i owe you a few

okay shabbat experiement, i owe you a few.

i actually have been keeping up with this whole thing, maybe not entirely - so here is an, albeit brief, run-down of what i have found time for the past few shabs.

week 1 - drink wine that has positive associations

in the spirit of the end of summer i bought a vinho verde. i bought the $10 bottle of "opala" that has been a staple grocery item since it appeared at whole foods in may. this was my last weekend of summer so i thought it was appropriate to celebrate with the wine that kept me company while students were gone. glass one: enjoyed alone while getting dressed for shabbat dinner at a friend's house. glass two: ...it took me a while to get dressed. glass three and four: shared with my roommate as we began work on upholstering an antique couch that she picked up off the side of the road.

a great shabbat.

week 2 - go for a walk

easy. i have a dog and we walk every day. i recently moved to a neighborhood in new orleans called the irish channel. it is right below the garden district - which is a really beautiful and historic part of the city. on saturday afternoon motek and i walked a new route through our hood and i reflected on how f*ing awesome living in nola is.

thanks shabbat experiment.

week 3 - avoid technology for the whole weekend.

mike, dude, challenge not accepted. sorry. i did accidentally leave my phone in my car for a few hours on sunday while i was at a second line parade. the parade was awesome, i danced hard and by default avoided technology.

pictured is the opening ceremony at the black men of labor annual second line parade taken from nola.com

Just a Taste

This week I invited three of my friends in the Ithaca area to participate in Shabbat festivities. My three friends and I headed to a new bar in town - Corks and More - situated right on the lake. The four of us loaded up pre-paid cards that would allow us to try every wine in the house.

At Corks and More you wander the bar and choose any wine you like from the wall - then the vending machine/ wine tap pours for you. You can try a taste, a half glass, or a full glass. The bar is filled with small clusters of comfortable couches where we sat with our wine and schmoozed a little. It was a great time to catch up and get excited for the year ahead.

We spent $10 or so dollars each and about 3 hours enjoying one another's company. Thanks for the great assignment!

Wine and Movie

Hi All!

I didn't dedicate the time to find wine from my birth year, but I did drink a great wine this weekend. I just got home from being gone all summer, and my best friend took a trip to Spain and brought back a bottle of wine. (This was special for me because I lived in Spain for two years). We met up and talked for hours about our summers while drinking the wine. Then we watched a Spanish movie (one of our weekly traditions). I can't remember a time when I've finished off a bottle of wine with just one other person, but we did, and really enjoyed the night!!

See you next week!
Lisa

Wine tasting...

As a person who rarely drinks wine this was an interesting one for me. I am one of those people who can't even really smell red wine but I enjoy a glass of cold white wine every once in a while so I went that route. Decided to buy two bottles of white riesling: one from Israel and one from Australia. The Israeli wine was medium priced and the Australian wine was the cheapest I could find.

Anyways, I decided this would be something fun to do with my sisters so before dinner out with the mom Saturday night, we met up at their place for a dog playdate and wine tasting. What we did was each took turns trying the wines and deciding which one we liked best. It was interesting because I thought the cheap Australian wine was really gross but liked the Israeli a lot and my sisters were the complete opposite. They were happy to find that out cause then they realized "they enjoy cheap wine and could save some money that way".

Overall, it was a fun time and nice to share with my sisters. Plus, its always fun when your mom picks you up to go to dinner and her kids are all mildly drunk and incapable of being serious.

Mountain Top Wine- 2006

I ended up interpreting our assignment for the week when I couldn’t find a nice ripe 1987, so I decided to pick a year that was special to me. 2006 was full of a lot of ups and downs and eventually helped shape who I am today. As you can see from the video I took the bottle hiking with us since that is what you do on Shabbat in VT and believe it or not I ran into an Israeli couple on my way up.

Wine Tasting!

This was the perfect principle to have to do this week! My best friend was visiting me in Santa Barbara for a few days and we decided to go to the city of Solvang for the day. Solvang is an old Dutch city, about 30 minutes north of Santa Barbara, where they have wineries all over the town. On specific days, they have a deal for $20 you get a wine glass (for your keeping) and 5 passes to 5 different wineries where you are able to sample 2 different wines each.

