1st Friday of Lent

Fasting and abstinence today. That probably means lentil porridge for lunch. Definitely not my favourite hence a perfect penance for me. Then again I think I'll do a full fast and skip the lentil porridge ... hahaha.

At the pita bakery

Maybe a simple piece of pita would do for today. I visited a pita bakery last week. They do it with machines nowadays instead of baking it in mud-ovens. Hundreds are churned out every hour and quickly transported to various venues for sale. Pita is the rounded flat bread that locals eat at every meal.

Purim is also round the corner - the jewish feast that recalls Queen Esther outsmarting Haman the conspirer to kill the jews. Jewish bakeries are selling Haman's ears - triangular biscuits filled with dates. Nowadays they put chocolate, butter-scotch and anything else you can think of. Nice for tea ... but not on a Friday in Lent.

Those of you who have want to make the Way of Cross in a special way in the Holyland, visit http://elwebcast.blogspot.com and make a virtual devotion. Very nice video.

Healthwise I've not been very pleased. Two suspected melanoma patches found on my face. Dr Rizan removed one from my lip two years ago but it seems it's back again. Will have to make an appointment with the hospital for its removal.

There's an article in Haaretz praising the pope for setting the example of humbly accepting old age and leaving office ... and that rabbis should learn this lesson from him: "A group of clueless nonagenarians, feeble in body and mind, are not capable of handling these existential crises. The rabbis would do better to take a page out of Benedict XVI’s missal and make way for a younger generation of leaders, hopefully better equipped to navigate the 21st century."