Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Fall Holidays - Tashlich and Sukkot

Taslich is a ritual performed between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur which involves throwing bread crumbs into a natural body of water to symbolize the casting away of our sins.

Every year, weather permitting, we offer a Tashlich picnic at Coulby Park in Wickliffe, OH. This year the weather was permitting and we did our thing.


There is a little bridge there that most of us went up on and tossed our bread (and that's not a euphemism.)


Luckily, we had a scholar with us and he was able to read the required texts and explain the meaning of what we were doing





The ducks were more than happy to eat our sins



Meanwhile, in the Sukkah...


This is our Sukkah at Stone Gardens. We only had about three or four nice weather days this year for eating in the Sukkah, but we had a loyal group who did whenever possible.





This pumpkin (below) is my pride and joy. We went on an outing to Patterson's Fruit Farm where the residents could buy fresh apples, cider, Amish-made jams and jellies, and fresh baked apple pies among other things.

My job was to procure some decorations for the Sukkah which can carry over into the rest of Autumn and adorn our Ivy Room. I bought some corn stalks, gourds, Indian corn, a hay bale...and this pumpkin. There were rows and rows of pumpkins outside of all shapes and sizes. But there was only one like this one. I had to have it. When I took to the register, one cashier looked at the other one and said, "Oh, he's got THAT one!" Inasmuch as one man can love a large gourd, I love my pumpkin.




We also used some of the herbs from our own garden to decorate and add a nice scent to the Sukkah.




Residents in our Art Studio made the decorations that hung from the ceiling.



Here's a view of our Sukkah from the back. That's our garden which, as it has done since we put it in, has produced a bountiful harvest of fresh herbs, tomatoes, zucchini and peppers.