#I hope everyone is having a wonderful Purim

[jewish-vents]

I’m Jewish through my dad but I wasn’t raised in the community(i learned what Purim was two weeks ago, i was fully not in it), so when I got to college last august I decided to really dive in and it’s been a beautiful sort of homecoming for me. I joined SAEPi and got into Chabbad leadership at my campus, and I’m almost at the point where I can do the Chabbad Shabbat prayers before and after dinner without stumbling over my words. Gonna surprise my grandma if I see her in the summer. Anyways.

When October 7th happened it was a shock to my system, because I was a baby Jew barely getting my feet. My parents never mentioned antisemitism to me as something that could affect me in the future, it was always a thing of the past. But I was right there standing in the doorway between jew-ish and Jewish, and it pushed me over the edge. I had many friends with family in Israel. I had a couple friends whose friends died in the attack. Everyone in that group was my family. It felt personal.

When the march in dc happened I went with one of my friends, and it was sad, but amazing to see in person how strong we are. In the plane terminal on the way home he and I got cornered and called baby killers, among other things, because he was wearing a kippa and his Israeli first responder coat. That was my first time experiencing antisemitism and it was terrifying, even though I didn’t get hurt. It was terrifying even though my friend was built like a tank and would’ve protected me. It was terrifying just to sit in the train car with him and watch a woman stare at him with wide eyes like he was some kind of criminal. I stepped closer to him as if to remind her he’s human. I stared back at her with just as much fear and watched her snap out of it, confused.

Last week was holocaust awareness week at my college, and one of the things I did was spend a couple hours in the plaza reading the names of people that died. I found 34 Feldmans and Fotts. I found family names, Chana and Fayge and Jeshua and Sophia Feldman one after the other, and still am wondering if that was part of my family that didn’t make it to the US in time.

I called my grandma and asked for everything she could remember about her family lineage and how we got here, everything she had from that part of her life. I thought that there would be plenty to lean into, family recipes and heirlooms and stories, but there was barely anything. She has a Star of David necklace and a ton of repressed memories, next to nothing else. The recipes I could find were through my great aunt, some short instructions from my great grandmother on the back of a letter she sent to the aunt about what to ask for from a kosher butcher.

My family made it here in 1915 and 1921, they escaped before the holocaust, but they still weren’t untouched because of the ways they were ostracized and othered when they got here. My grandmother will barely admit she’s Jewish because none of her kids passed it on, it’s easier for her to let it go. I didn’t understand this until I realized that one couldn’t be hurt by the grief and pain of a family they aren’t part of.

Even those that survive are not left unscarred.

How could this not be personal? How could it not be generationally affective when it’s pushed so many to minimize their Jewishness out of self preservation? Raise their kids thinking they aren’t Jewish and hope their names never end up on a list of living or dead Jews? People still don’t see us as human. the antisemites still want to scar us. They want us to forget who we are.

It’s unreal to me when goyim act like American Jews in the current day are unaffected by the past and safe from antisemitism. I’ve been here less than a year and have been screamed at in an airport, have uncovered serious intergenerational trauma, and realized that of my Jewish family I have nothing to hold on to but a torn in half piece of paper with a sentence long tangent about brisket.

We are strong and we will outlive them, but god are we still fucking fighting for our lives.

.

#jewish vents #antisemitism #diaspora #long post #Jewish #judaism #this is an amazing post anon I'm sorry I lack the words to respond #thank you so much for sharing

[softness-and-shattering]

Purim Gifts 2024 fic exchange letter -

Generally, 

DNW anything to do with harry potter, or a tragedy, everyone dies, oppression sucks, and life is awful vibe. No intense bigotry or invalidating someone's identity. Nothing super nasty. Im mostly looking for lighthearted fluff, fun, mischief, and good feelings. Im not averse to tension, action, mystery, smut etc. as long as its overall upbeat and hopeful. Approximately kids media level villainy. Bonus points for queerness and or disability (If youre wondering what counts, whatever you think does. Im very inclusionist). Mostly looking for various celebrations of Purim or Jewishness.

Fandom specific vibes, for your perusal: Edit: Ran out of steam so do what you want. :) The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi Id love to see more of the Jewish boyfriend tbh, but also the whole crew is just fantastic.  A League of Their Own (TV 2022) There's just so much missed opportunity that the only canon Jew is Shirley. Shaw should be Jewish. Greta could be. Esti. They could have cute Jewish lesbian bonding over Shabbos candles or something. Getting everyone involved in a gift exchange. Going in drag to the gay bar. Finding a Megilla reading that doesnt coincide with a game. Anything with Bertie. Theres so much potential.  Alex Stern - Leigh Bardugo This one might be more angsty. I just desperately want more Alex and her relationship to her Judaism. Did it hurt to pawn that kiddish cup? What was her grandmothers house like, what food did it smell of? Does she sing herself Ladino lullabies? Does she observe in any way on her own? (Also that chai necklace burning up in hell — I have to know how the magic realism intersects with Jewishness). Something sweet with her friends or fellow Lethe people is cool too, maybe something to do with the artifacts in El Bastone. Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson Im thinking Mistborn might mesh best but honestly go wild. Stormlight is probably my favourite, Rysn and Chiri-Chiri, Navani and Raboniel, Shallan, the trans king from the walking island. Marasi and Steris my autistic blorbos. Maybe something weird with Kelsier. Critical Role (Web Series) Im thinking Jester and Nott and pastries and mischief. Im not super caught up on campaign 3 Im up to Bassuras, Ive seen most of two and a good bit of one and would prefer no major spoilers. There's no character that I really dont like (unless im supposed to dislike them TRENT IKITHON). “I hope you find someone to mourn you when you’re gone”. Woof.  Probably mighty nein are my favourite but I also have big feelings about Ashton and chronic pain, Percy, Vax, Vex, Kiki, Gilmore. Mollymauk. I hope this is useful information lol. 

Dead End: Paranormal Park (Cartoon) Supernatural elements please

Emelan - Tamora Pierce

Lady Astronaut of Mars series - Mary Robinette Kowal  Purim in spaaaaace

One Piece  Pirate Jews, or an island of Jews please. Pokemon Pokemon involved in mishloah manot please!

Protector of the Small - Tamora Pierce Kel is just my favourite. The Strange Case of Starship Iris (Podcast) Brian Jeeter. Trans space Jew Brian Jeeter. The Locked Tomb pretty much anything tbh. This one also I expect a slightly higher angst level just by nature of the story. As long as there's also sweetness.

Tortall - Tamora Pierce 

Wayfarers Series - Becky Chambers  Jews on the human fleet. Ai Jews? lots of fun opportunities.

When the Angels Left the Old Country - Sacha Lamb 

Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski  / The Witcher (TV) Its Polish. Its vaguely medieval europe fantasy. There should be Jews. and Jewish food. 

#purimgifts #purimgifts: 2024 #mine

[kharti]

[ My Eyes Only #4 ]

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Edward didn’t know his boss very well, but he knew the type: uptight and needs to be in control.

      ( Continue reading on AO3 or... )

Edward didn’t know his boss very well, but he knew the type: uptight and needs to be in control.

And he knew that a lot of people in control secretly wanted to relinquish it.

He just didn’t know if Mr. Hands was one of them, or if it mattered. Just because there was a mutual attraction he could feel as easily as he lived and breathed… didn’t mean anything would happen.

That was all right, since he had come into this only hoping for a nice cushy job behind a desk doing what he was good at. But then he’d met his new boss for the interview, and fuck if he didn’t want to run his hands through that well-groomed hair and muss it all up.

Fuck if he didn’t want to snog the man out of his mind, and maybe fuck him, too, if the mood was right.

Mr. Hands seemed intent on maintaining a professional boundary, so Ed was going to respect that by redirecting his sexual energy on the cute blond at the coffee shop next to the office.

“Good morning,” that very blond called as Ed walked in through the door. “Hope you’re having a wonderful day!”

All right, Edward. Time to pull out all the stops to get this guy’s number.

“Hey,” he replied with too casual a tone and inwardly cursed himself for not being nearly as seductive as he intended.

“The usual?” Stede smiled as he reached for one of the medium-sized cups. “Or can I tempt you to try one of our specials?”

Only if the special is you, the sexy voice in his head said.

“Sure,” he said instead.

Stede’s smile stayed in place, warm and soft. “We have chestnut praline and hazelnut almond.”

Oh, I’m only interested in your nuts.

“Chestnut praline sounds good, thanks.”

Why did he forget that he had no swagger every time he was interested in a guy?

Then, for the first time since he’d met the leggy blond, he noticed the silver band around Stede’s ring finger.

Maybe it was an open relationship? He didn’t mind sharing if the wife didn’t. They could easily work this out.

The speakers continued to play quiet elevator music while Stede hummed and put together the latte he didn’t even want, just bought to force an interaction between them.

“So, any plans for the holidays?” Ed asked.

Stede looked over his shoulder, blinking curiously. “Holidays? Is there one coming up?”

Ah, fuck, no, there wasn’t. Ed shoved his hands in his pockets to try to hide the way his fingers fidgeted with all the thoughts bouncing around his skull.

“Oh!” Stede lit up. “Unless you’re referring to Purim?”

Ed didn’t have a single clue what that was. “Yep. Thought everyone celebrated it.”

Stede gave a quiet, dreamy sigh. “Oh, I wish they did! It’s so much fun. We aren’t Jewish, exactly, but my eldest has a friend who is and they dress up together.”

“Ah, hah, yeah.” So he had kids. A wife and kids. Ed accepted his drink with an awkward smile and excused himself as quickly as he could.

Maybe in another life, he thought wistfully as he stood outside the shop, taking a tentative sip of the latte.

Oh, it was actually pretty delicious without having to add seven sugars and a dollop of milk.

“Yo, Eddie!”

Ed turned his head to spot Jack approaching him, tie thrown over one shoulder and an oversized cup of something carbonated in hand.

“Wanna walk to work together?” Jack grinned. “Tell me the dirty gossip between you and Izzy?”

Ed nearly snorted his latte out his nose, coughing into the crook of his arm. “Fuck!” He shot a glare that wasn’t supported by his own grin. “Izzy? You call him that?”

“Oh, sorry.” Jack extended his pinky finger. “Mr. Hands. So, ya fuckin’ yet?”

“I’ve been working here less than a week, man.” Ed wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, just to be safe. “And y’know I wouldn’t tell if I was.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Sure, I respect that. Normally. Like, I’m not a fuck and tell guy, especially with work involved. Ho code and all that, yeah, but we’re bros, right? Bro code beats ho code.”

“’S’not what bros before hos means,” Ed said on a laugh.

“The fuck it isn’t. That’s literally what it means.” Jack swayed a little closer as they walked. “C’mon, I’ll tell ya what he likes, if that helps.”

Ed actually physically paused. His eyes flicked over Jack’s face, taking in his mischievous grin and crinkled eyes, remembering every conquest Jack bragged about in university.

“Aw, don’t look at me like that.” Jack stuck his lip out. “Y’know it’s nothin’ serious.”

“It never is with you,” Ed mumbled, looking down at his feet. “Just—surprised, is all. Kinda thought Mr. Hands’d have higher standards’n you.”

Jack laughed, loud and with a slap of a hand to Ed’s shoulder. “Ya know how it goes! Get a fella drunk an’ I don’t look so bad. Get his dick in my mouth, he’s fuckin’ hooked.”

Drunk. Was that really what it took to loosen Israel up? Dubious consent wasn’t Ed’s first or second choice by any stretch, but it did give him some more information, at least.

Israel Hands seemed suspiciously like someone who wanted to have control taken away from him.

Ed took a thoughtful sip of his drink, then started walking again, brow furrowed and lips pursed until he interrupted whatever ramble Jack was going on about by asking, “What’s he into?”

“Huh?” Jack clicked his tongue. “Well, there was two of ‘em, but the one with the massive cock—”

“No, Mr. Hands. Israel. What’s he into?”

“Oh, him he.” Jack’s face lit up with a renewed grin. “Izzy’s a classic dom. He just needs a good sub to use and he’ll cum a load and a half.”

Ed started to drop into his thoughts—his uncertainty about whether that was actually true, or if Jack had just made assumptions that Israel was more comfortable leaning into—Jack cleared his throat, and Ed glanced over to see a rare moment of vulnerability there.

“Hey, ya won’t say anythin’, right?” Jack’s mouth twitched as he tried to settle on an expression. “Bro code and all that.”

Ed chuckled and nudged his elbow against Jack’s arm. “No worries, man, y’know I’ve got yer back. Just do me a favor?”

“Anything,” Jack said, and Ed had to smile because he knew the man meant it.

“Can y’give Mr. Hands some blue balls fer a bit?”

If anyone could pull off a true cheshire grin, it was Jack. “Hell yeah! He’s all yours. Enjoy those beautiful fuckin’ tits.” His eyes went wide. ”Ya gotta tell me if he lets ya fuck ‘em. Always wanted to, but he called me a stupid twat and gagged me with his dick.”

Ed stared up at the building that felt like it was looming over them now, and he looked at the window too high up to see into, but knew belonged to Mr. Hands' office.

He imagined being in that room with him, behind him, fucking him against the glass, squishing those tits against the cold surface before the morning sun had warmed it—

“You’re thinkin’ of his tits, aren’t ya.”

