Michele Mandel and Renee Seidman, co-founders and owners of the Bergenfield needlepoint store Gone Stitching, developed their love for stitching in different ways —Mandel through classes taken as an adult, and Seidman as a child who “grew up around it. My mother was a master quilter, and she and my grandmother did some kind of handwork every night,” she said.

Close your eyes,” Paramus resident Sue Ann Kogan told some 40 seniors at Temple Beth Tikvah in Wayne. “What do you hear?” With that, her husband entered carrying milk bottles and ringing a bell.

For several years Englewood resident and classical pianist Carolyn Enger studied Hebrew with Israeli Jonathan Sternberg, who spent three years teaching in New York and New Jersey. (He’s back in Tel Aviv.) Now Enger is editing the English text on Sternberg’s new Website, which draws upon his experience to teach Hebrew through the use of podcasts and PDF transcripts.

High Holiday cards are big business, according to the Greeting Card Association, which reports that millions of Rosh HaShanah cards are sent out each year.

As part of its L’Chayim To Life! brand, American Greetings this year has 35 distinct Rosh HaShanah cards, according to Pam Fink, senior editor of the L’Chayim line and its primary writer.

Noting that families tend to gather on the holidays, Paula Gellis, a family therapist whose Oradell-based practice, Relatively Speaking, brings her into daily contact with parents and children, says “if you’re going to step on your tongue, it’s the right time.”