the half-marathon

Some thoughts:

I told myself and anyone who would listen that the best thing about the whole process was becoming the kind of person who can easily run five, six, seven miles with no problem. That was one of the good things, but not the best. The best thing was something I couldn't have predicted while I was training. Like all best things this one came as a total surprise when it should have been quite obvious.

The best thing was crossing the finish line.

eli and god

So today as Mira and Eli were finishing up their snack of Ritz Crackers he announced that he needed to talk to God for a minute.

"God," Eli said.

Silence.

"Why don't you just go ahead and say what you need to say," I suggested. Eli didn't seem totally clear yet that this was going to be a one-sided conversation. Eli continued.

"Did you know that Yesterday you made a rainbow?"

More silence.

At the risk of being a giant a cliche I have to say that this is the most profound prayer I've ever heard in my life.

the rebbitzen

You would think that with all of the scary books that I have been reading lately this one would not have been the one that killed me.

I read that damn Motherless Mothers book, the Joan Didion, even the one where the main character dies of a glioblastoma stage 4 brain tumor. Nothing. All of these books literary and lyrical, designed especially to make someone like me cry. I appreciated them as art. I learned from them. But I plowed on through, dry-eyed.

But, I can tell you right now I am putting down "The Rabbi's Wife." I am throwing it against the wall as hard as I can, listening for the satisfying clunk. It's not a book designed to make a person cry, certainly I'm sure the author did not intend to ignite any type of fury in her reader. It's an academic study for goodness sake. But it may just be the most heart-wrenching thing that I've ever read.

The author, Shuly Rubin Schwartz, is herself a rabbi's wife. She presents a history. She highlights certain American women throughout the twentieth century who personify to her what it means to be a rebbetzin. One of her recurring themes is that they type of woman who was attracted towards marrying a rabbi was often a fierce intellectual herself. The type of person who liked immersing themselves in books, in study, debate. Women who were passionate about Judaism. Usually women who were the most knowledgeable, fluent in Hebrew, at home in the synagogue. Often they were the daughters of rabbis, and had they been born at a different time, they may have chosen the rabbinate as a profession for themselves.

In other words, Mom. Now I know that she did love being a rebbitzen. I don't know much about it, but I know that she did not unequivocally love her role. She did not love all of the "hosting" elements, nor the constant scrutiny. Most of the women portrayed in the book did not. But how they loved having a chance to shine intellectually. To use their roles to fulfill their own needs to teach and lead and learn and grow. They founded the sisterhood. They taught adult education classes. They wrote articles, books. They were proud of who they were, proud to be the shining female stars of the Jewish world.

Did mom feel this way? She was obviously attracted to Dad because of his mind. There was nothing more exciting to her than intellectual prowess. And, as we all know Mom was fiercely attached to Judaism. It was perhaps her greatest passion in life. Of course she married a rabbi, of course she was a rebbetzin.

But did she love it? Did being a rebbetzin do for her what it could have, what it should have? I don't see how it could have. She never got to really fulfill this dream, did she? With all of the moving, the affairs? Did she ever experience even one drop of the satisfaction that she deserved from being the rabbi's wife? I'm afraid that she didn't. And this is a terrible tragedy. This book reminds me of everything that my mother never had. It is so incredibly sad.

Ironically, I feel like I did get to watch Mom move into that rebbetzin role, although it was several years after the divorce. At Beth Shalom she was on the board, the chair of the ritual committee. She was instrumental in getting that synagogue to include the "imahot" into the amidah. She read Torah, led services, and taught adult education courses. She was invited to participate and help lead a Shabbat afternoon women's study group for the intellectual elite of the congregation. She wrote articles for the Jewish newspaper criticizing the Orthodox synagogue who asked her to remove the tallit she had taken to wearing during services. She got a tremendous amount of satisfaction from her leadership role at Beth Shalom. She was the rebbetzin without the rabbi.

But now I wonder, did she do all of this because she wanted to? And did she want to because she never had the chance to be the rebbetzin that she could have been? This is why I am no longer reading this book. These questions hurt too much.

lost in time

This whole "time" thing: you know; people are born, they are little kids, they are teenagers, they are adults, parents, grandparents, they die, that, all of it has gotten really confusing lately.

When Ben(jamin!) and Ilan were here I just so confused! Who were these half-adult people bunking in Eli's room? Were they Hadara and Eytan? No, they are real grown-ups now. I'm not sure how that happened but it did. They are the first pair of people that I ever watched go from Baby to adulthood. It's astonishing. Shocking, really. But now Ben and Ilan are apparently going to do it too. They are going to grow up, become adults. It used to be that Hadara and Eytan were like a different species from me. They were babies, I was a kid. They were kids, I was an adult. But then they caught up. Now we are pretty much the same. But Benjamin and Ilan! Come on, five minutes ago they were babies. I didn't know that it could happen again. That it keeps happening. But you should see their feet, they are bigger than mine. Also, you can talk to them, it is like talking to very bright and interesting adults. They still seem younger than me but the difference is getting blury,shrinking.

So the really scary thing that you are all telling me is that this is going to happen to Mira and Eli too. It seems beyond belief. Yet there they were, just a week ago playing with their cousins in the same way that we used to play with Benjamin and Ilan; Hadara and Eytan. A pair of children who will not stay that way. Even though these two are mine.

Then of course there are all of the people who are dead and for once I do not mean my parents. They should not be dead. It's the generation before them. They are all gone. Every one of them. The shift is almost surely complete. There are three distinct generations in our family, (except for Jeff's grandma) and we are firmly in the middle. So strange!

I get lost a lot. I almost never really know where I am going. But I didn't know that you could get lost in time. It's just the same as getting lost in space, but scarier.

seders

For the past few years it seems like Seders are not real.  They are more of an attempt to step into a memory.  Now I know that that is actually the point of a seder, but come on.   We are not reliving the Exodus here.  We are not really trying to.  No one is.  We should probably just finally get rid of that part.

Instead we are trying to step back into the time when Seders were real.  Before everyone died. The seders that we attended the most frequently in our lives.  We don't do a very good job though of recreating those seders.  We are in different homes with different people around us.  We, who were the kids, have found ourselves to be the people we had no idea we could ever become.  The Parents!  There is one generation above us now, only one.

I used to feel like I had to have at least one blood relative with me at every Seder to make it real.   One person who knew the same tunes that I did.  Last year though I realized that at least for the foreseeable future I will always have two.  Now that they are more people than ideas I am struck by the fact the Eli and Mira are my relatives.  They don't know my tunes but I know theirs.   We are building this whole this up anew.

We are good at creating traditions in our house, but I worry that we are not so good at holding on to old ones.  Mostly this is my fault.  My tendency is to throw everything away. To cast away the nuggets of beauty with the garbage.   And mostly this is okay.  But at a Seder you need a little dirty water to wade in. 

 

Pesach

"Uh oh" I thought when I saw her browsing through the Kosher for Passover section of Albertsons. Marjorie Schneider. One of the nicest parents at Shir Tikvah.

I had run away from that job completely. I tried to take only my books, my friendship with Jennifer, and our babysitter Ilana when I left but you don't always get to choose. Especially in Portland. Especially around Passover if you go to Albertsons. Everyone at Shir Tikvah was nice and tried to be supportive when I decided to leave. It is a congregation of nice people. Marjorie was possibly the nicest.

She gave me a hug when she saw me. "We miss you!" she proclaimed her blond curls bouncing. Marjorie is young and pretty. "We are fine but we still miss you. On the first day of Sunday School we were told that from now on the kids should bring their own snack from home. This is when I knew you were really gone. You nurtured all of us, you were our mom."

"This is why you miss me?" I thought incredulously. "I was their mom?!"
I knew what she was saying though, and this is why I left that job. I couldn't be their collective Jewish mother. They loved the tidbits of Judaism that I fed them on teeny spoons. They gobbled them like the sugar coated goodies that they were. But this is neither the way that I teach nor the way that I feel about Judaism. My Judaism is more maror than charoset. It is the bitter herbs that I crave. It is also, by the way, not the way that I parent. In running away from that job I was running towards a more authentic version of myself.

As I usually do, when I run into someone that I think I don't want to see, I began to relax into the conversation. I remembered how much I truly like Marjorie and inquired about her family. We began to seem like allies trying to maneuver our way through the pre-Passover chaos at Albertsons and through life. In a different setting we would be friends.

Passover does this to me. More so than the High Holidays it seems to me a season for taking stock. Clearing out what you can no longer stomach to make room for freedom. I am surely not meant to be the Director of Congregational Learning at Shir Tikvah. Leaving that job was a modest Exodus for me. The bigger ones have yet to take place. But, slowly, the waters are gathering.

It is so much easier to see what doesn't fit than what does. Leaving for me is not hard. But my sense of direction is so easily muddled. Both in metaphor and in my real life. journeys are the hardest part. I know where I don't want to be but getting to the place that I am going feels next to impossible. Maps don't help. Clear written instructions are better but no one is offering them. Yet now there is a quiet song in my head, a raking away of old leaves that is revealing a small clearing. And maybe this is Passover.

life, interrupted

I have always hated coming home.