Ed smiled, his blood hot as it thrummed in his veins, and stepped toward the front doors. “Yep.”

      ( next )

📚 view a list of all my current stories!

#our flag means death #ofmd #edizzy #izzyed #alternate universe #office au #my eyes only - office au ficlets

[earnestly-endlessly]

Hi! I'm wondering if you can make a list of fics where Erik's jewish heritage isn't ignored? I just came across the fact that a lot of authors don't explore this part of him for some reason and i found it kinda upsetting so i'm wondering if you have any recs! I liked "As They Kiss, Consume" and "Who Shall be King Hereafter" by sherwoodfox, in case anyone who's reading this ask is interested in the same topic.

Hi Anon. I'm sorry for taking so long with this list but your request sent me on a wide search for fics that fit with your request. I tried to find a variety of fics where Erik's Jewish heritage is addressed. Some of them aren't necessarily cherik, but most of them are. I hope you enjoy this list.

Mistletoe, Latkes, and Long-Term Revenge Strategies – pocky_slash

Summary: Charles knows that Erik hates working at a department store in the best of times. Being Jewish in a department store during the holiday season is far from the best of times. He does what he can to help.

A Nice Boy (the Family Matters Edition) – pocky_slash

Summary: Erik's not sure whether the problem is that he doesn't want his parents to meet Charles or that he doesn't want Charles to meet his parents. Either way, he never invites Charles to brunch. Why should he? It's not like they're dating.

A Road Trip to Pennsylvania – Aainiouu

Summary: For a year Charles has nurtured the biggest and most embarrassing crush known to man towards Erik. They are friends and roommates and when Erik asks Charles to accompany him to home on Thanksgiving of course Charles goes.

In the Bleak Midwinter – keire_ke

Summary: It is not easy to find out, well into the second decade of the twenty-first century, that your mother arranged a marriage for you. It is even less easy to convince her that you have no interest in the very fertile Magda, she of the wide hips and lustrous auburn hair. Fortunately, with a good friend at his side over the holiday weekend, Erik is sure he will prevail.

Speech Making – phalangine

Summary: Modern Emma AU- Charles Xavier, accomplished matchmaker and headmaster of North America’s preeminent school for mutants, intends to add another notch to his belt: setting up his friend Moira. His oldest friend, Erik, has doubts about this plan.

Charles doesn’t share them.

This is life (and everything’s all right) – pocky_slash

Summary: Edie Lehnsherr came into Charles' life long before he ever heard Erik Lehnsherr's name, and her death left a gaping hole in the lives of everyone in Charles' family. As the first Purim without her approaches, he begins to get creative in his efforts to bring everyone out of their grief. Kitchen creativity, however, is not quite his strength....

Bashert – AvengingAngel

Summary: Erik and Charles meet and fall in love. I wanted to write a story where Erik had a huge family. Pretty fluffy (for me anyways). I suck at summaries.

Note: The summary doesn’t reveal much but if you’re looking for a fic where Erik is jewish and has a large family with a heavy dose of cherik fluff and angst then this one is for you.

Math Reasons – pearl_o,  pocky_slash

Summary: "Mom says Erik always knows what he wants, it just sometimes takes him a little while to actually realize it," Ruth said.

Charles fell in love with Erik the first night they met, the first week of freshman year. Two years of friendship, adventures, arguments, hijinks, secrets, and summer visits later, Erik is starting to catch up.

Ser

It’s kind of our whole things – pearl_o, pocky_slash

Summary: After two years of best friendship, Charles and Erik thought they knew everything there was to know about each other. They're surprised, then, when their first summer as a couple reveals that they have a lot to learn about each other and themselves.

Sequel to Math Reasons

A Winter in New York – nextraordinaire

Summary: Charles and Erik have been childhood friends for as long as they can remember – Erik, living with his mother in Queens, and Charles in the big mansion in Westchester. For all, expect themselves, it was just natural progression that they'd end up together.

A series of ficlets from the same universe – can be read as separate and are out of chronological order.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside – heyjupiter

Summary: "It's just, this is my first Chanukah away from my parents. And it's--it's like 90 degrees out."

Erik Lehnsherr and Kitty Pryde celebrate a Genoshan Chanukah. It's a little different from the way it used to be in New York, but some unexpected visitors help them embrace the spirit of the holiday season.

Hold Back the Rain (front!strict mashup) – euphorbic

Summary: Charles Xavier: society darling, powerful political activist, well-known professor, and Dominant.

Erik Lehnsherr: anti-social, international motorcycle racer, and defiant submissive.

Erik is at Sepang in Malaysia for the fourteenth leg of the International World Championship. After doing poorly in qualifying, he's furious to find he has to take another VIP around the track instead of meeting Charles at the KL airport.

The Swan – waitfornight

Summary: In 1939 Erik and his sister Ruth are sent to Devonshire, England, during the Kindertransport refugee program to live with Kurt and Sharon Marko as foster children just before the start of World War II. Angry and wishing he could return home on the night of his seventeenth birthday, Erik meets a boy alone in the forest who is cursed to transform each day into a swan, only taking his true form by night.

Swan Lake AU.

The boy with the heart on his sleeve – euphorbic

Summary: Charles loses a high-stakes bet to Raven and is required to get a tattoo. However, when he makes a disparaging remark about the art form, Raven's acerbic mentor, Erik, steps in.

Or, the one where Erik and Raven are tattoo artists.

The Wurst Case Scenario – sareyen

Summary:If anyone asked why Charles, come rain, wind or shine, made the significant trek during his dismal lunch hour to dine at "Edie's Kosher Delicatessen", he would stubbornly say that it was because their pastrami on rye and potato knishes were absolutely to die for. He wasn't completely lying, because the deli's namesake, Edie Lehnsherr, made the best matzah ball soup Charles has ever had in his life. Still, Charles would rather shave his full head of hair off than admit that the real reason he would willingly walk through hail and fire to get to the corner deli was because of Erik, the insanely attractive man working the counter.

Sure, Erik has barely spoken two words to Charles other than "Hello, what can I get you?" or, after the third day in a row that Charles came to the deli, "Welcome back, what can I get you?", but Charles was more than happy to just ogle at the man from afar while devouring the juicy wurst Erik had put together with his (large and very capable) hands.

But, little does Charles know, Erik doesn't usually work the front counter. He only does it when he knows the cute blue-eyed man will be dining in.

This is life (and everything’s all right) – pocky_slash

Summary: Edie Lehnsherr came into Charles' life long before he ever heard Erik Lehnsherr's name, and her death left a gaping hole in the lives of everyone in Charles' family. As the first Purim without her approaches, he begins to get creative in his efforts to bring everyone out of their grief. Kitchen creativity, however, is not quite his strength....

c'est regarder ensemble dans la même direction – melonbutterfly

Summary: Since that day on the beach, Charles and Erik have learned to agree to disagree for the sake of living and working together. Then, for Christmas, and Charles gives Erik Hanukkah back a second time, and their relationship shifts a little further.

Terrible Hanukkah Sweaters and Other Life Challenges – professor

Summary: “Why am I here again?” Erik groans.

“I need you to lift things and glower at people over my shoulder when I tell people that it’s not ‘politically correct’ or a ‘war on Christmas’ to have a non-denominational winter holiday festival,” says Theresa Pryde.

Well, at least those are two things he’s good at.

Shrapnel – librata

Summary: It's late 1940, and tensions between the Axis and the Allies are tightening. Displaced and alone, 16-year-old German Jew Erik Lehnsherr finds himself employed as a servant by some snobby, terrible family in England whose house is far too big and whose money never seems to end. The worst part is, he isn't just mucking stables or cleaning plates–-he's tasked with tending to the whiny, disabled son named Charles, who might just drive Erik into absolute madness.

Or, the World War II fic in which Erik and Charles experience a changing world and a lot of teen angst.

Defying Expectations – Baamon5evr

Summary: Charles and Erik meet each other’s family. Neither of them gets what they expect.

table for three – pocky_slash

Summary: Erik should have known to call ahead to the Chinese restaurant--it's Christmas Eve and he lives in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, after all. But before he can go home to mourn the loss of another one of his mother's yearly traditions, he's accosted by a teenage girl with a strange proposition--that he should stay and have dinner with her and her mother, instead.

different from all other nights – metonymy

Summary: "This year we are slaves; next year we will be free." Kitty and Erik host a seder for Passover at the Xavier School.

Libertad – ariadnes_string

Summary: Erik knew the look, had seen it his whole life, even before the war.  ”You, with your height and blue eyes and straight nose, you can pass. You can be free of us. You are not marked with your difference.” If you only knew, he’d thought then. He thought the same thing now. And it was that thought, as much as anything, that made him move towards the gate.

Wash Away – sebastian2017

Summary: One quiet, lonely morning, before Yom Kippur, Erik makes his way to the sea in search of forgiveness.

After? There is No ‘After’ – Unrepentant_Marvelist

Summary: Erik knows what he is for. He has known his responsibilities as a survivor since the moment he woke under a scratchy, lice-infested blanket in the Red Army hospital. His world is painted in lucid blacks and whites (so often splashed in red) and there is no room for uncertainty or indecision... until a certain sunburned Englishman throws himself into his world.

The Children of an Idle Brain – Margo_Kim

Summary: Sometimes, when he’s lucky, Schmidt can’t hurt him. It’s like there’s a room inside of Erik’s head that’s he’s usually locked out of, that won’t open no matter if he beats himself bloody against it. On those days, he endures. But sometimes—and Erik doesn’t know why, whether it’s that the stars align or some higher power takes pity or Erik screams loud enough to earn his reward—the door opens. Erik can duck inside and slam it behind him and watches himself through the windows as Schmidt slowly, methodically tortures him to strength.

These days, this past week, there’s a boy in the room with him and he tells Erik, “That’s horrible,” like that means something.

Somehow, across the world, Erik's and Charles' minds touch when they need each other most. They can't be sure that the other boy is real. They suspect that he is not. But that doesn't mean they aren't each other's lifeline until they lose each other and then for a while longer.

Tehillim – kvikindi

Summary: Erik, in Israel, afterwards: another life he could have had. If.

I fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) – childishinquiry

Summary: Erik has worn long sleeves his whole life, even before they had to wear yellow stars. Marching along his arm, in neat, black, English letters, are the words "My name's Charles Xavier."

Precious Few Years – sherwoodfox

Summary: Erik and Charles (known only to each other by the letters inscribed on their wrists) are meant to be together, soulmates, destined for the most powerful kind of love and connection a human being can experience.

But they are separated in almost every possible way- by distance, by circumstance, by language, by war. Their chances of success- of finding one another in the labyrinth of the world- are very slim. There is a reason why most people never find their soulmates.

But of course, Charles and Erik aren't ordinary children-

They have their gifts.

#cherik #cherik fic recs #fic recs #Erik is Jewish #holocaust #asks #earnestly answers

[politicalmamaduck]

Reylo Fic Recs: Modern AU

The Other Promise by @kuresoto

Rey knows she's not normal. Why else would she be subjected to four foster families before she aged out of the system and took life into her own hands? It could have (definitely does) something to do with the fact that she can see how long people have to live.It doesn't bother her (much) anymore, and with her being--well, her--she's resigned herself to working in a morgue for the rest of her life where the only people who keep her company besides her boss, are the dead. No friends, no family. No one.But everything starts to unravel when a new neighbor moves in next door. The walls she's built come crumbling down for the uniquely handsome man who always wears a three-piece suit, complete with a pair of leather gloves, regardless of how hot it is.The chance encounter turns into frequent run-ins, with the single most important factor that had ruined any relationship she ever tried having in the past being absent. He has no life timer.

Where No Thing Gleams by @maq-moon

An online DNA test sends Rey on a whirlwind journey across Europe. When she hits a roadblock in her travels, the enigmatic Kylo Ren offers to solve all of her problems. The catch? She must simply go on one date with him.Or so she thought.

The Skeptic and the Medium by @shelikespretties

Rey Niima fought for a logical, no-nonsense life as a scientist and skeptic of all things that go bump in the night. Kylo Ren is a famous medium for whom bumps in the night show off. So of course they have to make a Netflix special together.

Dear Mr. President by @shmisolo

Dr. Dameron shifts and slides a manilla folder across the desk to her.  “Under ordinary circumstances, I’d let you keep the folder.  I hope you’ll understand why I can’t do that this time around.” She opens it and stares.She stares and stares and stares.Dr. Dameron has to be kidding.  There have to be hidden cameras here, this has to be some elaborate prank.  That’s why it’s him here and not Dr. Wexley—that was his name.  Dr. Wexley. But instead of getting to her feet and tossing her hair and saying he was cruel for playing with her heart like this, all she does is ask, blankly, “So...Ben Solo is my soulmate?  Our new president is my…” She swallows.And Dr. Dameron nods.

Carry In My Core (That Voice I Adore) by @shmisolo

Starring in her first opera would be stressful as is, but Rey, always one to outdo herself, just had to go and make things even more complicated with Kylo Ren.  It’s hard enough looking him in the eye, much less pretending to be in love with him.  She can make it through this.  She has made it through worse.  She can make it through this.

the star to every wandering bark by @abstractragedy

There is something else as well, an instinctual drive that’s making him go, almost calling Ben to Takodana; much like an idea for a novel, a terribly persistent and gnawing thought at the back of his mind that will not go away until he does something about it.A change of scenery is always good for one’s mind. By alternating one’s perspective the reality might change as well.--When Ben Solo travels to Takodana in the name of his second novel, meeting an impossibly intriguing woman named Rey wasn't exactly what he envisioned. But the universe has a funny way of working things out.

