Zivia "Cecilia" Birnbaum (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tehilim127_1) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ph_logs2024-10-08 04:25 pm
tehilim127_1) wrote in ph_logs2024-10-08 04:25 pm
[OPEN] let the year and its curses conclude
Who: Zivia (tehilim127_1) & all comers
What: Autumn and the High Holidays
When: Late September through October
Where: All over
Warning(s): To be added as relevant
1. closing the year
Early in September and Elul, Zivia wrote a letter.
A few days later, the Visitors' Center went up, and among the visitors were two of Zivia's dead. No one else was present for her conversation with one of them.
The next week, she went to a certain shady merchant, grimly determined to speak to him about procuring certain items and to pay whatever he asked. She did not expect him to already have them on hand, nor to insist on giving them to her without payment. Perhaps that should have felt like divine providence of some kind; for some reason it did not make her feel any more certain that she was doing the right thing. Nonetheless, she brought the items home and sent word to Anzu and Lyubov that she had, baruch Hashem, acquired a shofar and a lulav -- with accompanying willow and myrtle twigs but not, unfortunately, with an etrog. Which meant pinning their hopes on the Paradesium expedition. (Where they were to begin with, so that's all right.)
During the last week of September, Zivia went out to the old Starr farm to gather a basket of apples and some honeycomb from the hives; talked to Captain Dominguez of the Limoncello and gave him a long and detailed list of requests, heavily featuring kosher meats and cheeses, to be compensated in all the citrus fruit she can carry when the expedition returns; talked to various people at City Hall about the time off work she would need in the coming month; found a source in town for canvas sheets and wooden beams; and put up a notice on the town bulletin board: Help Wanted with Minor (Temporary) Construction Project.
(She also kept her ears open for the general mood of the town in the wake of Dahlia Leeds' party and its shocking revelations. Any angry talk that grew vicious, she did her best to quietly defuse; any fearful talk that verged on panic, she did her best to subtly soothe. She knows too well that this could easily get ugly, in ways that could be much harder to fix than to prevent.)
It's now the first week of October, the last week of Elul. Zivia can be found at home whenever she's not at work, either working on the mysterious construction project or seemingly endless baking: cakes, cookies, tarts, a half-dozen round braided breads. She'll happily explain what's up with all of this, should anyone ask.
[Tag Zivia here for anything in late September or pre-holidays October, including if you want to help with the construction or talk about last month's events!]
2. days of awe, days of joy
And then it's second week of October, the first week of Tishrei.
Rosh Hashanah: two days of feasting and prayer, bringing in the New Year, beginning the Ten Days of Repentance. Lyubov blows the shofar at their little communal prayer services, where they say what parts of the liturgy they can without a full quorum of ten, and maybe a little more besides. They each host meals, with the round challahs and the apples and honey (from the Starr farm and from Angel's gift) and other traditional symbolic foods; Zivia is particularly thankful that they've been able to get pomegranate. Cecil Palmer is invited, and Hawkeye Pierce, and anyone else who's shown interest in participating in Jewish traditions.
Ten days later, Yom Kippur: fasting and prayer and atonement for sins. Again the little prayer group congregates, and Zivia recites the familiar words through an unexpected struggle with tears. Do not cast us away, Lord our God, do not distance Yourself from us --
(She still doesn't know if trying to speak to the local goddesses is something for which she should be asking forgiveness. She doesn't know who to talk to about that, or how.)
Five days later, Sukkot: a week of feasting and celebration, with festive meals in the completed sukkah. If you've befriended Zivia, or if you work with her, or if you answered the bulletin board request to help build the thing, or even if you're just passing by and want to know what the deal is with the weird little structure with canvas walls and a roof of Paradesium greenery, you will get an invitation to come hang out. Inside it's decorated with ribbons and paper chains and fruit (including tiny gourds) and colorful fall leaves, and there are snacks and both cold and hot drinks and occasionally a friendly cat winding around people's ankles, and at the slightest provocation there will be stories and anecdotes about the holiday. You've been warned.
At the end of that week, Simchat Torah: the last of the holidays and in some ways the hardest to observe in their current circumstances. No Torah scroll has shown up at Calloway's, so the best they can do is read from Lyubov's chumash, the end of the final chapter and then the start of the first, beginning the cycle again. There's too few of them to dance properly, but they can and do sing.
[Tag here for religious holiday celebrations if your character would have been at any of them, or for hanging out less formally in the sukkah!]
3. back to the everyday
And then, as every year, the holidays are over. Time for taking down the sukkah, putting away the components in case they need to be reused next year, carefully storing the shofar wrapped in cotton in the china cabinet, planning future meals around frozen leftovers: an end to the celebrating of life and a return to living it.
For the rest of October Zivia is back to her usual routine. Find her at work, or shopping downtown, or having a drink down at the Oak & Iron on occasional evenings -- or, once in a while, taking a walk on the beach while it's still warm enough to do that.
[Tag here for after the holidays, at any of the named locations or your choice of wildcard!]
tehilim127_1) & all comersWhat: Autumn and the High Holidays
When: Late September through October
Where: All over
Warning(s): To be added as relevant
1. closing the year
Early in September and Elul, Zivia wrote a letter.
A few days later, the Visitors' Center went up, and among the visitors were two of Zivia's dead. No one else was present for her conversation with one of them.
