Adventures in Mama-Land

What time is it right now where you are? As I write this, it's early morning here (Israel) and the middle of the night in North America.  Time for all reasonable people to be sleeping.  Are you still awake? It is also Elul, the time before Rosh Hashanah when we make the changes in our lives so we can start becoming the holy people Hashem wants us to be. When we lived in North America, it was nice having friends in Israel because I could chat with them late at night.  For them it was morning; their kids had already gone to school. And I was up much too late. Here, I find the same thing happening in reverse.  When it's late at night here, everybody's running around back in North America, getting supper ready, relaxing during the evening. And I am STILL up much too late. The hour between 12 and 1 is the worst.  Maybe you know the feeling.  The thought that you should just shut down and go to bed?  The sense of diminishing returns. 

I am not one for vivid dreams - or, really, any kind of dreams.  But for some reason, here in Elul, I have now had three extraordinarily vivid "King in the field" dreams.  What is this concept? Basically, in the month of Elul, God is very, very close to us indeed.  We finish the book of Eichah on Tisha b'Av with the words "return us to you, Hashem, and we will return."  In other words, meet us halfway.  This month is the fulfillment of that promise.  Turn towards Him, and He will do all the work - bringing you home again. The analogy is of a king - once a year, the king goes out into the field to meet with his populace and take any kinds of requests, however ridiculous. Within most of the theology I've read, there are two "God-concepts" - the God who is immanent (this means near; not to be confused with the near-homonym imminent, which means "coming soon").  This is tangible God - He is palpably everywhere.  The other concept is tr...

(with thanks to Phyllis Sommer’s Ima on and off the Bima for the “Blog Elul” button and meme, which I have not yet participated because I thought I had nothing to say) My friend Sara just wrote an interesting post about strollers , and running after her toddler on Shabbos. Her post reminded me – tangentially – of the olden days, before Toronto got its current eiruv.  I started to write it in her comments, but realized (for once) that my thoughts were totally irrelevant.  “Get your own blog,” I told myself.  But then I realized, “Wait a minute.  I HAVE my own blog.  And this is what it’s for – my random dull reminiscences of bygone eras.”  “Okay, then,” I told myself.  “Why not write it there?” So I am. When YM was a baby, there was no eiruv in Toronto, so young mamas just didn't go out on Shabbos.  By the time we moved to Calgary, also with no eiruv, he was walking, so on Yom Kippur I decided to walk to shul.  The shul was RIGHT across ...