Adventures in Mama-Land

What are you blessing your children with today? It’s erev Rosh Chodesh Sivan, which is considered an "eis ratzon," a time of grace, for the prayer of the Shelah Hakadosh, a prayer for righteous children, which is quite lovely and humbling and all. ( English | Hebrew ) But as a parent of adult children, especially one who has chosen a very different path when it comes to Judaism, it's also perplexing. What do we do when our children don't turn out the way we had hoped and dreamed and prayed, day after day, year after year, at countless and innumerable times of grace? Back when I was homeschooling, I came across a number of parents who identified themselves as "Quiverfull." I had no clue what this was so I had to look it up. It seems it's a Christian parenting philosophy whereby you have as many children as possible. The term actually comes from Tehillim 127:5, so they borrowed it from us, and I'd like to reclaim it for a minute...

Is there something you’ve forgotten to tell your kids about coronavirus? I realized last night that in all the talk about talking to our kids around coronavirus, there’s one key message I’ve been leaving out: that what’s happening right now is absolutely unprecedented in our lifetimes. The thing is, kids are (almost by definition) very, very young. They don’t have a lot of experience in life, and whenever something happens, it’s new to them. But after a while, they

I get it.  We're all isolated, or at least, most of us are.  We're home with kids.  It's exasperating. How are you holding up? If you’re like lots of people I'm hearing from -- and the eerily similar memes they’re sharing – you’re thinking one of a few things: a) this is why I'm not cut out for homeschooling b) this is why I didn't homeschool my kids c) homeschooling is killing me !!! Sometimes, this disgust / exasperation is cleverly disguised as admiration for people who DO homeschool, but it basically comes down to the same thing -- homeschoolers must be nuts. And I totally feel for you.  I’m absolutely certain you’re going out of your tree with rangy kids running around begging you for their next snack or meal or whatever it is. (I created this helpful guide to aid GZ in understanding what he was allowed to snack on right before supper…) Look, I don't speak for anybody.  Heck, I'm not even a homeschooler anymore.  So maybe somebody else can ...

Even in Canada, I knew there were two ways of saying a person died: מת/ meit and נפטר/ niftar . In general, religious people use niftar, even when speaking English – it’s the more polite way of saying it, like “passed away.” But when my father died, eleven years ago tomorrow, and a taxi came to take me to the airport, I told the driver we were hurrying because I had to get back to Toronto because “ abba sheli meit .” There are lots of words you use in religious life that aren’t used so much in contemporary Israeli Hebrew, and so I was just taking a stab at the best possible way of saying it. But Israel being Israel, the cab driver decided it was time for a grammar lesson. “ Niftar . We say he was niftar .” Boy, did I know. (And also – is it my imagination, or only in Israel would a cab driver have the chutzpah correct someone who has just told you their father has died minutes before… ?!) These days, I have a habit that makes my 14-year-old daughter (“I’m basically 15”) cringe: tel...

How often do you lie down with your kids?  When they're little, obviously, it happens all the time, when you're nursing them, or trying to coax them to sleep.  These days, with my youngest kids 12 and 14 years old, I don't really have an excuse anymore. But really, why don't we? Why not lie down with your kids, cuddle them, cherish them?  Hold onto them not in a way that's clingy and all about our needs, as parents and imperfect human beings, but about them and how special and unique they are? Sometimes, when I start out writing about something, whether it's a blog or story or article, I don't know exactly what it's about until I get to the end.  Maybe, if you write, this happens to you, too? And then at the end, there’s this "aha" moment, and I realize what was really on my mind the whole time.  After I wrote almost this entire post, I looked back and was startled to realize that it probably emerged here and now because of the spectr...

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

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 ...

