Tzedek-Tzedek is a powerful blog that confronts really difficult issues Israel faces today. I appreciate the writing as well as the courage of the topics. I think this piece, about fires recently started in Israel, is a disturbing and important one, but I always wonder about giving more publicity to shameful behavior in the religious Jewish world. http://tzedek-tzedek.blogspot.com/2010/05/grave-and-burning-issue.html. This would be a sad, sad example of Abbas getting his way. Our democracy not at work.
According to this one source, Obama is losing his ground with American Jewish voters. http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=176051. The article juxtaposes two polls to suggest that the shift in support is due to the shift in support for Obama’s Middle East policies. I don’t believe there has been a dramatic transformation, and that suddenly Israel has become a primary reason for US Jewish votes for either party. So I wonder how much of the shift really has anything to do with Israel, and if as little as I suspect, then why the shift? Is it sadly just “the economy, stupid”?
On a much lighter note, I resisted watching this youtube video when my friends all posted it. Then I watched it. And then I posted it on twitter and facebook. So if any of you haven’t gotten it yet, or resisted it like me, please watch. A young mother from Kansas City and her husband went looking for “truth” while in Kansas City, and found Judaism. Then on vacation in Israel, she felt it was a safer place to raise her kids than the violent streets of her former home. The cynic in me is pretty sure the story is being played up more than a little for the ratings of Israel’s American Idol, “Kochav Nolad”. But it is still a feel-good story. Here is my question: if American Jews had to live in worse neighborhoods would they finally learn how safe and peaceful Israel is for children too?
Lastly, I want to make a shameless plug for Natural Jewish Parenting. Not the philosophy, the magazine and web site. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Apparently there are a bunch of us “freaks” out there, scattered in each community…
My house is full of books. Overflowing, in fact. Kids’ books, adult books, baby books, Jewish books, science books, magazines. They are literally bursting out of every shelf on every floor of the house. Most of them were hand-me-downs, or gifts from my generous parents. Some are yard sale and “freecycling” finds. I don’t pay retail for books. Retail for books? But there are libraries out there!
Every month my children come home from school with a Scholastic Book Club Order Form. Not only are they told they have a deadline to bring it back, and that there are cheapo toys offered with 1/3 of the offerings, but they are also informed that the school gets books from the company if we order…. all of which is, of course, reflected in the price of the books. Five kids with order forms every month. And I resist. I do. I recommend that my children take a good look at the bookshelf in their room and select 20 books to discard. This usually solves the problem. Sometimes, I give them a “maybe” when the pleas are strong, and then they forget about it. One of those “maybes” led last week to this from one of my 9 yos:
“Dearest Ima,
I really love you and I am so grateful and you get me so much stuff I want, so much things!
You once said I could have one book from the book order. I am pretty sure this is the last book order. I really really want one book. Please can I have it?
I’ll be happy with anything you say about it, ”
Now please tell me that you would be able to say no?!?
Today I was blessed to attend a fabulous class by Rabbi Aba Wagensberg of Israel. I went to a beautiful brunch (a spread of food prepared by others), learned beautiful Torah from a wonderful Rabbi, and had the honor of driving him to his next destination, with an uninterrupted 90 minutes to talk to him. (I am proud to count him as a client of my firm at the moment.)
After some adorable homemade cards, a breakfast I didn’t want and adorable hugs, I ran past the DISASTER of a kitchen filled with the supplies used to make the adorable homemade cards and the breakfast I didn’t want, and left. By myself. I spent the majority of the day not mothering, which was the best Mother’s day gift I could have asked for. Sorry if that makes me sound like a terrible Ima, but this year that is what I needed.
The topic of the class was “Coping with Pain and Suffering”. Rabbi Wagensberg reminded me that everything that we are given is precisely what we need in order to help us become the best person we can be.
