Yesterday in Review

 

This is how I feel this morning about yesterday. But when I was chasing the bat out of my lounge last night, I felt less like roses and gold!

    After struggling emotionally for the last couple of weeks, I grew tired of not experiencing the joy of the Lord, which is usually my constant companion and it is now hard, if not impossible, to live without it. So I asked Him if I could please have it back. And He answered.

    For my private Torah reading yesterday, I delved into the part of Bemidbar that names and numbers the tribes. I wrote down all their names in Hebrew and did the gematria, and that's as far as I got. But the day before that I had read all about the flags, standards and ensigns, which have long fascinated me. I spent 4 hours reading all the commentary and making notes, at which point my hand was too sore to write anymore, so I just read the rest. Really fascinating.

    Apart from the beautiful and colourful appearance of the flags, standards and ensigns, the most amazing thing to me is that God's entourage of 22,000 angels, when He came down to Mount Sinai, all had flags, and when the children of Israel saw them, they also wanted flags. Their beauty must have been incredible.

    So God gave them flags and laid out the entire camp according to the pattern in the heavenlies. What an incredible sight it must have been to see 3 million people moving through the wilderness in military formation and with all their flags flying in the wind! Add to that the Tachash skin that covered the Tabernacle - which the Sages say had anywhere from 6 to 66 colours! - and Wow! No wonder the other nations were afraid of them! I no longer think the encampment of Israel was just dreary brown and grey!

    But back to yesterday....

So, after my satisfying Torah study, I went to inspect and water my plants, also taking my Swiss Chard seedlings and Roses outside for some fresh air. The Swiss Chards rewarded me with another seedling popping its little head above the ground and the Roses also look happy. The reason I am babying them so much is because they were a gift from Sar'ah and her boyfriend. I drowned the last plant they gave me - an orchard, no less! - so I thought I'd better look after the Roses much better. So far so good.

    We prayed Shacharit, did a Torah study and I prayed Mincha on my own. I tended to some household chores and then met my Grade 6 Afrikaans student on Teams for our last lesson before exams. It was halfway through this meeting that I became aware of a big black thing flying around the lounge. At first I just waved it away, thinking it was a big moth. But then I caught an actual glimpse of it and saw it was actually a bat! I froze with fear at first, then started talking to the bat loudly - my student was shouting encouragement to me from the screen - and asking it why it didn't just fly out of one of the open windows. I mentioned its sonar capabilities and asked it why they weren't operational. After trying to guide it to an open window with the broom, which failed, because it was just moving too fast, I decided to open the French doors to give it more space through which to vacate the premises. And, Baruch HaShem, it worked. I tossed the broom down next to the desk and completed the lesson with recovered aplomb.

    My beloved grandson had called me earlier in the afternoon just to chat and tell me he was going for a haircut. So I messaged him and asked him to video call me when he got back from the barber to show me his haircut, which he did. It was such a special treat for him to phone me during the day, outside of our usual 7.15pm talk and prayer time. We have also begun sending voice notes back and forth during the day. We are both looking forward to seeing each other in the school holidays.

    We had our prayer time a bit earlier last night, between my Afrikaans lesson and my Thursday Torah class. I am so grateful that we have this special time together each day. Except on Wednesday night. That night, he had left his phone in the car after school and his grandpa had taken the car to homecell, so his phone got some Bible study in on Wednesday night!

    I thanked HaShem for a delightful day and woke up this morning to a beautiful preparation day. I baked two Yakon, Onion, Garlic & Italian Herb Peasant Focaccias for Shabbat before being fetched by a friend and her daughter for coffee at the beach. It was delightful. There were little sayings on the menu, for instance, it said "misbehaving children will be given a kitten and will be taught to swear like a sous chef " - we laughed out loud!

    I'm going to phone my  beloved mom now, do the dishes, pray Erev Shabbat Mincha, do the last few things I need to accomplish before Shabbat and then ... Aaaah, how I love Shabbat!

Shabbat Shalom

&

Hag Shavuot Sameach