Public Service Announcement - Please Read!!!

When you take your child(ren) out with a stroller, please, please, PLEASE, keep your hand/attention on it at all times!  If you must take your hand/attention off it for a moment, PUT ON THE BRAKE.  If your stroller has a wrist strap, USE IT.

It may save your children from rolling into traffic,
or down a hill,
or into the Erie Canal,











resulting in tragedy for this family :

The father jumped in after the stroller, and was able to keep one child's head above the water.  That child is fine.  The other one (7-year-old Selah), however, is not likely to survive.

I pray for a miraculous recovery for the little girl.

My heart goes out to the parents.  I pray that their marriage survives the guilt and blame that are likely to emerge from this incident.  They will need help in this! 

My heart goes out to the siblings, who still need their parents to be fully present for them as well, even as they try to understand what happened to their sister and why.

I also pray that this incident doesn't get blown out of proportion to affect other prospective adopters from Ukraine and elsewhere.

Amidah - part 10 - Freedom

Yesterday, Susanna Musser made another plea for prayers on behalf of an anonymous "warrior".

I think today's section of the Amidah is an appropriate response:

Sound the great shofar for our freedom; raise a banner to gather our exiles, and bring us together from the four corners of the earth into our land. Blessed are You L-rd, who gathers the dispersed of His people Israel.

The shofar (ram's horn) was traditionally sounded as a battle cry.  Think Joshua and the walls of Jericho. It would both rally the troops and intimidate the enemy.



Today, this sound is heard primarily on the Jewish High Holidays - Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when they are intended to "open the gates of Heaven" to the people's prayers, as well as to awaken the people themselves to the urgency of repentance.   Again, both a "defense" and an "offense" purpose.

The blessing specifically calls for the shofar to sound for freedom, as well as for bringing in the exiles, and unifying the people in their land.  Although in Biblical times it was used to conquer the Promised Land, this was an exception, for an exceptional situation, and not to be used except when specifically and divinely ordained. In our daily prayers, this powerful call is to be used for liberation, not oppression or conquest. 

As an aside, the blessing also refers to "carrying a banner".  This, again, used to be a military practice to identify troop movements.  Today we see banners in parades, demonstrations, and sporting events.  The word for "banner", however, is "ness", which also means "miracle".  The banner under which we liberate and gather the exiles is not simply a military metaphor, but a miracle.