Good Friday morning. You made it through another week. Congratulations. Well played.
One of the bonuses of doing this daily missive is that it presents the opportunity for me to learn new things. I’ve talked about this before, but the interwebs are really an amazing thing – and also a time suck – but in this instance, it really has been transformative.
The amount of things that I am woefully ignorant of is quite astounding – and embarrassing – particularly when it comes to things that should ostensibly be in my wheelhouse. That includes Judaism.
While I’m not actively practicing and have married out of the faith, I did grow up in a Jewish household and attended both Hebrew school and Saturday/Sunday school throughout the bulk of my childhood (up until Bat Mitzvah, anyway).
I have my major holidays pretty down pat, but there are a TON of the lesser-known, but potentially equally important (depending on who you ask), days about which I was – up until this point – completely unaware.
Take today, for example. Sunset this evening will mark the start of Shemini Atzeret, which is, in the most simplistic sence, the lead-in to the better known Simchat Torah, which stars at sundown Saturday and lasts through sundown the following day (Sunday).
To further complicate things, this two-day observance is really only a Diaspora thing. In Israel, it’s a one-day holiday – but still a “yom tov” (a major holiday) on which most forms of work are prohibited. Since it corresponds in part with Shabbat, that makes it extra special.
Shemni Atzeret translates loosely into “eighth (day) stop”, which is to mean that the seven days of Sukkot have officially come to an end, and also marking the end of another Torah reading cycle at which point we go back to the beginning and start again.
It is marked by prayers for rain and also prayers to remember the dead.
The next day – Simchat Torah (“The Joy of the Torah”) – is a big celebration, during which it is traditional to march and dance (hakafot) with the Torah scrolls in the synagogue. Some communities do this more than once.
It’s an honor to hold the Torah during the dance, and one should always do so over the right shoulder. Usually, the scrolls are handed from one person to another, allowing everyone to partake in the experience of physically providing the Torah with “feet” so it can partake in the celebration.
This is a really festive and joyous time, with much merriment and eating and drinking. And given the fact that the weather is looking pretty darn gloomy this weekend, starting with mostly cloudy skies and isolated thunderstorms today and heading into rain and more rain over the weekend, with the mercury dropping from the 70s into the high 50s – a party inside might be just what the doctor ordered.
In the headlines…
The Biden administration filed notice yesterday that it was waiving more than 20 federal laws and regulations, including environmental ones, to build additional barriers along the Southern border.
Department of Homeland Secruity (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stated in a notice that there was an “acute and immediate need” to waive dozens of federal laws to build a border wall in south Texas where illegal migration has surged.
President Joe Biden defended his administration’s decision to allow for construction of roughly 20 miles of additional border wall, saying he had no choice but to use the Trump-era funding for the barrier to stop illegal migration from Mexico.
The new construction was announced in June, but the funds were appropriated in 2019 before the Democratic president took office. Biden said he tried to get lawmakers to redirect the money but Congress refused.
The administration also announced it will start deporting people directly to Venezuela, a country where chaotic economic and political conditions have prompted about 8 million people to flee.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) denounced Biden’s decision to continue border wall construction in his state, saying the move is not in line with his administration’s policies.
Biden’s top cabinet officials and their Mexican counterparts met yesterday as both countries sought a united front on drug and gun trafficking and managing record levels of migration.
Biden plans to meet face-to-face with Chinese President Xi Jinping next month in an effort to reset relations with the communist power.
Cornel West is leaving the Green Party to run for president as an independent.
“I’m running as an Independent candidate for President of the United States to end the iron grip of the ruling class and ensure true democracy!” the 70-year-old professor declared on social media, after announcing his candidacy in early June.
House Democrats will meet next week to tap Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., as their pick to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker.
Former President Trump, 77, told Fox News Digital that if Republicans struggle to reach a consensus on a replacement for McCarthy, he’d be willing to fill the role for a “30, 60, or 90-day period.”
“They have asked me if I would take it for a short period of time for the party, until they come to a conclusion,” he added. “I’m not doing it because I want to — I will do it if necessary, should they not be able to make their decision.”
Then: “Congressman Jim Jordan has been a STAR long before making his very successful journey to Washington, D.C.,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social message this morning. “He will be a GREAT Speaker of the House, & has my Complete & Total Endorsement!”
Shortly after he left office, Trump reportedly shared apparently classified information about American nuclear submarines with an Australian businessman during an evening of conversation at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida.
Trump asked U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon to put off the start of his federal classified documents trial until after the 2024 election due to delays in creating a secure facility for him to view the documents.
Trump again ripped the New York attorney general’s $250 million civil fraud case against him as a political “sham” yesterday — as the fourth day of trial got underway in a Manhattan courtroom without the former president in attendance.
Trump’s lawyers ripped the former president’s accountant for claiming “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember” dozens of times during his testimony at trial in the New York attorney general’s $250 million civil fraud case.
In an order that was posted on the fourth day of Trump’s trial, Justice Arthur F. Engoron commanded that the Trumps identify any corporations they have—and come clean about any plans to move around money in an attempt to hide or keep their wealth.
It’s a powerful maneuver meant to counter the sort of underhanded moves Trump has displayed so far during the three-year investigation.
