Cycle To Live By

After every Jewish holiday, I have a custom of carrying something from the previous holiday into the next. I learned this tradition from my husband. The list is endless—just as every cycle should be.

From Rosh Hashanah to Sukkot, we continue to dip the challah into honey. After Sukkot, you make etrog jam for Tu B’Shevat. For Hanukkah, all the wicks are saved to be burned with the lulav. Until then, the lulav hangs over the front door, guarding our home. Both are burned with the chametz before Pesach.**

This Shabbos, I will make kneidlach from the Shmurah matzah. I do this for the next seven weeks, until Shavuot. I grind the matzah in the food processor, but the pieces are never small enough. The kneidlach will be dark and mushy, with the egg’s membrane still visible. They darken the chicken soup and are rarely eaten. After Shavuot, the children are happy to return to the regular white matzah balls. Friday night, they will remember their outspoken grandmother, who claimed you could toss her mother’s kneidlach over the fence into the neighbor’s yard—and they wouldn’t break.

* yellow citron

* a closed leaf of the date palm tree