happy Birthday to Barry in Mill Valley. Happy birthday to Dee-Dee in Portland.

Wishing you health and wisdom til 120.

Last week's email about Stephen Flatow* generated a massive response. (If you missed it, his inspiring story is archived here.) It's a story of persistence. Commitment. Intellectual clarity.

This week the world is facing a more.... let's call it an critical thinking issue.

Today is supposedly the first day of Spring.

So how come it's snowing in New York?????

In other words, who says it's the first day of spring?

And why should we believe them?

Think about it.

Look it up: the official answer is, "equinox."

OK, how many people reading this know what that means?

How many people reading this know someone who knows what that means?

Look it up, it's not as simple as you thought.

In other words, once upon a time, spring meant, "when flowers blossom".

Spring meant an experience of rebirth and renewal.

Spring meant a spring in your step. Spring meant a new hope. Spring meant optimism.

Then somebody somewhere (probably Julius Caesar) said, "Hey, in mid-March the sun appears to traverse the equator - let's call that "spring".

And we all said, "Okay" without giving it a second thought.

Nevermind that it's snowing and nothing is blooming.

It's spring, buddy, ignore your feelings and watch your step on the ice.

Come to think of it, maybe that's why Brutus et al. killed him on the Ides. "You want to tell us when spring begins? We'll show you!"

"Et tu, Brute?"

"Out, et moi! That's for trying to tell us when spring begins, and that's for your stupid Julian Calendar being off by three days every 400 years, and that's for the seriously unhealthy ceasar salad."

So on this allegedly auspicious week I challenged a group of 10th-graders to a critical-thinking exercise: come up with five different ways to define spring.

They came up with six.

How many can you come up with?

Shabbat Shalom

* Clarification: I received the story via email from an unknown source. I edited the story. My edits were both major and minor. I did change the font in the story to indicate where the (revised) text begins and ends. I probably could have and should have tracked down the original author, but (as I wrote), I was pooped.

PS - It is really time to start thinking about Pesach - 2 weeks! If you want my list of suggested seder gimmicks and gadgets, send me an email. Browse books and toys here and don't forget the Art of Amazement Haggada — Leader's Edition. You can download a preview here.

Begin Again Now

The purpose of this blog is to help you turn your Shabbat table into an vibrant salon. Please share.
In honor of my dear Mother's birthday - Happy Birthday Mom!
(To dedicate a future TT, send an email.)


For a conversation-starter, try showing this photo around the table and ask everyone what they think it depicts:



(If you cannot view the photo in this email, click here.)

Hint: The snap shows a street at Foxconn, the Shenzhen (China) factory that makes our iphones, ipads, ipods and many other gadgets.

So what are those nets for?

They were installed in 2010 in response to the high rate of suicide at the factory that year.

That's the screaming headline.

In fact, even at the peak of its problem, Foxconn (which employs a mind-boggling 400,000 people in Shenzhen) had a lower suicide rate than the national China average.

But I'm re-hashing this topic because it makes an interesting conversation starter and an opener to the bigger question of the week:

What is wrong with suicide?

I'm sorry if that sounds morbid, but it's really a question about life and meaning, and purpose. So now that the High Holidays have passed and Jewish life is "back to normal", I'm challenging you to ask this at your table: Why shouldn't suicide be a moral and legal option?

I hope that the discussion will lead to an affirmation of the value of life, and perhaps greater scrutiny of what makes life itself precious.

Shabbat Shalom


PS -  If you haven't already, please download our (corrected) fall bulletin here.
PPS - This week's title is borrowed from a terrific book by Rabbi Pliskin well worth your time.