The season is changing and the weather is changing too.
Prepare yourself for the change with the weather vocabulary
study sheets at:
http://www.english-hebrew-dictionary.com/weather-1.htm
For your amusement, here is the rain scene from one of my favorite movies: The Frisco Kid
Chief Gray Cloud: [in reference to Avram’s God]
What does he do?
Avram: He… He can do anything!
Chief Gray Cloud: Then why can’t he make rain?
Avram: Because he doesn’t make rain. He gives us strength
when we’re suffering. He gives us compassion when all that
we feel is hatred. He gives us courage when we’re searching
around blindly like little mice in the darkness…
but He does not make rain!
[Thunder and lightning begin, followed by a downpour]
Avram: Of course… sometimes, just like that, he’ll change His mind.
Here is the 1 minute Frisco Kid rain scene video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDH3vDLDyiM
This morning the rain came floating over Jerusalem and everyone smiled.
The first rain reminds me
of the rising summer dust.
The rain doesn’t remember the rain of yesteryear.
A year is a trained beast with no memories.
Soon you will again wear your harnesses,
Beautiful and embroidered, to hold
Sheer stockings: you
Mare and harnesser in one body.
The white panic of soft flesh
In the panic of a sudden vision
Of ancient saints.
– Yehuda Amichai
(Translated from the Hebrew by Barbara and Benjamin Harshav)
October 10th 2015 David’s Tomb: Pay a visit Motzei Shabat: Feast on treats and dancing into the we hours, join a women’s tehillim group
| Hebrew: קבר דוד המלך | |
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 Shown within Jerusalem
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| Location | Jerusalem |
|---|---|
| Region | Israel |
| Type | tomb |
| History | |
| Cultures | Ayyubid, Hebrew, Byzantine, Crusaders |
King David’s Tomb (Hebrew: קבר דוד המלך) is a site viewed as the burial place of David, King of Israel, according to a tradition beginning in the 12th century. It is located on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, near the Hagia Maria Sion Abbey. The tomb is situated in a ground floor corner of the remains of the former Hagia Zion, a Byzantine church. Older Byzantine tradition dating to the 4th century identified the location as the Cenacle of Jesus and the original meeting place of the Christian faith. The building is now part of the Diaspora Yeshiva
History
The tomb is located in a corner of a room situated on the ground floor remains of the former Hagia Zion an ancient house of worship; the upper floor of the same building has traditionally been viewed as the Cenacle of Jesus. The site of David’s burial is unknown, though the Tanakh locates it southwards, in the Ir David near Siloam. In the 4th century CE, he and his father Jesse were believed to be buried in Bethlehem. The idea he was entombed on what was later called Mt Zion dates to the 9th century CE.[1] Writing around 1173 Benjamin of Tudela recounted a colourful story that two Jewish workers employed to dig a tunnel came across David’s original splendid palace, replete with gold crown and scepter and decided the site must be his tomb. The Gothic cenotaph preserved to this day was constructed by the Crusaders: the Mount Zion conquered by David according to the Book of Samuel was wrongly ascribed by medieval pilgrims to this site, and David was presumed to be buried there. In 1335, the ancient church became a Franciscan monastery, but, due to tensions with the Greek Orthodox Patriarch, the Franciscan residence was closed.
The Franciscan Monastery in Jerusalem during the 16th century did not encompass today’s King David Tomb complex. In fact it was not a monastery but the residence of a small band of friars—in a room on the Western part of today’s David Tomb complex because it was thought to be the site of the Last Supper. The friars used to throw their rubbish outside on the Eastern side of today’s Tomb complex. The Sharif Ahmad Dajani, the first to hold the Dajani name, cleaned up the waste and constructed the neglected Eastern side of today’s King David Tomb complex—where the tomb is located—in the 1490s. He established a place for Muslim prayer on the Eastern part of today’s complex. The “Franciscans were driven out from the mountain” by residents of Jerusalem in 1524. The “Ibn Dawood” mosque, a title given Sheikh Ahmad Dajani by the residents of Jerusalem, was established for Muslim prayers under the patronage of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and the supervision of al-Shareef Sheikh Ahmad bin Ali Dajani.