But this is also true for everyone we are given; our spouses and our children are just the challenges Hashem knows that we need to learn and grow. While he was addressing the serious, hard sufferings of this world people must deal with, I was also reminded on Mother’s Day that my children are the most amazing gifts in more ways than one. They do teach me so much, and help me grow. Each one is an awesome responsibility and often a huge enigma. But gifts. Not only for all of the good and wonderful things they do, but for the acting up, acting out, and just plain stumping me that occurs on a regular basis.
Having “abandoned” them for almost the entire day, sure enough my re-entry was met with a sudden list of traumas, complaints, boo-boos and of course “we’re starving“…..
…. thank you, Hashem, for the Mother’s Day gifts……
We were invited to be guests in someone else’s home this past Shabbat. That’s right, 8 out of the 9 of us picked up and moved in with another family for Shabbat. This very brave, gracious family has twelve – yes twelve – children. Don’t worry; only ten of them were home.
We don’t go away very often, especially for Shabbat. We rarely go out for Shabbat meals locally in our own community. It is truly a lot of work, and usually easier to stay home. Not only is it invariably someone’s bed or nap time during a meal, but my picky eaters will usually come home from a meal telling me they are starving, so I have to make food anyway.
This last week was an intense work week for me, and my thinking was that with 10 children home (ages 22-3) there would be mess, chaos, noise and lots of food without my having to worry that it was all caused by my family. I also brought sleeping bags and pillows for my kids. The thought of anyone having to do double the amount of laundry I do just makes me woozy.
We had a fabulous, fabulous time. Two things struck me: 1. There was far more unanimous happiness and joy than there ever is at any “family outing”, which usually take more money and a lot more effort. 2. Being a host is good for a person, but so is being a guest.
We spent our Shabbat away in Lakewood, NJ, a black hat (or haredi) community, if not THE haredi community in the US. (Forgive me, Monsey). The community as a whole observes Judaism in a lot of subtle little ways that are sharply different from our family.
One great thing about coming outside of our home, our neighborhood, our comfort zone, was to have a different role. In this case, mine was blissfully passive! Another was to get a new perspective. We didn’t just glimpse a different Judaism, we discussed it. We asked, we compared. We got a taste of something else.
When I was younger and single I encountered so many different Jews with different views on Torah and halacha. I saw and experienced such a wonderful range of minhagim (family traditions) and opinions. Then I settled down, had a family, and wanted to build a wonderful consistency for them. The break from that consistency was wonderful, and allowed us to understand a piece of Klal Yisrael just a little better.
Another wonderful thing about being a guest is seeing different styles in parenting. It is obviously clearer during a 26 hour visit than a two hour one. It is wonderful to digest what one can learn from others and to break the routine to the point where things aren’t happening by rote so that maybe you can “see” them.
There are some who claim that communities like Lakewood are insular, judgmental, close-minded, etc. Perhaps I am not looking for such negativity so I am not finding it. But I must say that the warmth and kindness from everyone I met was just amazing. It is obvious to anyone there that I am an outsider who does things differently. I was greeted much more warmly than I have been in some other places. (As I always have been whenever in Lakewood.) By being there, I could ask questions, as so many people ask me, about why things are done the way they are. And as with so many other things in the Torah, the answers are often simple and beautiful, just with a perspective I didn’t previously have.
The informal and extensive hospitality is one of the many things I miss about Israel. I was recently told that travelling to another’s home routinely means bringing one’s own linens. I bet that helps a lot.
I also enjoy being a host(ess) for many of the same reasons. I love hearing a different person’s story, their point of view, their Jewish journey. (I think this particular part I owe to many meals at Alan and Bonnie Cohen’s home opposite the Old City of Jerusalem. One of the many things I owe them…) I like the new “flavors” that different people bring to our meals. It isn’t always easy to be the host, especially if you feel compelled to make a certain kind of impression. (Of course I have never felt that way.) It is often easier to keep things routine, just family; simple. I have never been known for preferring easier for its own sake.
It isn’t always easy to invite a whole family into your home, especially overnight. Nor is it ever easy, I think, to travel somewhere with six of your own. But the experience was so very worth it, and I feel invigorated not only by the rest of letting someone else “make shabbos”, but by the fresh perspective and the watching and listening.
