Saturday, December 16, 2006

havdalah

Just had a wonderful, relaxing shabbat. Havdalah with 150 fruity Jews (well, on the fruity scale, anyhow), singing, swaying, dancing. And candles. Jewish stuff always includes candles.

Interesting debate about the Hillel/Shammai discussion about how we generally count up (add one extra candle for each new day of Chanukah) - the prevailing Hillel view - and the starting with eight, and counting down to one - the not-followed Shammai view.

David Kraemer suggested that maybe the (Hazon?) new minhag should be to count down, signifying that we are happy with less and less rather than more and more. Kinda like the voluntary simplicity view on Chanukah. Could be my new minhag.

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