Shabbat at the Rappaports

Hi Mom,

Well it is Shabbat again. Time to set the table with great care. We put on a nice table cloth, put out some nice flowers, get out the Maneshevitz wine, and clean off the candle sticks. Mia has special dishes that she uses only on Shabbat.

Lisa starts us off by playing some Jewish melodies on the piano. Mia and I sometimes play a guessing game where Lisa will start playing a song and we try to be the first one to say what its name.


Next we light the candles and say the blessing. Here Lisa and Mia are bringing the sabbath light into thier hearts, their minds and their souls. After the b’racha, we sing Bim Bam while holding hands and then sing Shabbat Shalom as we dance around the table.

After that...Time to eat. But first comes the blessing over the wine and then the ha motzi over the bread.

Lisa and Mia make a little challah each week. Mia braided this one and made it nice and long. She also made the lovely red challah cover when she was in summer camp.



The next day we went to the home of Lisa’s mom and we all watched Mary Poppins. It was Mia’s first full length movie and she loved it. Tonight in the bath she was singing “Supercalifragilisticexpialadotious”.



Good Times!!!

It's Fall in Chico

The seasons in Chico are a bit different that in other parts of the country. We have about 6 months of summer when it is always over 90 degrees and usually over 100 (if for some reason the temperature drops to 89, people put on their coats), 6 months of winter when it rains constantly, and the rest of the time is divided up between spring and fall. Usually it goes from the high nineties to heavy rain in a day. Right now for some reason the weather is good. Let's hear it for Global Weather Change. Way to go Al. If Chico had good weather all year round, it would be bigger than LA.

Anyway, the leaves are falling, time to rake and clean the rain gutters on an almost daily basis. Great weather for riding bikes. We can take and pick up Mia from school on our bikes. Most of the ride is through Bidwell Park and it is very lovely right now.

It is so nice to go on the trails and paths of this finest example of an urban forests. Chico is a good bike town: it's flat, lots of bike lanes, and the busy streets aren't that busy. We have a bike trailer which is handy when we go to the farmers market Saturday morning before synagogue. (I had to get something Jewy in this post)

And finally a picture of me (Oh, something else Jewy) taken by my wife. "Suck in your gut" she said sweetly before snapping the shot.

Life has been good lately.

It's Sukkot!

So naturally we had to build a sukkah.

But first to temple on Saturday morning. Here is Mia walking behind the Torah with her lulav and etrog followed by the Rabbi. Below Rabbi Julie is giving the children a blessing at the end of the service.


Finally home where we had built a lovely sukkah. We had an open house/sukkah party/60th birthday party. This year our sukkah featured a stereo system with an old turntable to play record albums. We invited people to bring over their records and had a 60’s kind of party. Dylan, Donovan, Jefferson Airplane on the record player, and lots of Alte Kawkers having flashbacks. About fifty people showed up and a splendid time was had by all.