Love Cookies – By Grandpa Abe – Parashat Vayeshev

Lots going on this weekend. Please join us for Friday Night Shabbat Services December 23, at the regular time of 7:00 PM.

Shabbat morning services are THIS Saturday December 24 at 9 AM, with the Torah service at 9:45 and children’s story time with Morah Shereen at 10:30. Kidish lunch following services.

THE HANNUKAH PARTY IS THIS SUNDAY. Please join us this Sunday December 25 at 5 PM at Beth El for one cool Hannukah party. Live music with Los Klezmeros, Kosher food including hotdogs and chicken and Guy’s famous Israeli sufganiot and candle lighting! Thank you to Avigail Adaky for sponsoring the party in honor of her 80th birthday! Mazal tov Avi – Ad 120! We’ll be there all Sunday afternoon cooking if you want to help make our famous Hippy Latkes.

Candle lighting in Austin is at 5:17 PM

Cantor Ben Moshe’s Message
This week’s parshah, Vayeshev, features an unnamed character who is actually pivotal to the narrative. Joseph is looking for his brothers near Sh’chem, and an anonymous stranger tells him that they are near Dothan, some distance away. Had Joseph not encountered this stranger, the rest of the story-Joseph’s sale into slavery in Egypt and everything that followed-could not have occurred.
Jewish folklore is full of stories of a stranger who appears at a pivotal time, who turns out to be the prophet Elijah. The purpose of these tales is to teach that we don’t know how important anyone we meet actually is. Anyone could be a vital part of our life’s story-any encounter might be a turning point, which we only recognize in retrospect. May we always strive to look for the possibility that every encounter with every person could be significant in some way. Shabbat Shalom and Hag Urim Sameah, Happy Hanukkah.
Hazzan Yitzhak Ben-Moshe

HOLD THE DATES: Guest speakers at Beth El.

Friday January 6, Rabbi Daniel Septimus CEO of the Austin JCC will likewise be our guest speaker at Beth El.

On the first Friday of February, we welcome Rabbi/Cantor Marie Betcher who will talk about the great work she does as a Police Chaplain.

And the third Friday, Jay Rubin, former CEO of Shalom Austin and avid historian will come to speak!

Huge thank you to Art, Yosef and Kevin for the new flooring in the social hall. Come check it out – you will be amazed. They were ably helped by Eden, Natalie and Sara. You can still find them there this morning finishing up if you want to lend a hand! Pictured below taking a well earned break.

Sisterhood Book Club Event!

**On January 24th at 7:00 p.m. we will be having another book club event, The event will be at the home of Yael Shacham, who has graciously volunteered hosting our evening get together. The name of the book and its author, that we will be discussing, is “A Pigeon and A Boy” by Meir Shalev.

Shabbat shefs was a blast this week rocking to Hannukah music while preparing a delicious kidish. Thank you to Claudia, Doris and Herschel, Michelle, Shereen, Javis, Iris, Yesenia and Genesis and Iris. Sunday afternoon at 1 PM onwards come on over to help make the latkes.

Love Cookies – By Grandpa Abe
Well, it’s a special time of the year. This is the time of the year that we get special things for the kids on Hanukkah and, if you’re lucky enough to be a special kid adult, you’ll get something also. it’s the time to play with dreidels and let’s not forget that chocolate gelt. The other day we went to our local heb to get some Hanukkah candles. For some unknown reason, we always have partial boxes left over. Some day we’re going to have enough to make a set of candles. For all of you who don’t know how many are in a set, there are 44 (I read the box.) While I was with my lovely wife doing some grocery shopping and getting, to me, the necessities of life like Hanukkah candles, I was reflecting on this time of year. There were many times I wasn’t home. Such as, I was in the military or my job had me living in another state. But my heart was always where my mom and dad were. It doesn’t matter how old I got. They were very special. I know you are probably saying isn’t your wife special? Yes, my wife is special. She is a different special than my mom and dad. I was going to visit my brother and my sister over the holiday season. There wasn’t anything I thought I could bring them. Both of them have anything they would want or they could obtain it. But I wanted to bring something. That is what mom had inbred in us. Out of the blue I thought the chocolate coconut cookies that mom would make. I remember being in Europe and in February getting my care package sent in December. This care package always consisted of these chocolate coconut cookies. I might add, if the enemy ever invaded me, I could use these cookies to kill them. They were as hard as a rock and so much appreciated. Not for what they were, but what they stood for. I knew they were made with lots of love and care. At that time, they were packed in wax paper. You hardly see that anymore. Well, I spoke to my precious wife and I said,”Let’s make some for my sister and brother. It was many, many years since our lips touched these cookies.” I called my sister and asked her if she had a copy of the rare recipe. Her answer was, “I do have it.” In the next day’s email I had it in my hands. Well, Grandma and Grandpa started to make these cookies. After much discussion, and not knowing anything about anything, the two of us decided on making four recipes. If you people do not know how much four recipes is, it’s just shy of feeding the whole block where you live. We had cookies and we had cookies. Well, they were good. We got it down to an assembly line. Each tray of cookies had to be in the oven for 10 minutes. That was good. That gave us just enough time to get a pan out of the oven, take one of my brand new putty knives that had been cleaned and take them off the cookie pan and onto a broiler pan. We didn’t have one of those cooling racks that my mother used to have, but this worked fine. It wasn’t quite to the point one for me and one for the box, but it was getting close. Came lunch time, we weren’t hungry as you could imagine why. We filled two aluminum pans that have covers on them that you buy at the heb store. When we were all done, as we sat there hugging each other, we were so pleased that we accomplished something. We made mama’s cookies with LOVE, like she would make. After these cookies were made, I sat there laughing as I’m thinking that Mom also added pecans, but I can’t remember. But anyways, the recipe for these cookies are 90% love and 10% ingredients!
Have a Happy Hanukkah and may the dreidel always keep spinning in your favor.
Dor ‘l Dor Grandpa Abe