Yichud by @shmisolo

Mazal Tov - The expression comes from the Mishnaic Hebrew mazzāl, meaning "constellation" or "destiny".  Borrowed from Yiddish מזל־טובֿ (mazl tov), from Hebrew מַזָּל (mazál, “star, constellation; fate, luck”), from Akkadian (manzaltu [UD.DA]) + Hebrew טוֹב (tov, “good”); literally “good stars, good luck.”

crossfade (cursed and blessed) by @shmisolo

The Talmud states that on Purim one is to drink to the point of not knowing the difference between “cursed is Haman” and “blessed is Mordechai.”  In other words, you’re supposed to get so blitzed you can’t tell your friends from your enemies. Rey and Ben might be taking this a little too literally at Leia’s annual Purim Party.

Convergence by @kuresoto

Other, also known as ‘soulmate’ for people who wanted to believe. Not everyone had an Other, and the only way to find your Other was by saying their name. When that happened, memories of their life, where they grew up and the steps that led them to you, would be condensed into a single flashback that passed in a blink of an eye. The fact that someone had said Rey’s name and didn’t bother approaching her hurt, especially since she had a good idea why. Her parents tossed her aside when she was barely five, so she shouldn’t be surprised that her soulmate had done the same.

Siman tov u’mazal tov by @shmisolo

“I didn’t get to have a big wedding,” his mother had told him when they’d finally spoken about it. “I was pregnant and it was a lot and your dad and I just got married. It’s my time. I’m having a big wedding.” She sounded nervous, almost defensive, as though a woman who is nearly sixty doesn’t have a right to want a big wedding. She wasn’t no young blushing bride. She has a thirty-year-old son for god’s sake.But his mom was going to have a big wedding.And Ben had taken a deep breath before saying what he’s sure Leia was even more nervous about hearing.“I’m not sure I’m coming.”

How Our Song Goes by @lariren-shadow

Rey is a struggling student who would love to have at least some money to save rather then just paying her debts.  Kylo Ren would love to get his trust fund, the only problem is there's a clause in it that states if he wants it now he has to get married.Rey is willing to be Kylo's bride to her own cut.  The only problem is that they'll have to make their relationship look real to everyone else.

Puppies by @lariren-shadow

On a crisp autumn day Rey and Ben meet in the park while walking their dogs.  Things don't exactly go smoothly.

burn sky until you see lines by @solikerez

He writes a letter for every time he feels like the world is shattering around him, and it is still not enough.

306.73 or: How to Woo a Librarian by @reylotrashcompactor

She was back again. Ben called her The Scavenger in his head because she liked to pick collections dry. (Though he knew from her library card that her name was Rey. Pretty.) There wasn’t a pattern to her hauls, only that she’d take almost an entire shelf with her in that ratty little messenger bag and leave him to pick up her mess. But, Ben didn’t suppose he was fooling anyone but himself: he had it bad for the Scavenger and she was back. He’d talk to her tonight. He would.

What you don't know by @thewayofthetrashcompactor

Rey wants to see the local haunted house and drags her reluctant boyfriend and friends along with her. It's not quite what she expects.

Between Sky and Sea by @moonshotsandarchimedeslevers

When Rey finally set out to find her parents in the innumerable islands of the Jakku Archipelago, the last thing she expected was a mysterious stranger to drop out of the sky with his story of hidden treasures and secret wonders.

Blades Crossed by @the-reylo-void

Notorious figure skater Kylo Ren has had a rough few years; once a decorated competitor, now it's hard to say what he's losing faster, sponsors or partners. With Nationals just six months out and no qualified partner on the horizon, Kylo finds himself begrudgingly skating with college hockey phenom Rey Kenobi, a scrappy forward coming off injured reserve who doesn't know a lutz from an axel. It's only for six months, but family drama, a twisted coach, and a budding closeness to his new partner ensure that this will be the most eventful competition season of Kylo's career.

it's you and me (i know it's our destiny) by @shmisolo

It’s just a kid’s game, he thinks when jealousy pangs in his heart.  But it’s more than just a kid’s game.It’s Pokémon. It’s the only good thing in his life.

happy cockus day by trasharama

She prefers the nip of New Hampshire winters, heavy winds blowing in her hair, being bundled up in three layers with pens whose ink freeze fast and thaw slow. She loves warm buildings, and Christmas breaks, and slurping down huge bowls of ramen in the evenings, but being on the ground, a clipboard in her hand, boots on a voter’s doorstep? That’s where she knows she belongs.So there are a lot of things going against Rey Johnson’s introduction to Ben Solo, his moody personality probably the least of her worries, since he’s the reason she’s not outside, making some sort of tangible effort to get his mother elected as president.

A More Perfect Union by fangirl_outlet

Rey, new to DC, tags along to a stuffy networking event with her friend -- they're both poor and, hell, there's free booze. Ben, a recruiter for the lobbyist firm he works for, finds the intern with the soft voice and angry eyes a fun challenge -- especially when he finds out she works for his estranged mother Senator Leia Organa.

Spending Valentine's Day Solo by @jyn-z-solo

 She places his scent—woodsy and warm, like sandalwood and ginger—before she recognizes the large, gloved hand outreached to steady her or the sleeves of his black wool coat. “Rey,” he blurts out—is the pink on his cheeks from the chill outside, or is he blushing?  “Ben! Hi!”  She’s trying desperately to sound nonchalant, but at the rate her eyebrows continue to rise, they may end up past her hairline.  “Wha… What are you doing here?” he asks, running a hand through his hair. 

Unshakeable by @shmisolo

Rey is performing in another fucking musical and Ben goes to see it.

My own modern AU fics:

what is past is prologue: Reylo in Washington, DC

A collection of my Tumblr-based Reylo fics set in Washington, DC. Prompts and prompter will be in chapter titles.

My other fic rec lists:

Fic Recs Under 100 Kudos | Smuggler Ben Solo | Fantasy, Fae, Magic, Fairy Tale, and Mythology | Historical AU | Dark Side Rey | Canonverse | Smut |

#reylo #rffa writers #fic recs #modern au #fan fiction #my writing

[dayna-scully]

ncis s4 lb

season 3  |  season 5  |  season 6  |  season 7  |  season 8  |  season 9  |  season 10  |  etc

4x01

you can’t ever convince me ziva and tony weren’t sleeping together between s3 and 4

worried boyfriend tony

I was hoping maybe save me

she needs her dad kill me

we love you too 😭

she got dad to come home

he’s supposed to be dead/apparently he’s gotten better

they were 10000% fucking lets 👏 be 👏 real 👏

“when I need to be” quick question: what the fuck

skinny summer mcgoo

they use the same safe house over and over again

why wasn’t I with ziva?

she’s scared, not that she’ll ever admit that

4x02

I wonder how different the show would have been if they’d always written tony and Abby as being mature and serious the majority of the time - the childishness gets really really annoying, and there’s such a change in quality when they are more mature

dad’s home!!!

4x03

uuuuuUUUUGH I forgot how early Tony’s undercover stuff started

now that gibbs is back there’s so much tension between z/t

perhaps because z is jealous of the “mystery girlfriend”

tfw you’ve already got a girlfriend but you’re still checking out your totally platonic professional work partner’s ass

ziva is definitely a daddy’s girl in a way that Abby isn’t, Abby’s sugar sweet and spoiled, but ziva is the one that really needs the emotional support

I wonder if ziva ever actually thought about having kids with tony before tali

I wonder if tony thought about it too

has anyone ever told you you’re attractive/my brother 😂

you’re a geek, not mentally deranged

crime!!

4x04

Timothy Jimothy McGee

4x05

uhoh Tony’s worst nightmare

personally I prefer a good shag 👀

I think it’s good to keep in mind throughout all episodes that tony and ziva have already seen each other entirely buck-ass naked

I’m not blowing on you again

again: what the fuck

totally normal

👀

now is not Paris

why do you wanna look at a dead guy’s junk Anthony

4x06

I don’t totally understand ziva’s derision of Halloween, they do have Purim in Israel (and in Jewish communities in general) it might not be as dark and spooky as American Halloween but still

maybe it’s different in the states but amber alerts are only when they know the kid’s been abducted

I mean now they do know she was abducted but that was AFTER

according to someone called Scuttle Butt

so tony and ziva are watching movies together outside of work 🤔

4x07

UGH jeanne

zeevah! Zeevah!!

this has to be the stupidest thing anyone’s ever done/then why are you following me/I don’t fricking know (it’s cause you love her you doof)

i can see down your shirt right now/I don’t think your new girlfriend would like that/what are you talking about i don’t know what you’re talking about/I’m talking about you and the fact that you no longer stare at every woman when they pass you by

so 1) tony is not as good at hiding this undercover assignment as he thinks he is, 2) ziva observes him enough to notice that his behaviour has changed and 3) ziva is the only one he is STILL checking out

not worth dying over

I’ll remember that

my son, tony (!!!!!!!!)

gibbs was unfortunate(?) enough to be stuck with the most loyal set of ducklings

4x08

the only thing I DO like about the jeanne/la grenouille plot is jealous ziva

this cannot be admissible in court even with proper chain of evidence

totally platonic to be touching the entire side of your work partner’s body with your own tony would definitely sit that close to McGee by choice right it’s not just ziva

lee looks like a ballerina

sometimes they really go hard with the imperialistic propaganda

4x09

nepotism: both Sean and Troian getting jobs on ncis

MySpace im….okay

Jenny’s only here for the hot goss

see I don’t think Jenny realizes he’s talking about jeanne, I almost wonder if she thinks he’s talking about ziva

4x10

McGee thinks ziva’s in love with me (she is)

dad and grandpa are fighting and the kiddies don’t like it

pimmy jalmer

🎶sexually frustrated “platonic” partners🎶

you two done playing grab ass

you described everything in my bedroom (why weren’t they endgame?)

I do feel bad for tony. He was definitely put in a bad situation where he was taken advantage of (by NCIS/the director) without anyone to confide in, and of course it ended really, really badly

how can ziva even tell but anyways of course she’s jealous

the usual/the usual what - oof. That expression hurts. Poor ziva

you got that moustache in a box, don’t you

4x11

sexual harassment training

LICKING YOUR COWORKER’S FACE IS TOTALLY APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR ZIVA DAVID

why are you touching dead naked people?

I suppose at this point the viewers didn’t know that jeanne had anything to do with the undercover stuff tony was doing

ziva is concerned about her boooyfrieeend-seriously though

what part of inappropriate touching don’t you understand

romantic or not, ziva seriously gives several shits about tony and his well-being

dadman to the rescue

did Jenny…also not know????

ziva is so, so concerned ugh bb

4x12

I don’t know what my moas would be

unreservedly romantic tony

ahh, you two got married and didn’t tell me

I think it’s scary!

oh ziva.

why does ziva being so concerned make gibbs so uncomfortable 🤔👀

your other phone is never on silent

IT LITERALLY DID NOT OCCUR TO ZIVA DAVID, INTERNATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AGENT, THAT TONY COULD HAVE A GIRLFRIEND

LOOK AT THAT FACE

HOMEGIRL’S WORLD JUST GOT FLIPPED UPSIDE DOWN

oh z

so the pictures that mossad had at the beginning of the season of z/t - could those have been from the agents watching tony and jeanne now?

4x13

when your wife and your girlfriend are in the same room

sounds like you have something up your wazoo

when your boyfriend has two super intense daughters who could both kill your painfully and without evidence

ooh petulant ziva

I’m certain that they used the same hall for jeanne and Tim’s apartments

“it’s important to appreciate the competition” EXCUSE ME TONY the competition for WHO??? Ziva??????

what the FUCK tony

those two are unusually motivated to find sharif 👀

4x14

what’s a little state sanctioned kidnapping between friends, eh?

mark harmon was on st elsewhere, wasn’t he?

maybe now gibbs gets why ziva’s so concerned

z is so pretty in this episode

4x15

so Tony’s so in love with jeanne that he doesn’t notice ziva dancing provocatively in front of him, but not so in love with jeanne that he’ll get in between ziva and someone who’s attracted to her

he’s also a ziva-to-English translator

oh tony

Dead Man Walking

oh dear poor z

you didn’t make her promise not to destroy it, mcgee

brain training to figure out how ziva knows the dude

aquasmurf

meetcute

so does my spleen

we finish each other’s-sandwiches

her technique 👀

falling in love with a dying man is a fantastic idea z

(Professional follow-up)

oh z

red light behaviour!!!!!

the look on your face says you are

what’s that look on your face

gee tony if you’re so in love with jeanne why are you also so in love with ziva

are you okay?

good guy tony

4x17

I’m pretty sure that mausoleum exploded in Bones too

so. over. abby.

why do they just shit on ziva all the time on this stupid show, everyone she loves dies

when you break up with your girlfriend but she’s still jealous of your wifee 😬

4x18

she’s wearing Roy’s hat 😖

oof, boy’s got a face like a brick house

I don’t want to see you naked, either tony

cold elbow

or maybe you said something when you should have said something

I’m so not interested in this melodrama 🙄

not good?