….. I will just have to hope that someone else, at some point in time, is crazy enough to once again invite all of us to be guests.
My role as a stepmother isn’t a subject that I have blogged about much. My stepson is 16, and I remember being pretty embarrassed by just about everything my parents said and did when I was sixteen. I especially hated it when they talked about me to their friends.
The truth is that to be a non-custodial stepparent who is religious is lonely. There are almost no forums, communities, books or resources. Much of what applies in the non-Jewish world doesn’t translate, and most of the books I have seen address being a custodial stepparent. When I wanted some help navigating the road I am on, I looked in every place on line and in the library that I could think of. Nothing.
It is as if the publishers out there make the same mistake as a lot of other people that I don’t have to parent much, or work hard, or focus energy on my stepson because he doesn’t live with me.
Of course the opposite is true! There are many times where more patience, energy, work, skill, communication…. in short parenting, is required because he doesn’t live with me. And of course I don’t love him less than my other children. I do love him differently, but I love each of them differently. Each relationship is unique.
The difference isn’t in my unconditional love – it is that my unconditional love for him is one way. His loving me conditionally is a result of lots of different factors. I could say that it is “normal” for a stepchild, but I don’t think one can generalize in this case. There are stepchildren who freely adore their stepparent. Hold on to them as a buouy of sanity in their lives. There are stepchildren who simply don’t love their stepparents at all. And everything in between. But the love, conditional as it may be, is just that, LOVE. And sometimes I am amazed that he lets himself love me, given loyalty issues and other factors in his life.
At another time I would like to describe all of the ways that I think the one-way unconditional love makes me a better parent for my whole family. It has made me a better person. Loving, and giving with no illusions of control is freeing. It is a challenge, but it is freeing, and strength-building.
I cannot sum up the complex relationship filled with challenges and love that I have with my stepson in one blog post. In fact, it is a book’s worth of stuff that I will try to write someday. (Maybe when he is old enough to not be mortified by such a thing.)
Most of the parenting issues we have now are 99% about being sixteen and 1% about being a step-relationship. Which is great! But I never know when it is one or the other, and I am often insecure and don’t have enough confidence in that ratio. I keep learning the lesson over and over again.
Tonight there was pushing away, and pushing away, and pushing away: ” I don’t want to commit to following up with that. I can’t come that day. I don’t want to talk about it. Nothing new is in my life, I mean it. I don’t know when I will have them. Yeah yeah, okay, etc.”
…. and then “Yeah, I would prefer it if you packed me a lunch for school tomorrow, if it is okay.”
And in one instant, I feel needed, I feel loved. : )
My two year old broke his leg a little less than a month ago. It was traumatic (mostly for me) and painful (for both of us) and I didn’t blog about it at the time because I was not really interested in explaining how it happened. I am still not. (Sorry.)
In fact, not satisfying people’s curiosity about the circumstances was something completely new for me, and I was rather proud of myself! I have never been one of those people that could just leave people hanging without the story they so want to hear. This time I had good reasons, which I explained were why he “just fell”, and moved on. Some people really didn’t like that. But it was liberating for me, and yet one more sign that this is really the year I have gotten older.
When the little guy got his cast he was so cautious, and just sat and whimpered until we came over to carry him from place to place. After a couple of days he was scooching on his tush. Then crawling with the cast. By the beginning of week three he was climbing on and off the furniture, dancing, running, jumping – even on beds – and moving so fast and so well that I couldn’t get a diaper on him.
Today he sauntered into the orthopedic surgeon’s office with such cast-finesse that the experienced surgeon was shocked.
They decided they had to take it off to get the x-ray they wanted in order to check his progress. Off it came. I sat with the baby in my lap, cradling him in my arms. He immediately recognized “Luke” (who was just amazing, by the way) and started screaming. This was the horrible man who had put him in the thing! Now, this same person was coming towards him with a small electric circular saw. Can you imagine the scene?
Of course the little guy couldn’t understand the freedom he was getting. He couldn’t understand the kindness being done to him. He was just scared and upset.
