We just received “The Shabbat Box” by Lesley Simpson from the PJ Library program. If you aren’t signed up for the program, you should be. The program is only available through certain Jewish Federations, but it allows you to enroll your child 0-8 years old to receive a Jewish book (or CD) once a month. We have been exposed to a lot of wonderful material that my family – and community – is enjoying.
One of these days we will campaign the Princeton-Mercer Bucks Federation to get their act together and join the program. It is really a terrible shame.
Back to “The Shabbat Box”. It is wonderful. I LOVE THIS BOOK. I love the concept. I love the story, and I really love the fact that the content and pictures truly are accessible and relevant to any Jew regardless of their background or affiliation.
For the most amazing follow up to the book I could imagine, please look at this Homeshuling blog post. I truly hope to be half as talented and forthright about implementing the concept… maybe when it gets warm outside.
I also hope our local school and hebrew school will create and use a Shabbat box as well.
This is just the kind of children’s book I really hope to write one day.
Hope you are able to find the book and buy it or borrow it.
1. Peel a clementine/tangerine. If you start it, they can peel off the rest. It gives you more time, and they are sooo happy, with a yummy reward for a job well done.
2. Putting the silverware from the dishwasher basket into the drawer. So it won’t be sorted properly. You can always do that later. Just take out sharp knives first.
3. Turn off the lights in their room at bedtime. Very empowering.
4. Put their own shoes on the right shelf, in the right drawer, or in the right closet.
5. Push the stoller… okay maybe only for fives steps, but still.
6. Get out of the car, once mobile. They like the extra time it takes once you have taken them out of the car seat to climbing out of the car — sometimes it is a lot of extra time.
7. Putting the groceries into the back of the cart. (Bet you already knew this one.)
8. Play with push pins. No; it isn’t too dangerous. Tlhey can put them into the top (or side) of a cardboard box, especially if you do it first and make holes. Great for their dexterity, and keeps them busy and out of trouble for a number of minutes. Works best when they are in a high chair, so you don’ t have to worry about push pins everywhere. They also get that the ends are sharp, and avoid them. This is also a great lesson. Not for every kid, I admit.
9. Sprinkle on cinnamon and sugar. I use this instead of honey and syrup on food. Much less sugar. They love to do it themselves. A one year old can sprinkle it on unsweetened apple sauce without any help.
10. I was waiting to post this until I came up with a tenth. But I think it would be more fun if you sent me your suggestions….
... and how do I get this off, exactly?
I like the idea of hiding my housework from myself…. in theory.
In what has to be the all time highlight in my career as a mom, this morning I have managed to melt plastic all over my oven:
what I wasn't able to scoop out, soft, with a wooden spoon...
Someone in my community taught me this great secret she learned from our rebbetzin; if you can’t stand looking at the larger pots and pans that are dirty for all of Shabbat, hide them in the oven.
First of all, if you are lucky enough to have two dishwashers then you usually won’t have this problem. You can hide everything in there. We have one dishwasher, and it is dairy because we eat so much more dairy during the week.
Second, if you are going to use this little trick you have to either: make sure to wash your dirty dishes motzei Shabbat instead of relaxing, hanging out, or just being tired; or at least have to have the presence of mind to NOT TURN IT ON UNTIL YOU HAVE TAKEN THINGS BACK OUT.
Come to think of it, one probably should have the sechel (wisdom) not to put a plastic cutting board in the oven to store, ever, no matter how messy the kitchen is, or how much it bothers you.
I would love to tell you that this is the very first time I have preheated an oven and then realized I had left things in there. I wish it were the second time, or even the third. This is the first time I have ever been stupid enough to put a plastic object in there, never mind forget about it completely.
I think the holy and wise rebbetzin who uses this trick to hide her pots and pans is much older than me, gets a full night sleep, and has older children who help her DO the dishes motzei Shabbat instead of hiding them and leaving them there.
Now my house smells like melted, toxic plastic. I have no idea how I can safely burn the goo off without causing my home to become a toxic hazard too dangerous for my own children. I have no doubt it is going to be one of those lessons I have learned the hard way, with a lot of time, money and energy wasted.
Truly, mother of the year. : (
PS – if I figure out how to safely get rid of it all, I will write an update.
I saw an article posted today titled “5 Keys to Your Child’s Happiness.”
