It’s been quite some time since I posted on my blog. After posting every day in the month of November, I certainly needed the month of December off. January came around I have been busy, so posting was not foremost on my mind. Being that it has been so long, I have quite a lot that I can write about. I think I will split my thoughts into a few postings, with the things that are mostly on my mind first.
First off, Avi is doing very well lately. He is thriving at the Newmark School in Plainfield. It took some time for him to get used to the school and their methods, but he has really fallen into place there. He is making friends and even had one of his school friends over for a play date yesterday! His therapy is also moving along well and he is finally starting to show signs that the therapy may be working. We are hoping that 2010 will be a great year for Avi! Right now we are researching special needs day camps in the area (if anyone knows of one, please let me know).
The next thing on my mind, to the chagrin of many readers is that in exactly nine weeks from tonight we will be sitting down with our families for the first Passover Seder! It’s hard to imagine that it is so close but it is! Passover begins on the evening of March 29th. So this is fair warning for everyone to start planning! And if anyone is going to be in the central NJ area on the 29th and 30th and they need a place for seder, let me know! Either you will be at my table or at a friend’s.
I wanted to get this in the blog today because I am going to make a prediction, and I want it official! I predict that within one or two weeks at the outside, we will begin to see the Passover foods in the supermarkets. It is crazy I know, but we may just see Passover foods in the shelves in January this year! Yikes. As part of my preparations, I am getting back to my Passover Haggadah project. For those who are not aware, for the past 10 years or so, I have been writing my own Passover Haggadah commentary. I am almost finished, as I am up to the final section, Nirtza. I do not know what I am going to do with the finished product, but I have gotten some good reviews, so who knows? If anyone is interested in reading my manuscript, I would be forever grateful for comments and suggestions. Just let me know and I will send you a pdf copy.
Finally, if there ever was a time when one can say how proud they are to be Jewish, it was when the first fully active (and highest tech) field hospital in Haiti was set up by the Israelis. Israel has a long history of giving humanitarian aid in the wake of major disaster, and this is surely what is meant when our tradition tells us to be a light among the nations. In the United States, for the most part, Jews are accepted as total equals. In other parts of the world we are not, and it is things like this that go a long way to showing others what we are really about. The US has also set up a major hospital there as have other countries. But where are Israel’s detractors? The Arab world, which certainly has quite a bit of wealth, is nowhere to be seen in Haiti. Yay Israel! And Yay to being Jewish!
You point this out because I bought a big bag of flour at BJ’s yesterday. 9 weeks to use it up now.