Ownership of the site was transferred to the Muslim Palestinian family al-Ashraf Dajani al-Daoudi family (Descendants of the Prophet Mohammad’s grandson Hussein) by an edict from Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1529. Since then, the Dajani family supervised and maintained this site. As a result, they were given the title of Dahoudi or Dawoodi by the residents of Jerusalem in reference to the King David Tomb complex.
After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, it fell on the Israel side of the Green Line. Between 1948 and 1967 the Old City was occupied by Jordan, which barred entry to Jews even for the purpose of praying at Jewish holy sites. Jewish pilgrims from around the country and the world went to David’s Tomb and climbed to the rooftop to pray. Since 1949, a blue cloth, with basic modernist ornamentation, has been placed over the sarcophagus. The images on the cloth include several crown-shaped Rimmon placed over Torah scrolls, and a violin, and the cloth also features several pieces of text written in Hebrew. The building is now part of the Diaspora yeshiva.
In December 2012, unknown persons completely destroyed a large number of 17th-century Islamic tiles in the tomb, and the Antiquities Authority decided to not reconstruct them.
Question of authenticity
King David’s Tomb in 2006
The contents of the sarcophagus have not yet been subjected to any scientific analysis, to determine their age, former appearance, or even whether there is actually still a corpse there.
The authenticity of the site has been challenged on several grounds. According to the Bible,]David was actually buried within the City of David together with his forefathers; by contrast, the 4th century Pilgrim of Bordeaux reports that he discovered David to be buried in Bethlehem, in a vault that also contained the tombs of Ezekiel, Jesse, Solomon, Job, and Asaph, with those names carved into the tomb walls. The genuine David’s Tomb is unlikely to contain any furnishings of value; according to the 1st-century writer Josephus, Herod the Great tried to loot the tomb of David, but discovered that someone else had already done so before him. The 4th-century accounts of the Bordeaux Pilgrim and Epiphanius both record that seven synagogues had existed on Mount Zion and that by around 330 CE (the end of the Roman Period and beginning of the Byzantine Period) only one of them remained, but no association with David’s tomb is mentioned.
According to the Book of Samuel, Mount Zion was the site of the Jebusite fortress called the “stronghold of Zion” that was conquered by King David, becoming his palace and the City of David. It is mentioned in the Book of Isaiah (60:14), the Book of Psalms, and the first book of the Maccabees (c. 2nd century BCE).
After the conquest of the Jebusite city, the hill of the Lower City was divided into several parts. The highest part, in the north, became the site of Solomon’s Temple. Based on archaeological excavations revealing sections of the First Temple city wall,[where?] this is believed to have been the true Mount Zion.
Towards the end of the First Temple period, the city expanded westward. Just before the Roman conquest of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Temple, Josephus described Mount Zion as a hill across the valley to the west. Thus, the western hill extending south of the Old City came to be known as Mount Zion, and this has been the case ever since. At the end of the Roman period, a synagogue called Hagiya Zion[dubious ] was built at the entrance of the structure known as David’s Tomb probably based on the belief that David brought the Ark of the Covenant here from Beit Shemesh and Kiryat Ye’arim before the construction of the Temple.
Mount Zion district in 1946.
According to Doron Bar,
Although the sources for the tradition of David’s Tomb on Mount Zion are not clear, it appears that it only began to take root during the subsequent, early Muslim period. Apparently, the Christians inherited this belief from the Muslims, and only at a relatively late juncture in the city’s history were the Jews finally convinced as well.
Epiphanius’ 4th-century account in his Weights and Measures is one of the first to associate the location with the original meeting place of the Christian faith, writing that there stood “the church of God, which was small, where the disciples, when they had returned after the Savior had ascended from the Mount of Olives, went to the upper room”.
