Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from 2018

Hineni: Here I am. A Shemos dvar Torah for my father’s 10th yahrzeit

In this week’s parsha, Moshe proves he’s ahead of his time, most strikingly in the first question he asks when he starts addressing Hashem. When Hashem calls to Moshe from the bush, Moshe responds with “Here I am,” hineni. In Hebrew, it’s one word, one concept, הנני מוכן ומזומן–I’m here and I’m ready. Not just presence, it’s total presence. But what’s the next thing Moshe says? Hashem first tells him all about the plan, that Moshe’s going to go to Paroh, going to bring out bnei Yisrael. And suddenly, Moshe isn’t so sure. What does he say? “Who am I?” מי אנוכי / mi anochi? He thought he knew, but now all of a sudden… he isn’t so sure. Which of us haven’t been there? In that spot where we thought we were brave, we stepped up, put up our hands, applied to make aliyah or signed up for grad school. Whatever it was, we are about to take that leap, and then suddenly, we wonder. Is this the right thing to do? Is this really who I am? This is actually a very modern question. Throughout most o

Hanukkah and the Holocaust: What stories are we telling our Jewish kids?

If, as Jewish parents, we care so much about sharing Judaism with our kids, why aren’t we doing it through the books we read them??? Only slightly frustrated by a flood of Chanukah books coming at me from all sides, I decided to go to my friendly local online library (in Toronto) and search for various keywords of Jewish life, just to rank which categories were most important to us, as parents and readers, based on how many kids’ books turned up in each category. So it turns out we’re telling our kids a whole lot – about Hanukkah and the Holocaust. And not much else. I want to point out up front that this search was never

Moments of regret: Small, medium, large

Maybe regret isn't the right word.  But I’ll use it here anyway. Because here in this dark, dark, cold time of year, I'm finding myself deluged with it -- three moments of regret, large and small. Regret, small: Driving in a hurry to pick up a crying baby from daycare.  Rushing and it's clear out, bright sunny sky, middle of the day, but I try to get through a red light and I don't make it.  Or rather, I make it but the car doesn't. That one instant -- there's the regret.  The wish that I could turn back the clock, like Superman, just 30 seconds.  Not try to make the light.  Wait there patiently, even though the baby has a fever; even though she's crying; even though she probably has some kind of horrible infection. I am constantly scrambling with that baby.  I missed her jaundice, failed to notice because we were locked up together in a cold winter bedroom that she was turning colour, turning yellow like a bog man, until her grandmother came over and s

Introducing… the parsha book you never knew you needed: The Rhyming Torah

You know how we're supposed to be modest and not go shouting our accomplishments from the rooftops? Well, sometimes, I'm a little too modest.  And then I need a talking-to from my miniature Social Media Coordinator, aka Naomi Rivka, age 13. Sitting around the Shabbos table, I mentioned that I'd finally finished my book of parsha poems, The Rhyming Torah .  And she asked the obvious question:  “So are you going to let people know?” As a busy little social media bug, she knows all about the ins and outs making your way to fame and fortune on the busy, busy internet of today.  And as my kid, obviously she wants me to succeed.  But I had to be honest. “I don’t know…” I said.  “I hadn’t really thought about it.” “Well, you at least have to tell your blog,” she announced. So that’s where this post comes in. I don’t usually do launches for my books, self-published or otherwise, but I probably should.  I’ve had a few just in the past year, and I believe each and every one of them

Carless whispers: Leaving the family car, and the Mom on Wheels, behind

It's been five years since we gave up the family car. Sometimes I don't think about that huge change, because it came at a time of so many other huge changes in our lives.  But I realized today it was worth stopping for a moment and reflect back on what that's meant and how we are with it. For about 15 years, I was a Mom on Wheels.  I had the big family car and drove it almost everywhere.  And it was a huge part of my identity even if I didn't like to admit it. I didn't start out that way... although to be honest, who does? And incongruously enough, I always thought of myself as more of a public transportation person.  I guess that's cognitive dissonance for you.  I took public transportation everywhere -- except when I drove the car, which much of the time was ALWAYS. And the shameful truth is, I quickly came to love being behind the wheel.  How could you not?  You're in charge.  You set the schedule -- although traffic sometimes has something to say a

Why I keep 2 days of Rosh Hashanah, even in Israel (a dvar Torah)

One of the main differences between Rosh Hashanah and other Yamim Tovim is that we keep 2 days, even in eretz Yisrael. And I think many of us realize this is connected to another difference between Rosh Hashanah and other Yamim Tovim, which is the problem with the bracha shehechiyanu on the second day. On the second day of most chagim, when we lived outside of Israel, we made the bracha shehechiyanu at night on the second day without a problem, because each day is considered a separate Yom Tov. But on Rosh Hashanah, we’re told to wear a new piece of clothing or have in mind a new kind of fruit when we make the bracha (though you should still do it even if you don’t have something new). The reason for this is that Rosh Hashanah is considered

A little one, a wallet

Spotted this lying on the table last night. Recognize it? Right—it’s a wallet. Specifically, it’s a kid’s wallet, my kid’s. My baby’s wallet, property of my 10-year-old baby boy. Which is hilarious, if you think about it. When YM was just a newborn, he had some little prescription we needed to fill, and my husband couldn’t stop staring at the piece of paper with his name on it. “He has his own prescription,” my husband said, in awe and wonder. Two weeks before, he hadn’t existed, hadn’t even been a “he,” as far as we were concerned. And now he had his own documents, a health card, a doctor, an identity. He was a person. But of course, for the first little while, it’s just a joke. You joke about his brand-new ID, or the well-meaning friend who made out a baby-gift cheque in the baby’s name, or some letter he gets in the mail from the government. Later, you laugh about his library card, his swimming lesson registration, , his college savings account, his nursery “school.” Because none