How mom must have dreaded those return trips of mine! Most of my school vacations were spent with my dad. He lived, at various times, in Washington DC, Texas, LA, San Francisco, Ohio, Israel, and Chicago. Before each trip mom would help me pack. She would do my laundry several days before and urge me not to wear anything I might need for thr trip on the days leading up to it. She would drive me to the airport, help me get checked in, and leave me with the flight attendant who was in charge of "children traveling alone". She would kiss me goodbye and drive home by herself. I usually had a brand new book to read and a pack of gum. I loved this part of the trip. I could imagine the clothes tucked neatly in my suitcase waiting under the plane. Dad calling the airline and checking to see if my flight would arrive on time. I pictured what he would look like when he picked me up, his scratchy hug, his utter delight to have me back. I let mom drive away without a thought.

I spent most of my time on these trips with Jean. She wold take me with her on her errands and tell me stories about her family. Her mother was psychic and communicated with the dead. The first trip I took after Hadara was born Jean let me hold her right away. I helped change her diaper and stared at her for hours along with Jean. I felt fiercely protective of her. At night Dad would lie down with us on their bed and tickle Hadara and me. We ate pineapple and watched James Bond movies while Hadara slept. Jean and I would take her to gym class and sometimes meet Dad for lunch where we ordered grilled cheese or fish and chips. They never wanted anyone from the synagogue to see us eating hamburgers which is what mom and I always ordered when we out for lunch.

At various times Phil or Beth would live in the same city as dad. They would come over when I was visiting and take me to the movies or the beach. Phil and I tried one day to drive from the beach to the mountains. Beth would always claim at least one of my nights for a sleepover where we eat ice-cream and potato chips and talk about General Hospital or the books we were reading. On Friday nights Jean would make chicken, and brisket, and dessert. The food she cooked tasted spicier and fancier than moms. Mom only ever cooked one main course, although usually I liked hers better although she rarely made dessert. Everyone would drink their own can of soda and after dinner we would watch a movie.

The other thing that happened on these trips is that Dad or Jean would buy me anything that I wanted. New books, both popcorn and soda at the movies, when I was younger stickers galore, and really big life- sized stuffed animals. As I got older they bought me (in the same visit!) my first swatch watch and first pair of guess jeans. Life with Dad and Jean was paradise. They treated me like a princess. They made me feel beautiful, smart, funny, rich and positively adored. And then, no matter what, it would be time to go home.

I would start to dread leaving towards the end of each visit. I would sit in the back of the car and imagine that I could turn the clock back. Turn it back so it was the day that I was arriving rather than leaving. Dad always drove me to the airport by himself. He would try mightily to talk to me. We would talk about mom and how much still he loved her and respected her as a mother. He would tell me his fears and hopes for Phil and Beth. He reminded me that I was smart and talented and could would conquer the world. He tried so hard not to make me cry. When it was time to leave he would kiss me goodbye just like mom had. By then I would be crying for real. He would hand me to the flight attendant in charge and drive home alone just as mom had. His eyes were glassy his chin quivering when he turned away. I'm sure mom cried too. She must have saved her tears though for the car when she was alone.

I cried for most of the flight home. The flight attendants and other passengers would try to cheer me up with gum and chocolate. Eventually I would escape into the new book Jean would buy me on the last day of the visit. When I saw mom at the airport I would start to cry again. She hugged me but could offer me no comfort. She would suggest we go out for dinner, or shopping, but I didn't want those things from her. I wanted my dad. It took me a long time after each trip to stop mourning. I never wanted to go back to school or see any of my friends. I spent a lot of time in bed or on the couch watching tv or reading. Mom tried so hard but there was nothing she could do. After each one of those trips I had to come to grips again with the fact that my parents were divorced. I would never, never have what I most wanted which was both of them. I can't imagine how devastating all of this was for mom. She never showed me. Every ounce of the self that she showed me was her trying to cheer me up. Her concern was what would do it each time. As surely as it would come the depression would lift and mom and I would go back to our lives together.

It is still hard for me to return from vacations. I can't help but obsess about what I lose when I return home. I will never be the kind of person who can say "oh yeah the trip was great but I was ready to come home". I am never ready to come home. Even now. I am thrilled to be back with Jeff and Mira and Eli but a part of me is crying inside for the week in Mexico. The part of me that is still eight, and twelve, and fifteen is deathly afraid that real life can never be as good as vacation. That what we lose when we leave is so much greater that what we have at home. In this case I know with every fiber of my being that this is not the case. I have the best life in the whole world and for this I am truly, eternally grateful. But today is hard.

spring break II

We finally made it to the park. We were having what in Portland we call a "sun-break". Really it was more of an "ice and snow -mix -windy -freezing" break but we had made it. The ultimate goal for Mira and Eli and me, our own mini spring-break, we were at the park.

Not only were we at the park but we had wheels! Ski-boot style roller-skates for Mira (from Target making them next to impossible to fasten) Dora the Explorer over-the-shoes skates for Eli made complete with matching knee and elbow pads ("did those used to be yours?" asked Mira's friend Elizabeth suspiciously when we ran into her) and, for me, bought in a frenzy to have to have some fun this week if it killed me, brand new roller blades. Last night Mira and I had tested out our new skates when Jeff got home from work. We skated around the park for an hour until our hands were numb and it started to rain/snow/ice again. We had the park to ourselves save for one lone skateboarder. We admired his jumps as we raced around giddy in our freedom. Happy to be together. Happy to be away from Eli whose constant crying this week was driving me to the breaking point. We felt light and free on our wheels. Mira and I generally have the exact same skills. We are good readers and great friends. We are terrible at any sport involving balls or competition and are strictly mediocre at math. We are excellent skaters.

Mira insisted on skating to the park. Eli tried on his skates at home and declared that I should put them on at the park where he would be sure "not to fall down and hurt myself". I packed up his skates and gear, Mira's shoes, goldfish, peanut-butter filled pretzels, juice-boxes, water, oh, and my skates, in one of reusable Trader-Joes's bags (the ones I always forget to bring to the grocery store) and we were off. Not only was it sunny but with some motion involved I could almost imagine shedding my winter coat or at least maybe losing my wool hat. Mira ran into yet another friend when we arrived (she is popular my daughter, and this is Portland where the rule is, well, you always run into someone you know) and was off. I stuck Eli's brown Merriled feet into the pinkish red Dora skate and buckled them. "But what if I fall down?"he asked in a voice that was a quiver of a whine. "You won't hurt yourself because your kneed pads and elbow pads will protect you" I replied tightening both around him. He stood up. He sat back down. "But what if I fall here?" pointing to his midsection? "Or here?" pointing to virtually every part of his body that wasn't covered by pad or helmet. "I hate skating here, I want to skate AT HOME!". Uh oh.

The Spring Break Eli was coming back. The one with the very bad cold who hadn't stopped whining or crying for the entire week. Eli had gone from an easy-going baby, to a loud and demanding toddler, and was only now emerging as a mostly mild-mannered and happy four year old. This week he was back to his two year old self. The one, where, when it was actually happening, Jeff and I agreed that we were done having children. The spring break Eli had two modes. Whiny and crying. "LETS GO HOME, IT'S BORING AT THE PARK" the tears were starting. I tried reasoning. "Just, stand up and try it, I'll hold your hand". "I WILL FALL DOWN!" People were starting to look at us. "How will you know if you don't stand up? Mira fell down yesterday. She just got up and started skating again. "NOOO!". "Well then, lets take off your skates and you can play at the park." "I HATE THE PARK, THE PARK IS BORING!". I walked away. He screamed. At this point every eye in the park was on me. I went to check on Mira happily skating and chatting with her friend. "Put on your skates Mommy" she urged me. I looked longingly at my Trader Joes bag which was next to my screaming miserable little boy. "Maybe now is not a good time for me to skate" I said walking back over to him.

He grabbed my leg, pulled me down to him. I took off his skates. I told him that I was going to skate with Mira for ten minutes while he played and then we were going to go home. I said this very logical and calm parenting bit with only the slightest quiver in my voice. He screamed louder. His face was red his nose and eyes streaming his arms gripping tightly around my leg. And then I felt it. The feeling started deep in the pit of my stomach and tried to move to my hands. I wanted to hit him. I forced the wave back down into my stomach. It felt like my insides were being pummeled. I stepped away from my child hands firmly at my side. I didn't do it but I had wanted to. I get it now, why people hit their children. The feeling was hard to resist. It comes from a place deep within. It is an instinct. In this case an instinct that is to be fought against but the fight takes all of your might. It's like fighting the urge to eat or sleep. It is that powerful.

When the urge had almost fully passed we collected a very reluctant and grumpy Mira and returned home. We all ate some chocolate at home and felt a little better. Eli and I took Mira to her piano lesson and he continued to whine and cry. I cried too. I was frustrated and tired and coming down with a cold. But I no longer wanted to hit him. That urge had blessedly passed. When we got home Jeff was home and like the terrific dad and person that he is he took over for me. I had a glass of wine and cooked dinner. I sat with my family while they ate. Jeff bathed the kids and put Eli to bed. I read to Mira. Life was back to ordinary.

The parenting stuff is still hard. Just when you think you are capable it turns around and bites you on the hand (literally). And then it stops again. It wakes up in the morning proud and surprised "I slept all night in underwear mommy!". It gives you a hug and reminds you why you sometimes have to fight your worst impulses. And then life goes on.

spring break sucks

Have you ever seen a four year old who refuses to take medicine when they are sick? It in not pretty. We are in a forced state of Scientology and everyone is suffering. "My stomach hurts!" "my nose hurts", " "my eye hurts", "I really, really hate you".