The x-ray showed a miraculously and completely healed leg bone, and they left the cast off. As he sat there with a completely healthy leg, he refused to step on it or use it in any way, never mind walk. Of course he has to readjust, and I wouldn’t push him. He will get back to being a crazy monkey, eventually, just like he did with the cast on.
By this evening he hesitantly stood and limped along using both legs, declaring “yay feet!”.
But I had a real revelation today about our human nature as I sat holding my terrified little baby getting freed from his bondage.
There are so many times that we cling for dear life to whatever it is that has most recently become familiar. Even if it is itchy and “weighs us down”, it is what we know. And since it is what we know that is how we want to move, run, dance – even if life could be lighter, easier, faster and smoother, we resist the adjustment process itself. We are just like Hashem’s scared little 2 year old, having no idea that this scary circular saw coming at us is really truly “l’tova“, for the good.
I am happy this moment came during the counting of the Omer. This is our personal and national ascent in spiritual heights to become the person we need to be in order to personally receive the Torah on Shavuot. I know that at least for me, this will definitely have to involve casting off some shackles of my own, and learning to walk again.
I seem to have hit a selfish phase lately. I think it has been brought on, like most things, by a combination of factors. I am not saying it like it’s a bad thing, it just is.
Pesach was a long two weeks of break from school, with my husband spending a lot of the time home.
For some reason I have yet to understand, something happens to me in my subconscious when my littlest ones turn 2. It is as if an alarm goes off in my body that screams “enough!”. I give a lot of time and attention to my kids, not as much as some, but a lot. I nursed a lot of my kids until 2 or close to it. And after two years (not even including pregnancy) of giving up so many of my own needs and desires, I get restless. I think the restlessness is good. It helps me allow my children to become more independent and grow.
So, with all of these reasons brewing, I have taken half of a day off for a massage and manicure / pedicure. I have taken naps when I feel like it, including at 7 pm. I have planned an overnight trip, on the weekend, without my family, just to spend time with friends. (I can’t wait!)
I am sure that many of you cannot see what the big deal is. “Me time” is an important given for many. But it hasn’t always been easy for me. My guess is that moms of a large number of kids are a self-selecting group for whom this is often true.
I know the old idea that I am taking care of my family by taking care of me. It doesn’t go down that way with the troops in my house. Especially since taking care of me lately means getting away from them. : )
I have mentioned before that this year I am feeling older – and wiser. I think the selfishness is part of that unfolding wisdom.
It isn’t that I haven’t done things for myself before. The selfish phases do come.
More often then not, when I have a child that has recently turned two.
It’s my birthday today. It is both my English and Hebrew birthday. Since the Hebrew calendar syncs with the Roman one every 19 years, I am either 19, 38, or 57 today. I will let you guess.
I don’t really expect or enjoy much fanfare on my birthday. I remember my 30th, because I spent it in bed with a stomach flu. The rest past about 16 are pretty unmemorable, and that’s okay with me.
For me, birthdays are a day for reflection and gratitude. (And handmade cards from my kids.)
This year, my 10 yo made me a beautiful necklace, with her Safta’s help, without my knowing, and managed to keep it a surprise. I am pretty impressed, but I am also bracing myself that my kids are getting older as well, and in a much more dramatic fashion than I.
When I was just turning 31, my neighbor and close friend told me how great it was to be in her 40’s. I thought she was CRAZY. I didn’t want to be getting any closer to 40 myself. But she said that her 40’s were about implementing the wisdom she spent her 20’s and 30’s accumulating.
That was very little consolation to me on that younger side of my thirties. Didn’t sound attractive to me at all. Now as I get closer by one more year, I totally get what she meant.
This year is about starting a very new chapter in my life. While I generally don’t rely on any plans I make, we don’t expect to be having more children. And that has never been true before since I got married. And the ones we have aren’t a household full of little ones any longer. I am also adjusting to my new work life. Conveniently for me it comes at a time that my schedule is minimized so I can prepare for Pesach, clean,feel the renewal of spring, and contemplate.