4x19

oh tony

4x20

ziva is totally unimpressed by these shenanigans

uncomfortably reflecting upon McGee’s book and ziva looks like she’s about to cry 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

campfire!

4x21

all these investigators and none of them can figure out that it’s kort

4x22

jeanne, on a fishing expedition and tony, regretting his response

ziva, studiously avoiding tony’s face while tony processes his regrets

bad news from the, um, dentist? / something like that OOPS TONY OOPS

😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

she looks so hurt, ouuuch

like

she must realise how much in love she is with tony, even after roy

A GIRL LINGERS

long enough

tony/zeevah

that was...astonishingly cruel

like I can’t even comprehend

“it’s because you’re a good person” YOU DON’T DESERVE HER DINOZZO

you fuck

he’s right/he is?/i am?

4x23

noooooooooo

yeeeeeeeeees

buying a house is a loooooot

“Tony’s never vulnerable” maybe not around you, jeanne 👀

ha! I’m a normal man! I hate my wife!

I don’t know if I’m getting this ziva outfit mixed up with the one in bury your dead or if Something actually happens in this episode

something happens in this episode

so you’ll help me?

rip my little bi heart, she loves him

love you too, jeanne

poor z

4x24

I think sometimes she pretends not to know movies just to hear tony talk about them

OH NO THE BAR

to dry eyed mice

i have seen this episode an unhealthy number of times

I have a funny feeling, doctor

straight to voicemail, just like always when he’s with her

oooh z

tony?/what?!

why do you monitor tony?/i don’t monitor tony/oh yes you do, like a mother with a toddler

or a woman with a wayward lover

so if he’s profiling you, z, that means...there’s some truth to it?

tony is with his girlfriend, and you are worried about him

he is my partner, and my partner said he would be here and...and I have this not so good feeling

cut tooooooo a gun

aaaaand now to bury your dead.......

#tiva #ncis #liveblog #show: ncis #ship: tiva

[lids-flutter-open]

a thing i wrote for the rabbi in preparation for finishing my conversion

1. How did you get to be sitting here today - tell me your story, how you learned to love Judaism, why you aren't x-tan anymore

I grew up in Olympia, Washington. My mother was "spiritual" but not specifically religious, and took us to a Unitarian Universalist church. I think this was a good experience for me, because it connected time in church ("church") to time talking about social justice concerns, and to caring about other people in a concentrated way. The UU church fed people at a shelter and raised money for environmental causes. I think it informed my principles as a person, even though my mother stopped taking us after a while. My father, whose mother was fairly fervently Methodist, didn't like religion. As a child, I associated religion proper--the kind of Christianity that other people did, for instance--with being asked to believe in something that was impossible, and the moral logic of religion, and especially Christianity as my grandmother knew it, didn't make a lot of sense to me. I was without any kind of religion throughout high school. I often felt depressed and anxious; I was gay and trans, and even after my parents began supporting me, many of my friends faced bullying, homelessness, mental health crises, and abuse. As I learned more about war, iniquity, and imperialism, I often felt like the world as it existed was beyond help, and that too many people suffered for the world to have any order. During that time, as I participated in LGBT groups around my town, I met some friends who were Jewish and coming into what that meant to them. I had really interesting conversations around Jewish ideas of God and morality with my friend Levi, who had grown up in a very racist town in Nevada and who embraced the idea of an all-knowing God who at the same time was mysteriously and frustratingly absent and who one had to both believe in and be angry at. In college, I took a class on European Jewish literature since the 1800s and read a lot of literature (from Gluckel von Hameln to Irene Nemirovsky and Stefan Zweig and Marx and Freud) accompanied by the analysis of a very gay older professor who tried very hard to keep his analysis secular while giving us religious concepts to provide context for the significance of writers' desperation, alienation, and struggle. A central idea that stuck with me from that class was the paradox of a God who has issued laws which everyone must follow for the salvation of the world even though nobody is sure exactly how to follow them. It combined the comforting and somewhat idealistic certainty that there was a plan with the sensible conclusion that, based on the chaos and horror extant in the world today, nobody was enforcing that plan and for practical purposes humanity was on its own to solve its problems. I also was fascinated that the ideas of Marx, and the ideas of many of the people who tried to formulate socialist states from the ruins of monarchies in the early 20th century, were influenced by the Jewish messianic tradition and were part of the idea that people themselves could bring on the dawn of the ultimate, perfect era of life on Earth if we only worked together and worked hard enough. It's romantic, but I pictured Jewish socialists motorcycling across the Russian steppe (as indeed they did, when carrying news during the 1918 crisis), imagining that their work might fix what everyone else had gotten wrong. I like Judaism because it recognizes humanity's messiness and mistakes, including prophets. It notes the arguments people have had, the different views people take, the times people have seriously messed up and faced consequences for it, the times people have seriously messed up and faced no consequences. It is concerned with bodies and matter and daily practice more than with immortal souls, but also speaks about souls and love and hope. It remembers, and it watches, and it hopes for the day where the word of G-D becomes something real--something explicitly material--, and tries to work for it, but admits that there may or may not be a clear path to get there. At the same time, it motivates me to do work in the world directed outwards, toward helping people. 2. Tell me about God / spirituality / prayer. What does that all mean to you?

I like thinking of God as the connection that exists between people, and anything good, but also as something boundless, beyond good and evil, and utterly incomprehensible to human identity, morality, etc. God is in the wonder of a wave crashing down on the sand. God is the potential for good things to happen because God is the potential for anything to happen, and when someone is a human, the best potential is that humans can come together and fix something, or figure out a way to care for each other better. Prayer is also being glad to be alive, to see candles or smell smoke or feel one's arms working in the morning. I pray because I believe there's some way to tap into that sort of divine similarity I have with all other beings and all other matter and make something happen that's good. I also think there is a lot to be said for the way Jewish prayer emphasizes sensual pleasure and simple appreciation of one's material body and material existence. I think God is a way for me to understand all bodies as good, for all experiences of bodies to be divine, even if they are painful. 

3. What are some meaningful Jewish rituals / practices that you do and why are they important to you?

I observe Shabbat by avoiding grocery shopping, laundry, and travel on that day, and by trying to spend time with friends. I attend services on Friday nights and some Saturday mornings at CBE. In the last year, I have also observed the Jewish holidays of Shavuot, Tisha b'Av, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Simchat Torah, Hannukah, Purim and Pesach. On Rosh Hashanah, I made food for my friends, including two new friends from my synagogue, even though my apartment is pretty small, and tried to incorporate foods traditional to the new year like apples and honey, round challah, and other foods. I observed Tisha b'Av and Yom Kippur by fasting, and throughout the month of Elul I thought a lot about the things in my life I wanted to change and about calamities I wanted to do something to prevent or to help people recover from. I read a book recommended by Rabbi Katz (This is Real and You're Completely Unprepared by Alan Lew) in order to better approach the holiday from a mindset of introspection and reconciliation with the parts of myself I wanted to leave behind. I also took a new appreciation of the themes of Elul and Yom Kippur with me as I rewatched Angels in America, which deals a lot in Jewish reconciliation, forgiveness, and death. On Hannukah I went to friends' houses in order to eat latkes and other oily foods and also engaged in conversations about the dubious victory of the Maccabees/when a revolution becomes a repressive regime. On Purim I went to party and attended services, and thought about what it means to survive something terrible and what it means to ask for revenge or to make up a story where you get revenge, and what the difference is. On Passover I was with friends in 2017 and 2018, talking about freedom, human trafficking, refugees, motherhood and reproductive freedom, and a list of other issues that seem more relevant every year. In 2018 I also learned songs, both traditional and more recent.   In terms of everyday rituals: I try to give to people who ask for things. I try to care for people in my life who I value. I try to think critically and to better myself and to improve the world. I try to criticize tyrants. I try to be thankful for my body. I try to forgive people, and also to think carefully about when someone deserves forgiveness. I try to rigorously evaluate my standards for living a decent life and see if they are good enough. I try to remember history. I think about how the lessons of Torah relate to my life and what wisdom that text contains that I can apply to my life and sometimes make Spotify playlists related to books of the Torah. I try to read the weekly parsha and think about it critically. I read feminist books about Judaism and read fiction by Jewish authors. 4. What do you still want to learn / read about when you are Jewish?

I want to learn Hebrew so I can comfortably read in services in either language. I want to learn more about the history of Jewish people in the United States and around the world, because even as I learn more there is still a lot I have missed out on. 

5. What Hebrew name are you thinking of having? And Why? Zev as a biblical name originates from a reference to Benjamin, who is called "a wolf that raveneth". The text refers to Benjamin-as-wolf killing prey in the morning and dividing spoils in evening. But there isn't much reference to whether Benjamin actually ever does any killing, though he gave rise to the line that included Ehud, Saul and, supposedly, Mordecai. Some consider the term "ravenous Wolf" not to refer to war at all but to refer to Temple sacrifices. Benjamin is known in rabbinic tradition as being a uniquely upstanding, sin-free person, and is also notable for being the youngest son of Rachel, and the last child of Jacob. When I was considering names for myself as a fifteen-year-old after coming out as trans, I considered Benjamin (on the advice of my therapist!) because of Rachel trying to name Benjamin Benoni after her pain and death, but failing. The name represented a triumph above origin while also presenting a puzzle because the actual etymology of the name is contested--it means son of days, son of the south, etc etc. But I didn't choose Benjamin as a name then, and I don't want to choose it now, because it's too full of a story and too precise. I like Zev because, though it's technically an allusion to this character, it also just means Wolf. I like that there are aspects of Benjamin's life I could step into, but don't want to draw parallels between myself and a biblical character every time I say my name. I like wolves, and have since I was a child, because they are both powerful and dangerous but also care for one another. Researchers studying wolves have found that in the wild they are far more communal and less aggressive toward each other than they are in captivity or under stress. I think that the protective powers of the wolf, and also the familial bonds between wolves, is something I want to emulate. I want to step into a different aspect of the name than Zev Jabotinsky, whose militancy and ferocity I think are antithetical to building an enduring, peaceful, prosperous future for humanity and other species on this planet.

#judaism #conversion #jewish conversion #text/ #religion/

[rabbiaharon]

I try to find something new to think about every year when we read the megilah, and this year what caught my eye was Mordechai's interactions with Haman. I never really understood the hype around Mordechai's character, but this year I even have to wonder if we shouldn't be somewhat scorning him instead. His pride and stubbornness incited Haman's anger and as he was an important person (sat at the city's gate), the only way Haman could get to Mordechai was by targeting his people instead. (1/2)

Mordechai then had the chutzpa to go to Esther and berate her for being hesitant to risk her life, while he was the one who more or less put his entire people in danger. He counted on her to bail them out. I don’t know, it’s very difficult for me to see him in a good light tbh. At no point in the story do we see him suffering (grieving, sure) or risking himself. Esther did all the work and he got to reap the riches afterwards :/ What are your thoughts on this? Chag same'ach btw! :D (2/2)

I not sure if you were asking this, but I’m going to answer that this conclusion sounds like a literal interpretation, and comes from a lack of context. The Megillah is written - somewhat intentionally - in a rather confusing and enigmatic manner. For that reason we have midrashim and gemara which elucidate those details for us so we don’t have to rely on attempting to come to conclusions based on a literal interpretation, since a literal interpretation will automatically lack context.

Let’s start with Mordechai. Mordechai was the undisputed leader of the Jewish people at the time. He was the head of the sanhedrin (until he took his place as the second to the king at the end of the Megillah, and someone else took over as head of the sanhedrin). Whatever he did, every jew followed him. Now the question comes up - why was he called a “Yehudi”? That’s a name generally - especially then- reserved for people from the tribe of Judah, which he certainly wasn’t (he was from the tribe of Benjamin). The answer comes from understanding what Haman represents - and what his intentions were with the decree that everyone should bow down to him. Haman was an Amalekite - a fundamental antisemite bent on the destruction of the jewish people regardless of the reason. In fact, the Midrash and Tractate Megillah tell us he was planning to try and destroy the Jewish people a long time before those interactions with Mordechai told over in the Megillah, including a ploy to prevent the jews from rebuilding the temple (he gave to Achashveirosh - 3 years before the beginning of the Megillah - advice to prevent us from rebuilding it, claiming that we would only rebel against the king if we did so). When Haman cajoled Achashveirosh into making a decree that everyone should bow down to him, he tattooed idolatry onto himself and hung idols around his neck, so that everyone who would bow down to him would be bowing down to idolatry… The goal being to cause the Jewish people to sin, thus weakening their protection from above so he could have power over them. Of course, Mordechai was the first one waiting for him outside of the palace gates, and knew his plan. Therefore he refused to bow to him, as he would refuse to bow to any idolatry. With Mordechai Being the leader of the jewish people, the rest of us refused to bow down as well. The word “Yehudi” can also mean “one who acknowledges that there is only one G-d in the world”, and thus was applied to anyone of any of our 12 tribes who refused to bow to Haman’s idolatry. Now once Haman made his decree, it applied only to “Yehudim”, not “ children of Israel”, specifically those who refused to bow down to the idolatry of Haman.