Just take the god-damn medicine!

And what is it with the stupid piano lessons anyway? Is every kid (even the ones who beg and wheedle their parents into getting them lessons) clinically predispositioned to fighting (excuse me waging total complete warfare) with their parents about practising? And, so sorry, but no you can't scooter home from Amses's (yes everyone Mira has a friend whose actual name is Ames) by yourself! Don't worry that you have to cross 39th, I know for this I deserve the silent treatment all afternoon. By the way, don't bother thanking me that I got you out of the house of pain and torture all morning.

Eli has two modes whiny and crying. He no longer has a regular voice. Oh, and Mira wants to wait to practice piano until daddy gets home. Yeah, that's a good idea! He never fights with her. Ha!

I hate spring break!

motherless mothers

I am finally reading this book. It is called Motherless Mothers and is written by Hope Edelman. Ms. Edelman has made a career of missing her mother. Her other books include Motherless Daughters, Letters from Motherless Daughters, and Mother of my Mother. I think that we can safely say that losing her mother was the defining moment of Hope Edelman's life. I usually linger past her books in bookstores in libraries. I have read large segments of both Motherless Daughters and Letters from Motherless Daughters standing in the stacks of the Hollywood Library or sitting at the train table at Barnes and Noble. I even went to hear her speak two years ago when she was in Portland promoting Motherless Mothers. When you live in Portland it is inevitable that you will run into someone that you know every time you leave your house. That night I learned that at least two acquaintances of mine had mothers who died when they were still young. A club I didn't want to join. I said goodbye to my friends and left without doing what virtually every other woman there was doing, buying the book.

When I decided to read this book I bought it rather than check it of the library. It seems important somehow that I own this book. But, why now? It has something to do with the process that I going through. Writing every (or nearly every) day is teaching me to shed a certain layer of skin. It is scary. If I am going to be an honest writer than I am going to have to stop hiding the parts of myself that I can't face. If I am going to be an honest person and if I have anything at all to offer to the world it is time to stop running away. Hope Edelman wrote all of these books because her mother's death is her story. You can feel this as you read her words. The words jump out at you from the page and crackle with energy. Raising her daughters without her mother is part of her story. I am reading her book now to learn how she does it.

How does she search for ultimate meaning within her story? How does she weave her experience throughout the larger context of what it is like to be a mother without a mother? And of course it's no accident that I've chosen this book to pick apart. I am becoming a fearless reader. Go ahead, books, delve into my inner pain and extract meaning. I dare you! It's amazing though what happens when I shed the fear of these books that I have been avoiding. Like those in Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking, Ms. Edeleman's words are touching me but very lightly.

Her writing is good. She reaches that difficult blend of friendly and literary. She comes across as compassionate and self-aware. She even acknowledges the absurdity of basing her professional life upon her mother's death. Much of what she writes about I can absolutely relate to. The part about how motherless mothers have the impulse the keep their children from their mother-in-law. If my mother can't see my child than neither can you. The loneliness of trying to be a mother without having a mother. She has a wonderful imaginary conversation with her mother on the phone. One in which her mother asks to speak to Hope's children. Her children are involved in their play and don't come to the phone. Hope's "mother" is offended both by the fact that the children don't want to speak to her and that Hope does nothing to force the issue. They hang-up unsatisfied. I loved this! I always tend to over-glamorize what all of our lives would be like if mom were still alive. I would have my mother, the kids would have their grandma, life would be perfect. Hope Edelman reminds me that no relationship is really like this. Mom and I fought all of the time. This wouldn't have changed if she hadn't died.

One thing I have gotten from reading the book is that while I am still terribly sad about mom, her death is not the central story of my life. The day that she died was the day that I became a grown-up. A real grown-up though, age 25, not a sped-up before-her-time grown-up like Ms. Edelman did at 17. Mom was alive to guide me through every significant passage to adulthood and for this I am forever grateful. It is devastatingly sad that we never got to have a relationship as adults. Even more so that she never met my children. But with me she did her job. She did it well.

Eventually I stopped reading this book page to page and started reading the story that was just Hope's. I liked her a lot but got bored by her writing, by her countless interviews. I skipped the section on raising teenagers without a mother altogether although it is possible that I may turn back to it when it is more relevant. But maybe not. This chapter is largely about parenting without a model. How to be a mother during those years when you yourself had no model. Luckily for me mom was absolutely present for my teen years. In the end I got some of what I wanted to out of reading this book. How to take your own story and market it as a book. I caught a glimmer of that. I didn't learn all that much about being a motherless mother but really how could I? It's who I am. But, it's not my story.

Purim-or-does everyone eventually turn into their parents?

Mira was sick this week. The kind of sick that she will probably remember forever. Fever over 104 degrees and an eventual diagnosis of pneumonia. She subsisted on one watermelon flavored Popsicle and a bite of a hamantashen for the entire week. She was most upset though about missing Purim. She wanted so badly to dress up as Hermione! To join her friends in the costume parade and drown out Haman's name. Although I promised her that if she felt well enough we could go to the Purim carnival at the JCC, this wasn't enough for her. She wanted Purim on Purim. So, we brought Purim home.

Eli abandoned his queen Esther costume he had worn to school so he could be Harry to Mira's Hermione. They decided that I would be Professor McGonagall and Jeff would be Dumbledore. I phoned Jeff to tell him about the plan and to urge him to bring home plenty of wine for us. Good wine. Two huge down-on-the-floor all out stormy tantrums later (one by Mira because her robe didn't fit and one by me because of PMS) the three of us were ready. I was wearing an old long black velvet dress and my bath robe. I played some Purim music and we danced; Jeff came home and we ushered him upstairs to get changed. "What do I wear" he asked desperately, "Where's my costume?"
"Find something to wear" I called twirling around with Eli.

He came downstairs looking, well, a lot like Jeff. He was wearing black sweats, an orange sweat shirt and a flannel shirt. I think the flannel was meant to be like a wizards robe but it looked suspiciously like what Jeff usually wore for a Shabbat evening at home. We went to the Shabbat table and lit the candles with teeny tiny magic wands (lumos! we said before singing the blessing) we said the kiddush over goblets of pumpkin juice, and ate strange braided Jewish Muggle bread. When we sat down to eat Jeff turned to Mira and said "so you had quite a week didn't you Mira?" He said it in his regular voice while the rest of us had been using our very proper British voices throughout the night. Eli's was a higher-pitched version of his regular voice but he was trying mightily. Mira's voice was a spot-on imitation of Emma Watson's movie version of Hermione while mine was more Monty Python than Hogwarts.

Jeff continued to talk in his regular voice. He asked me to pass the challah (not the Jewish Muggle bread) and reminded Eli (not Harry) to use his fork. What was going on here? Jeff is no party pooper. He is a great dad and is usually tuned into the needs of our children surprisingly well. So, why was he missing Mira's need for Purim? It was because at that moment he wasn't Jeff. Before our very eyes he had turned into Marty, Jeff's father.

Like Jeff Marty is a great dad. His three sons have nothing but fondness for Marty. He was an equal partner to Ellen in raising them and is largely responsible for the "menchlike" qualities in Jeff, Mike and Ken. He was unequivocally and simultaneously both the fun parent and the disciplinarian in that Katz household. He also has nearly no capacity for make-believe. Most of us are somewhat addicted to our routines but to Marty they are an absolute necessity. He is crazy about our children but has a hard time connecting to them because he is so intensely uncomfortable in my house. He is often a few steps behind what the rest of the group is doing. Ellen attributes this to his hearing, but I'm not so sure that this is the case, it seems like more the essence of Marty.

Sitting next to me last night was not Jeff but Marty. I reminded my husband (in my starting-to-annoy-even-myself Monty Python voice) that we were playing a game and that the children and I would like for him to play with us. "I'm Marty aren't I?" he said a little bit astonished and horrified. "Yes, but try to play with us anyway". He did. The rest of the evening he put on his own Monty Python voice and entered Purim/Harry Potter world with the rest of us. He banged on his plate the loudest when I told the story of VoldermortHaman. He turned back into Jeff trying his best to turn into Dumbledore to bring Purim to our sick daughter. But Marty is lurking within him which lucky for us is not necessarily a bad thing. But a little scary.

So, then I can't help but ask was this night something that my mother would have put on for me if I was sick and missed Purim? Uhm... probably not. I think she would have wanted to but she wasn't really free enough. It was a huge privilege for me to be able to cancel every obligation I had this week to stay home and care for Mira. A bit of a burden too, and hard and certainly exhausting and annoying, but a privilege. A privilege to bring her Purim when she was sick. Certainly privileges that for both internal and external circumstances my mother never had. She just didn't. She always tried to be nicer to me when I was sick which probably goes pretty far in explaining why I was spent so much time willing myself to be sick while growing up. But she didn't let my sicknesses transform her life. She couldn't and I understand that now. But still she was nicer to me. This week I was nicer to Mira. There was a spark in all of this that was mom. She was there last night as surely as Marty was.

hamantashen

What is it with Hamantashen?

