Holy Marcheshvan!

I'm going to start with the latest Havel Havelim at Holy Sparks.  Please visit and share, thanks.  Participate in our international Jewish blogging community by joining our facebook page, where we coordinate HH, volunteering to host etc.  Links can be sent to appear in the weekly Havel Havelim via blog carnival.  If you have any questions please contact me shilohmuse at gmail dot com, thanks.

On Friday, the first day of the always double Rosh Chodesh Marcheshvan, after praying at Shiloh HaKeduma, Tel Shiloh, I passed the big Shiloh elementary school campus and heard lots of singing and dancing coming from the boys school.

What music to my ears.  I always feel such joy at the sight of the enormous schools we now have in Shiloh.  The Shiloh elementary school opened the very day we moved to Shiloh, September 1, 1981.  Our three daughters had moved, arrived by bus alone the day before so they wouldn't miss the first day of school.  They were hosted by neighbors who had been assigned to be our "adoptive family." Our eldest was in the Fifth Grade in Ofra, our second daughter was the oldest girl in the brand new Shiloh school in the Third Grade, and our third daughter started Kindergarten in Shiloh.  My husband arrived with the moving van, and I took our then baby son by bus, if I remember correctly.

Shiloh was considered "the end of the world" by the movers and shakers of Mateh Binyamin, and in a sense we were then, but we aren't now.  Now there's no doubt that Shiloh is the center of the world, or at least the center of Israel.  In barely ten minutes you can get to Ariel University, a half hour to Jerusalem or to the "Number Six Highway," which connects most of Israel, north to south.  Just past that is Petach Tikvah.  We're five minutes from the Jordan Valley via Shvut Rachel.

Our school is now the regional school for a humongous by Israeli standards district. Children come now only from the Shiloh-Eli bloc, but from the southern Shomron (Samaria,) Ariel, Rechalim, Ofra (to the boys junior high,) the Jordan Valley as far south as Kochav Hashachar and more.

Now we're in the Jewish month of Cheshvan aka Marcheshvan.  It's one of the most important months in the Jewish Calendar.  When rains begin in Cheshvan, it's a good sign.  G-d is blessing us.  If the month is dry, it's a sign of punishment.

G-d willing, these clouds we saw on Rosh Chodesh are a good sign that there will be plentiful rain this winter.  We upgrade our request for rain on the 7th of the month, which is this upcoming Friday.  That tradition facilitated the safe arrival home for the pilgrims who had been at Shiloh and later on to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem for the Tishrei High Holidays.

I haven't yet decided on whether to have our Rosh Chodesh Women's Prayers at Tel Shiloh on 30th of Cheshvan or 1st of Kislev.  G-d willing I'll let you know as soon as I decide.



Chodesh Tov!  Have a wonderful and blessed month.