It was posted by newtips4mamas (twitter) but is found on Oprah.com: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/5-Keys-to-Your-Childs-Happiness/print/1
So states the title, the article is about 5 keys to having happy children. What I find interesting is the research at the beginning of the article that states that a huge majority of parents in 67 (!) countries wish happiness for their children far above all else.
And with my regular level of chutzpah, I think they are getting it wrong.
Or rather, I think the Torah instructs Jewish parents to take a different view, with a different priority.
We need to raise kids to be good, not happy. We need to raise children to do the right thing, to be good and to do good. There are many, many, many times in life that doing that which is right and good does not make us happy.
My husband brought this concept up to me years ago, quoting Dennis Prager as his source. Prager has an article on raising good children in his book Think a Second Time. (As a side note, I don’t agree with lots of things Dennis Prager says, particularly his views on plastic surgery, but about this I think he is on the mark.)
He writes: ” The problem with regard to parents raising good children is not that most parents don’t want their children to be good people. It is that few parents actually make their child’s goodness their primary concern. Most parents are more concerned with their child’s being a brilliant student or a good athlete or a successful professional. ” (pp. 36-7)
Maybe what he would say today is that based on Oprah’s research, most parents are more concerned with their child being happy.
There is something deeper than happy, and I am not sure what one would term it in English. In Hebrew, there are several words for “happy”. Sameach, merutzeh, mapsut, .. . there are more. One of them is to feel “shalem”, which means whole, complete, at peace. I think this kind of happy comes from doing and being good. From knowing your source. Knowing your purpose.
But not immediately. It doesn’t make a young child happy or shalem or anything other than pretty mad to have to share, wait, give instead of take, act selflessly, etc.
However, by raising our children in a Torah path, to be serving our creator and living by the rules of right and wrong contained within halacha, we are training them to be good.
One of the mitzvot contained in that halacha… is to be happy. Not the happy described in the article on Oprah’s website. Not the “I am the most loved, most special, most tended to child” kind of happy… the happy of purpose, of meaning, of being good – and knowing why.
Of course I want my children to be happy. Of course I want them to experience more joy than sorrow and to feel the words of “Modeh Ani” right down to their bones every single morning. But I just don’t agree with the apparently thousands+ of parents they seem to have polled that this is the number one priority, number one wish.
I will suffer on the side as they experience the nisyonot, challenges, that Hashem sends their way. I will hope that they can see all of those future challenges as gam zu l’tovah – Hashem’s will, and ultimately for the good.
I will continue to prioritize their childhood being a development of their goodness… and hope and pray that with it, from it and through it….comes happiness.
I went to two public high schools. One in CT, and one in MA – we moved when I was 16, which is just about the worst time in your life to move. Except for maybe 17.
The former HS has scheduled a reunion for this summer, and thanks to the amazing wonders of Facebook I am now in the loop enough to be invited despite my lack of status as a graduate.
However, many months before I go I find myself already feeling like I am back in High School.
I didn’t grow up Orthodox, or anywhere close. But in our little, waspy, very Connecticut town I was the closest thing to a super frummy Jew anyone encountered. And opportunities to let me know were almost never passed up.
I stayed out of school the second day of Rosh Hashanah (gasp!). I took my PSAT’s on a Tuesday instead of Saturday. I had a kosher house, missed play practice for Hebrew School, wrote school essays on Jewish topics, and explained to many of classes things like “why it is offensive for the history teacher to tell everyone that the Jews killed Jesus”.
I didn’t mind being the “super Jew” of the school. I didn’t love it either. I wasn’t allowed to date non-Jews, which didn’t help the situation much. I faced that particular problem by finding out where the Jewish boys were – USY – and going there. I only found out months into high school that while I was off at USY events most weekends the kids in my school assumed I was home studying like a big nerd because I wasn’t at their parties. I am quite sure that misconception wasn’t cleared up for most.
Many years later I have reconnected with a lot of people from that little town where I grew up. I didn’t get to see the end of everyone’s school story because of the move, and most of us had been together straight through since kindergarten. I have been hoping there will be a reunion.
There was a posting that a reunion (twenty years already) is being planned. A poll went out by the event organizer about what dates and times will work best for people. I wrote in my response that Saturday day would be out of the question for me so I would strongly prefer a Sunday event, but I would love to come and will do my best to participate in whatever parts of the weekend I can. In other words “gee, I would really love it if you could make special accomodations because of my religion, but when you don’t I will smile and come along anyhow.” — Just like in high school.
