Tales from the Towers: Raising a cup

I always wondered at the Hebrew expression "raising a cup". What it actually means is having a drink of wine, or any other alcohol, in celebration of a special event in the company of others.

In the last week or so I've been "raising a cup" more often than I really like. And coming back to the "raising", I wonder if there is a law on how high the cup should be raised? Probably not, I suppose one raises it in accordance with one's physical capabilities, main thing is that it should be raised at all! And is there any law with regards to the contents of the cup? Can one, say, raise a cup with orange juice? If you ask me, I'd like that better than a cup holding inferior wine, although to be quite frank I would not know the difference between one quality of wine and the other!

Now when did I first raise a cup in celebration of the New Year which just arrived? Well, it began when the folk-dancing group met, we hopped around a bit, gave our nice instructor a present, hopped around a bit more, sat down in order to get our breath back, hugged each other and wished each other a Happy New Year.

Next occasion of cups with wine was the invitation I received from the head of our house committee. I came late, but I was told in short about the points which were discussed. And yes, the wine was bad, but the crepes which Ruthie had made herself and brought along were excellent.

The next cup raising happened at the WIZO thrift shop where after all the speeches and good wishes a lady demonstrated how to make flower arrangements, something which I realize that, not having gotten the knack of it until now, it certainly may be too late to learn. Just a bit tipsy, I boarded a bus home. Next time we raised a cup was at the gym. Just when I was getting into the right pace on the treadmill and started to sing happily along with the salsa presented by my wonderful new I-Pod, the manager came up to me, gave me one gentle and one less gentle nudge, and shouted loud  to overcome my Latin music exuberance :

"Get down from here and come into the next room because we are ... raising a cup!"

After this cup raising, all club members received very large red travel bags as gifts. Said one worried man:

"If we forget to put our names on these bags and we all come to the gym with the same bags, chances are we will always go home with someone else's bag!

"Write down 'Moshe" on your bag!" someone advised wisely.

"What are you talking about? We have 3 Moshe's here! Another Moshe will surely take my bag with the sandwich which my wife usually packs for me!"

As far as I know we have many more cup raisings on schedule, because the New Year is making a prolonged entrance throughout all the fall holidays. So maybe I'll finally get used to drinking wine without falling asleep 10 minutes later and, my late husband who so much regretted that he couldn't get me into a drinking habit, would at long last be proud of me!

The latest raising of cups took place in our own Elisha dining room. A few speeches, mercifully kept short, one or two hesitant Rosh Hashanah songs because our main singer is in the hospital nursing a knee replacement, then the ubiquitous apple pieces dunked in honey, a few hugs and good wishes, and hopefully we are done with the cup raising for this year because my raising arm starts to hurt!

Yet... for one last time please raise a cup with me in spirit:

Happy New Year,

Lucca