Mishloach Manot spam?

There's a mitzvah to send mishloach manot, gifts of food, to one's friends on Purim (which is on Tuesday). This afternoon, while baking hamentaschen for our mishloach manot, I heard a sound at the front door. It turned out to be....

Mishloach manot from a local dry cleaners, whom we've not yet used.

Yes, we got mishloach manot spam.

Mishloach Manot spam?

There's a mitzvah to send mishloach manot, gifts of food, to one's friends on Purim (which is on Tuesday). This afternoon, while baking hamentaschen for our mishloach manot, I heard a sound at the front door. It turned out to be....

Mishloach manot from a local dry cleaners, whom we've not yet used.

Yes, we got mishloach manot spam.

In memoriam

Ten years ago today (on the Hebrew calendar), introverte and I were preparing to celebrate Purim in Tel Aviv with our friends, Jon and Andrea. We decided to relax at the beach by our hotel instead of doing some last minute shopping at the Dizengoff Centre, a mall in central Tel Aviv. While we were enjoying ourselves, we heard a dull "boom" and shortly afterwards Jon came out to tell us about the Dizengoff bombing.

To work through my grief, I wrote an Elegy for the Thirteenth of Adar, adopting the traditional practice of citing Biblical verses as the organizing principle of the stanzas. It's not my best poetry, but it is "of the moment" and I have never been willing to go back to change it. Each year, on the thirteenth of Adar, the Fast of Esther, I have revisited that moment via this elegy.

On this tenth Yahrzeit of thirteen innocent victims of terror --- children who were preparing for Purim with their grandparents, a mother and daughter preparing for the daughter's wedding, and others just going about their daily errands --- I recall their senseless deaths and pray that their families have found a way to get through each Purim.

In memoriam

Ten years ago today (on the Hebrew calendar), introverte and I were preparing to celebrate Purim in Tel Aviv with our friends, Jon and Andrea. We decided to relax at the beach by our hotel instead of doing some last minute shopping at the Dizengoff Centre, a mall in central Tel Aviv. While we were enjoying ourselves, we heard a dull "boom" and shortly afterwards Jon came out to tell us about the Dizengoff bombing.

To work through my grief, I wrote an Elegy for the Thirteenth of Adar, adopting the traditional practice of citing Biblical verses as the organizing principle of the stanzas. It's not my best poetry, but it is "of the moment" and I have never been willing to go back to change it. Each year, on the thirteenth of Adar, the Fast of Esther, I have revisited that moment via this elegy.

On this tenth Yahrzeit of thirteen innocent victims of terror --- children who were preparing for Purim with their grandparents, a mother and daughter preparing for the daughter's wedding, and others just going about their daily errands --- I recall their senseless deaths and pray that their families have found a way to get through each Purim.