Then the response to the poll was sent out and the event is going to be on a Saturday. I hope to go Saturday night. With my head covered, my long skirt, my children with their Hebrew names, and if I am really lucky, some horrid kosher airline food brought in for me. I will feel like “super Jew” all over again, just like in high school.
When I was growing up, I was very proud of my Judaism and I definitely wore it on my sleeve. I was responsible for that impression, even though I truly didn’t consciously encourage it. At the same time, I was a lot of things; a musician, a good student, an actress, a friend, a troubled teen, an activist, and a student council member. And yet I always felt that my peers didn’t see that. All they saw was “super Jew”.
Now it is half a year before a reunion I have always wanted to attend. I am not worried about the weight I have gained. I was heavy when I left there, and most people are unaware of how much thinner I got in between. I wasn’t one of the “pretty ones”, and back then I didn’t care. I still am not one of the “pretty ones”, and I still don’t care.
I am happy with and proud of my choices, my family, my career, and my Jewish growth and development. But I fear that I will walk in the room and all of those people will still only see “super Jew” — just like in high school.
I am trying something new this year. I am now what I like to call a “work at home” mom. I am working as a PR consulant part time, from home. I also am home full time with my 1 1/2 year old son.
while the other six are in school during the day, that only gives me until 3:30 to work until basically 9 pm, when bedtime is over.
(I also carve out time for teaching early childhood Jewish music classes and some Torah learning.)
I have remained a “stay at home” mom for almost the entirety of the preschoolers-rearing stage — a long ten years. I am glad that I did, and it has always been because I felt it what was best for my kids. I even kept everyone home for a year, with 3 preschoolers and a baby having “Gan Ima” all day every day. (The horror others had that I was “homeschooling” my children who were all too young to technically be in school is for another post.)
But being home with my kids full time was always a struggle for me. I don’t enjoy going to the playground for hours. I don’t like fingerpaint. I don’t enjoy sitting on the floor with one cute little child and playing trains. Certainly not as much as I liked working. I LOVED working. I enjoyed my career. When I gave it up, it was never forever and it was never really completely. I found fulfillment in event planning or article writing within my Jewish community instead of for an employer. I joined the shul board, founded a Jewish girl scout troop… lots of activities to keep me busy and engaged at certain elements of my career.
Two years I began working again outside of volunteering. Very, very part time, and all from home. At first pregnant, with a sitter for my toddler. Then, with a little baby around. It wasn’t so complicated. He loved to nurse and sleep, and those things made it easy for me to squeeze in work. And parts of my brain started to buzz with activity again.
Now I have developed a business and a client base. (I happen to love the clients I have now.) My little one is a lot less little, and I find myself doing a challenging juggling act I never really attempted when my other children were this young.
A friend who has her children in the same school was laid off this year, and is having a go at consulting, and also at trying to be a “work at home” mom. Her little one is younger than mine, and still a tad easier. (He will catch up soon enough, I have no doubt)
“G” & and I are trying an experiment; we are going to try to work in the same house 2 – 3 days a week while the little ones play, sleep, whine, make messes, etc. The idea is to have a mother’s helper here with us, share the expense, be with our children, while successfully earning money.
When my now ten year old was 18 months I would have never made it past the guilt to such a plan. I needed to be spending my days at mommy and me, music classes, gymnastics for toddlers, and water babies — which very pregnant with twins was quite a picture, believe me.
Now, I am a different woman, ten years older with a lot more experience and confidence. Those classes were fun, but she didn’t need them. What she needed, and what my little one needs now is a happy, healthy, focused, centered mommy who can give her little one(s) attention and love with a whole heart and mind. She didn’t really like those classes any more than she liked the park. It was “Ima time” no matter how you sliced it, made it fancy, added programming, or spent a lot of money on it.
I am hoping that I can find the perfect balance for this child and for me – his Ima – at this stage. The experiment with his friend, my friend, a sitter and two laptops all in one house is a new one, and you will have to follow me in seeing if it works.
But I can tell you that I nurse him to sleep while writing letters and articles. I take a break between skype calls and emails to nuzzle his neck and tickle him like crazy and even to play with trains a little…. and so far, it is the most fun I have had being home.