It was a truly relaxing evening and wonderful to catch up with my best friend (who I had not seen in months)! I just started working in the office about a month ago and have been very overwhelmed trying to get settled and grasp all the craziness, so it was really wonderful and meaningful to grab a glass of wine with my best friend and kick up our legs and just veg out without a care in the world!

Remember the time…

Shavuah tov all! I hope you all had a Shabbat shalom and wonderful weekend!

So as I suspected, finding a bottle wine from the year I was born proved to be a challenging task. Regardless, I found a bottle of wine I have always really enjoyed. On a few occasions I have shared this bottle, Bogle’s Old Vine Zin with friend. I invited a few of my close friends from college over on Saturday evening and explained out Shabbat Experiment. Most are Jewish, but those who are not have certainly been around me long enough to know about Shabbat, if not participate in it in some way.

My three friends and I spend Saturday evening cooking dinner together, drinking wine and laughing our heads off. With the anticipation of freshmen arriving this Monday evening, I could not help but bring up the “old days” and the changes that have occurred in campus life. (I am one of those Hillel professionals that have remained on their college campus well past their undergraduate experience.) It was a reminder of how quickly the culture of a campus changes and how exciting that can feel, both as student and as a staff member on campus. It was really nice to think back to my fun and often very funny college experience. It made me very excited for those students arriving to campus (and all campuses) this week! I hope all of our students get as much out of their friendships, experiences and Jewish communities on campus as I did.

For those of you already underway with your semester, I hope it is going well! For those of you, like me who are just about to start, best of luck!

Shavuah tov!

My Bitch

The start of this project could not have come at a more hectic time. We had our welcome weekend and it was one of those where it felt like I was just moving from one program to the next.

When I got the assignment, I went to the liquor store near campus and asked the guy for an Australian bottle (being that I have not been there and I love the wine from there). He went through the racks and pulled out this bottle, a southern Australian Grenache, called Bitch (only $14). My immediate thought was this is going to be one bitch of a weekend so it must be some divine inspiration for me to find this bottle!

To make a long story short, I don't think I would have taken the time this weekend to think about shabbat at all because of everything we had going on. I decided that at noon I was going to take a half hour to make Kiddush and relax for a few minutes and just appreciate the moment. I appreciated the fact that I would not have done much else to celebrate the sabbath this weekend if not for this small task, and I would not have found this awesome bottle if not for this little project.

Tapena...

I bought this really amazing wine - $11 on sale! I spent the evening with family and old friends, enjoying some great pizza and this equally great wine, a verdejo. Tapeña's name is a perfect fit for a Shabbat experience, as it's a compound word- tapas (small plates) and peña (group of close friends). While I spent actual Shabbat driving around, running errands, Saturday night was my time to relax with a few glasses of really cold Verdejo. Definitely a wine I would recommend!

I know we're all really stoked about this experiment experience - I shared it with Jewlicious & hope that other people are inspired by our Shabbat adventures.

Drink Wine

So today i passed on my expensive bottle of wine and day of drinking my favorite beers by the pool and substituted it with two bottles of very inexpensive but still enjoyable bottles of wine. This particular "drink wine" topic could not have come at a better time. This morning, due to the extra work that needed to be accomplished for the beginning of the semester, i found myself at work. Yes i know it is Sunday, but i had that much that needed to get done. However i made sure that by the afternoon I spent the rest of the day at the pool with friends eager to hear about the "Shabbat Experiment". I found not only that i enjoyed the bottles of wine, but also i enjoyed explaining to my friends why we were drinking something we would normally pass on. While this is not something i always do, and may not continue to drink the bottle of Barefoot Pino Grigio that was only $6 (1 dollar cheaper than the article said it was), i do enjoy the opportunity to not only learn, but to teach others about shabbat and also the importance of work life balance. I hope that everyone else from group aleph had as an enjoyable day as myself.