Now you understand that Mordechai’s actions were not the cause of Haman’s decree, rather the cause - from below, I’m not discussing the reasons above of why things happened the way they did, that’s for another post - is that the entire Jewish people refused to bow down to idolatry, in other words, Haman wasn’t coming to assault Mordechai personally at the beginning, and then suddenly decided to include the rest of the jewish people. From the beginning his entire intention was to target the entire people. Now, if you notice, during the conversation between Mordechai and Ester, Mordechai told her that if she didn’t do it, G-d would appoint someone else to do it “and who knows, maybe it was for this reason that she became the queen”. What? Do you think Ester wanted to marry Achashveirosh? Do you think she - a religious jewish girl and the cousin of the undisputed leader of the entire jewish people would want to be married to a non-jew? And for that matter a non-jew who killed his previous wife for refusing to appear naked in public? Absolutely not! But she understood that G-d had plans and she had faith that there was a reason why she was forced into such an unfortunate situation. When Haman made his decree, Mordechai understood that this is the reason, and he had faith that she would not, in fact, be risking her life, because G-d’s intention was that she should be the savior - if you will- of the jewish people. What seems like Mordechai chiding her was in fact him reassuring her that she would not be risking her life, because for this reason she became queen. Furthermore, he told her “if you don’t do it, G-d will certainly appoint another redeemer to do the job” not that he was relying on her, and if she didn’t do it, the entire people get killed… But rather that she had an opportunity to save the entire jewish people and encourages her to seize that opportunity. In terms of suffering, Fasting, putting himself in danger... That's a midrashic question, and one that the Midrash expounds upon in great detail - once again either for another post, or for a personal conversation. Purim Sameach and I hope this helped! I encourage you to message me privately so we can continue this conversation!

[dailyaudiobible]

8/18/2017 DAB Transcript

Esther 1:1-3:15; 1 Corinthians 11:17-34; Psalms 35:17-28; Proverbs 21:19-20

Today is the 18th day of August. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and I am excited to be here with you today because even here at the end of the week we have a new beginning. We finished the book of Nehemiah yesterday, which brings us to the beautiful book of Esther. And its stunning. And I love when we get to this place each year. Esther’s short in length but it is not short on drama and intrigue. Esther is…this story of a beautiful…a stunningly beautiful girl who became Queen unsuspectingly and was subsequently able to save God's people from annihilation. It’s one the most beautiful stories in the Bible and, allegorically, we can look at the book through the eyes of God and his love for us, just like we can allegorically the Song of Solomon. But Esther is also considered to be one of the books of history for the children of Israel. The book of Esther is the basis for one of the major Jewish festivals called Purim, which was established by Mordechai in this book. And the story takes place during the same period in history that we’ve been reading about as we read of the Babylonian exile. So, the children of Israel, being exiles, were allowed to return, which is what we read about in Ezra and Nehemiah, to their homeland, and Esther may have played a large role in this because she plays an important role in keeping her people from destruction. And as queen she has great favor from the king, which ultimately gave great favor to God's people, to her people, to the Jewish people. When Esther reveals her heritage as a Jew the king shows kindness and consideration to God's people. And there are many parallels in the book of Esther that we can apply to our lives - that God will always show up, that circumstances don't always dictate the outcome of things, and that everyone has an important role to play because God brings people into the picture for specific times and specific missions to get major things done in his kingdom. This can be as large as queen Esther saving God's people from destruction or God sending you next door to save the hope and heart of your neighbor. So, enjoy the book of Esther as we move into this new territory. We’re reading from the Holman Christian Standard Bible this week. And Esther chapter 1 verse 1 through 3 verse 15.

Prayer:

Thank You Father for Your word and as we move into this little oasis known as the book of Esther, we see Your hand moving in this time. We see that You were already working in this situation before the threat to Your people even materialized. And, so, Father we know that You are working in our lives and have been working in advance of things that we just don't understand or know, but You do. And so often when we discover that we’re in a tailspin we’re mad at You and flailing around trying to figure it out when You already working on our behalf. And, so, we’re sorry. We repent of that and we turn toward You. You are our only hope. Our hope is in You. So, come, Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements 

dailyaudiobible.com is the website. It’s home base. It’s where you find out what's going on around here.

I’ve been mentioning that we have all of the all of the Sneezing Jesus stuff in the Daily Audio Bible shop now. And, so, we’re able to have it there. So, the Sneezing Jesus book is there. The sneezing Jesus 10 pack that we had while we were talking about this before it released, we’ve brought that back. That's available in the shop. So, when you get 10 of and Sneezing Jesus you get all the stuff including the medallion and the small group films and all of that. So, you can check that out. We even have cases because some of you have let us not you’re giving them to visitors in your church or you’re going to give them to everybody you work with and that kind of stuff. So, we have that available at the lowest price possible. So, check that out. The Sneezing Jesus medallion is available if you just want that. The Sneezing Jesus films are available as a standalone as well. So, check that out. We even made a category for it in the shop called Sneezing Jesus. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There’s s a link. It's on the homepage. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your partnership in the summertime. We are a community and what we have done we have done together. And, so, let's keep doing it together. Thank you. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the More button in the lower right-hand corner or if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill TN 37174.

And of course, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

And that's it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayers and Praise Reports:

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family. This is Wrapped in His Unfailing Love and I’m calling for Sharron. I just herd you on the community prayers for August 13th and you want to give up. And Sharron you said your family doesn’t care but we’re your family and we care and we love you and we don’t want you to give up. And God gave you your life. It’s not yours to take. And He’s going to be there and we’re here. Thank you for calling and asking for prayers. We’re praying for you. I’m praying for you. God is with you and he inhabits the praises of His people and I just want to ask you, look around and just think of…if you can just come up with…three things that God’s blessed you with…three things…and then make it five or ten and be grateful. He loves that and He is going to help you through this. I know that He will. And you have so many people praying for you Sharron. Consider us your family. I am your sister in Christ. I love you and I want you to hang on, hang onto Jesus. He’s never going to let you go. Lord, Jesus, bless Sharron. Thank you for my sister. Thank you for her reaching out. And Lord I pray that You would just help her see that her life is worthwhile. Help her to be grateful with certain things that You have blessed her with – her home, food, clothing. Whatever it is…start there Sharron. I love you. Amen. Bye.

Hello. It’s Allison here from Scotland. I hope you are all well. I’ve just been listening to the community prayer and a lady phoned in. At least, she’d been convicted about not phoning in for prayer because she feels guilty because her life was ok and she’s not alone. I think I’ve been wanting to phone in for a while but I find it a little bit selfish because I am not struggling with the things that other people are struggling with and we pray for every day but it’s something very important to us as a family. My husband had a breakdown at the beginning of the year. We’ve not been happy where we’ve been living for a while and since we got new neighbors and we have been to a house that we would really, really like to buy and I would covet your prayers that the house sale goes through and we can move out into the county where there’s some space and some time just to be. And it would move my daughter to a school where there’s only thirty children and I think she would be happier there. I think we’d all be happier there. And I’ve asked God to show us clearly in every step of the way. Things are working out well. Things are working out well but I’m not very patient and I really…I’m starting to worry that it’s not going to work out.  So, I really covet your prayers. Ok. I’m almost out of time. I love you family and I pray with you all every day. Lots of love. Allison in Scotland. Bye. 

Hi. This is Deborah from Providence RI. I know about not making multiple calls on the same day but I just had to get this in. Brian, I am so grateful for you. Thank you for the book, Sneezing Jesus. I’ll be honest, when I first saw the title when you were talking about it before it came out…I was like…oh oh…what is this? Ya know…I just…it was weird…hahahaha. I didn’t understand how…ya know…what that would mean as a book. I did get Reframe, got it from my church. It was wonderful. It was excellent. So, I was looking forward to a new book…but brother…that name…just like…ughhh…it was so strange to me…but boy was I wrong. It’s amazing. It’s excellent. I got the audio, the Audible, and I’ve listened to it a few times. I got the book itself, which I’m reading. Brian, God has blessed you. I know you are aware of it. But I’m just going to say it…God has blessed you with a gift. It’s just amazing, reading the book that you’ve written and it’s like…this guy…he makes it…like…so simple…it’s great and deep but it’s also simple. When you read it you get it and I thank God for that and I look forward to sharing this with my church also. I have already…well…I’m sharing it with my sisters because I’m going to get it for them for Christmas because we do read as a sister group or we read books and we did reframe so we’re going to do this. I just wanted to say thank you so much Brian. Thank you. God bless you and your family. Continue to do what you’re doing even if people like me go…ughhh…because we don’t really understand in the beginning what you are doing. You are gifted. God bless. If anyone out there is wondering about the books with a weird title to them…get them. You will not be disappointed. God bless.

Hi I just really wanted to leave a quick message, a praise report. We heard a message at our church this weekend about how God is moving in the world right now and it just absolutely touched me right to the core. Especially in Muslim countries. Apparently there are literally like thousands and thousands of people that re coming to the Lord and it’s just…there’s these tender little new shoots of baby Christians all over the world…I mean…he just went on about India and…just so…Ethiopia…and it’s just amazing…like…so many, so many people. It’s like God…His Spirit is just really flowing. Especially as well…Israel. I think the tensions there in the middle east are such that a lot of the young people…this guy was saying…are just coming to Jesus. It’s like…they know that their world is on the edge and they’re just saying only the Messiah…only the Messiah can help us now and they’re just coming by the thousands to Christ. So, I just really encourage us all to really pray…pray, pray, pray, and do whatever we can to get bibles to those people because their tender new little Christians. They need the word of God. Anyways, please pray with me. Thank you.

Hey, good morning Daily Audio Bible DABbers. My first time calling in. I just really enjoy listening to the Daily Audio Bible with Brian and enjoy hearing all your prayers. I’ve been reluctant to call in but I’d really just love your prayers if God brings you to mind. My name is Jeff. I’m from Maine and my family…my wife and I…we’ve been going through a challenging few weeks. For the past year and a half almost we’ve been raising financial support to go to the mission field. We’re going to Montreal and Quebec to this unreached people group through evangelism and church planting but it’s been an amazing year relying on God. And then a few weeks ago were really at a point in our progress where we decided I would leave my work, my full time job, to continue to finish our fundraising but in doing that we realized just how far away our goal seems to be. And so, we’re still trusting God. It’s been amazing to go through Second Chronicles and Ezra and Nehemiah this past few weeks. We’re just gaining hope in God through that and we’ve never been more in prayer and more in His word. So, if you think to pray for my ministry, please do so,  I’d love to hear that and just want to read something real quick about what Jesus does with our prayers. Charles Spurgeon says, this is just what the Lord Jesus Christ does with our poor prayers, He makes a fair copy of them, stamps them with a seal of His atoning blood, puts His own name at the foot, and thus they go up to God’s throne. It is your prayer but though it is His prayer too. ookin

[theresonlysofarnewmoneygoes]

Hello! I was wondering if you could explain what Adar is and other relevant info as I only just looked up what Purim is (I'm half Jewish but I don't really know much about anything) Your blog is very nice btw

First off, thank you!

So, there are twelve months in the Jewish year, and thirteen in a Jewish leap year. The Jewish leap year occurs once every two, three, or four years, I think. Our Sages figured out the formula ages ago.

The month we celebrate the new year is the month of Tishrei, but in the Tanach, the month of Nissan is used to count the years, because Nissan is the month we left Egypt.

So it goes either Tishrei, Cheshvan, Kislev, Tevet, Shvat, Adar, Nissan, Iyar, Sivan, Tammuz, Av, and Elul, making Adar the sixth month, or Nissan, Iyar, Sivan, Tammuz, Av, Elul, Tishrei, Cheshvan, Kislev, Tevet, Shvat, and Adar, making Adar the twelfth month.

Remember the thirteenth month of the leap year? That would be Adar Aleph. Adar Bet is the Adar that comes after, and that’s when we celebrate Purim. So that’s Shvat, Adar Aleph, Adar Bet, Nissan, and so on.

The “rule” for Adar is this: m'shnichnas Adar, marbin b'simchah. Loose translation: from the moment it’s Adar, we greaten joy.

So it’s a very fun month, especially in Israel. There are fun events happening everywhere all throughout the month, and neighbourhoods, settlements, and cities organise a lot of it, so there are fairs (I guess that’s the right word in English? Yeah, it’s kind of like a town fair!) very close to everyone’s home for a very small fee.

I didn’t talk much about this on my blog, but as a senior, I helped run this week all schools do, the week of Purim. We created a new “constitution” for the school (no uniforms, teachers have to bring their students a cake on Tuesday, girls have to hopscotch into their buildings, things like that) and we got to pull the girls out of class for a bunch of great activities we organised. Like Monday, we had a bunch of moon bounces and a face-painting artist person and a hair donation stand and a chocolate room and zumba all morning long. The girls loved it!

Anyway, it’s a mitzvah to be happy all year round, but you’re supposed to be especially joyous the month of Adar.

I hope this helped!

#lizo talks #purim #adar #asks #spontaneoussagittarius #i love adar!!! #also love these asks fam #@conversion anon i am still working on my answer btw

[wineanddinosaur]

One Man’s Strange Quest to Make a 50-State Whiskey Blend

With the last decade’s boom in craft whiskey, now literally every single U.S. state has at least one homegrown distillery producing whiskey, whether bourbon, rye, Tennessee whiskey, single malt, or ones even more exotic than that. There are whiskeys made with corn, rye, barley, millet, and even sorghum. There are some that use a mesquite-smoked malt, others that employ port-barrel finishes. Just like the country itself, American whiskey is messy and hard to get a handle on. But, one man wondered, was there any way to tie them all together and produce something greater than its constituent parts?