Now if I can just find a way to get the 20 weekly loads of laundry done in the mix……….
I was asked by the local outreach organization to teach a “lunch and learn” class on Tu B’Shvat this past Shabbat. I heartily agreed because I love what they do and love to help them do it. I love to teach and jump at every chance to do so (there aren’t that many). I have been running a women’s Tu B’Shvat seder at the same location for the past four years, and as a result have ended up learning quite a great deal about the holiday.
However, once I had a chance to stop and think about it, I realized that this would be the first time I was teaching a shiur to a mixed crowd. I teach lots of mixed crowds – religious and not religious – but never men and women together. My rebbetzin – who would never agree to do such a thing – gave me a look that read “give me a break”. My husband gave me same look, but even stronger.
I am not shy or in anyway less than completely outspoken in mixed company. I have “addressed” mixed audiences before in the same location… but not as a teacher of a Torah shiur. Not for an hour and a half. I have taken gemara shiurim for women. I studied at Drisha. I had a Rabbi (the brilliant Rabbi David Aaron) speak under my chuppah, but was adamant that I wanted a woman – the incredible Rabbanit Chana Henkin – to speak at the wedding…. so no wonder they gave a look that said “give me a break”, right?
I wrote as my title that I am not a feminist. I am a strong sexist, and a huge fan of womankind.
What I do not support, however, is the idea that we are the same as men in any way, that Hashem wants us to have similar roles in any way, and that male opportunities can and should be given to women wherever and whenever possible. (Even when speaking within the boundaries of halacha.) That is my understanding of what feminism is, and so that makes me not a feminist.
Here’s the thing; I think that women are better at just about everything under the sun than men. Maybe not lifting huge weights or playing football. But if we needed to, we would find a wiser way of getting both of those things done. I have seen and heard and read numerous studies on how women use more parts of their brain. I have read shiurim on how the limitations put on women in Orthodoxy are because we are “exempt” and not because we are “prohibited”. Why do more things than you have to in order to connect to G-d? Why not perfect instead what you do need to do?
My experience of egalitarianism in Judaism is the equivalent of the best behaved child in the school fighting for decades for the right to stay after school in detention.
I once had a dream of becoming a Cantor. I had amazing role models, education and experience to pursue such a thing. My choice to sit behind a mechitza is not because I feel a desire to be subjugated. It comes from a true sense of superiority – not the opposite.
Years ago, I sat in a session at the GA – the General Assembly of the UJA. In this session they were discussing a new crisis in the Hebrew Union College’s Rabbinical program. According to the panel, as the percentage of enrolled female students neared 50, the enrollment of males just started drastically dropping off. The woman on the panel went on to describe studies that had been done in other industries, and cited the same phenomenon in the secular world. Men fled the nursing profession when women began entering it in equal numbers. The rise in female enrollment in medical school, at least according to the panel member, was having the same effect.
This would seem to be data that agrees with the way a sexist Orthodox Jewish structure was explained to me. Women can be rabbis; they can be great rabbis…. but what does that do to the men? There is something in the male psyche and makeup that doesn’t like competing in anything against women.
And I think the sages understood that much better than contemporary secular society would like to.
I know there are some that believe that this is about evolving and growing beyond such primitive and unfair inclinations, but I don’t buy it. If you believe in G-d, and you believe (he) made man and woman the way he did for a reason, then I believe you need to conclude that the differences are not to be ignored or squashed, but acknowledged, celebrated and worked with.
…. So I believe all of that, and still gave this shiur in front of a bunch of men. G-d must have a wonderful sense of humor. Someone in our community had a baby, and while baby and Ima stayed in the hospital, many family members came for the shalom zachor and to lend a hand. From Brooklyn and from Lakewood. With very black hats on their heads. And these family members decided to stay for the ‘lunch and learn’.
Mixed learning in our community, taught by a woman at times, isn’t unusual or controversial. So the issue was with me, and my comfort level. Now, I was dealing with men in my audience who had never (they told me) listened to a shiur by a woman in their lives. So apparently, I was making some statement or stand anyway.
I would love to hear from my readers if my next move was cowardly; I asked the proud new father of said baby to get up and read the Gemara section (the first part of Masechet Rosh Hashana, in the Mishna) that is our first mention of Tu B’Shvat. The truth is he is a wonderful Rebbe in the school and he did a much better job at reading and explaining it than I ever could have. I am quite sure that there is no halachic distinction at all whatsoever between my teaching the class and my reading that Gemara. But I couldn’t do it.
