Rather than write a blogpost, I am simply copying and pasting an email, which I sent an hour or so ago to a colleague. Personal matters have been omitted ( Read more... )

For some time now, I’ve been wondering what the origin is of the tune for Dayyenu that is now used almost universally. My father once heard a friend say that they had seen in some article that “the Dayyenu tune is over 1,000 years old”, but this is obviously ignorance and folly. The tune sounds quite 20th century - hardly likely - late 19th century ( Read more... )

Baking leavened bread, the second Friday in a row. It looks like this might become part of my regular Friday morning ritual. I don't even really like leavened bread much (though hopefully this will be better than the puffy stuff one buys in a store), but the ultimate goal is to get good enough at making leavened bread to be able to be facile at ( Read more... )

Aaargh.

Over 50 months ago (4+ years), I made a list of toys that I wanted:1. käppchen
2. printer-scanner-copier
3. festive green porôches for Yomim Tôvim
4. painting of myself
5. sifrei mikro on kelof
6. Computer program for creating musical notation
In the meantime, I have actually gotten 1-5:
1. I've got 6 käppchen: three black, two white, one green ( Read more... )

After years of dreaming of one day buying a shtraimel; months of seriously (on-and-off) planning to buy one one; and weeks of looking at the sign advertising that they're selling at Adler Shtraimlekh starting at $690, I finally went to find the shtraimel store ( Read more... )

This past Saturday night, I ordered my haggadoth from Lulu.com ( Read more... )

It strikes me that it had been written on gevil (unsplit leather), rather than qelaf (parchment), this wouldn't have been a cause for worry. At least, that's what Yaakov has always told me.

That's why you can write a mezuza on gevil, in "Dio Lanetzach", and keep it in a large glass mezuza-case, filled with water and a few goldfish, and it will ( Read more... )

I have a wet Sefer Tora in my apartment. This does not make me happy.

There's a safruth store a block or two away. I hope I can convince someone tomorrow to come from the store and take a look at it, to tell me what to do.

me: Anyway, did you open the email? [NB: The email said just: "In faire Verona where we lay our Scene...".]

Phillip: yes,yes, R&J
10:49 AM me: Or just MS Verona - Seminario Maggiore 34
10:50 AM Phillip: hence the italics
10:53 AM me: That's not actually why I did the italics, do you realize?
10:56 AM Phillip: No. Because it is in Italy?
 me: No (but I ( Read more... )