An Auspicious Day For a Wedding

Today is Lag BaOmer, the 33rd day of the Counting of the Omer. According to ReformJudaism.org, "[T]he period of the Omer is a time of semi-mourning, when weddings and other festivities are avoided, in commemoration of a plague that killed thousands of students of Rabbi Akiva, a Talmudic scholar. Lag BaOmer is considered to be the day on which the plague ceased, and thus became a day on which the mourning rituals are abandoned and replaced with great joy." Observed primarily in Israel, Lag BaOmer is celebrated with picnics and bonfires, as well as weddings.

Ten Things Y'all Can Learn During a Visit to Jackson, Mississippi

Number 10:  It isn't food unless it's fried.

Number 9:  A sentence is not complete unless there's at least one "y'all" in it.

Number 8:  Southern hospitality is alive and well.

Number 7:  Few things are as important as college football.

Number 6:  The Mississippi Craftsman Center displays work of artisans who create gorgeous quilts, pottery, jewelry, sculpture, paintings, wood carvings, and other hand crafted items.

Number 5:  Jackson is home to Tougaloo College, an historically black college founded in 1869 to educate freed slaves and their children.  According to the National Science Foundation, it has graduated more students who have completed PhD degrees through the UNCF-Mellon Doctoral Fellowship Program than any other institution in the nation.

Number 4:  Historic Canton, Mississippi, a few miles up the road from Jackson, is home to the beautiful Greek Revival Courthouse featured in A Time to Kill, which was filmed entirely in Canton.

Number 3:  Eudora Welty, a native Jacksonian, lived and wrote in the same house for nearly 80 years.

Number 2:  Jewish geography works especially well in the south.

Number 1:  Nothing beats celebrating the marriage of two terrific friends -- destined to find each other in Utica, Mississippi -- in the place where they met...and gaining a few new "cousins" along the way!

Mazel tov, Anna and Nadav!