Archaeologists, doubting the Mount Zion location and favouring the biblical account, have since the early 20th century sought the actual tomb in the City of David area.
In 1913, Raymond Weill found eight elaborate tombs at the south of the City of David, which archaeologists have subsequently interpreted as strong candidates for the burial locations of the former kings of the city; Hershel Shanks, for example, argues that the most ornate of these (officially labelled T1) is precisely where one would expect to find the burial site mentioned in the Bible. ] Among those who agree with the academic and archaeological assessment of the Mount Zion site, some believe it actually is the tomb of a later king, possibly Manasseh, who is described in the Hebrew Bible as being buried in the Garden of the King rather than in the City of David like his predecessors.
From ChoosingRaw:In the last ten years, studies of the human microbiome, which is defined as the collective genetic identity of the microbes (composed of bacteria, bacteriophage, fungi, protozoa and viruses) that live inside and on the human body, have exploded. These bacteria help to balance pH, to maintain immunity, to aid in the absorption and synthesis of nutrients, to neutralize harmful compounds, and to produce short chain fatty acids that play a role in the digestive process as well.
We’ve understood that gut bacteria aid in digestive balance and in women’s health for some time (while you were growing up, your mother might have encouraged you to eat yogurt if you were on antibiotics to prevent UTIs orcandida albicans), but scientists are only beginning to comprehend the profound influence that the approximately 400 species of bacteria residing in our gut, on our skin, and on other epithelial linings have upon our health. Research suggests that obese and slender people have different numbers and varieties of intestinal bacteria, as do people with digestive disorders and those without them, diabetics and non-diabetics, and so on. As some of you may have read, Michael Pollan has volunteered to have his microbiome mapped, and it may be that home testing of gut microbiota is soon available to us all.
I hope that these tools will create a sense of empowerment and consciousness, rather than confusion, because the truth is that we don’t yet know precisely how gut flora work. Because gut flora vary widely according to culture and geography, it’s hard to create a standard of what microbial bacterial populations “should” look like. Furthermore, studies of over-the-counter probiotic supplements have yet to yield much in the way of conclusive data. One particular probiotic blend, VSL #3, has been shown to aid in the management of IBS, among other digestive disorders. But because we’re not totally sure how probiotics function, there are few standards of dosage, and to some extent the fashioning of a therapeutic blend is a matter of guesswork.
What we do know for sure is that our Western fixation on sanitation may have some disadvantages. Inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn’s and colitis), asthma, and autoimmune disorders are far more common in ultra-sanitized nations. There is one hypothesis–the “hygiene hypothesis”–that suggests that less childhood exposure to bacteria and parasites in the US and Europe may actually interfere with immune development. Because of antibiotics, antibacterial products, and overall hygiene, we don’t have as much interaction with the bacterial species that may help to keep our guts balanced. Of course, this isn’t the only reason that Western nations display more signs of dysbiosis (imbalanced gut flora): medications, artificial foods, diets high in refined sugar and saturated fats, stress, constipation, and deficient dietary fiber are also associated with the condition.
We also know that the fermentation of food–which creates the very bacteria that is so helpful in maintaining our health–is a part of traditional diets around the world. Fermentation is especially prevalent in Asia, where foods like miso, soy sauce, kimchee, and tempeh are dietary staples. But sauerkraut, kefir, and lacto-fermented vegetables abound in Europe, while injera and fermented millet are traditional foods in Africa. In the Americas, sourdough bread, pickles, and cultured milk are all parts of the culinary landscape. A number of fermented foods are also shared between a number of cultures globally: wine and beer and other types of alcohol (of course), vinegar, yogurt, bread, and cheese. Fermentation has historically been an efficient way to store and preserve vegetables, sure, but it is surely no coincidence that these foods may also contribute substantially to our well-being.