“It wasn’t just a fun, gimmicky thing, though, it was a very personal thing,” says Michael Bloom. “I’ve never been a collector of closed bottles. I’ve always wanted to open and taste flavorful spirits that aren’t in the mainstream.”

Though the 52-year-old Bloom is not in the spirits industry per se — career-wise he’s a federal government bureaucrat (“and proud to be!”) — he has been drinking whiskey for decades and is a fixture on the whiskey “scene.” In fact, I first met him at an event for my book, “Hacking Whiskey,” in the fall of 2018 in his hometown of Chicago. Even then he was telling me about his ambitions for a “50 State Blend,” something he’d been thinking about since 2015 at least. In an email from October 2018, he wrote to me: “I imagine my first crack at this as a 1/2 oz from every state in a single bottle. But I love the idea of a true National blend, a United Spirit so to speak, and think the collaboration could scale too.”

If you didn’t know, amateur blending has gotten hot in the last decade, with hobbyists taking to Reddit and Facebook to discuss their blends. Yet only a few have managed to pervade the whiskey zeitgeist, most notably Poor Man’s Pappy — a theoretically cheap blend designed to resemble the sought-after Van Winkle — and another called California Gold.

Bloom has never had any ambitions like that, but he’s been quietly making his own amateur whiskey blends for 12 years now, a hobby that first began when he acquired some Woodinville Whiskey “white dog” and a one-liter barrel. Since then, he’s done blends to celebrate weddings and bar mitzvahs (to open when the kids turn 21!), he’s made a blend for his synagogue’s Purim celebration, and even done charity-related blends like CowaLUNGa, to support Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago’s annual 190-mile bike ride from Illinois to Wisconsin.

But all those blends were made with just a handful of whiskeys. Bloom knew the 50 State Blend would be his most challenging project yet. He’d first, of course, have to obtain 50 states’ (and a Washington, D.C.’s) worth of whiskey. Back in 2018, Bloom only had 18 of the states covered and was able to find a few more at his local Binny’s Beverage Depot. For the rest of them, he worked off “best of” lists on the internet to whittle down the thousands of possibilities.

“I was seeking what’s different and new,” explains Bloom, “not necessarily what’s the smoothest or heftiest, or is even a brand everyone knows.”

Credit: 50 State Blend

To acquire many of the bottles, he was able to order the whiskeys through online retailers like Spirit Hub. Some states would be quite difficult, of course. Despite it acclaimed Louisiana Single Malt, New Orleans’ Atelier Vie Distillery only sells bottles for a few hours every Saturday — luckily, Bloom’s brother works for the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and was able to get an appointment when the team was in town to play the Pelicans. Bloom acquired Alaska’s Port Chilkoot Distillery rye when his parents just happened to be taking an anniversary cruise up the Alaskan coast.

“South Dakota was the toughest acquisition and the only one where I felt stuck,” Bloom says. He couldn’t even find friends of friends who knew someone there, one of the country’s least-populated states. Finally, he had the clever idea to reach out to a South Dakota whiskey enthusiasts Facebook group for a little help. The group’s moderator ended up sending him a bottle of Badlands Distillery’s Iron Hills Bourbon.

Meanwhile, until just last year, Hawaii didn’t even have its own whiskey — the Ko’Olau Distillery now offers Old Pali Road Whiskey, a bourbon-style whiskey made from local corn and blended with some undisclosed whiskey from the mainland. That latter point is critical. Aside from being forced to break his own rule with Hawaii, Bloom was strictly looking to acquire whiskeys that had been 100 percent produced within their respective states. That, thus, meant no products that had sourced the ubiquitous MGP whiskey and then simply bottled it at home.

He likewise wanted to avoid any big-boy distilleries, opting for New Riff’s Straight Rye for Kentucky’s entry and Nelson’s Green Brier Tennessee Whiskey for the Volunteer State. He actually considered using an MGP whiskey for Indiana’s entry, but instead opted for Starlight Distillery’s bourbon.

By early March of this year, just as the pandemic was shutting down the country, Bloom had finally collected all 51 bottles and took to his office, trying to figure out how to harness them all. First, the highly analytical Bloom would taste them, not only taking notes, but ranking each on a score of 1 to 100 on nose, palate, mouthfeel, and finish.

“How radically different all these states are,” he says. “All making such interesting stuff.”

While it wasn’t shocking that the much-acclaimed Balcones’ Texas Single Malt Whisky had his highest aggregate score (369 out of 400), there were many other surprises. Like One Eight Distilling’s District Made, a youthful straight rye from Washington, D.C., that, Bloom explains, is “not on most people’s radar.” He also liked a mere months-old single malt from Nebraska, which he calls “red-apple forward.”

Credit: 50 State Blend

Bloom was blown away by another single malt from Idaho, Warfield Distillery’s Certified Organic American Pot Still Whiskey, which he found “extraordinarily subtle, like a grassy Lowlands Scotch.” He had initially balked at Warfield’s $100 price tag, but is glad he went for it (Bloom claims he paid an average of $65 per bottle, including shipping).

By late March he was ready to start blending. For a “first draft,” Bloom measured out 10 milliliters of every whiskey — 14 bourbons, 14 ryes, 12 single malts, one single malt rye, one Tennessee whiskey (of course!), one millet whiskey, one sorghum whiskey, and six uncategorizable whiskeys — to see “if it actually has character.” It wasn’t bad. But he wondered what he could do to make it better.

“Ultimately, I’m striving for a balanced blend with an enticing nose, rich palate, weighty mouthfeel, and lingering finish,” says Bloom, who launched a 50 State Blend website to further detail the project and his methodology. “A dram of 50 State Blend should tell a compelling story and satisfy discerning whiskey lovers.”

For the second draft, Bloom created a weighted score that gave the most weight to palate (43 percent) followed by nose (30 percent), finish (17 percent), and mouthfeel (10 percent). He used the weighted scores to create a proportion of the total blend volume for each whiskey. In other words, the highest-scoring Balcones would contribute 49 milliliters, while the lower-scoring Ko’Olau only 13.5 milliliters. He quickly discovered an issue.

“My scoring gave higher scores to fuller nose and mouthfeel and longer finish so the resulting blend was biased toward outsized and complex flavors,” says Bloom. By the fourth draft, he was finally honing in on a nuanced blend. Instead of relying on pure mathematics, he developed this blend by feel, working from his memory for how the ingredients tasted and would interact with one another. He was quite satisfied with the result, a full-bodied yet balanced whiskey.

“I don’t know how many drafts there’ll be or whether I’ll ever be done,” he says. He’s barrel-aged a few batches and is even thinking of starting a solera system, swapping in new whiskeys from each state at times. “My favorite [drafts] have more of the unusual stuff in it. I don’t want you to taste it and say, ‘This is easy to drink and smooth.’ Who cares?!”

Bloom’s 50 State Blend is already garnering some buzz among whiskey cognoscenti, even though scoring samples of the non-commercial release is nearly impossible. This one seems poised to join the realm of Poor Man’s Pappy and California Gold, as Bloom is already being featured on industry podcasts. The only difference is, it would be very time-consuming and costly for others to recreate the recipe themselves. Not to mention, some of the bottles are extremely limited — single-barrel picks and distillery-only bottlings. Another one, a Single Cask Nation Westland 2-Year-Old, will never be made again. Meaning even Bloom needs to start finding understudies for future blends.

Luckily, Bloom has found that his favorite part of making the 50 State Blend is discovering all the great whiskey being made across our country, bottles like Brooklyn’s Widow Jane and South Carolina’s High Wire Distilling, which makes a red-corn whiskey that Bloom hopes to get a bottle of soon, maybe even in person. But until then, stuck in quarantine like the rest of us, Bloom will keep experiencing the country merely by sipping its whiskey.

“Sampling spirits is a great way of experiencing places when we’re not able to do so in person,” says Bloom. “It’s not an accident that I got this off the ground during Covid.”

The article One Man’s Strange Quest to Make a 50-State Whiskey Blend appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/50-state-whiskey-blend/

[johnboothus]

One Mans Strange Quest to Make a 50-State Whiskey Blend

With the last decade’s boom in craft whiskey, now literally every single U.S. state has at least one homegrown distillery producing whiskey, whether bourbon, rye, Tennessee whiskey, single malt, or ones even more exotic than that. There are whiskeys made with corn, rye, barley, millet, and even sorghum. There are some that use a mesquite-smoked malt, others that employ port-barrel finishes. Just like the country itself, American whiskey is messy and hard to get a handle on. But, one man wondered, was there any way to tie them all together and produce something greater than its constituent parts?

“It wasn’t just a fun, gimmicky thing, though, it was a very personal thing,” says Michael Bloom. “I’ve never been a collector of closed bottles. I’ve always wanted to open and taste flavorful spirits that aren’t in the mainstream.”

Though the 52-year-old Bloom is not in the spirits industry per se — career-wise he’s a federal government bureaucrat (“and proud to be!”) — he has been drinking whiskey for decades and is a fixture on the whiskey “scene.” In fact, I first met him at an event for my book, “Hacking Whiskey,” in the fall of 2018 in his hometown of Chicago. Even then he was telling me about his ambitions for a “50 State Blend,” something he’d been thinking about since 2015 at least. In an email from October 2018, he wrote to me: “I imagine my first crack at this as a 1/2 oz from every state in a single bottle. But I love the idea of a true National blend, a United Spirit so to speak, and think the collaboration could scale too.”

If you didn’t know, amateur blending has gotten hot in the last decade, with hobbyists taking to Reddit and Facebook to discuss their blends. Yet only a few have managed to pervade the whiskey zeitgeist, most notably Poor Man’s Pappy — a theoretically cheap blend designed to resemble the sought-after Van Winkle — and another called California Gold.

Bloom has never had any ambitions like that, but he’s been quietly making his own amateur whiskey blends for 12 years now, a hobby that first began when he acquired some Woodinville Whiskey “white dog” and a one-liter barrel. Since then, he’s done blends to celebrate weddings and bar mitzvahs (to open when the kids turn 21!), he’s made a blend for his synagogue’s Purim celebration, and even done charity-related blends like CowaLUNGa, to support Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago’s annual 190-mile bike ride from Illinois to Wisconsin.

But all those blends were made with just a handful of whiskeys. Bloom knew the 50 State Blend would be his most challenging project yet. He’d first, of course, have to obtain 50 states’ (and a Washington, D.C.’s) worth of whiskey. Back in 2018, Bloom only had 18 of the states covered and was able to find a few more at his local Binny’s Beverage Depot. For the rest of them, he worked off “best of” lists on the internet to whittle down the thousands of possibilities.

“I was seeking what’s different and new,” explains Bloom, “not necessarily what’s the smoothest or heftiest, or is even a brand everyone knows.”

Credit: 50 State Blend

To acquire many of the bottles, he was able to order the whiskeys through online retailers like Spirit Hub. Some states would be quite difficult, of course. Despite it acclaimed Louisiana Single Malt, New Orleans’ Atelier Vie Distillery only sells bottles for a few hours every Saturday — luckily, Bloom’s brother works for the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and was able to get an appointment when the team was in town to play the Pelicans. Bloom acquired Alaska’s Port Chilkoot Distillery rye when his parents just happened to be taking an anniversary cruise up the Alaskan coast.

“South Dakota was the toughest acquisition and the only one where I felt stuck,” Bloom says. He couldn’t even find friends of friends who knew someone there, one of the country’s least-populated states. Finally, he had the clever idea to reach out to a South Dakota whiskey enthusiasts Facebook group for a little help. The group’s moderator ended up sending him a bottle of Badlands Distillery’s Iron Hills Bourbon.

Meanwhile, until just last year, Hawaii didn’t even have its own whiskey — the Ko’Olau Distillery now offers Old Pali Road Whiskey, a bourbon-style whiskey made from local corn and blended with some undisclosed whiskey from the mainland. That latter point is critical. Aside from being forced to break his own rule with Hawaii, Bloom was strictly looking to acquire whiskeys that had been 100 percent produced within their respective states. That, thus, meant no products that had sourced the ubiquitous MGP whiskey and then simply bottled it at home.

He likewise wanted to avoid any big-boy distilleries, opting for New Riff’s Straight Rye for Kentucky’s entry and Nelson’s Green Brier Tennessee Whiskey for the Volunteer State. He actually considered using an MGP whiskey for Indiana’s entry, but instead opted for Starlight Distillery’s bourbon.

By early March of this year, just as the pandemic was shutting down the country, Bloom had finally collected all 51 bottles and took to his office, trying to figure out how to harness them all. First, the highly analytical Bloom would taste them, not only taking notes, but ranking each on a score of 1 to 100 on nose, palate, mouthfeel, and finish.

“How radically different all these states are,” he says. “All making such interesting stuff.”

While it wasn’t shocking that the much-acclaimed Balcones’ Texas Single Malt Whisky had his highest aggregate score (369 out of 400), there were many other surprises. Like One Eight Distilling’s District Made, a youthful straight rye from Washington, D.C., that, Bloom explains, is “not on most people’s radar.” He also liked a mere months-old single malt from Nebraska, which he calls “red-apple forward.”

Credit: 50 State Blend

Bloom was blown away by another single malt from Idaho, Warfield Distillery’s Certified Organic American Pot Still Whiskey, which he found “extraordinarily subtle, like a grassy Lowlands Scotch.” He had initially balked at Warfield’s $100 price tag, but is glad he went for it (Bloom claims he paid an average of $65 per bottle, including shipping).