The Quest for a Bottle

I was ecstatic to receive this week's assignment. I am certainly not a wine connesuir, but I enjoy a glass every now and then. I started off trying to complete the assignment by locating a bottle of wine with a 1987 vintage. Turns out that no one in St. Louis carries wine that old! Luckily, Sarah Beth provided our group with a back up plan... enjoying a wine that triggers a special memory with a loved one. My dad was in town to help me move into my new apartment- all I needed to do was track down one of two bottles of wine. After several trips to various stores to no avail, I decided to cut my losses. I found a Moscato that looked tasty and brought it home after realizing that in my quest for a bottle, I almost lost sight of the beauty of the assignment. I got to take time out of the busy weekend and enjoy a glass of wine with my dear old dad.

<-- Here is a picture of my dad enjoying a glass of wine :)

Drinking Wine

Hello all,

The assignment for group Bet was to make Kiddush with friends at some point over Shabbat.

It was a great experience for me because I know that the only times I make Kiddush on Shabbat are when I'm working at a Jewish event, or when I'm at my parents house for Shabbat dinner. It was a great experience because this is my first weekend back in San Diego after a long summer working at a Jewish summer camp. I ended up making plans for Shabbat dinner and lunch on Saturday with some old friends I hadn't seen all summer. It was really nice celebrating shabbat when it wasn't forced and without students. I know that this blog is going to help me keep that in mind over the course of these next 10 weeks and be able to really celebrate shabbat. Shavuah Tov

Shavua Tov, friends! This is such a cool project!

My husband and I don't drink alcohol of any kind, so we decided to find a poem that somehow relates to wine from a country we've never visited. Neither of us have ever been to Chile, and we were drawn to a poem by Pablo Neruda, which compares writing poetry to feeling drunk. Those of us who are true "word nerds" understand the sensation of drunkenness that comes from writing or even reading truly excellent literature. While it may not be wine, great literature is definitely something we can savor and enjoy.

Poetry by Pablo Neruda

And it was at that age... Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating planations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke free on the open sky.

And here is Neruda's Ode to Wine:

Ode to Wine by Pablo Neruda

Day-colored wine,
night-colored wine,
wine with purple feet
or wine with topaz blood,
wine,
starry child
of earth,
wine, smooth
as a golden sword,
soft
as lascivious velvet,
wine, spiral-seashelled
and full of wonder,
amorous,
marine;
never has one goblet contained you,
one song, one man,
you are choral, gregarious,
at the least, you must be shared.
At times
you feed on mortal
memories;
your wave carries us
from tomb to tomb,
stonecutter of icy sepulchers,
and we weep
transitory tears;
your
glorious
spring dress
is different,
blood rises through the shoots,
wind incites the day,
nothing is left
of your immutable soul.
Wine
stirs the spring, happiness
bursts through the earth like a plant,
walls crumble,
and rocky cliffs,
chasms close,
as song is born.
A jug of wine, and thou beside me
in the wilderness,
sang the ancient poet.
Let the wine pitcher
add to the kiss of love its own.

My darling, suddenly
the line of your hip
becomes the brimming curve
of the wine goblet,
your breast is the grape cluster,
your nipples are the grapes,
the gleam of spirits lights your hair,
and your navel is a chaste seal
stamped on the vessel of your belly,
your love an inexhaustible
cascade of wine,
light that illuminates my senses,
the earthly splendor of life.

But you are more than love,
the fiery kiss,
the heat of fire,
more than the wine of life;
you are
the community of man,
translucency,
chorus of discipline,
abundance of flowers.
I like on the table,
when we're speaking,
the light of a bottle
of intelligent wine.
Drink it,
and remember in every
drop of gold,
in every topaz glass,
in every purple ladle,
that autumn labored
to fill the vessel with wine;
and in the ritual of his office,
let the simple man remember
to think of the soil and of his duty,
to propagate the canticle of the wine.

Week 1 task

Excited by this idea and Hillel Institute, the first thing I did when I got home was tell my non-Jewish boyfriend about this great Shabbat experiment. We often discuss Shabbat, what it means, different interpretations and how we can make time in our own lives to celebrate Shabbat "our way" so we've decided to do this together. Our wine came from New Zealand. While wondering around the store looking for a country neither of us had been to, we picked up a bottle of wine that had a rating of 88 from some wine rating system. We stared at it for a few moments and discussed if this was the bottle we wanted when a woman behind us said, "oh yes, it tastes great, pick that one." I pondered telling her about the Shabbat Experiment but decided it would be weird however we did end up selecting that bottle.

