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.