We all make the exact same cookies and then exchange them with each other? This is very strange! I think we got this one a little bit wrong. Wouldn't it be better if we showed our love for each other with different types of cookies? I don't even really like hamantashen. What if we did it by last name? A-K make chocolate chip cookies, L-P make oatmeal, Q-S brownies and if absolutely necessary everyone else can make hamantashen (but maybe not poppy seed anymore)? Every year we can shift.

the auction-gods wife

In High school I fantasized about would be like to be attached to the One. Do you know who I mean? For me it was never anyone as obvious as the captain of the football team but more of the aloof and artsy one who was still popular. The one who made everyone's head turn but secretly. Someone who always, always ended up with with the skinniest, blondest girl with the biggest boobs who made the rest of us feel silly for ever thinking that we had a chance.

For me the appeal was not so much in the imaginary relationship that I could have with The One, but what the relationship would do for my life. I would be noticed, accepted. All of the people who never gave me the time of day would pay attention. They would finally recognize that I deserved their recognition. That inside I was popular just like them. I was in High-School. Like everyone else I grew up and realized the error of this type of thinking. We are not who we are attach ourselves to. Our insides and our outsides are generally not that different. The people who like us are the people who recognize our intrinsic selves. I learned to share this self with the world. I stopped wanting to attach myself to the star and started searching for the value within me. I grew up. Mostly.

Synagogue life is not all that different from high school. You have the cliques. There is the religious clique. The ones who show up every Shabbat and lead services and read Torah and teach adult education classes. Usually the ones in this clique didn't do so well in High School but they come alive in the synagogue. They are accepted by virtue of their knowledge of Judaism. They are often friends with the rabbis. You also have the committee clique. The ones who run programs and care the most about tikkun olam but aren't so much in it for the religious aspect. You of course have the sanctioned cliques, the mens club and the sisterhood. And then there are the cool kids. They are rich and give generously to the synagogue. Their children have the most lavish Bar and Bat Mitzvah's. They are on the board. They care tremendously about the synagogue but generally don't come to services. They run the capital campaign. They are lawyers and business people and sometimes doctors. They were almost always popular in High-School. They also have a name, they are called machers.

The big event every year for the machers is the synagogue auction. Machers love to get dressed up and and show off their money. The first year we lived in Portland we couldn't imagine ourselves attending. At the urging of our friends we went reluctantly the next year and sort of enjoyed it. By some strange turn of events Jeff co-chaired the auction the following year. He did a wonderful job and was asked to do it again this year. This years was even better. Somehow in the year in between Jeff became a macher.

Sunday night was the chance for me to live out my high school fantasy. All of the machers, every single one of them talked to me. They complimented me on my hair, my dress, invited me to their parties. They talked about what a phenomenal event Jeff had pulled off for the synagogue (he really did). The part of me that is still in High School enjoyed this attention tremendously. I preened for them. I accepted their compliments and party invitations. But the grown-up part of me was disappointed. Why is the grown up world so much like high school? And why was the feeling not as fun as I'd always imagined it could be?

I am tremendously proud of Jeff but I wish that I was recognized more for my own contributions to the synagogue. For teaching their children Hebrew. For running Shoreshim when no one else would touch it. For my creative stories at tot Shabbat. For showing up on Shabbat and reading Torah. I understand that money is important and that the synagogue will cease to exist without it but wouldn't it also cease to exist without all of us who are trying to hold up the Jewish end of the pole?

All of this is not as black and white as I am making it. This being Portland the cliques are pretty fluid and we move back and forth between religious and macher and committee (so far we have stayed away from sisterhood and the men's club but mainly because we are too young) almost seamlessly. Except perhaps at the auction where the differences are more pronounced. I am hugely proud of Jeff and couldn't be happier to be his wife. For those who asked me on Sunday if I am happy to have my husband back the answer I gave was yes. But really what they should know is that I never lost him. I liked watching him become a macher. He learned how to gossip with me at the dinner table about synagogue stuff which is, of course, what I grew up doing. I learned that there is more than one way to develop a connection to Judaism. It doesn't always have to be about religion. Jeff's connection has been as deepened by running the auction as surely as mine is through study. His commitment has expanded and this enriches our life together. I love him not because of how being attached to him feels but because of who he is and who we are becoming together.

adira

Our whole community changed when Brad and Sarah came. Our synagogue spent two grueling years searching for an assistant rabbi. When Brad came to town it was as if we let out our collective breath. We had found our rabbi, a perfect beshert for our community.

The first thing that I noticed was that Brad was heart-breakingly young. When I was a little girl I had a young pediatrician that my mom used to call the 12 year old doctor. This was the 12 year old rabbi. He seemed kind but nervous. His insights into Torah were as fresh as he was. They took my breath away, they still do. He is the kind of person that everyone likes immediately. Nonthreatening but quietly brilliant. Deeply spiritual without being annoying. Wonderful with the children in a way that is never condescending. All of this I noticed later though. Because the second thing that struck me about Brad was Sarah.

Sarah and Brad told the story at tot Shabbat together when they came for that first interview. He was nervous, she was not. She was immediately at home surrounded by children. Her voice was clear, appealing, beautiful. On their first Shabbat here she sat down next to Mira at Shabbat Kids and showed her the page numbers, pointed out the Hebrew words. Sarah came and found me with Eli at tot Shabbat and told me that Mira was doing great. How did she know who I was? That I was Mira's mother and that I was worried about her alone at Shabbat kids for the first time? Mira asked me later if Sarah was the new rabbi. She was disappointed when I told her that she wasn't. It is impossible to have a conversation with Sarah without revealing a part of yourself.

We, as a congregation, are madly in love with Brad and Sarah. When they first arrived I was desperately worried about them. Please don't destroy him, don't destroy them I silently begged my community. And so far we haven't. Is it possible for a congregation not to destroy the soul of it's rabbi? I think it may be. I can feel us all making an effort not to. Phil has not been destroyed. He is battered and bruised but remains intact. Still, I hope there are fewer bruises in store for Brad.

Just as I was starting to relax a bit, yes we can do it, we are bigger than our worst inclinations as Jews, they had Adira. Saving Brad and Sarah is one thing. I can do it, I know I can if I just hold my breath hard enough. But now they have a child. They have a rabbi's daughter. She is gorgeous, like a tiny version of the best of Brad and Sarah and an ad for babyhood. They are crazy about their new daughter. They obsess over what she eats and long for a good night sleep. They dress her up mini sailor suits and teeny Persian dresses. While I am busy holding my breath the three of them are fine. They are going to do it. They are going to keep themselves intact for her sake. She is a blessing. If I ever write my book about rabbi's children and what becomes of us it is for Adira. She and her parents are teaching me about hope.

camp

The first time Michigan (not his real name) kissed me was of course after Kabbalat Shabbat services. On Friday nights everyone dressed up. In the girls bunk we swaped clothes. We fought over who took the first shower and blew our hair dry. Shared make-up. We were like orthodox women getting their homes ready for Shabbat but our projects were ourselves. Still, it felt holy, like we were preparing ourselves for something important. Like we were the Sabbath Queens. Sometimes our boyfriends would come to pick us up in our cabins but usually we walked down to the lake by ourselves.

On Friday nights we could sit wherever we wanted for services. Families who were separated by bunk sat together. You could sit with people from your hometown if you wanted to, and of course all of the couples sat together. I always sat with the other girls in my bunk who had neither boyfriends, nor family, nor hometown friends. There were always enough of us that while we felt the absence of what we didn't have our bond to each other felt tighter. Stronger than during the week. We faced the lake and someone, usually one of the older girls, chanted from Shir haShirim. As she read the great love story between supposedly god and the Jewish people we lost ourselves in our own private love stories. The air was warm, the sky was pink, a young girl was singing in Hebrew about sex, and most of us were hovering in our teens. No wonder everyone who has ever been to Ramah remembers Shabbat as the peak spiritual experience of their lives.

After services was kissing time. You kissed your friends and your counselors. "Shabbat Shalom". You were allowed to kiss the boys from your edah if they qualified as friends. I never initiated a kiss with a boy. When Michigan approached me that summer I was 14 I had never kissed a boy. Michigan had been helping me learn my Torah portion when I would chant sometimes on Mondays and Thursdays (this was a mating ritual at Ramah we were really good and finding ways to intertwine Torah with sex). We were both leads that summer in "Guys and Dolls" and he would sometimes talk to me at the end of peu'lat erev, before we had to go back to our bunk. All of this was the perfect prelude to us becoming a couple. All that was left was the Shabbat kiss.

It happened sort of at the end of the main kissing time. There was the main mulling around time after services and then everyone would start to separate and slowly head into the chadar ockhel for dinner. But one of the best things about Shabbat at Ramah is that kissing time really extended through the whole night. You could at any point all of Friday evening after services were over decide to kiss someone. Michigan kissed me just as I was headed in for dinner. It was an obvious sort of Shabbat kiss, two lips closer to the lips then the cheek. It was amazing how much it felt the same as kissing my girlfriends, my counslour, or even my parents. The same process for something that felt so big.

