Rebecca walked through the rain with two bags of canned foods!

[rebecca_in_blue]

Well, the sun may have come out for a few days, but it sure disappeared again quick. Today and yesterday were both back to gray skies, rain, and freezing cold. On top of that, the shrink episode of NCIS wasn't as good as I'd hoped. On top of that, I apparently didn't get the job I applied for last week. (Yes, the one I was so sure I had.) They said they would be making a decision Monday or Tuesday, and Rebecca was practically reduced to spending those days staring at her phone, waiting for it to ring. The lesson here, kiddos, is that no matter how well you think the interview went, you did not get the job.

I was tempted to spend yesterday at home being depressed, but instead, I picked myself up, braved the cold and rain, and went to a concert at the temple. An Israeli musician named Amir Gwirtzman was performing there, and the price of admission was canned goods to go to Abraham's Tent. It was a little strange, but I enjoyed it. He juxtaposed different wind instruments (like a saxophone and a shoffar, or a Native American flute and an Irish penny whistle) and made it seem like they were talking to each other, and he recorded them in layers to create the sound of a full band. He played one piece that he said was a traditional Korean melody, and I have no idea why, but it sounded so familiar and sad to me, I almost started crying.

 
Amir Gwirtzman

The temple was more crowded than I'd ever seen it, because most of the crowd was people of other faiths who'd come to hear the music. At one point I thought to myself how weird it was to see so many unknown faces in my temple, and then I did a mental double-take, thinking, "My temple?" Where did that come from?

But best of all, there was a reception afterwards of delicious dessert foods, and my sassy Jewish grandfather kept piling my plate with cream puffs! It was quite a replay of the Nuit Blanche 2007, when Rebecca stuffed with face with cream puffs in front of all her French professors.

Oh-seh shalom bimrom'vah hu yah-seh shalom aleinu v'al kol Mizraim.
This is a tweaked line from the only Jewish song Amir played during the concert, "Oh-seh Shalom." (We sing this song fairly often during services, and it's one of my favorites. Some of the first Hebrew I ever learned.) The original line ends in Yisrael. This version means, "May the One who causes peace to reign in Heaven cause peace to reign in Egypt."