By late March he was ready to start blending. For a “first draft,” Bloom measured out 10 milliliters of every whiskey — 14 bourbons, 14 ryes, 12 single malts, one single malt rye, one Tennessee whiskey (of course!), one millet whiskey, one sorghum whiskey, and six uncategorizable whiskeys — to see “if it actually has character.” It wasn’t bad. But he wondered what he could do to make it better.

“Ultimately, I’m striving for a balanced blend with an enticing nose, rich palate, weighty mouthfeel, and lingering finish,” says Bloom, who launched a 50 State Blend website to further detail the project and his methodology. “A dram of 50 State Blend should tell a compelling story and satisfy discerning whiskey lovers.”

For the second draft, Bloom created a weighted score that gave the most weight to palate (43 percent) followed by nose (30 percent), finish (17 percent), and mouthfeel (10 percent). He used the weighted scores to create a proportion of the total blend volume for each whiskey. In other words, the highest-scoring Balcones would contribute 49 milliliters, while the lower-scoring Ko’Olau only 13.5 milliliters. He quickly discovered an issue.

“My scoring gave higher scores to fuller nose and mouthfeel and longer finish so the resulting blend was biased toward outsized and complex flavors,” says Bloom. By the fourth draft, he was finally honing in on a nuanced blend. Instead of relying on pure mathematics, he developed this blend by feel, working from his memory for how the ingredients tasted and would interact with one another. He was quite satisfied with the result, a full-bodied yet balanced whiskey.

“I don’t know how many drafts there’ll be or whether I’ll ever be done,” he says. He’s barrel-aged a few batches and is even thinking of starting a solera system, swapping in new whiskeys from each state at times. “My favorite [drafts] have more of the unusual stuff in it. I don’t want you to taste it and say, ‘This is easy to drink and smooth.’ Who cares?!”

Bloom’s 50 State Blend is already garnering some buzz among whiskey cognoscenti, even though scoring samples of the non-commercial release is nearly impossible. This one seems poised to join the realm of Poor Man’s Pappy and California Gold, as Bloom is already being featured on industry podcasts. The only difference is, it would be very time-consuming and costly for others to recreate the recipe themselves. Not to mention, some of the bottles are extremely limited — single-barrel picks and distillery-only bottlings. Another one, a Single Cask Nation Westland 2-Year-Old, will never be made again. Meaning even Bloom needs to start finding understudies for future blends.

Luckily, Bloom has found that his favorite part of making the 50 State Blend is discovering all the great whiskey being made across our country, bottles like Brooklyn’s Widow Jane and South Carolina’s High Wire Distilling, which makes a red-corn whiskey that Bloom hopes to get a bottle of soon, maybe even in person. But until then, stuck in quarantine like the rest of us, Bloom will keep experiencing the country merely by sipping its whiskey.

“Sampling spirits is a great way of experiencing places when we’re not able to do so in person,” says Bloom. “It’s not an accident that I got this off the ground during Covid.���

The article One Man’s Strange Quest to Make a 50-State Whiskey Blend appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/50-state-whiskey-blend/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/one-mans-strange-quest-to-make-a-50-state-whiskey-blend

[isaiahrippinus]

One Man’s Strange Quest to Make a 50-State Whiskey Blend

With the last decade’s boom in craft whiskey, now literally every single U.S. state has at least one homegrown distillery producing whiskey, whether bourbon, rye, Tennessee whiskey, single malt, or ones even more exotic than that. There are whiskeys made with corn, rye, barley, millet, and even sorghum. There are some that use a mesquite-smoked malt, others that employ port-barrel finishes. Just like the country itself, American whiskey is messy and hard to get a handle on. But, one man wondered, was there any way to tie them all together and produce something greater than its constituent parts?

“It wasn’t just a fun, gimmicky thing, though, it was a very personal thing,” says Michael Bloom. “I’ve never been a collector of closed bottles. I’ve always wanted to open and taste flavorful spirits that aren’t in the mainstream.”

Though the 52-year-old Bloom is not in the spirits industry per se — career-wise he’s a federal government bureaucrat (“and proud to be!”) — he has been drinking whiskey for decades and is a fixture on the whiskey “scene.” In fact, I first met him at an event for my book, “Hacking Whiskey,” in the fall of 2018 in his hometown of Chicago. Even then he was telling me about his ambitions for a “50 State Blend,” something he’d been thinking about since 2015 at least. In an email from October 2018, he wrote to me: “I imagine my first crack at this as a ½ oz from every state in a single bottle. But I love the idea of a true National blend, a United Spirit so to speak, and think the collaboration could scale too.”

If you didn’t know, amateur blending has gotten hot in the last decade, with hobbyists taking to Reddit and Facebook to discuss their blends. Yet only a few have managed to pervade the whiskey zeitgeist, most notably Poor Man’s Pappy — a theoretically cheap blend designed to resemble the sought-after Van Winkle — and another called California Gold.

Bloom has never had any ambitions like that, but he’s been quietly making his own amateur whiskey blends for 12 years now, a hobby that first began when he acquired some Woodinville Whiskey “white dog” and a one-liter barrel. Since then, he’s done blends to celebrate weddings and bar mitzvahs (to open when the kids turn 21!), he’s made a blend for his synagogue’s Purim celebration, and even done charity-related blends like CowaLUNGa, to support Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago’s annual 190-mile bike ride from Illinois to Wisconsin.

But all those blends were made with just a handful of whiskeys. Bloom knew the 50 State Blend would be his most challenging project yet. He’d first, of course, have to obtain 50 states’ (and a Washington, D.C.’s) worth of whiskey. Back in 2018, Bloom only had 18 of the states covered and was able to find a few more at his local Binny’s Beverage Depot. For the rest of them, he worked off “best of” lists on the internet to whittle down the thousands of possibilities.

“I was seeking what’s different and new,” explains Bloom, “not necessarily what’s the smoothest or heftiest, or is even a brand everyone knows.”

Credit: 50 State Blend

To acquire many of the bottles, he was able to order the whiskeys through online retailers like Spirit Hub. Some states would be quite difficult, of course. Despite it acclaimed Louisiana Single Malt, New Orleans’ Atelier Vie Distillery only sells bottles for a few hours every Saturday — luckily, Bloom’s brother works for the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and was able to get an appointment when the team was in town to play the Pelicans. Bloom acquired Alaska’s Port Chilkoot Distillery rye when his parents just happened to be taking an anniversary cruise up the Alaskan coast.

“South Dakota was the toughest acquisition and the only one where I felt stuck,” Bloom says. He couldn’t even find friends of friends who knew someone there, one of the country’s least-populated states. Finally, he had the clever idea to reach out to a South Dakota whiskey enthusiasts Facebook group for a little help. The group’s moderator ended up sending him a bottle of Badlands Distillery’s Iron Hills Bourbon.

Meanwhile, until just last year, Hawaii didn’t even have its own whiskey — the Ko’Olau Distillery now offers Old Pali Road Whiskey, a bourbon-style whiskey made from local corn and blended with some undisclosed whiskey from the mainland. That latter point is critical. Aside from being forced to break his own rule with Hawaii, Bloom was strictly looking to acquire whiskeys that had been 100 percent produced within their respective states. That, thus, meant no products that had sourced the ubiquitous MGP whiskey and then simply bottled it at home.

He likewise wanted to avoid any big-boy distilleries, opting for New Riff’s Straight Rye for Kentucky’s entry and Nelson’s Green Brier Tennessee Whiskey for the Volunteer State. He actually considered using an MGP whiskey for Indiana’s entry, but instead opted for Starlight Distillery’s bourbon.

By early March of this year, just as the pandemic was shutting down the country, Bloom had finally collected all 51 bottles and took to his office, trying to figure out how to harness them all. First, the highly analytical Bloom would taste them, not only taking notes, but ranking each on a score of 1 to 100 on nose, palate, mouthfeel, and finish.

“How radically different all these states are,” he says. “All making such interesting stuff.”

While it wasn’t shocking that the much-acclaimed Balcones’ Texas Single Malt Whisky had his highest aggregate score (369 out of 400), there were many other surprises. Like One Eight Distilling’s District Made, a youthful straight rye from Washington, D.C., that, Bloom explains, is “not on most people’s radar.” He also liked a mere months-old single malt from Nebraska, which he calls “red-apple forward.”

Credit: 50 State Blend

Bloom was blown away by another single malt from Idaho, Warfield Distillery’s Certified Organic American Pot Still Whiskey, which he found “extraordinarily subtle, like a grassy Lowlands Scotch.” He had initially balked at Warfield’s $100 price tag, but is glad he went for it (Bloom claims he paid an average of $65 per bottle, including shipping).

By late March he was ready to start blending. For a “first draft,” Bloom measured out 10 milliliters of every whiskey — 14 bourbons, 14 ryes, 12 single malts, one single malt rye, one Tennessee whiskey (of course!), one millet whiskey, one sorghum whiskey, and six uncategorizable whiskeys — to see “if it actually has character.” It wasn’t bad. But he wondered what he could do to make it better.

“Ultimately, I’m striving for a balanced blend with an enticing nose, rich palate, weighty mouthfeel, and lingering finish,” says Bloom, who launched a 50 State Blend website to further detail the project and his methodology. “A dram of 50 State Blend should tell a compelling story and satisfy discerning whiskey lovers.”

For the second draft, Bloom created a weighted score that gave the most weight to palate (43 percent) followed by nose (30 percent), finish (17 percent), and mouthfeel (10 percent). He used the weighted scores to create a proportion of the total blend volume for each whiskey. In other words, the highest-scoring Balcones would contribute 49 milliliters, while the lower-scoring Ko’Olau only 13.5 milliliters. He quickly discovered an issue.

“My scoring gave higher scores to fuller nose and mouthfeel and longer finish so the resulting blend was biased toward outsized and complex flavors,” says Bloom. By the fourth draft, he was finally honing in on a nuanced blend. Instead of relying on pure mathematics, he developed this blend by feel, working from his memory for how the ingredients tasted and would interact with one another. He was quite satisfied with the result, a full-bodied yet balanced whiskey.

“I don’t know how many drafts there’ll be or whether I’ll ever be done,” he says. He’s barrel-aged a few batches and is even thinking of starting a solera system, swapping in new whiskeys from each state at times. “My favorite [drafts] have more of the unusual stuff in it. I don’t want you to taste it and say, ‘This is easy to drink and smooth.’ Who cares?!”

Bloom’s 50 State Blend is already garnering some buzz among whiskey cognoscenti, even though scoring samples of the non-commercial release is nearly impossible. This one seems poised to join the realm of Poor Man’s Pappy and California Gold, as Bloom is already being featured on industry podcasts. The only difference is, it would be very time-consuming and costly for others to recreate the recipe themselves. Not to mention, some of the bottles are extremely limited — single-barrel picks and distillery-only bottlings. Another one, a Single Cask Nation Westland 2-Year-Old, will never be made again. Meaning even Bloom needs to start finding understudies for future blends.

Luckily, Bloom has found that his favorite part of making the 50 State Blend is discovering all the great whiskey being made across our country, bottles like Brooklyn’s Widow Jane and South Carolina’s High Wire Distilling, which makes a red-corn whiskey that Bloom hopes to get a bottle of soon, maybe even in person. But until then, stuck in quarantine like the rest of us, Bloom will keep experiencing the country merely by sipping its whiskey.

“Sampling spirits is a great way of experiencing places when we’re not able to do so in person,” says Bloom. “It’s not an accident that I got this off the ground during Covid.”

