Another Normal Week on God's Calendar
I put my havdalah candle in the little tin the 24-hour candle came in, thinking I was so clever. It did work well - until tonight. I thought the wicks were still long enough for a couple of burnings, but obviously I am unaware of the physics of fire in a tin. The wicks nearest the edge of the tin went out first as the melting wax built up there and couldn't run off. Then the rest of the wicks quickly faded. It was too dark to read the blessings out of the siddur, so I grabbed the tin and burnt my fingers. I had to finish the blessings by the light of my cell phone, which was also almost finished at 4%. I sat looking at the cheeky little candle in a tin and thought to myself: What an unusual ending to Shabbat - and smiled. As I put together the weekly schedule for some friends and myself, I saw that it is another plain sailing week - the quiet before the storm of September, which contains one 3-day Shabbatot and one 2-day Shabbatot. ...
