VAYAITZEI: Adorable Jacob’s Sheep – Part of G–D’s Plan **REPOST

CANNOT LET A SHABBOS GO BY WITHOUT JACOB”S SHEEP

Parsha Vayetze is where we learn about how Yaakov bred and increased his flock of sheet al pi the Torah. This is a repost of my previous postings about how this breed of sheep has continued to this day and have been brought to Eretz Yisrael to thrive.

ISRAELI SHEPHERDESS USES MODERN SHEEP BREED TO REVIVE ANCIENT SHOFAR SOUND

Turning her flock's horns into shofars is part of God's plan, says Lewinsky, who calls herself a "traditional and God-fearing Jew.”

Jacob sheep in Ramot Naftali, Israel, February 21, 2018.
Picture taken February 21, 2018. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

RAMOT NAFTALI, Israel - The piercing note of a shofar - a ram's horn used in Jewish religious ceremonies - cuts through the mountain air of the Galilee.

Here in northern Israel, shepherdess Jenna Lewinsky is raising a flock of Jacob Sheep, pictured here, as a religious calling.

With anything up to six horns on each animal, the breed is ideally suited for the manufacture of the horn traditionally blown during the Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

The spotted breed of Jacob Sheep was bred in England in the 17th and 18th centuries, and this flock was brought to Israel from Canada by Lewinsky in 2016.

But sheep have been recorded since antiquity across the Middle East, and the modern breed's name echoes the ancient Biblical story from Genesis in which the patriarch Jacob took "every speckled and spotted sheep" as wages from his father-in-law, Laban.

Turning her flock's horns into shofars is part of God's plan, says Lewinsky, who calls herself a "traditional and God-fearing Jew.”

"The Jacob Sheep horns can probably be processed anywhere in the world but what makes the horns special is that we are processing them in Israel, which gives them a holiness," she said.

Robert Weinger, a shofar-maker who works with the horns from Lewinsky's farm, said that a ram's horn made from the breed can sell for $500 to $20,000 or more, depending on its sound quality, as it produces a wider range of musical notes than other shofars.


Source: JPost as sourced from Reuters.

Visit Reuters for a great slide show of the Jacob Sheep.