I hope everyone is enjoying all the December holidays, the video above is so much fun.   A Russian ballet, performed during Christmas all over the world, I have never seen it, but this modern twist looks cool.   Today was a relaxing Shabbat, the kids and I stayed home, we are all dry coughing and have a bit of runny noses, so I decided to just stay in while my husband went to synagogue.  The kids played nicely and I caught up on some Chanukah reading, the history is fascinating, it is far beyond a container of oil that lasted for 8 nights.  It was a time when the Greek empire was not trying to kill off anybody, but they wanted to take away their core and their spirituality, and that is the real victory, Judaism was saved because there is no way to disconnect our daily lives from our roots, beliefs, traditions, and way of life.  What I find interesting is that it is more recent history, and they were saying how the Greek empire was really good at assimilation, and actually brought Christianity so broadly that when the Romans took over, they took it on as well and made it their own.  Also it was interesting that before the Greeks, the Persian empire respected the Jews and even assisted then in building the Bais Hamikdosh, which stood where the Western Wall is now in Israel.  For anybody that has not studied this before, this shows you that the Jewish people have been in Israel all along, it was just conquered and run by different regimes, the most current before the creation of Israel, by the British.

Historical Perspective:

http://jewishhomela.com/2015/12/09/the-history-and-archaeology-of-chanukah/

Review of the Weekly Lesson, Parsha from Chanukah:

http://issuu.com/jewishhomela/docs/la_jh_12-10-15_final/17?e=7985120/31854218

Shabbat ends early, so I am giving my kids a rare treat of TV time, putting on some old school cartoons, Inspector Gadget, and they are digging it.  Some of the modern cartoons are so out there, not that funny, the humor is more for adults than children.

So grateful to have our weekly recharge day,

Shavua Tov,

Coach Yulia