Michigan and I became a couple for about a week and a half which in Ramah terms was a long time. But I think a lot of who I became as Jew is maybe somewhat pathetically tied up into the magic of that first kiss. For me torah and Judaism that night became about getting the thing you most want out of life. A kiss from the boy that you like. Nothing is better for a 14 year old girl than that. At Ramah ordinary teenage life was all infused with Judaism. Everything we did was a Jewish activity. My first kiss was a Jewish kiss. No wonder it is such a big part of who I am. (By the way Michigan became a rabbi so maybe that kiss really was something special).

the recipe book

I am putting together a recipe book for Mira's Brownie troop. The premise is easy. Everyone emails me a recipe that is significant in their family and includes the story behind the recipe. I included my challah recipe. My story was about how after both kids started school I needed something to do with my hands. I started making challah on that first Friday after I dropped them both off and experimented until I found the perfect recipe that all four of us like the best. I'm pretty sure I put in something about how my mother never made challah (I can't seem to stop finding fault with her can I?) but that baking challah is sort of the pinnacle of what it means to be a Jewish mother. I was pretty shocked at what came in.

So many of these moms had no recipes to send. They don't cook. They shop and prepare food for their families but it's not like me. This is a very white troop. Still, this is America and these families had to come from somewhere. But by and large they don't connect to their families and their heritage through what they feed their children. Why is this? Have they been a part of this country for so long that they don't feel any tie to where there grandparents (or more likely) great grandparents came from? Are they so busy and frazzled in living their day to day lives that cooking is not a part of the culture of their families? Is that what it means to be a white Christian American? In the end they sent me their recipes; recipes from the back of the box of flour, from the chocolate chip bag, or the internet. Recipes without stories.

The one person who got it was Erin's mom. She wrote about her great grandmother's biscotti recipe. Apparently many members of this generation claimed ownership of this particular biscotti recipe. Erin's great-great grandmother and her sister nearly came to blows over it. They made an appearance at every family gathering and still do. Exactly like Ma's mandelbroidt. Really, I think it's the same recipe.

Mom didn't cook much but she would have had a recipe with a story to share. Her Passover brownies probably or maybe even the mandelbroidt. I don't think it would be hard for most Jews to come up with something. We really do connect through food. We are so aware of our past and our heritage and our culture it feels like we can drown in it sometimes. But we are lucky to have it. We have no recipes unaccompanied by stories. We have learned enough about hanging onto who we are and we know food is a big part of this. It tells a story. It tells the world who we are.

Shabbat Shekalim and Pikudei

I am pretty sure that this is the first time I read this particular Haftarah in English. I may have read the first two lines, but I remember quite clearly that rabbi Margolis gave me a pre-written speech. Mom was pretty mad about this, she thought I should actually write a speech based on my own understanding of the parasha. Shocking isn't it? I compromised. I read the first three lines of the haftarah and came across the one that said "Yehoash did what was pleasing to the lord." I got up in front of Congregation Beth Shalom in Kansas City and vowed that like King Yehoash I would try to do what was right in front of The Lord all the days of my life.

Exactly 24 years later and I still think this is probably the one nugget in this Haftarah that a 13 year old should cling to. The rest isn't particularly uplifting. It's all about Temple politics. The King has declared that the priests should no longer be in charge of most of the money that comes into the Temple. The priests were supposed to both collect the money and use it in order to maintain the Temple. They themselves were in charge of the upkeep. Imagine if the rabbis at the synagogue were in charge of the upkeep. If they had to change the light bulbs, repair the windows, paint the building, clean the bathrooms, and maintain the grounds? It turns out that the Priests were as woefully unqualified for this job as our rabbbis would be. They let the building deteriorate.

The priests agreed with the king and they set up a system where people could donate to the "buiding fund". This money would be used for the upkeep of the Temple and most importantly it would be used to hire skilled and qualified professionals to get the job done. The priests salary would come from people's guilt and purification offerings. A good solution. Still it's hard to get much from this if you are not involved in synagogue politics. One thing is that everyone has their job and if everyone does it then the world can function properly. It is probably better to let the priests be priests, the stonecutters be stonecutters, and the king be the king. Everyone's role is important. Everyone's is crucial, but they are not the same. A priest should not try to be a stonecutter. And all of us should try to be like King Yehoash and do what is pleasing in the eyes of God. We are all going to be doing different things.

The Torah portion is largely about the same thing. More politics. The Mishkan is finally finished! We now read one more time about each and every detail of what it looks like. This is the third time we read these same details, we read about them in the plans, in the execution, and finally in the completion. This last description however is in the form of a budget report. Moses is given a final report on how all of the gold and silver was spent. It is all accounted for. Wouldn't ever synagogue like this type of balanced budget!

Still we spend so much of our lives focusing on the details. They are repetitive and they threaten to overwhelm. How much time each day do I spend doing laundry, or cleaning the kitchen or preparing meals? Our children labor over tying their shoes or practicing piano or learning algebra. All of these things that we do are intensely tied up with their details. They are what make up our lives. They can be very taxing and boring at the same time. Yet at the completion of the building of the Mishkan the people bring the work to Moses and he blesses them. Finally! It has been done and it has been done well. We get the sense that they are both forgiven for the golden calf incident and have learned something in the process. When our children come to us with their shoes tied, or their song learned, or the test aced we would be wise to bless them. The details have added up to something bigger than themselves. It turns out that the tedious process has been a blessing.

The end of the parasha is tricky. God finally has his house and what does he do? His presence hovers over and fills the tent. The people can see it. No one can enter when the cloud is present, not even Moses. It seems that the people really did build this elaborate house for which God would dwell . If you tell this story to your children they will definitely ask "but isn't God everywhere?" Uhm, apparently not. God may in fact be everywhere but not in this parasha. God's presence is tangible because these people will accept nothing less. They have demonstrated that they can only believe in a God that they can see. God is giving them this as a gift. For whatever reason God doesn't give us that anymore. We are not privy to a physical manifestation of God's presence therefore we tell ourselves that God is everywhere. Maybe it is up to us as parents to help our children find the hidden presence. Yes, God is everywhere but it doesn't mean we have to stop looking. Look with your children. You will be amazed at what you may find.

Shabbbat Shalom

piano lessons

Yesterday we went to the studio and signed Mira up for piano lessons. She is 61/2 the "perfect age to begin" as told to us by Matt her teacher. Matt is young with longish blond hair, he is soft spoken and seems kind, a piano teacher.

Mira is also in Brownies and plays soccer. She walks to school everyday and has been asking to ride her bike there. She comes home from school, has a snack, and, if she doesn't have an activity, plays with one of her friends or her brother and does her homework. At 6:00 pm or so her dad comes home from work, she eats dinner, plays a bit more or has a bath, reads a book with her mom, and goes to bed. Mira's life is utterly normal. For me this is a stunning achievement. Normal as the pinnacle of good. The exact opposite of me.

Nothing for me was ever normal. The school I went to was the Jewish school. It wasn't in the neighborhood and no one had ever heard of it. We called our teachers by their first names and we had "levels" rather than grades. I learned about what normal school was from reading the Ramona books. Is it a coincidence that the school Beverly Cleary based her series on is the actual school that Mira attends?

After school I came home and watched tv or read. Everyday. The children that I read about took piano lessons. They often hated them and were coerced into them by their parents. They also played with kids in the neighborhood, fought with their brothers and sisters, played sports, or were Brownies. Sometimes the parents in the book were divorced and the kid would visit their dad on the weekends. I liked these books the best. They made me feel a tiny bit normal. Mostly I read about what I wished my life was like.

Although I had two brothers and a sister I had no one to play with or fight with when I got home from school. They were so much older than me. So this was not normal. It's normal to have brothers and sisters your own age or to be an only child but what I had was strange. Our last name was strange, hard to spell, hard to pronounce, and sounded way too much like grow fart. It can be normal to have a mother who works or one who is divorced but to have one who is both meant that you could never participate in after school activities and this was not normal. So, no, I don't know how to play piano or any other instrument, and I've never been a girl scout or played a sport.

It is definitely not normal to have a dad who is a rabbi. Especially one who lives in Texas or California or Ohio. He had two more kids who are brother and sister to each other but only slightly to me. I never found any books where things were as so not normal as my life. I knew that if only every single circumstance in my life weren't turned to the strange side I would be okay. If I lived in the Ramona books or on the Brady Bunch I would have been fine.

But I wasn't. I got sick a lot and stopped doing my homework. I hid from the world. It's exhausting trying to explain why you are so not normal so I stopped trying. I read. I watched tv. If I spent all of my time with the Bradys and the Quimby surely eventually I'd be absorbed by them. If I hid long enough surely I would disappear and reappear the way I should have been. Totally normal.

Mom wanted me to be normal. Her life was about normalcy. She was appalled at who I was. To her there was nothing appealing about difference. Yet she couldn't create for me what I am trying to create for Mira and so she had me instead. I don't think she knew really how much I wanted to be what she wanted me to be. Neither of us knew how to get me there.

Eventually I emerged from my world of books. Normal or not I chose to live the life I had. It was because in the end their love was stronger than the life they created for me. I could live in this existence because they loved me, both of them did. They loved me when I couldn't get up. Their love caused me to get up.

I know of course now that there are all kinds of normal and while my life wasn't a typical story it wasn't as vastly different as it felt. But normal feels like a gift. It's extraordinary. Mira is Mira but she is also my child and someday she may want to run away. I know my love and Jeff's is strong enough to bring her back. But I hope she won't have to go.

the cantor's daughter

The best thing about visiting my dad in LA was seeing Danielle Dardashti. Danielle's dad was the cantor at the synagogue where my dad was the rabbi. During those trips I got to be the me that I should have been. The pretty popular California girl. The rabbis daughter, the cantors daughters best friend. Exactly the opposite of my real life in Kansas City.

