Happy Tu B`Shevat!

 In days to come Jacob will take root,
    Israel will bud and blossom
    and fill all the world with fruit.

Isaiah 27:6

 💛

Yes! The grapefruits are Jaffa Sweetie from Israel.  At Tu B`Shevat we were able to find them in our local supermarket in a small city in the South of Japan! Baruch HaShem! The prophetic verse is already coming to pass as Israel sends her delicious fruit out into the world.   I am so thankful to receive them here.  I remember the very first time I saw an Israel fruit in our local supermarket in Japan (HERE!), it was also Tu B`Shevat!! Once we open our hearts to love and pray for Israel, Heaven hears and God sends fruit!  The land of Israel becomes closer and closer, and we too get closer to our return.

But you, mountains of Israel, you will shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit for My people Israel; for their return is near. 

Ezekiel 36:8

Taste and see how good the LORD is.  

 15 Shevat, 5783

Happy Tu B`Shevat!

Love, 

Shayndel

 PS adding a verse with `my word` this year, inheritance, and how beautiful to go with the fruit of Tu B`shevat in all its prophetic splendour, and there will be a `sowing of Shalom`! Thank you LORD! We speak it forward on this very Tu B`Shevat today as the sap courses through the trees and they awaken in spring, and your Ruach courses through the spirit of your people to return to our inheritance in You!

For there will be a sowing of shalom: the vine will yield its fruit, the ground will produce its increase, and the heavens will give their dew. I will cause the remnant of this people to inherit all these things.   

Zechariah 8:12

כִּי-זֶרַע הַשָּׁלוֹם, הַגֶּפֶן תִּתֵּן פִּרְיָהּ וְהָאָרֶץ תִּתֵּן אֶת-יְבוּלָהּ, וְהַשָּׁמַיִם, יִתְּנוּ טַלָּם; וְהִנְחַלְתִּי, אֶת-שְׁאֵרִית הָעָם הַזֶּה--אֶת-כָּל-אֵלֶּה

 

Challah Diary--- "at home" in Israel--On the Galillee at that!

I call this  challah post  "at home" because it tells how at home I felt coming down for breakfast in the hotel in Israel and seeing that wonderful Challah!!

 

 

      If you turn back your foot from Shabbat, from doing your pleasure on My holy day and call Shabbat a delight, the holy day of ADONAI honorable... then you will delight yourself in ADONAI and I will let you ride over the heights of the earth, I will feed you with the heritage of your father Jacob.   For the mouth of ADONAI has spoken.  

Isaiah 58:13

I have many photos and posts I want to share from the Israel trip .  Photos of the sites that you may even be waiting (?!!:)) to see,  and of our tour, but somehow the photos that I was moved to post next were these of the Challah at the hotel on the Galilee for Shabbat breakfast.  

On this blog,  I don't like to go too many posts without sharing a Challah!

We don't get too many moments like this in Japan!, where a Shabbat table is set and awaiting with Challah enough to feed the multitudes!!  

You may also have noticed, the beautiful pink slices of Israeli Grapefruit!! I have written about the Israeli grapefruit, and how excited I was to find them in Japan.

Imagine how much more exciting it was to find Israeli grapefruits on the buffet table in Israel!!

There is something of a parable here you might even be noticing!  The Kingdom of Heaven is like a Shabbat. 

 

Blintzes!   These are the real thing!

Israeli grapefruit, in Israel!!

This sign in the hotel announces the time for sunset and candle lighting on the eve of Shabbat

Challah on Shabbat, like a homecoming of sorts!!  Perhaps this really is where I belong!

Where else in the world can you go to Shabbat breakfast at the hotel and go straight to the challah?  Where else in the world is the Calendar set on God's time!?

Where else in the world can you feel so at home where you are on the same time as the rest?!!

(pun intended---the rest, being the Sabbath day of rest, as well as "all the rest" of the people )

All the breakfasts in Israel were heavenly, but I must say this was one where heaven really felt like home!!

♡

note:  I know as I write this there are those in Israel who are hungry and cannot have this kind of Challah breakfast.  So I realize what a luxury it also is.  But still I share this because there is in each of our souls a way that we connect to a place and to our Maker, and I know that He wanted to share this sense of "home" on  my one Shabbat this trip in the land of Israel.  

A wonderful testimony is that when I returned to Japan and made a challah using some of the Date honey I brought back from Israel,  and brought it to share with some brothers and sisters, God took the challah right from our hands and gave it into the hands of someone who was hungry.  I believe He will use the experiences of this "homecoming" trip to Israel in new ways.  I continue to pray He will open up ways to share the Challah I make, and the Bread of Life, here where I live until I am called "home" once more!!

note 2:  now that I got the Challah post out of the bag, I will hope to follow up with other site visit posts.  Oh, though first there is another Shabbat post on the way, as we are still on the Galillee...

 note 3:  just another part of a personal story, one of the scriptures that was on my heart when I went , knowing we would be in the Galilee, was the scene in John 21 where Yeshua appears to the disciples.  It was a "breakfast " scene.  I will come back to that scripture in a post or two to follow, but for now for my diary reference noting here where

Yeshua said to them, "Come, have breakfast."  None of the disciples dared ask Him, "Who are You"--knowing it was the Lord.  Yeshua comes and takes the bread and gives it to them....
John 21:4

Thank you Yeshua!♡

Ajisai (Hydrangeas) and "Shalom"

 Yes, I have loved you

with an everlasting love.

Therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness.

Jeremiah 31:3

  

 ＊

わたしは、とこしえの愛をもってあなたを愛し
変わることなく慈しみを注ぐ。
エレミヤ書３１：３

＊

 

Shabbat Shalom, Shavu'a tov, depending on when you read this!!

Have a beautiful week!  

Blessings and Love,

♡

Shayndel

Biblical Fruits Challah for the Shabbat of Song and Tu B`shevat!

Figs, raisins, dates, pomegranate, olive oil, honey, barley, and one special addition, the grapefruit from Israel!

As The Shabbat of Song (see post below!) was just a few days before Tu B'shevat, I made a Biblical Fruits Challah for this Shabbat!!

This was a very exciting Challah to make! The ingredients themselves are a song.  They are expressing the 7 biblical species, which are foods mentioned in the Torah and eaten in Biblical times as well as used or represented for various significance such as in the Temple.  I took the challenge of seeing if I could find them here in Oita, Japan.  

 

Tu B'shevat is a holiday celebrated in Israel as the New Year for Fruit trees.  The name  means the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat, which is tomorrow on our calendar, from the evening of January 30 to January 31.  I first learned about it last year, and this discovery of a New Year, or Birthday for Fruit trees excited me.  It became a great delight-filled time in noticing the first blossoms on the fruit trees and gave me a new awareness of this season when the sap from underground begins to enter into the trees, renewing them, a time we don't "see"  much, but a time when much is happening to prepare for the first blossoms.

Blossoms appear in the land, the time for singing has come,

The song of the turtledove

Is heard in our land.

The green figs form on the fig tree,

The vines in blossom give off fragrance.

Arise my darling, 

My fair one, come away!

--Song of Songs 2:12~13

 Once I decided to make the Biblical Fruits Challah, I went Friday morning to gather the ingredients. I already had the Israeli grapefruit (famous post about the first Israeli Grapefruit HERE, and using it in the Challah HERE) And a pomegranate!!

There were dried fruits in the recipe and I also needed pomegranate juice for another recipe so I decided to go to a Department store I hadn't gone to for a while.  When I got to the food floor,  and was looking around at the dry fruits area a song came on the BGM.

Here we are preparing for the Sabbath of Song, I am in the dried fruits area, and a SONG comes to my ears, with words very clear, and in perfect English.

His Grace is enough.

I listened again,

His Grace is enough.

Oh my goodness, I am hearing this!

God I sing,  Your grace is everything!!

I was hearing worship music in our local department store food floor here in southern Japan.  Well, I practically hugged the store man, for playing such great music..

Posting note:   I didn`t realize at the time, but looked it up after from the words I heard, and it must have been the song by Chris Tomlin, Your Grace is Enough.  But how it came to our hometown Department store, ..Well, sometimes we don't need a reason.

God's Grace is Enough for me!!

Sustain me with raisin cakes,

Refresh me with apples,

For I am faint with love.

Song of Songs 2:5

 

He brought me to the banquet table 
and his banner of love was over me.

Song of Songs 2:4

Some notes on the Challah:

The dough was a very easy dough to work with.  Some of the fruity parts are that in the last stages you mix in the dried fruits--raisins and dates.  The recipe includes a fig filling that is rolled into the strands!!  You can find the recipe HERE-- Biblical Challah and Date Butter, and up on the sidebar at right.

For a perfect dish to go with this Challah for a Tu B`Shevat 'banquet`, see this recipe for Pomegranate Salmon

Grapefruit from Israel・イスラエル産のグレプフルッツ

Limited time only! Grapefruits from Israel, Ruby

It was a great surprise to see this sign and the grapefruit...from Israel! in the  local supermarket in the small city where we live in South Japan.

It says `Limited! Today Only!  Grapefruit from Israel (Ruby)! 138 yen.`

I believe when we study Torah and declare to those around us the greatness of the God of Israel, that Israel comes a little closer to us wherever we are.

Praise the God of Israel!!

 ・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

 びっくりしました！
近所のスーパーでイスラエル産グレープフルーツを初めて見ました。
大分にイスラエル産の物は本当に珍しい。

「本日限り」と表示していますした。

多分最近イスラエルの神のことをよく考えることが多くなったからでしょうか。　イスラエルのことが身近に現れるように感じます。

 ・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Shavua Tov! For a taste to go with this post  I recommend reading Psalm 138!   The number 138 (yen) in the sign on the grapefruit led me there.  Oh yes, and 150 too, and all the ones in between.  Enjoy! 

 And just for fun,  this is a list of what`s in season each month in Israel!  Israel Produce Calendar

Love from Challah and Cherry Blossoms Correspondent,

Shayndel

Every day I will bless You,

and praise Your Name forever and ever!

Great is ADONAI, and greatly to be praised

---His greatness is unsearchable.

---Psalm 145:2