Rosh Hashanah - Happy New Year 5775

This evening I celebrated the Jewish New Year at the small Hebrew congregation in nearby Seminole (anywhere under a 100 miles here is nearby, but Seminole is 17 miles).  The service was lovely, the prayers were chanted in Hebrew, then recited in English.   Normally, quite a few of us go in the church bus, but there weren't so many this evening so I went with a couple, and one other person.   We had dinner first at an Italian restaurant.

 

The congregation is too small to have a rabbi, so a rabbinical student from Cincinnati, Ohio, always comes on the High Days and Holidays to lead services, and the student this year was a very pleasant young man, who preached an excellent sermon and I am sure will become a very good rabbi.

 

Afterwards there were refreshments and it was pleasant to renew acquaintances with members of the congregation.

 

This morning I did my chaplaincy round, but didn't stay for lunch.   I needed to go home and frost the cakes for this evening's meal, which I did in the church kitchen.

 

The chocolate and carrot cakes I knocked up from packets, the moist fruit cakes taste nice, I put a tin of crushed pineapple in them, but it is an English recipe and they have different flours here, so I don't know what raising agents to put in to make them rise. The box in the foreground is short bread, just butter, brown sugar and flour, very simple and quick to make.  So are the moist fruit cakes, I just put the fruit, butter and sugar in a pan, simmer, then stir in the flour and spices.

 

Yesterday, Tuesday, I was tied up with the car which I had to take to Terry.  It is extraordinary what can wear out in a car, apart from the moving parts in an engine and I had  to have the mechanism replaced in one of the rear windows.  I wasn't worried about being able to open it, so just asked him to secure it, but as he had to take the door off anyway, we thought he might as well do a proper job of it, the labour was a bigger cost than the part.

In the news......(apart from the war that - to Obama's chagrin -  is a war, even if he doesn't call it such)

He steps off his helicopter carrying his latte and salutes the marines at the bottom of the steps with it in his hand, and you would not believe the furore.     For crying out loud, the nation is at war.  DOES IT MATTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!