The next week, she went to a certain shady merchant, grimly determined to speak to him about procuring certain items and to pay whatever he asked. She did not expect him to already have them on hand, nor to insist on giving them to her without payment. Perhaps that should have felt like divine providence of some kind; for some reason it did not make her feel any more certain that she was doing the right thing. Nonetheless, she brought the items home and sent word to Anzu and Lyubov that she had, baruch Hashem, acquired a shofar and a lulav -- with accompanying willow and myrtle twigs but not, unfortunately, with an etrog. Which meant pinning their hopes on the Paradesium expedition. (Where they were to begin with, so that's all right.)
During the last week of September, Zivia went out to the old Starr farm to gather a basket of apples and some honeycomb from the hives; talked to Captain Dominguez of the Limoncello and gave him a long and detailed list of requests, heavily featuring kosher meats and cheeses, to be compensated in all the citrus fruit she can carry when the expedition returns; talked to various people at City Hall about the time off work she would need in the coming month; found a source in town for canvas sheets and wooden beams; and put up a notice on the town bulletin board: Help Wanted with Minor (Temporary) Construction Project.
(She also kept her ears open for the general mood of the town in the wake of Dahlia Leeds' party and its shocking revelations. Any angry talk that grew vicious, she did her best to quietly defuse; any fearful talk that verged on panic, she did her best to subtly soothe. She knows too well that this could easily get ugly, in ways that could be much harder to fix than to prevent.)
It's now the first week of October, the last week of Elul. Zivia can be found at home whenever she's not at work, either working on the mysterious construction project or seemingly endless baking: cakes, cookies, tarts, a half-dozen round braided breads. She'll happily explain what's up with all of this, should anyone ask.
[Tag Zivia here for anything in late September or pre-holidays October, including if you want to help with the construction or talk about last month's events!]
2. days of awe, days of joy
And then it's second week of October, the first week of Tishrei.
Rosh Hashanah: two days of feasting and prayer, bringing in the New Year, beginning the Ten Days of Repentance. Lyubov blows the shofar at their little communal prayer services, where they say what parts of the liturgy they can without a full quorum of ten, and maybe a little more besides. They each host meals, with the round challahs and the apples and honey (from the Starr farm and from Angel's gift) and other traditional symbolic foods; Zivia is particularly thankful that they've been able to get pomegranate. Cecil Palmer is invited, and Hawkeye Pierce, and anyone else who's shown interest in participating in Jewish traditions.
Ten days later, Yom Kippur: fasting and prayer and atonement for sins. Again the little prayer group congregates, and Zivia recites the familiar words through an unexpected struggle with tears. Do not cast us away, Lord our God, do not distance Yourself from us --
(She still doesn't know if trying to speak to the local goddesses is something for which she should be asking forgiveness. She doesn't know who to talk to about that, or how.)
Five days later, Sukkot: a week of feasting and celebration, with festive meals in the completed sukkah. If you've befriended Zivia, or if you work with her, or if you answered the bulletin board request to help build the thing, or even if you're just passing by and want to know what the deal is with the weird little structure with canvas walls and a roof of Paradesium greenery, you will get an invitation to come hang out. Inside it's decorated with ribbons and paper chains and fruit (including tiny gourds) and colorful fall leaves, and there are snacks and both cold and hot drinks and occasionally a friendly cat winding around people's ankles, and at the slightest provocation there will be stories and anecdotes about the holiday. You've been warned.
At the end of that week, Simchat Torah: the last of the holidays and in some ways the hardest to observe in their current circumstances. No Torah scroll has shown up at Calloway's, so the best they can do is read from Lyubov's chumash, the end of the final chapter and then the start of the first, beginning the cycle again. There's too few of them to dance properly, but they can and do sing.
[Tag here for religious holiday celebrations if your character would have been at any of them, or for hanging out less formally in the sukkah!]
3. back to the everyday
And then, as every year, the holidays are over. Time for taking down the sukkah, putting away the components in case they need to be reused next year, carefully storing the shofar wrapped in cotton in the china cabinet, planning future meals around frozen leftovers: an end to the celebrating of life and a return to living it.
For the rest of October Zivia is back to her usual routine. Find her at work, or shopping downtown, or having a drink down at the Oak & Iron on occasional evenings -- or, once in a while, taking a walk on the beach while it's still warm enough to do that.
[Tag here for after the holidays, at any of the named locations or your choice of wildcard!]
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"So. Why is this night different from all other nights?" It is impossible to tell, at least at first, if he seriously believes that question goes with this holiday.
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"Well, on all other nights we put salt on our challah, and tonight we're putting honey," she starts. "Though we're gonna keep doing that through to Simchat Torah."
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He hadn't even considered that yet! Cecil slinks over closer to Zivia like a needy cat, not losing his own air of amusement and cheer.
"Seriously, though, if there's something I should be doing or shouldn't be doing, let me know."
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She glances at the clock on the wall. "We've probably got a little bit before everyone shows up, want me to explain the simanim? About half of them are puns, you'll like them."
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He's going to get a good grade in Jewish holidays, something that is normal to want and possible to achieve.no subject
"Okay, for starters, the ones that don't depend on wordplay: there's the apple and honey, for a sweet year. The pomegranate, so we should have as many merits as it has seeds. The fish, for fertility. And the fish's head, for being the head and not the tail. I always had issues with that one," she confides.
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He's trying to follow, at least.
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