Danielle was beautiful. She had thick glossy black/brown hair and was skinny in just the right way. She wore Heaven sweatshirts and guess jeans. She looked like how I imagined I could look if everything would just come together the way it should. She is what I wished I could have seen when I looked into the mirror. She was popular of course, in the special IP section of her Jewish Day School, and a talented singer like her dad. She had both a swatch watch and a boyfriend at a time when I was pretty sure that either one of those things was a ticket to everlasting happiness. She was my best friend when I visited LA. I am pretty sure it is this friendship that caused me to move to LA at age 22. In LA I didn't have to be me, I could be happy.

Danielle and I went rollerskating with her friends on Saturday nights. We held hands and glided around listening to Madonna and the Go-Go's. Everyone at the rink new Danielle and her crowd. I was one of the crowd with Danielle. She took me to "Heaven" and helped me pick out my own pair of guess jeans all paid for by my dad. I slept over at her house and we talked about boys. When I talked to Danielle I invented a fantasy world for myself back in Kansas City. I told her about the popular crowed and the roller rink and all of my friends. Exactly as I wanted them to exist in my mind, these are the stories of my life that I told to Danielle. All beautiful fiction.

Once Danielle and I were at the mall together during Passover. We were hungry and ordered salads at the deli. We were so careful and proud of ourselves that we were not breaking Passover. Our salads arrived each with a side of bread. We ate the bread. We felt horribly guilty and wondered what our dads would have said if they had seen us. You know if the rabbi and the cantor just happened to be walking through the gallleria together in the middle of the day during Passover. "My dad would kill me, but yours wouldn't be mad at all". She was right. The idea that my dad would get mad at me for eating bread on Passover was ridiculous. (My mom on the other hand was a different story). She was also right that Farid, her dad, would be furious with her. She was the cantor's daughter and expected to live up to certain standards. She was expected to be the best at everything. She was an example to the community. She should not be seen at the mall eating bread on Passover.

I was more jealous of Danielle over this then anything else. I was not an example for anyone. No one in this community knew who I was. True, I was the rabbi's daughter but not really. I was the rabbi's visiting daughter and I'm pretty sure no one in the community knew that I was visiting. The rabbi's real daughter was three years old at the time and safely at home with her mother. It would be different if I lived there I knew it would. If I lived in LA I could be like Danielle. We would be celebrities together.

The other problem was that my dad didn't care about the laws of Passover, not really. How did Danielle know this? Did he just seem to be the kind of person who didn't care about the rules, or was her family privy to the fact he really couldn't give a damn? I know Danielle had never seen him get mad at me. He never did, not anymore. He treated me like a visiting movie star when I came to town. He bought me whatever I wanted, there were no rules, no limits, certainly nothing as insignificant as Passover would cause him to limit me in any way. He didn't care about those rules, not really, but he desperately wanted me to be happy. To like him. Life with my dad was magic. But I wanted what Danielle had. A father who cared about Judaism and who acted like a father. One who got upset if his thirteen year old daughter ate bread on Passover.

After my Dad left the congregation in Northridge he uncharacteristically stayed in touch with Farid Dardashti. Farid was one of the few people and definitely the only cantor that my dad ever liked enough to keep in touch with after he moved. That was however, it, for my friendship with Danielle. It wasn't the last time I ever saw her though.

We both found ourselves in Israel at Hebrew University for our junior year. I saw her name on the list of students that they handed out at the airport. She was still stunning. We hugged. When it was time to get off the plane she came and found me so I could check out her lipstick for her. Her boyfriend was meeting the plane in Israel and she wanted to look good, which of course she did. Danielle and I weren't friends that year in Israel. We lived in different dorms and she was in a higher ulpan than me. Even after being a star for all of those years she was still nice but we could no longer connect. I couldn't be friends with the stars in those days. I was too damaged from my years of missing the spotlight. Her light hurt my eyes. I was busy mourning my lost celebrity while she was still glistening in hers.

A few years ago I bought a book about Jewish crafts that families could do together to have in my office. I had a lot of families come to me asking for ideas on how their families could connect over Jewish stuff and this book seemed to offer just the right mix of Judaism and Kitch. One day I was looking for a Tu B'Shevat craft for a Shabbaton, pulled down the (now forgotten) book and noticed that the author was Danielle Dardashti. There was a picture of her and her family on the back page. They were adorable, but in an ordinary way. Not more so then me and my family. They looked actually like us, like most of our friends. The book jacket had her email address so I emailed her. I congratulated her on the book. I heard back from her right away. I am sure if I met her again I would like her. We are not so different anymore.

vayakhel

I got an email this morning from Jewish Lights Publishing about various books that describe how you can find express your spirituality through crafts. There are four (four!) recently published books describing how quilting, painting, scrapbooking and knitting can be used to help strengthen a Jewish connection to the Holy. These are four different books by four different authors, not a part of a series. My inclination towards these books is skeptical at best. Jewish spirituality is found in prayer, in study, in doing Mitzvot. All of this "crafty" stuff seems to be taking the easy way out. Lets do what we enjoy doing and put a Jewish twist on it. This approach drives me crazy. Then I read this week's parasha.

This week's parasha of course is all about finding your spirituality through craft. We are back on God's favorite subject, his house. It is time to get busy actually building Gods dream house. Before the work can begin however Moses reminds the people one more time about Shabbat. If there is one thing God cares about more than getting this Mishkan built it is Shabbat. God is obsessed with every detail of the mishkan. We are getting ready to hear about all of those details again. We read about them when they existed only in the mind of God and we will read again over the next two weeks exactly how each and every one of those details will be executed. The building of the mishkan will turn the people in a "kehilah" a congregation. It is the most important thing that they will do together as a group. But not at the expense of Shabbat, never that. The laws of Shabbat will be derived from the very work that they are about to tackle. Shabbat and the building of the Mishkan will be forever intertwined.

A project can never come at the expense of the essence of self. Yes, the Mishkan is important. Shabbat is more so. Have you had projects like the mishkan? Something so seemingly big it defines your essence? Our projects are important and in many ways define us. But they are not us. The defining bit of ourselves is not in what we make but who we are. We know our work or our projects is holy work when they start to feel like we are them. But then we have Shabbat.

This parasha goes back again to that concept of Terumah. Gifts given to the building of the Mishkan for all whose hearts are moved. Apparently many hearts are moved as the builders and crafters receive more material then they can use. Is everybodys heart moved to contribute or is it just that the people who do contribute bring so much? We are told that everyone whose hearts inspired them and whose spirits motivated them contributed. This is obviously not everyone in the community or we would have been told as much. Still the contributions were more than generous. Within a community there will always be those who give. The workers, the doers the givers. Our synagogue right now is looking for 100% contribution to the Capital Campaign. They won't get it, even Moses couldn't get it. It's the nature of community. Luckily many of our hearts are moved. And we whose hearts are moved have the challenge, the challenge and the burden to inspire others. If we can do it, if the leaders can actually do it then the community is a good one. Just don't loose sight of Shabbat, of who we really are. Do it with integrity.

So who are these talented craft people? The women whose "hearts inspired them with wisdom" who spun the goat hair? We have weavers and carvers and embroiderers and stone cutters and all types of artisans. They are filled with godly spirit, with wisdom,insight and knowledge. They are "wise hearted" and inspired. In fact they are called "chachamim" wise ones. Artistic talent and expression are holy endeavors. The artisans create the sacred space. They are absolutely using their talent to connect with holiness. Using art to express spirituality is what wise people do.

The building of the Mishkan brings the people closer to God because they are becoming God like through their creative acts. God is the ultimate artist. The ability to create is what makes us godlike. The ability to use our talents within a community is what makes us human. We are not all artisans but we are all artists. Our spirits are moved to do something within the creative realm. Many of us will spend our whole lives searching for this means. I know I am. But meanwhile we give to our community. And we rest on Shabbat.

Shabbat Shalom

Hebrew Immersion

This is really a great concept. The work that we are doing at Neveh Shalom should be revolutionizing Jewish Education. We are creating afternoon synagogue based educational experiences that actually work. They work as well as day schools. Mira know Hebrew now. She can read and speak. Watching her is as magical as watching her learn to read and speak English.

My class is remarkable. Has anyone ever had a Hebrew School class like this one? One where the kids actually show up? To each and every class period? They and their parents are 100% committed to the concept of Hebrew School as worthwhile. We speak Hebrew in class. Only Hebrew. I run the class like I did my day school classes. We act out plays, play games, read stories, learn songs, write sentences. The kids enjoy themselves although they act out more than my day school kids ever did. We are working against the time of day here. It is also the synagogue which is different from the school. The synagogue should be a happy place for children. It should absolutely not be a place of fear or intimidation. I allow a great deal more chaos in my room than I am actually comfortable with. Mira complains too of the wild children in her class. still, there is real learning taking place.

The class is an interesting mix of language levels and abilities. We have the kids who attended PJA and the ones who came from Kochavim. What's really interesting is that we also have the kids who came from Hebrew School but who are exceptionally bright especially when it comes to learning new languages. Then we have the kids whose parents are on the board. They spend a lot of time at the synagogue. They understand all too well that the old system was broken and are committed to finding a better direction. The energy and intelligence in this room is palpable. We are a microcosm of the best and brightest of Neveh Shalom. Its an elitist model and it works.