The rest of the shiur I chose to enjoy. After all, no one made anyone stay, or indicated that it would be rude for them to leave. They could have eaten and then left. They chose to be there. They complimented me afterwards. I take comfort in the fact that I seriously doubt that any of the black hat men have ever heard much of anything about Tu B’Shvat at all whatsoever. Certainly not why the kabbalists made a Tu B’Shvat seder and perceived it to be a tikkun.
I am not embarrassed to teach in front of men, and I don’t apologize for my own level of knowledge, access to learning (yes, the Gemara) or my ability to give that knowledge over.
Through this process I have come to realize that ultimately what bothers me is only that I don’t like being the focus of attention in a room for over an hour that isn’t filled solely with women. Although the focus should of course be on the material, in principle I just don’t want to stand up and be that which everyone looks at for such a long period of time in mixed company.
I don’t think that I will agree to do such a thing again. In this particular case, there was a least some strong element of kiruv, outreach, involved. I know there were men at an early point in the Jewish journey who became more connected to the holiday because of my teaching. This is the one aspect that causes my ambivalence.
I have no doubt that the “black hat” men (as if I can judge them by their head covering…) did NOT learn that a woman can be learned and teach a coherent shiur on a topic and give over information they didn’t know. I am 100% certain they already knew that.
I don’t think tzniut is about hiding your talents. G-d forbid. Or denying them. But I do think it is about having the confidence to share them in a way that draws attention to the service of Hashem and only the service of Hashem and not attention to ourselves or what we are capable of.
I hope this is the way in which the shiur was received. I am confident that Hashem is concerned with my intentions.
I am still left with the feeling that I made a statement, and not one I am sure I wanted to make.
I am, after all, a sexist. : )
The Jerusalem Post has an article today by Matthew Wagner, “Sharp rise in haredi IDF enlistment in 2009” .
The article points out that only a small number of the overall “ultra-orthodox” population is serving in the army. However, it also points out the drastic change from only ten years ago. The reality is that their population is exploding compared to the secular Israeli community, and every year it will slowly continue to have a change on every aspect of Israel; the politics, education, real estate, the economy, and even the army.
I am not Hareidi — what I am is up for dispute. I am a Jew. I am sure I will end up blogging about my lack of label one day. But I think this is great news. I am pleased with diversity in the Jewish people, and I am sure that Hashem is just waiting for us to get it right and love all Jews just as they are, really love them in our hearts, so he can send Moshiach our way already.
It isn’t that I want Israel to be a Hareidi country. Nor do I think the increase in the hareidi population percentage is coming without problems. There are plenty of problems. For one, the infrastructure adjustments are being made so much more slowly than the population growth rate. There is clearly a lack of cooperation and interaction and knowledge to deal with some of the challenges. Most of the problems are a result of Israel’s big government and socialism. Again, for another blog post…..
These are some of the reasons I hail this as really good news:
1. Israel has had a deep need to reconcile its secular beginnings and its religious “fan base” for a very long time. The greater the population of active, participating religious Jews in Israel, the closer we will be to this reconciliation being forced into being.
2. The only population committed to growing at the same rate is the Palestinian population.
3. The lines of “who is what” in Israel are blurring. “Hardal” (Hareidi Dati Leumi) didn’t exist as a concept 10 years ago. The blurring is how we get to loving every Jew, no matter what. I hope. Which is how we get to Moshiach… see above.
4. Hareidim from Jerusalem and secular Jews from Haifa have less in common by far than I do with non-Jewish neighbors who live down my street in the US. The army, while a challenging and volatile environment in which it happens, forces people to learn to live together, to learn about each other, and learn to be responsible for each other.
I don’t think the seeming never-ending changes to Israel’s population makeup are easy. I think they are difficult, painful growing pains that are helping us become the nation we need to be. So really good news.
I don’t feel 100% saying Happy New Year. It isn’t our new year, it isn’t our calendar. But I do think it is a time of renewal and a new year on a calendar that is in all of our lives. So I choose Happy 2010 instead.
May this be a year of growth, health, happiness, and prosperity for you and your families.
Happy 2010.