We looked up images from New Zealand. For me, pictures are worth 1000 words and New Zealand is beautiful. We also figured since we were having this "special" bottle of wine, we would cook and eat dinner (tofu and asparagus in a lemongrass rub! Amazing!) at the actual table (instead of on the couch in the living room).

Here's a picture of New Zealand. Thanks for the task David!

And Shabbat Shalom and Shavua Tov.

I spent the last few days on vacation on Block Island and was very disappointed to be coming home yesterday. It was wonderful to get this task and be able to buy a nice bottle of wine from Australia, look at some pictures and keep the vacation going a little bit, even though we were home.

Here is a poem I found about the sunrise in Australia. Even though we were only in Rhode Island, our sunrise here looked just as beautiful!

The Australian Sunrise

by James L Cuthbertson

The Morning Star paled slowly, the Cross hung low to the sea
And down the shadowy reaches the tide came swirling free.
The lustrous purple blackness of the soft Australian night
Waned in the grey awakening that heralded the light;
Still in the dying darkness, still in the forest dim
The pearly dew of the dawning clung to each giant limb,
Till the sun came up from ocean, red with the cold sea mist,
And smote on the limestone ridges, and the shining tree-tops kissed;
Then the fiery Scorpion vanished, the magpie's note was heard,
And the wind in the sheoak wavered and the honeysuckles stirred;
The airy golden vapour rose from the river breast,
The kingfisher came darting out of his crannied nest,
And the bulrushes and reed-beds put off their sallow grey
And burnt with cloudy crimson at the dawning of the day.

Shabbat Shalom everyone!

-Joie

Drink Wine: The Wine Trials

I'm always on the search for a new type of delicious wine! For this week, "Drink Wine," the first thing that came to mind was a presentation I saw about the book The Wine Trials. The author, Robin Goldstein (a Jewish guy which makes it that much more applicable), conducted a wine experiment- a blind taste test which compared the fancy expensive wines to inexpensive ones (under $15). The results showed that most people preferred the affordable wines more then the super fancy ones! http://www.thewinetrials.com/

So I thought we could base our Shabbat Wine experience on the concept of the Wine Trials, this Shabbat/weekend we could all do our own taste test of delicious, but affordable, wine! Feel free to pick out a bottle on your own or look for one of his suggestions, and if you like it, let us know!

This week, I hope you have time to enjoy delicious wine, maybe with a friend or two, and share some good memories. This experiment shows us that price doesn't necessarily equal quality and that something can be so much more wonderful when we don't judge it by it's label... even when it comes to wine.

Group Daled's First Task

Below is the task that was just e-mailed to Group Daled as we embark on this 10 week journey! Hope everyone enjoys.

Task #1 Drink Wine

For this week, buy a bottle of wine from a country you have never been to before. Do some research on the country and find an interesting fact, literary story, poem, artwork, anything fun and funky. Enjoy the wine and what you researched sometime over the course of Shabbat, or the weekend, and report back to the group about your country and what you learned. Please feel free to attach the picture, story, poem, whatever it is you came up with so that we can learn from it as well!

Shabbat Shalom,

David

Week One: Drink Wine

The following assignment comes from Sara Beth Feinberg to Group Gimmel.
The principle this week is to drink wine.  So here is my task to all of you and myself.  Try to find a bottle of wine from the year you were born and share it with a loved one.  If finding a bottle from that year is difficult or too expensive, find a bottle of wine (or any drink) that brings happy memories, maybe something that reminds you of a special event or time in your life.  Most important is slow down and take the time to share some wine or a drink with someone that plays an important role in your life. 

The 10 Principles

Avoid commerce
Avoid technology

Connect with loved ones
Drink wine
Eat bread
Find silence
Get outside

Give back
Light candles
Nurture your health