I want to tell you about a little girl I knew once. A baby, really, and whenever she would sit and eat in her high chair, whatever it was – rice cakes, Cheerios, cookies, whatever – she would insist on having two of them. One for each hand. A very smart girl: she wouldn’t start eating until she knew where her next meal was coming from. Even then, she was planning for the future: one rice cake in each fist. There is no crazy twist ending – that girl was, of course, this sweet, amazing Elisheva Chaya, who has somehow gone and grown up. I don’t know how this happens. Perhaps those of you who have known Shraggie all along are similarly surprised at how this could have happened, right under our noses. No, I’m not going to start singing “Sunrise, Sunset,” but you all know I could at any moment. Over the last few weeks in the parsha, we have been reading the story of Yosef, a story which is all about grasping the present while planning for the future: planning for famine, planning for geulah ...

I just caught a glimpse of myself in a reflection, in a car window, on my way to the train station. “Wow,” I thought.  “That sure does look like the real deal.” What do I mean by the real deal ? Well, you know .  Okay, I’ll come out and say it.  A 40-something frum woman, hair covered, a little dumpy, a little boring, pretty content with her quiet life off somewhere in Nowhereville, Israel, following the ways of Hashem.  You’d never know I was only faking it. Becoming a baalas teshuvah in my early 20s, fitting in was super-important, because if you think about it, I was kind of in freefall.  I’d given up a whole lot – friends, beliefs, even, to some extent, family.  So being accepted was kind of a matter of survival – if I wasn’t accepted, I’d be all alone. So when did I stop caring? I don’t know if I ever did, but

Are you a frequent flier?  If you’re like me, you probably said you aren’t. But don’t you deserve to be comfy anyway??? I’ve never thought of myself as a frequent flier.  Given that I’ve travelled exactly TWICE this year, probably nobody would.  But since moving to Israel, travel has definitely entered the picture in a bigger way than before.  And really, does it matter how often you’re travelling?  Even travelling once, if it’s a 12-16 hour stretch like our trips back to Canada, is about 12-16 hours too much if you’re uncomfortable… am I right? Here’s the secret airlines won’t tell you:  you DESERVE to be comfy. I’m always fascinated by gadgets that have been created to try to make the journey more comfortable.  Here are ten travel accessory gadgets that may inspire you as you go wherever it is you find yourself on the face of this big, amazing globe: 1. The SOARIGAMI – armrest sharing device It looks like origami, or like some kind of airmail paper ...

Our older daughter is engaged!!!  We are so utterly overjoyed.  If you are among the many, MANY people we care about who weren't able to make it to the vort tonight (given that it was held in Toronto with only 3 days' notice), I wanted to share this with you.  Know that we were thinking of you and are sharing our simcha in spirit if not in real live actual person. Speaking after the father of the chosson and one of his rebbes, I could have gone on and on and on all night – you know me – but I was told we only had 3 minutes to speak, so this was it.  Enjoy! ----- In this week’s parsha, Balak, an unusual thing happens. After Bilam tries to curse Am Yisrael, he comes up with another plan, to lead them into avoda zara through Midianite women. When this happens, Moshe Rabbeinu is not only silent, but he stands weeping. This is one of only few times in the Torah that Rashi says “nitalmu mimenu halacha,” the halacha was concealed from Moshe. There are five places in the To...

  There are more things in heaven and earth… Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. - Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio Before you start to wonder what this post is doing here:  yes, I realize that I have an aliyah blog , and that’s usually where I post most of my goggle-eyed musings about life in Israel. But my goggle-eyed musings about Jewish life, on the other hand, sometimes belong here.  Even if they are about Jewish life in Israel. About Jewish life… or about frum life.  A word I never, ever, ever liked.  Never, never, never.  You can find tons of old stuff on here that proves it – like this post, about ortho-BOXing me in , from 4 years ago.  Or this post, about being spiritual vs being religious . Where I am right now, frum is a word I never, ever, ever have to use unless I really want to. It turns out the problem wasn’t with me.  The problem was that there simply weren’t enough ways to be Jewish, at least where we were living....