Picture Book Unboxing! Fast Asleep in a Little Village in Israel

It’s finally here!!!  These are my advance author copies.  The actual book is being released exactly two years from when I submitted it to Apples & Honey Press, which is almost lightning speed in the children’s-book industry. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then surely a video is worth a couple million pictures.  Here you go! But just in case you’re the type who prefers pictures… Here are NR & GZ, hamming it up and pulling out the first copies… This is where I told GZ, “Feign an expression of delight!” I think he literally has no idea what human emotions are or how they work. Now… displaying

The annual summer-schooling post: 5778 edition!

Well, we're back in the homeschooling saddle, if only for a few days before I'm heading off on a crazy-stupid two-day gallivant across Europe. The entire month before summer vacation, every Israeli parents' WhatsApp group is on fire with camp registrations and plans to ensure that our beloved sweeties don't have to go more than ten minutes without a “misgeret ,” or framework.  It's mostly for the parents' benefit, so they don’t have to miss work, which I get, but I also believe kids need a break.  I mean, school let out last Friday, and on Sunday morning, most of my kids' friends were off to the various "day camps" run by the schools. That one Shabbos can't have felt like much of a vacation. I was wondering how it would go with summerschooling this year, because NR is getting older and GZ is the same amount of stubborn as always, or perhaps more so with age.  But if these last 3 days are any indication, it's actually going better than in

Who's YOUR tribe? Finding yourself in a crowd

Have you ever had the feeling that you completely belong someplace? Before we left Toronto, I got to go to the Torah homeschooling conference twice.  And the biggest thing I felt, both times I walked through the door of the Jewish Community Center in Baltimore for the conference, was "Here I am."  Not JUST me, but people like me.  My tribe. "Finding your tribe" is a popular expression that goes back maybe about a decade.  I have no clue where it comes from, or who coined it, and if you know more than I do, I'd be happy to find out.  Google isn't showing me any references before 2012, but that's because Google, like most of us, is entirely now-oriented. Finding your tribe is a primal thing, locating the people you click with and clicking.  It's about what Kurt Vonnegut called

Is Kiruv a lie? Does it drive people away from Judaism…? (Hint: No, it doesn’t.)

In an article at Pop Chassid , Elad Nehorai wrote – with a big headline – “Kiruv is a lie.” Why?  Because it creates the illusion that Judaism is “fun” or “easy.”  Because it lures people in with songs or cheap spirituality or tasty food and then – bait and switch!!! – it turns out Judaism is a hard life and so the Judaism you thought was all about fun fizzles and you drift away from Judaism. And those who do stay religious, who move into religious communities like, I’m assuming Monsey or Lakewood or Boro Park or Jerusalem, suddenly discover that religious Jews are like anybody else, not all “souls on fire” but just regular people trying to make a living, playing loud music, behaving obnoxiously, speaking loshon hora, even stealing from each other in various horrible and petty ways. Nehorai’s solution is a little fuzzy – he recommends “improving the qualitative state of our communities.”  By this I’m assuming he means make every Jewish person behave nicely instead of just a few kiruv r

Sydney Taylor Award 2018 BLOG TOUR: Drop by Drop, A Story of Rabbi Akiva, by Jacqueline Jules / Yevgenia Nayberg

Welcome to visitors here with the Sydney Taylor Award blog tour!  You can find a full list of hosts and featured books at the Association of Jewish Libraries site .  There are some amazing selections this year.  In fact, that’s what I’m going to be talking about – a wonderful new Jewish kids’ book. If you’re not fascinated by Rabbi Akiva, it’s probably because you just don’t know enough about him.  Who wouldn’t be inspired by the tale of someone who comes to Torah learning late in life but persists until he becomes not just an expert, but one of the greatest heroes of the Jewish world. The problem is, how do you turn a figure commonly thought of as being more like this… Into someone warm and relatable, more like this… so that kids can actually enjoy the story and start to understand its full meaning? Well, that’s exactly what author Jacqueline Jules (left) and illustrator Yevgenia Nayberg (right) have done with Drop by Drop: A Story of Rabbi Akiva , which turns this classic and often-

Freedom, Imprisonment and Redemption: The Naïve Idealism of the Torah–a dvar Torah (ish) for late Bereishis / early Shemos / Bo

In historical Judaism, freedom and imprisonment are just two sides of the same möbius strip. Inner and outer freedom is the prime concept of the Torah and of Jewish tradition. Yet in Judaism, freedom is at once freely given and at the same time, never without a price tag. Captivity plays an almost schizophrenic role in the Tanach, and indeed, throughout Jewish history. On one hand, we find the prisonless society described in Exodus. But then, there is the forced captivity of an innocent described in the laws of the “yefes toar” – the beautiful woman taken in battle. And, though Judaism is far from an ascetic tradition, both ancient and modern Judaism have glorified, to an almost grotesque extent, the concept of spiritual redemption through imprisonment. How do these seemingly opposite concepts build upon and complement each other? And of what use are they in the modern world? Our culture is widely assumed to be “Judeo-Christian” in character, but little remains today of the idealistic