Trump’s legal team is asking a Florida judge to delay his trial in the Mar-a-Lago case until “at least mid-November 2024,” which would put it beyond next year’s presidential election.
Trump dropped a lawsuit he had filed against his former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, abandoning what has been seen as an effort to silence Cohen, who has become one of the former president’s loudest critics.
The treasurer who oversaw the finances of Rep. George Santos’s political campaigns surrendered to federal prosecutors and admitted to her role in fraudulently reporting hundreds of thousands of dollars in fictional loans he claimed he made to himself.
Nancy Marks, a veteran GOP operative, oversaw the campaign’s finances for the Long Island Republican before being dismissed after a series of filing abnormalities led to allegations of wrongdoing against her and the candidate.
Speaking to the judge, Marks briefly outlined a scam she said was intended to hoodwink GOP officials into throwing their support behind Santos, who at the time had lost an earlier race for Congress and was struggling to get financial support for a second run.
New York will review security in the state’s more than 250 park sites after a man allegedly took a 9-year-old girl from Moreau Lake State Park Saturday night while she was riding a bike near her parents’ campsite.
Prospective students can apply for free to around 130 New York universities during the month of October, state officials announced.
Cyberattacks in New York state increased 53% between 2016 and 2022, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli said in a report.
Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo is rushing to the aid of his brother-in-law’s sibling — by urging a federal judge to give him a light sentence for fraud.
A state Senate committee plans to investigate communications among Competitive Power Ventures, the state Department of Environmental Conservation and Cuomo’s administration.
An internal grievance system for those in the state’s correctional facilities has failed to garner trust or address many inmate complaints inmates about living conditions, according to a new report from the agency tasked with monitoring New York prisons.
Mayor Eric Adams is visiting Mexico City to deliver a message to asylum seekers and discourage them from coming to New York City, saying he wants to give them an honest assessment of what’s happening in New York.
Adams gave a solemn warning of the “nightmare” in pursuing the “American Dream” while speaking in Mexico City — hours before four buses of newly arrived migrants unloaded in Port Authority.
New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said the city needs to be honest with people who are considering coming to New York City to seek asylum that the city is “running out of room,” echoing similar sentiments expressed by Mayor Adams.
However, Speaker Adams remains firmly opposed to any efforts to change aspects of the city’s right to shelter mandate, setting up a contrast with Mayor Adams, whose administration is currently seeking to modify the longstanding policy.
A group of progressive Council members proposed a bill that would block Mayor Adams from rolling back the city’s universal right-to-shelter policy amid the ongoing migrant crisis.
The Adams administration would be barred from putting time limits on how long migrants can stay in city shelters under a new bill introduced in the City Council.
Adams’ administration has continued placing migrants at a controversial facility on Staten Island, after getting a stay of a judge’s order blocking the move.
Nearly two years into the Adams administration, jail conditions at Rikers Island and elsewhere in New York City are worse, says a new report by a federal monitor tasked with tracking violence in Department of Correction facilities.
In the scathing – and sometimes disturbing – report, the monitor closely examined operations at city jails from Sept. 11 to Sept. 17 to illustrate a system he says is now characterized by a “pervasive, imminent risk of harm” to detainees and staff.
Errol Louis has some recommendations for the Adams administration when it comes to communicating during a crisis.
Another detainee at Rikers Island was found dead in his cell yesterday morning — the ninth such fatality in the city’s Correction Department’s custody this year, according to city officials.
Assaults against NYPD cops have skyrocketed by more than 25% this year, troubling new police data shows.
Frank James unleashed smoke, blood and horror in a subway car full of unsuspecting New Yorkers with 32 quick squeezes of a trigger — and for that act of terrorism, he will spend the rest of his life in prison.
A man was arrested and charged with murder in connection with the fatal stabbing earlier this week of an activist in Brooklyn, the New York City Police Department said.
The person of interest, identified as Brian Dowling, 18, was pictured with tears running down his face as officers escorted him from the 81st Precinct Thursday afternoon.
The Bronx district attorney vowed to crack down on home day care centers as three people connected to the death of a 1-year-old from fentanyl poisoning were arraigned on second-degree murder charges.
A Manhattan community board shot down a proposal to rename part of West 50th Street near 11th Avenue after Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger — the retired pilot who landed a US Airways flight with 155 passengers in the Hudson River on Jan. 15, 2009.
An Albany County jury convicted Jacob L. Klein of murdering 35-year-old Philip L. Rabadi in the victim’s New Scotland home — a brutal stabbing driven by Klein’s wrath over Rabadi’s marriage to the killer’s former girlfriend.
Saratoga Springs Police Chief Tyler McIntosh was on the witness stand for nearly three hours on the second day of testimony in the Darryl Mount wrongful death civil trial yesterday.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will be making the trek to New York City for the first time since they were in a “near catastrophic car chase” this past May.
The couple will be heading to Manhattan for World Mental Health Day on Oct. 10 for their Archewell Foundation’s first-ever in-person event, People reported.
The Norwegian novelist, poet and playwright Jon Fosse — who has found a growing audience in the English-speaking world for novels that grapple with themes of aging, mortality, love and art — was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