Now if I can just make this the year I get a decent figure back, and get in shape!!!
Pesach is my favorite holiday, with perhaps the exception of Shabbat. It is also the time of year I miss Israel most, but that is for another post.
Funnily, I think Purim is consistently my least favorite. But I love Pesach. As with most things, I don’t think it is for any one specific reason. I love that spring is coming. I love sending the kids outside. I love to cook. I love the children’s enthusiasm for the seder. I probably wouldn’t like the preparations as much if I had to use china and then clean it, or if I had to bake a lot of Pesach desserts. I don’t bake during Pesach. No one likes the way most of it tastes, and I have never gotten my family hooked on the good stuff, so they don’t really know what they are missing.
….I also love Pesach cleaning.
Every year I am reminded, along with everyone else, that “Pesach cleaning doesn’t mean you have to do Spring cleaning”. But I love spring cleaning. I am sure this is because I hire myself help to do it with.
I love the fact that for the spring cleaning part I only have to get through as much as I get through. I love the lack of clutter, the putting things in a place. Giving things away we no longer use. A fresher smelling, feeling house.
My office usually gets crammed with chametz/non pesach stuff I can’t fit anywhere else and locked up for the week of Pesach. Sold. As a result, it is the least cleaned room in the house. This year I did that first, and I just love the feeling. I actually want to go in my office again. I am perfectly aware that we aren’t eating in there, and that the beads on the floor aren’t crumbs. Still, the cobwebs and dust are gone, the lost checkbook found, and I can move on to cleaning actual chametz with a better feeling.
Check back next week as Pesach gets closer; most likely more of the last minute stress will be getting to me and my back won’t feel quite as good.
In the meantime, the sun is shining after two days of floods and storms and doom and gloom and all the stray lego lost in 10 rooms is slowly making its way home.
If my life had a theme it would be the old Yiddish expression “man plans, G-d laughs”. When I wrote my last blog post I was quite sure at an early hour how the day would go. I had been there before, and confidently typed out my plans for the day….
… I hadn’t counted on catching the stomach bug my 4 yo had just finished dealing with. Soon after publishing my blog post and immediately after eating a small meal, I knew that the day wouldn’t go as planned.
By late afternoon I had summoned my husband to work from home. By early evening… you don’t want any details of what went on early evening.
I lost all of that day and the next day, too. Turns out the recovery from such stomach bugs can be worse than the bug itself, as your muscles all try to recover from working backwards.
I cancelled my dss’s time to be with us that day in an effort to spare him similar agony. I almost never, ever cancel his time with us. I don’t like the message it sends. Luckily, at 15, he voluntarily opted to come the next day instead. Readers, please remind me of that when I am not having a great stepmom day.
I am now two days behind in both work and Shabbat preparations, and needless to say my Pesach prep will have to happen next week. That is what I get for so confidently declaring how my day would go.
While I was sick, I thought to myself that this was actually worse than labor. At least with labor while my insides are turning inside out I know there is something wonderful coming out of it.
The following day, while I lay there feeling like my guts had been run over a few times, losing patience with my recovery time, I became flooded with gratitude for my problems. My husband was able to work from home. My illness wasn’t going to be a long term one, didn’t require a hospital stay, or lots of chesed from my community (little bits, for which I am also grateful.)
It occurred to me that when their children whine that they “want their Ima back” after one day of being sick, those Imas can’t really give them what they want and need, and how difficult and sad that must be.
I thought about this because most of my children came to me while I lay in bed, one by one, and told me that they “really, really, really didn’t want me to be sick.”Because my incapacitation was causing them to suffer. While I appreciate being valued and needed as the Ima in the family, I am looking forward to their maturing to the point where they can realize that Imas need compassion and sympathy too.
Of course then I realized that while I give my children compassion and sympathy, I really didn’t when the little one was actually sick!
The night the 4yo was up sick I lay in bed incredibly grateful that my husband was taking care of it all. Next time, now that I have lived through it I think I will drag my tired self up to make sure I give some soothing words and some hugs in the middle of the night.