The article One Man’s Strange Quest to Make a 50-State Whiskey Blend appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/50-state-whiskey-blend/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/628701479056883712

[hashtagyourshirt]

200: My crush’s name is: Liz.  199: I was born in: Camden. 198: I am really: aggressive. 197: My cellphone company is: Verizon. 196: My eye color is: blue/grey. 195: My shoe size is: 7/9. 194: My ring size is: 7. 193: My height is: 5′5″ 192: I am allergic to: trees. 191: My 1st car was: Ford Explorer ‘97. 190: My 1st job was: Royal Bargains, Dollar Store. 189: Last book you read: Love is Love. 188: My bed is: too small. 187: My pet: Willers, eventual cause of my death. 186: My best friend: works with me. 185: My favorite shampoo is: Whole Foods. 184: Xbox or ps3: N64. 183: Piggy banks are: stressful. 182: In my pockets: great Alanis Mourisette song. 181: On my calendar: new job tomorrow. 180: Marriage is: a commitment.  179: Spongebob can: be ready. 178: My mom: wants to get matching tattoos. 177: The last three songs I bought were? Sleater-Kinney 176: Last YouTube video watched: Carmilla. 175: How many cousins do you have? 56 first cousins. 174: Do you have any siblings? 1. 173: Are your parents divorced? no. 172: Are you taller than your mom? yes. 171: Do you play an instrument? guitar. 170: What did you do yesterday? went to the zoo with the school. [ I Believe In ] 169: Love at first sight: yep. 168: Luck: yep. 167: Fate: yep. 166: Yourself: eh. 165: Aliens: I hope. 164: Heaven: eh. 163: Hell: eh. 162: God: eh. 161: Horoscopes: yep. 160: Soul mates: yep. 159: Ghosts: eh. 158: Gay Marriage: yep! 157: War: no. 156: Orbs: huh? 155: Magic: in a young girl’s heart. [ This or That ] 154: Hugs or Kisses: hugs. 153: Drunk or High: drunk. 152: Phone or Online: online. 151: Red heads or Black haired: black. 150: Blondes or Brunettes: brunettes. 149: Hot or cold: cold. 148: Summer or winter: summer. 147: Autumn or Spring: autumn. 146: Chocolate or vanilla: chocolate. 145: Night or Day: day. 144: Oranges or Apples: oranges. 143: Curly or Straight hair: curly. 142: McDonalds or Burger King: ew. 141: White Chocolate or Milk Chocolate: milk. 140: Mac or PC: Mac. 139: Flip flops or high heals: flops. 138: Ugly and rich OR sweet and poor: sweet and poor 137: Coke or Pepsi: pepsi. 136: Hillary or Obama: gimme both. 135: Burried or cremated: cremated. 134: Singing or Dancing: singing. 133: Coach or Chanel: Chanel. 132: Kat McPhee or Taylor Hicks: who? 131: Small town or Big city: big city. 130: Wal-Mart or Target: target. 129: Ben Stiller or Adam Sandler: ew. 128: Manicure or Pedicure: EW. 127: East Coast or West Coast: EAST COAST. 126: Your Birthday or Christmas: my birthday. 125: Chocolate or Flowers: flowers. tattooed on me. 124: Disney or Six Flags: disney. 123: Yankees or Red Sox: PHILLIES. [ Here’s What I Think About ] 122: War: Boo. 121: George Bush: BOO. (also how the fuck old is this?) 120: Gay Marriage: YES. 119: The presidential election:  BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! 118: Abortion: should be safe and legal 117: MySpace: high school 116: Reality TV: terrifying 115: Parents: boo. 114: Back stabbers: why did they stab backs? 113: Ebay: supes old 112: Facebook: listens to me 111: Work: exciting now! 110: My Neighbors: new 109: Gas Prices: moderate 108: Designer Clothes: expensive 107: College: long time ago 106: Sports: fun to play, and gay 105: My family: far away (blood)  104: The future: amazing [ Last time I ] 103: Hugged someone: yesterday 102: Last time you ate: yesterday 101: Saw someone I haven’t seen in awhile: yurp (Tuesday) 100: Cried in front of someone: yeah, bit ago. 99: Went to a movie theater: uhhhhhhhh, for Wonder Woman 98: Took a vacation: ONE MONTH UNTIL PARIS 97: Swam in a pool: does a hot tub count? 96: Changed a diaper: this past weekend 95: Got my nails done: ten years ago 94: Went to a wedding: may 2017 93: Broke a bone: never 92: Got a piercing: seven years ago 91: Broke the law: NEVER 90: Texted: like five seconds ago [ MISC ] 89: Who makes you laugh the most: Lizard! 88: Something I will really miss when I leave home is: being at home 87: The last movie I saw: I don’t remember 86: The thing that I’m looking forward to the most: Paris 85: The thing im not looking forward to: getting up 84: People call me: kevy, pronounced KEV - EEEEEEE!!!! 83: The most difficult thing to do is: not bite my fingers 82: I have gotten a speeding ticket: nine years ago 81: My zodiac sign is: taurus 80: The first person i talked to today was: my wife 79: First time you had a crush: like over twenty years ago.... 78: The one person who i can’t hide things from: everyone, but specifically my wife 77: Last time someone said something you were thinking: my bff 76: Right now I am talking to: some friends, wife, some mutuals, tweeting 75: What are you going to do when you grow up: queer counselor (I’m grown!) 74: I have/will get a job: I’m a Special Education Classroom Assistant and a Queer student counselor at a gifted elementary school 73: Tomorrow: bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast 72: Today: book club 71: Next Summer: camp again? 70: Next Weekend: podcast taping (San Junipero) 69: I have these pets: Willers, he’s fucking annoying 68: The worst sound in the world: his fucking meow at 6 am 67: The person that makes me cry the most is: Lena Luthor #pathetic 66: People that make you happy: my friends, my wife 65: Last time I cried: discussing queer politics 64: My friends are: great 63: My computer is: shiny 62: My School: new 61: My Car: piece of shit 60: I lose all respect for people who: have no backbone 59: The movie I cried at was: first girl I loved 58: Your hair color is: dark brown undercut, honey brown/blond on top 57: TV shows you watch: that gay shit. 56: Favorite web site: ao3 55: Your dream vacation: world tour over six months 54: The worst pain I was ever in was: my period pain was horrid about fifteen to thirteen years ago.  It’s manageable now, but still the worst. 53: How do you like your steak cooked: bloody 52: My room is: messy 51: My favorite celebrity is: Katie McGrath, Elise Bauman, and Eliza Dushku 50: Where would you like to be: right where I am, but bigger apartment, in better shape, and with more money 49: Do you want children: nope 48: Ever been in love: yup 47: Who’s your best friend: Anne 46: More guy friends or girl friends: all gals 45: One thing that makes you feel great is: finishing something 44: One person that you wish you could see right now: my sis 43: Do you have a 5 year plan: nope 42: Have you made a list of things to do before you die: nope 41: Have you pre-named your children: nope 40: Last person I got mad at: fuckhead in chief 39: I would like to move to: Canada 38: I wish I was a professional: writer [ My Favorites ] 37: Candy: sour s’getti 36: Vehicle: my bike 35: President: Obama 34: State visited: California  33: Cellphone provider: idc 32: Athlete: I was obsessed with roy halladay as a youth 31: Actor: Katie McGrath 30: Actress: Elise Bauman 29: Singer: Ani DiFranco 28: Band: Against Me! 27: Clothing store: thrift store 26: Grocery store: don’t care 25: TV show: all time: Buffy, current: Wynonna Earp 24: Movie: Fried Green Tomatoes 23: Website: ao3 22: Animal: pitbull 21: Theme park: Harry Potter world 20: Holiday: purim, my anniversary 19: Sport to watch: softball 18: Sport to play: softball 17: Magazine: teen vogue 16: Book: dc bombshells 15: Day of the week: Friday (shabbat shalom!) 14: Beach: ocean city, nj 13: Concert attended: tied between Tegan & Sara (2016) and Blink 182, Weezer, and Taking Back Sunday (2009)  12: Thing to cook: steak 11: Food: sandwich 10: Restaurant: Jerry’s 9: Radio station: I do not know her 8: Yankee candle scent: midsummer night 7: Perfume: none 6: Flower: star gazer lily 5: Color: green 4: Talk show host: Ellen 3: Comedian: currently, Rhea Butcher 2: Dog breed: pit/aussie 1: Did you answer all these truthfully? yuh

Repost and do it yourself.

#bored #old type of post #asks

[thebeautyoftorah]

Purim

bs’d

Shalom, I hope you are well. My second book "Healing Anger" is about to be published. If you want a dedication for a relative or sponsor the book please send me a message. I am also offering all of you the opportunity to share in the mitzvah to honor a loved one by sponsoring my weekly parsha review, or for refua shelema (healing), or for shiduch, Atzlacha (success), etc. My weekly review goes out to over 5000 people in English and Spanish all over the world. Please contact me for more details. Feel free to forward these words of Torah to any other fellow Jew. Enjoy it, Shabbat Shalom and Purim Sameach.

PURIM

NEVER GIVE UP - THERE'S ALWAYS HOPE

The Gemara [1] tells us that throughout the period of the first Beit HaMikdash, dozens of prophets rebuked the Jewish people for their sins, including idolatry, yet our people was never sentenced to total annihilation. Nevertheless, the terrible decree to destroy the Jewish people in the Purim story was a punishment for the majority of the Jews partaking of the banquet of Achashverosh ]2]. Why such a terrible and drastic punishment for the seemingly minor offense of eating at the king’s banquet?

To answer this question, we have to understand what were Achashverosh’s intentions in throwing such a lavish party. Chazal tell us that the drinks were served in the vessels used in the Beit HaMikdash. The king even donned the clothes of the Kohen Gadol. What was Achashverosh trying to achieve? One opinion explains that until this point, he had been worried about the prophecy of Yirmiyahu that the Jewish people would return to Eretz Israel and rebuild the Beit HaMikdash seventy years after its destruction. Achashverosh calculated that seventy years had now passed without any sign of the prophecy’s fulfillment. Consequently, he held the feast on the exact day that he had calculated was the “deadline.” He was celebrating that the prophet erred and telling the Jews to give up on the Beit HaMikdash and focus on an alternative source of happiness: his kingdom. Therefore, he dressed up as the Kohen Gadol to show that he was their new leader, and he gave them the Temple vessels to show that there was no point in waiting any longer for the Beit HaMikdash to be rebuilt.

Unfortunately, the Jewish people accepted the king’s message and joined in the banquet, even drinking from the holy vessels. Most Jews lost hope. They abandoned their desire for a second Beit HaMikdash and turned to a new future, as loyal subjects of the king and his empire. In effect, they gave up on their unique role as the Chosen People, the “light unto the nations.” They forsook any hope of returning to Eretz Israel and rebuild the Beit HaMikdash. They did not realize that the Jewish people’s very right to existence is based on its unique role in the world. Hashem cherishes this nation because of its willingness to serve as an am segulah-treasured people, teaching the world about Him. Having rejected this role, the Jews automatically lost their reason to be. Measure for measure, they were sentenced to destruction [3].

How did we revert this decree? The Gemara tells us of the conversation that took place when Haman came to inform Mordechai of how the king wanted to honor him. Haman found Mordechai learning Torah. Haman asked, “What are you learning?” Mordechai answered, “When the Beit HaMikdash existed, a person who gave a minchah offering would bring a handful of flour, and it would atone for him.” Upon hearing this, Haman replied, “Your handful of flour will come and overturn my ten thousand silver shekalim [4].” The Gemara is very difficult to understand. What was the significance of what Mordechai was learning, and why did it make Haman realize he would be defeated? The Ponevezher Rav [5] explains that Haman knew his hope of success lay in the defeatism expressed by the Jewish people at the banquet. When he saw Mordechai teaching about the Beit HaMikdash, Haman realized that the Jews had repented and rekindled their desire for a new Temple. They still hoped to continue being the “light unto the nations.” And if the Jews had not given up on Hashem, He would not give up on them.

The test of the Jews in the time of Purim was to maintain hope during trying times. This challenge continues to this very day, and when we fail, our enemies conclude that they can defeat us. The story is told of an infamous Arab terrorist serving time in an Israeli prison. While there, he considered renouncing terrorism, feeling that he could never succeed in destroying Israel. However, one Pesach, he saw an Israeli guard eating bread. Knowing that chametz was forbidden on Pesach, he asked why the Jew was not observing this law. The guard replied that such laws were no longer important. The terrorist then decided that a people that had given up its heritage could indeed be defeated.

In stark contrast, Napoleon was amazed to discover that the Jews still mourned the Beit HaMikdash on Tishah b’Av though it had been destroyed nearly 2,000 years earlier. A people so connected to its heritage would never be destroyed, he exclaimed.

We live in a time when despair threatens on many levels. For nonobservant Jews, the test is obvious: not to abandon their heritage by assimilating into secular culture. But the challenge applies to everyone in some form. First, one may be tempted to give up on the millions of secular Jews, arguing that they are irretrievably lost to assimilation. This attitude is totally incorrect, and experience has proven that secular Jewry can be quite easily reconnected to Judaism. Millions of Baale Teshuva prove otherwise. Second, observance does not preclude despair. Indeed, the Jews who partook of the king’s banquet ate kosher food. A person can keep mitzvot and still wonder if there will ever be a third Beit HaMikdash and if Mashiach will really come. Moreover, despair can plague our personal lives, persuading us that we will never achieve greatness. Purim teaches us never to give up, neither on the Jewish people nor on ourselves. As long as we seek to remain part of Hashem’s nation, He will protect us from all our enemies.

______________________________________________

[1] Megillah 14a .

[2] Megillah 12a.

[3] The Gemara in Megillah 12a cites another cause of the decree of destruction: The Jewish people bowed down to an image of Nevuchadnetzar. Yet, the commentaries state that this act did not constitute real idol worship. So again, why such a strict punishment? Perhaps we can answer this question in the same vein. Nevuchadnetzar wanted the Jews to recognize him, not Hashem, as the ultimate power. Their bowing to him demonstrated that recognition, implying a similar despair regarding their role as servants of Hashem. Consequently, measure for measure, Hashem threatened that He would no longer act as their King, protecting them from their enemies.

[4] Megillah 16a.

[5] Rav Moshe Sheinemann, Ohel Moshe, p. 150.

Le Iluy nishmat Eliahu ben Simcha, Mordechai ben Shlomo, Perla bat Simcha, Moshe ben Gila,Yaakov ben Gila, Sara bat Gila, Yitzchak ben Perla, Leah bat Chavah, Abraham Meir ben Leah.

Refua Shelema of Yaacov ben Miriam, Gila bat Tzipora, Tzipora bat Gila, Dvir ben Leah, Abraham Meir ben Leah, Elimelech Dovid ben Chaya Baila, Noa bat Batsheva Devorah

and  Dovid Yehoshua ben Leba Malka.

Atzlacha to Shmuel ben Mazal tov and Zivug agun to Marielle Gabriela bat Gila.