I teach with the same philosophy I always have. Learning should be fun but it should be learning. Every activity is designed for both maximum enjoyment within the confines of educational validity. Sometimes this means learning a song or playing a game. Sometimes it means acting in skits. Sometimes it means sitting and reading a story and answering questions. The students work in groups or partners and by themselves. Always we include an element of tefillah. Some activities are hands on and some are teacher directed. Not everything works. The kids enjoy coming but not as much as they might enjoy soccer, or art or other activities we are competing with. It's okay. It is called Hebrew "School" for a reason. It's a little bit like school. So far no one has come up with a better system than school to get kids to learn. They are learning and enjoying themselves and coming so what more could you want?

The synagogue is a good place to come to learn. Why do we even have to say that? Because although it seems like an obvious thought it's almost never the case. Every Jewish educator and every rabbi and every teacher needs to know this. Synagogues that waste their time teaching kids to hate being Jewish should be shut down. It's time to admit that these programs that we've created in the past don't work. Most Jewish kids at some point will come across some type of Jewish educational program that takes place in a synagogue. Certainly more than who will find themselves in a day school or in a Jewish camp. We need new models of synagogue education. We have created something great at Neveh Shalom but it's not the only answer.

death

I thought if anyone could Joan Didion could write about death.

I've always suspected that I don't like Joan Didion. I feel like I should like her writing but there is a disconnect there. It's the same thing as reading Michael Chabon. I can recognize the quality of the writing without being drawn to it. I feel that way when I hear Barack Obama speak. The words themselves are stirring but they do nothing for my emotions. Still, I'm disappointed that Ms. Didion couldn't stir me with her story of death.

It seems like almost a too easy thing to write about. All you have to know is the end of the story, the persons great love died. You have the readers sympathy immediately, they are looking to cry with you. The reason they bought the book is to sympathize with you, to relate, to feel what you feel. They are probably reading it to come to terms with a death in their life. So make me cry dammit! I am ready.

So here goes:

The phone rang in the middle of the night. I was up. I was always up in those days. Once Mira woke up for her first feeding of the night that was it for me. I tried to go back to sleep but my body and my mind were not working well together. Exhaustion had become a part of me. I could feel it, touch it, I lived in it. But still I couldn't sleep. I tried to make my voice sound groggy when I answered the phone. Fran's voice was on the line, "Hadara they are giving your father constant morphine drips" she shrilled. "What?" "this is it sweetie". "It's Amy not Hadara". "Amy, so rry sweetie, I called the wrong number, all I know is that they are giving your father constant morphine you can go back to sleep now". Click.

Now what? What was that? Was this really how I was getting the news that my dad was dying? Fran never really got that my dad had a family before Jean, Hadara and Eytan. No one in Jean's family did. Unlike my mom's family they seemed to like him. And they were always nice to us but they didn't connect us to him in any significant way. Jean didn't do this. She treated us like family. She knew how important we were to my dad, how much he loved us. He was no less changed by the fact of us than I have been by the presence of Mira and Eli. He was our dad and his attachment to us came with whatever he brought to Jean. But her family was able to ignore this in a way that Jean never could. Still, she was tending to him. She needed her family to be speak for her. The fact that Fran had my phone number was strange. That she mixed it up with Hadara's was strange too.

Fran had given me an out on the phone. It was Hadara who was supposed to know that "this was it" not me. Why? Was it because I was on the West Coast and shouldn't have been up yet? Was it because I had a new baby and shouldn't have this grief? Or was it as I suspected because I was not really important enough to tell? Because in Fran's mind it wasn't my dad who was dying but Hadara's? This is the option I chose. I clung to it. The phone rang an hour later at 5:00. It was Phil calling from the East Coast. This was it, he was headed to Chicago and so were Beth and Jon. Still, her urged me not to come. Because of Mira I told myself. Because of Mira.

Mira saved me from going. If I hadn't had Mira I would have gone. I'm sure of it. But it was fitting for me to not be there. As much as he wanted to be he wasn't my father. As much as I wanted him to be. Fran was right about me. Our relationship was significant but I wasn't Hadara. Or Eytan. Or Beth, Phil and Jon. I was loved by him. It was a great love, a hugely important significant love in my life that was surely at that moment dying.

The next day of course was September 11th. If I had wanted to change my mind and fly off to Chicago I no longer could. There were no choices left to make. I would sit and wait. I would hold Mira and wait for the phone to ring. We went to costco and stocked up on emergency products and watched tv and waited for planes to fall from the sky. Beth called with updates. She talked about the surealness of watching the world fall apart on a a hospital tv. Eytan somehow made it home from Israel. I waited.

The call came at 5:00 am on September 13th. It was Phil and he told me with very little emotion in his voice. "Dad died this morning". I hung up the phone and cried. I cried in bed for my dad. The one who loved me but somehow forgot to be a dad to me. I would miss him terribly. I cried until Mira woke up, I fed her and cried with her on me. She would not know him. He had missed his chance with both of us. I cancelled my doctor's appointment scheduled for that day. I looked at pictures of him. Later Beth called and I spoke to Hadara.

Hadara told me the story of the nurse named Amy. On that last day he had been asking for me. They told him that I was home with Mira but that I was thinking about him. Still he asked for me. Later that day he had a new nurse, a nurse called Amy. Beth and Hadara both thought that hearing her name made him think that I was there too. Once all six of his children were around him he could let go and die. Six of his children, all six. In the end he knew he had six.

This is a messy death. All relationships, every single one has the same ending in store. Still this death refuses to die. Just as the relationship in life never reached its full potential so is this death doomed. I don't know how to let this one end. I never knew how to let it live.

ki tissa

Who is the leader of your family? Is it the mom or the dad, one of the kids? I think this is the key problem in this weeks parasha. The people need a leader.

Moses of course has been the unquestioned leader up until this point. But he is gone. He has been up on the mountain for so long listening to detail after detail after detail about the building of the mishkan. The parasha starts out with the continuous detail about the building of the mishkan which as of now still exists only in the minds of God. I have to imagine that hearing about this is driving Moses crazy by now. It's like being stuck next to the most boring person at a dinner party who explains to you in excruciating detail the construction of their new home. You are treated to hearing about every tile, every shade of wood that they have chosen for their dream home. You have no choice but to sit and listen and smile. God is explaining who is contractors will be (Bezalel) his decorator (Oholiab) and exactly how this project will be paid for (the atonement offering, exactly one half shekel given by every Israelite rich and poor). I have to think that after 40 days of this Moses eyes are starting to glaze over.

Meanwhile utter chaos has broken out down below. The people have been without a leader, and act as thought they can barely remember him at this point. They turn to Aaron and say "this Moses, this man who brought us out of Egypt (you know the one) we don't know what became of him". They are lost without a leader and beg of Aaron two things, "kum" rise up, and "make us gods".

Aaron does the second and not the first. He isn't a good leader. Their first request "kum" is the most important one. They know that they need a leader. This group is the ultimate group of followers. They were slaves for most of their lives, they lack any capability of making their own decisions. The only thing that they know for sure is that they need a leader. Aaron is a bad choice.

He is a bad choice because rather than become their leader, he listens to them. He enables their bad decision and makes the calf for them. He gathers their jewelry and he himself makes the calf. They then hold it up and say "This is your god O Israel the one who brought you out of Egypt". They are completely ridiculous. This is not paganism, this is lunacy. They saw that five minutes ago this golden calf did not exist. They watched Aaron fashion it. There is no way that it brought them out of Egypt.

As quickly as he realized his mistake Aaron tries to fix it. He builds an alter and declares the next day a festival to God. Instead of worshiping God however the people dissolve into a kind of frenzy of pagan worship. They eat, they drink, they revel. It is too late for them to turn back to God with Aaron as their leader. The second in command was not a good choice as leader. But if you are raising children with two parents it is important that neither one becomes like Aaron. Both parents must be able to be the leaders in the house. Both must be tuned into the needs of the children. The children will ask for what they want (i.e a golden calf) a good parent will hear past what they want to what they really need which is a leader. As parents we must be ready to "kum" to rise up.

Meanwhile God finally stops this long monologue about the Mishkah, and tells Moses he better get back down to the people as utter pandemonium has broken out. In fact God is ready to destroy the people, but as Moses has no idea what is happening he implores God to save them. God hastily hands Moses the tablets with the ten commandments and Moses descends the mountain to have his heart broken. What he sees must have caused him so much pain. Can you imagine leaders if you go away and come back to find a family who you don't recognize? Who are these people? And Moses defended them. What ensues is terrible tragedy. Brother against brother, violent civil war and a despondent leader.

When Moses again speaks to God everything has changed. Moses doesn't want to lead the people nor does he want God to destroy them. God declares that he can no longer be with the people without destroying them and will send an angel in his place to accompany them to the promised land. Everyone has reached bottom. No one wants to go on. This is the nadir of bad. Finally God and Moses pull themselves together. There is no choice. When things are as bad as they can be we want to wallow in the badness. It feels like we can't go on. But really, we don't have a choice. There is no choice but to go on.

