Red Bean Challah for Abraham---and a Lech Lecha Challah-Cast!

Then the LORD said to Abram, 
"Get going out from your land,
and from your relatives,
and from your father's house,
to the land that I will show you.
My heart's desire is to make you into a great nation, to bless you, to make your name great so that you may be a blessing.                    Genesis 12:1~2 

 This week I made a Red Bean Challah for our forefather Abraham, for the week's Parsha, Lech Lecha!

If you are just joining in, this year in the new Torah Cycle I am trying out the idea of doing weekly "challah-casts" as a way to share about the weekly parsha reading and connecting it in some way to the making of challah  or some aspect of the challah making for Shabbat.  This week the topic is making a Red Bean Challah, for Abraham in honor of his setting out to "Go" into himself and obediently walk in the ways of the LORD to form the nation of Israel and be a father of all the many nations!!!
Hope you might enjoy watching the challah-cast !! And check out my new channel in progress,
Joanne's Challah-cast channel! I would welcome your comments and even questions or any feedback--are there are things you learned,?would like to see more of?  questions?  encouragement!!, etc, as it is a new work in progress!

Each week its a learning for me, and I hope there might be something in it for you!  Its a challenge how to make the challah connection to the week's Torah study, as well as a fun challenge in trying to make a short video that  that might be a way of sharing my love of making the challah and reading the weekly Torah, and that God's love might shine through as it all comes out of Love for Him!!

Now without faith it is impossible to please God.  For the one who comes to God must believe that He exists and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.                                             Hebrews 11:6

Blessings and Love!

Shabbat Shalom!!



Preview from this week's challah -cast!

First scene, a short clip from my return trip to Japan, where God showed me Mt. Fuji as He brought on the evening

voice over from the flight:  どうぞ、ごゆっくりを過ごしください。
We wish you a pleasant flight.

Scene switches to me in the kitchen "studio"!
Hi, welcome.
My name is Joanne and this is our weekly Challah-cast.
This is the week of Parsha Lech Lecha.
Welcome!

If you are just joining in,  these challah-casts are weekly broadcasts to go with each week's reading on the Torah Cycle.  We introduce the week's reading as well as connecting it in some way with the making of challah.  Like a pod-cast, but we are using the base of "challah" to make it a "challah-cast"!  Thank you for joining us in this week of Lech Lecha!

Lech Lecha is the third parsha (Torah reading) in the book of Genesis.  Starting with Bereshit, then Noach, and now Lech Lecha.  The story of where Abraham is called out into his mission to set out and be the father of many nations....

 For more on making a red bean challah for Abraham, see other posts including a tutorial on how to make it HERE and various posts related, HERE , HERE, and HERE.

The basic challah recipe I used for this challah in the challah-cast is this Whole Wheat Challah.
Enjoy!


♡

Last scenes before Pesach!!

Sing to ADONAI a new song!

Sing to ADONAI all the earth.

--Psalm 96:1 TLV

The day before Passover  is full of the excitement of knowing that  we are about to enter into into a set apart time.  Today almost had the quality of a technicolor movie as we scurried to give away the last chametz in the foreground of the fully blooming cherry trees!

My daughter offered to take a bag of still good `chametz` to her workplace and keep it out of our house during Passover. 

Stopping to enjoy the cherry blossoms
No one would ever know, inside the bag is fulled with...chametz!!

Today was such a splendid day, both the day of the full blossoms and the day before Passover, turtles too were enjoying a sumptuous sunny spot

Between the blossoms and having finished the chametz clearing, we were getting a little giddy.

she rode off into the blossoms with the bag of chametz!

Scene 2, Take 1

After doing the Passover cleaning at the last minute, a few new plates for Passover.  Using new dishes for the Passover meal is another way of acknowledging the set-apart-ness of the Feast days, and keeping that time `separate`.
May our spirits be re-newed!

Scene 3

The amazing thing is, the full blossoms of Cherry Blossoms and `Hana-mi` (Cherry Blossoms season) corresponded this year exactly with the beginning of  Passover.

 I am so excited for when these come fully together.  When people of Japan will know Yeshua, and that this Cherry Blossoms season will become a time when people will be celebrating new life in Him, and a Messianic re-birth in Japan.  The scenes then will be people eating matzah, praising ADONAI, and singing worship songs under the pink canopy, tasting the Bread of Life and drinking from the cup of Redemption!!  A whole nation celebrating the Passover under the cherry blossoms!!

＊

Declare His glory among the nations,

His marvelous deeds among all peoples.

---Psalm 96:3

＊

As the sliding doors slide on into the Passover Holiday,  wishing you Blessings and Shalom!

Chag Sameach from Japan!  (Happy Holiday)

♡

Shayndel

An-Pan Challah and Lech Lecha Parsha!

I will make your seed like the dust of the earth so that if one could count the dust of the earth, 

then your seed could also be counted.    

---words of ADONAI to Abram, Genesis 13:16

Red Beans, challah, and the story of Abraham.

On first glance it might seem a stretch to see those topics together.

But as this is a blog about bread --challah in particular---, and my excitement of this first year studying Torah in Japan, it is a stretch that I hope can reach to your hearts!  Even the sound of an-pan challah and Lech Lecha parsha has a swirly ring to it.  Though none of the words might make sense to you yet.

With a sprinkling of my testimony,  added to a portion of  this week`s parsha about God`s promise to Abraham that his seed would reach the nations, I will attempt to roll it all into a post.  With the hope that you might get a taste of what this weeks parsha is about and that it might even give you an appetite to know more!  I might venture so far as to say the swirls in the red bean challah even remind me of a the map of the route Abraham took from his home in Ur of the Chaldees to the Land of Cannaan.  Going forth obediently ("Lech Lecha" means Go! Go forth, yourself!) as he walked continuously by faith in the word God spoke to him.

So please have some challah and lets see
where these strands tie together!

(to be continued)


Red bean challah