Adventures in Mama-Land

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...

Every year we’re in Toronto, and for years before we made aliyah, my mother hosts a shalosh seudos for the ladies of our shul.  For some reason, my mother’s shalosh seudos always manages to fall out on a different parsha, so I can’t repeat what I’ve said in previous years. If you’re curious, here are some of these masterpieces from previous years… Parshas Chukas (2009) Parshas Re’eh (2010) Parshas Chukas (2011 – I guess it has sometimes repeated) Parshas Devarim/Chazon (2013) Parshas Pinchas (2015) The point being - I had to start from scratch looking at this week’s combined parsha – Matos-Masei. There is a very shocking section near the beginning of this week’s parsha. It’s connected with what we read two weeks ago in parshas Balak. Back then, the people of Moav and Midian sent women in to seduce the men of Bnei Yisrael – not just physically, our commentators tell us, but spiritually, leading the Jewish men into worshiping idols. Now, it’s time for revenge. Interestingly, we’...

For Israeli parents, one word seems like the absolute number-one most important to remember – yes, even before Bamba and Shoko beSakit (chocolate milk in a bag, a staple of childhood here):  Misgeret. Misgeret (מִסְגֶּרֶת) literally means “frame.”  This is a misgeret: And so is this: And so is this: Because the other meaning of the word “Misgeret” is “where you put your kids.”  In English, you might say something like “structure” or “system” or “framework.”  But I don’t know if you’d panic about it in quite the way parents here do. Sure, like working parents everywhere, Israeli parents want to make sure they can work without disruption by kids’ days off, summer vacation, etc.  So structure is important for that.  But it’s more than that.  I think parenting here used to be more laid-back, until maybe a decade ago when people started panicking about math and science scores and keeping up with the rest of the world, and now the biggest reason fo...