Have you felt that way? Have things gotten so bad for you that the only choice feels like to just stop and quit? Moses and God figure out how to go on. Moses must take action. The first thing he must do is practical. He must find two new tablets to replace the ones that he broke.

After he finds them he tells God that he can lead the people only if God stays with them. An angel won't do. He also tells God he must "know" Gods' ways. We have the mysterious scene of God passing by and showing his back to Moses. Also exclaiming that while God is mostly good there is bad involved too. Here we have it the nature of God. All good would be better. It would be better if everything would be fair. But its' not what we have. We have a God and a world and a life that contains good and bad and we better find that good or the bad will overwhelm.

God on his part decided to stick with the Israelites for the time being. But rather than going back to his talk about the Mishkan God tells Moses about some actual mitzvot that he will need the people to follow if he is to stick with us. We must not make idols! Never again. Also we should keep Shabbat, and not intermarry, and celebrate Pesach, Sukkot and Shavuot. And we shouldn't boil a kid in its mothers milk. Judaism pared down to its very bones I think are these commandments. More so than the ten which are mysterious, these are actions. They are doable. They are what makes us Jewish. They will keep God with us.

Shabbat Shalom

You deserve it

I signed up for a writing class. An actual real official writing class taught by an actual real official writer whose books I own.

Honestly once I found out about the class I didn't hesitate. It meets at a time of day that I am not working. It is expensive but we can afford it. I was excited to tell my one friend who is a real writer. I knew that she would be happy for me. She is a wonderful friend. She beams when she sees her friends approaching. She is encouraging and caring and insightful. When I told her about the class she hugged me and told me that I deserved it.

This is also what she did when I told her that I was going to Mexico with Beth and when I got new shoes. Also, when I ate dinner at Blossuming Loutus before I taught Melton, and when I got my hair highlighted. "I'm so happy for you Amy, you really deserve it."

Huh? What is she talking about? When I do things for myself it is not because I deserve them it is because I want them. I want new jeans, and writing classes, and girls nights, and vacations, and good food and pretty hair. Generally when I want something that is in my reach I get it. Why not? But people tell me that all of the time when they see me with something new. Good for you, Amy you really deserve it!

I'm not sure where they are getting the idea that I deserve theses things. Is it because I am not supposed to want things? Is it because most of the time I am giving so it doesn't seem to the outside world that I want? But, I do, of course I do. Why do giving and wanting have to be mutually exclusive? I love to give. I love to volunteer and make people dinner and nurture and take care of. So, why shouldn't I do the same for myself? But no one deserves what they give themselves. They want it, they do it, end of the story.

I do worry about people who don't allow themselves to have what they want. What a said life! Boy, are they missing out. I see the other side of all of this as well. The woman who you never see wearing the same shoes twice. The one with the nanny and the new car, and the new kitchen. No one tells her she deserves things either. She doesn't come across as a giver but a taker. She is the other extreme. She is the one we are all afraid of turning into. Therefore we tell each other that we deserve what we do for ourselves. Unlike her, the taker.

I think I got this one exactly right, thanks Mom! Taking care of others is important. It's huge, its the reason we women are here. I know that sounds horrible but its the nature of the world. But we must take care of ourselves too. Not because we deserve to but because we want to. And we are allowed to want. Wanting makes us human.

empty houses

Do you know that feeling when the house is empty? All of the furniture has been taken away. The suitcases are packed and ready to go. The movers have taken away all of the boxes. Dust that has been hiding for years overtakes the house, the house is empty but you are still there. It is no longer your house but for the moment you have nowhere else to live.

The first empty house I remember was Glendon Road in Cleveland. Mom and I had gone out to dinner with Tania and her mom. Afterwards they drove us home and came in. The house all of us remember, our house, the one where Tania and I had slumber parties and called boys and dipped potato chips in cream cheese, that house was gone. It was empty except for the slight lingering smell of our dog Athena who died the year before. The dog that no one ever taught to go to the bathroom outside. I've been back to that house as an adult, it still smells like Athena. The house that Beth and Phil and Jon lived in and Dad, that house was gone. Still mom and I would be sleeping there that night (where were our beds? Did we sleep on the floor in the living room?)and after Tania and her mom left we had nothing to do.

The TV was gone. I suggested we go to the library and check out books for ourselves but it was 9:00 pm the library closed. Mom reminded me that even if it was open we would need to return the books the next morning before we went to the airport we couldn't take them with us. Oh yeah. We were moving. Also we no longer had a car, going anywhere was out of the question. We went to sleep, we must have. We got up the next morning and left.

Jeff and I camped out on the floor in Boston. We still had the tv but the bed was gone. We slept in our sleeping bags in the living room and watched Grease. I've seen Grease 57 times. Really, that time was the 57th. I haven't seen it since. That was the best time. We were newly married and moving about a mile away. We were moving from a one bedroom apartment to the bottom floor of a two bedroom house. We were moving because we felt like it. The house was nicer than the apartment. It was simultaneously roomier and cozier. Moving was our way of celebrating our marriage. It was the way we marked our transition from engaged to married. How carelessly we said goodbye to this first apartment of ours! This was the last place of mine that mom ever saw.

We really did love that house in Brighton. We entertained there. We decorated and hosted visitors and bought furniture. I learned how to cook in that house. That house contained all of our happiness from our first years of marriage and nearly burst with the hopefulness of us. It was our home and it took very good care of us. It somehow still looked good even when it was empty. We left a lot of stuff there. In the end we piled up anything we didn't know what to do with and left inside the house. We abandoned that house. We had to. It was the only way we could leave. We were going to California.

The house in Redwood City was large without being cozy. We had deer there, actual deer. On the day we left Jeff spilled coffee on the white gray carpet of the cottage that never felt like ours. That house contained mostly our disappointment. We left nothing behind and we paid to have it professionally cleaned. They got everything but the coffee spill. The thing about that house was that it was always empty. We were never able to fill it with the hope that we had in Brighton. We didn't recognize ourselves in that part of California.

Two more houses emptied out in California before we found a home there. Somehow four years after moving to California we realized we were happy there. We had Mira and Eli. We made friends, we got back a little of the hope that we lost when we moved. But we couldn't stay. We didn't empty out that last house together. I took the kids to Laura's and Jeff and the movers emptied out the house. When the kids and I returned in the afternoon the house was no longer ours. The porch was a porch and not a playroom. We left our junk there once again and fled. We slept in a hotel that night. Mira called the hotel room "Portland".

I never saw mom or dad's houses when they were empty, I don't think I could have stood it. There is nothing sadder really than an empty house. The house is like the body that contains the soul. Maybe not as important but still vital. Vital to the survival of the inhabitants. I try to imagine this house emptied and I can't do it. It is so full of us. We are back. This house takes good care of us like the one in Brighton did. It contains us well.

valentine's fairy

Last night the Valentine's fairy came to our house. She left a gift wrapped in pink tissue paper on the table for Mira, Eli and Jeff. Meanwhile, unbeknown to me (the actual Valentine Fairy) a different fairly had left a gift for me as well. "She" hid clues around the house starting at the coffee maker (she apparently knows my addiction quite well). I followed the clues, smiling all the way (quite a rare occurrence before I've even had my first cup) until I was led back to the drawer right next to the coffee maker. Chocolates. Truffles from the new store in Hollywood. This is a family where magic is real.

We are so lucky. In Laura's book she writes about her earliest memory. It is of her mother Norma dressing up as the tooth fairy. I knew very much my whole life that I was loved. I understand that this is lucky and beautiful. I met a baby this week who is not loved. This is perhaps the greatest tragedy I have ever seen with my own eyes. But, still no fairies ever came to our house.

This little family of ours stands so much in contrast to the one in which I grew up. Loving your children is of course the number one priority. But when you bring magic into their lives you are infusing them with more than love. I want Mira and Eli to grow up to be strong and independent for sure. Strength and independence are important, it's something that our parents taught us in spades. We got that. But, unlike the Blumenfelds, we didn't get magic. We didn't get the sense that we were worth the effort it takes to create those magical moments. And we didn't have parents who created them for each other.

In the end maybe it doesn't matter. Norma and Dave got divorced. Although only once, and once Hal and Laura were already grown. The magical family collapsed just as surely as the ordinary family. But Laura, well lets take a look at Laura.

She is one of the people that you meet who absolutely guides through life. She was always pretty, popular and smart. She speaks Hebrew and Arabic fluently. She cares passionately about the world and loves her family. She has deep friendships, is successful professionally (did I mention she has a book published that was actually reviewed in the New York Times), she is rich, has three beautiful children, and actually in fact married the cute guy from camp. The one all of the girls had a crush on. The counslor that all of the girls had a crush on.

Growing up we made fun of the Blumenfelds all of the time. They were so needy. Both of them had a constant need to be in the spotlight at all times. When they were around we Graubarts faded a bit. Our successes were less, our failure illuminated. Mom used to tell us that we were much more normal than they were. We understood that life was about ups and downs and struggles, successes and failures.

Okay, maybe this is true. I'm not sure why the Graubarts are constantly learning this but I'd say at this point we know it. Too well. But excuse me if I want something different for my children. I'd like to infuse some "Blumenfeld" into their lives. Let them believe in magic. Let them think that success is the norm and failure is the exception. Let them think that changing the world is what they can do. Of course they can!