Having struggled with digestive conditions for most of my life, I realize how crucial balanced intestinal flora is to my personal health. Fortunately, I happen to love fermented foods, so I’m happy to eat them frequently. I confess, though, that fermenting at home has always scared me. A few years ago, my friend Elizabeth sent me a copy of Sandor Katz’s wonderful book, Wild Fermentation, and I learned to make homemade sauerkraut. The process by which one makes ‘kraut is called “lacto-fermentation,” so called because sugars in the foods one uses feed bacteria that grow from the fermentation process, and that sugar is converted into lactic acid. This acid, along with added salt, preserves vegetables for extended periods of time. The process is shockingly easy, and you can use it to make a wide variety of tart, salty, and belly-friendly veggies. Today, I’ll show you how.
What you’ll need to start are super clean, wide mouth mason jars. I use 1 quart jars because I go through my fermented veggies very quickly! I tend to submerge them in boiling water or give them a very hot, soapy wash before getting started, but you don’t have to keep things as meticulously sterile as you would were you canning something for the long haul. I have some plastic lids I got because I didn’t like the way the metal lids tended to get dirty/rusty over time, but then again, plastic is plastic, so the more sustainable choice is to stick with metal.
You’ll also need veggies of your choosing. You can ferment pretty much anything and everything: shredded beets, carrots, cabbage, cucumbers, onions, green beans, shredded dino kale, zucchini, and so on. My favorites are beets, carrots, cabbage, and green beans. You’ll also want any herbs, seasonings, or spices you care for handy, which can include peppercorns, garlic, green onions, dill, rosemary, chilis, and many, many others.
Finally, you’ll need a brine. I use anywhere between 1 tbsp and 1 1/2 tbsp of salt per 4 cups filtered water (adjust this to your tastes). Simply stir the salt with your water till it dissolves, and the brine is ready.
With clean hands, layer your veggies into each jar you’re using. You can add a layer of peppercorns or spices between layers of different veggies; I like to use a few veggies per jar, resulting in a stratified creation! Pack the veggies down very tightly with your hands, and leave about two inches at the top. You’ll be adding liquid, and the veggies may rise up due to gases released during fermentation.
When your veggies are tightly packed, add a top layer to hold them down when you add the brine. I use kale, chard, or cabbage leaves. Zucchini slices may work, too, if they’re big enough!
Add your brine, filling it up and leaving about an inch of empty space in the jar. Screw the lid of the jar on loosely; you want air to be able to escape ad the fermentation process occurs, so it’s important not to have a tightly sealed jar.
Next, you simply want to move the jars to a warm place for the fermentation to occur. I like to stick them on my radiator, which looks sort of funny when I come home from campus, but works like a charm. As with homemade vegan yogurt, you can choose to keep the jars in a dehydrator on a low setting, but this is very energy costly, so it’s better if you can just find a warm nook of the home.
Let the veggies hang out for 3-5 days, checking on them every 24 hours or so. The cabbage or kale leaf may rise from escaping gas, so if it does, push it back down to keep everything submerged in brine. Starting at day 3, taste the veggies: if they’re tart enough for you, go ahead and serve! Day 4 is usually my sweet spot.
You can pile your fermented veggies into wraps, onto salads, mix them up with kelp noodles, mix them in with brown rice or quinoa, or simply snack on them the way they are. No matter how you choose to serve them, you will be treating your body to healthful bacteria and enzymes, as well as the vegetables’ own stores of minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants. Cultured veggies are simply so, so, so tasty and great for you.
If you’ve been squeamish about fermenting at home, I really hope this post demystifies the process for you! Making cultured vegetables reminds me of making raw crackers, or anything in the dehydrator:
it sounds intense because of the wait time, but really, the process itself couldn’t be easier. And the results will delight your belly and your tastebuds both.
I’ve resolved to take on way more DIY culinary projects this year, and home fermentation is a delightfully simple place to start.
According to the Book of Samuel Mount Zion was the site of the Jebusite fortress called the “stronghold of Zion” that was conquered by King David becoming his palace and the City of David It is mentioned in the Book of Isaiah (60:14) the Book of Psalms and the first book of the Maccabees (c. 2nd century BCE)
savyatseventy 