Your Grandmother's Gift

Dear Peanut,

We’re coming upon the 10^th yarzheit (anniversary of a death) of my mother, your namesake. For me, it is a time of disbelief—that she is gone ten years; that a decade of my life has vanished; that she and you have never met. Whenever I mention your grandmother, which I try to do casually, as part of our day-to-day interactions, your response is always the same. You look at me with those wide sensitive eyes of yours and say, “But Mommy, that’s sad because your mommy died.”

I understand your reaction. Death is sad, especially the death of a parent as you know so well from the kids’ movies you love so much—Cinderella, Dorothy, The Little Mermaid all had mommies who died. It’s commonplace in children’s stories to have the memory of a deceased parent haunting the hero’s journey toward wholeness. I think you’re still too young to truly comprehend death, but I also suspect that unconsciously you may reason that if it happens in stories, and it happened to me, then you, too, could lose your mommy forever.  To assuage these fears, I fib a little and tell you that your grandmother was very, very old when she died.

Still, the point is that right now you are more aware of your grandmother’s death than of her life. To honor her life as her 10^th yarzheit approaches, I want to share with you some qualities that your grandmother possessed that I hope will be an inspiration for you. I want you to have a document of why her death is sad, even though she was, in her own words, “just an ordinary wife, mother, and grandmother.”

Your grandmother was probably best known for her beauty; it was the first thing people commented on about her. She certainly took pains with her appearance and cared deeply that she was perceived as attractive. Yet, more than being beautiful in how she appeared, she was beautiful in the way she moved through the world. There was a grace and fluidity about her, even during the most humdrum, ordinary moments, and she presided over everything with elegance be it a formal Seder dinner or a Visiting Day picnic at camp. She had a keen aesthetic eye and took pleasure in creating, encountering, and commenting on beautiful things.

She was a peacekeeper and diplomat. “Don’t make waves, Ruth,” she advised time and again, especially when Poppy and I would engage in feisty political debates over dinner. Her greatest desire was for the people who surrounded her to live harmoniously and comfortably. She tried to soften rough edges, and she would always opt for gentle conciliation over harsh conflict, which was not always easy in our family filled with strong personalities. 

She also had an inner dignity and strength than I can’t quite describe and that I don’t think reached its full potential until the last stage of her life when she struggled terribly with lung disease. She spent much of those last years in ICU’s attached to a respirator, and still, even without the power of speech, even in dire pain, she was incredibly considerate and kind and concerned for others. She was so beloved that when it was clear her death was near each member of the nursing staff came into her room to share a tearful, personal goodbye.

As did we, her family, and even then in her final conscious moments, she was a brave, and gracious, and remarkable teacher. She talked about living a full life and about how she loved us all.

Yes, Peanut, her death is sad, but her life—thankfully—was not. And for this reason, I want you to celebrate all she was and all she still has to teach us. And I want you always to embrace this lesson of living life fully and knowing that love is eternal. It is your grandmother’s gift bequeathed to you. It is yours for all time.

I, too, will love you always,

Mommy

Camp & the Oneness at the Heart of the Universe

Dear Peanut,

I feel regret that it’s been so long since I added to this blog. The end of the programmatic year in synagogue life is a bit of a whirlwind, and we were blessed with family simchas to celebrate, too. Yet, I want to make sure that I continue my promise of an ongoing written legacy to you.

Today is another first for you. I just dropped you off at your first day of a new summer camp. It is a different environment for you. Unlike your Jewish pre-school (from which you graduated a few weeks ago), this is a secular program filled with kids from all backgrounds, and you’ll be exploring through camp activities children’s stories from around the world. From every which way, you’ll be exposed to new friends, new ideas, new customs.

I have some nervousness at your leaving the comfort and safety of an explicitly Jewish school, but I’m excited for you, too. You are the proverbial sponge—your eyes are wide open and your ears hear every nuance. In unexpected moments you return to the world the new word, novel observation or the unusual theory about how the universe operates. Daddy and I feel we would be shortchanging you as parents if we did not offer you opportunities to grow in these exhilarating ways.

This balancing of your Judaism with respect for what the world can teach you will be a life-long experience for you. In part, it is your birthright. As you get older, this will become abundantly clearer to you. As you already know, Daddy has chosen to be a Jew as an adult and his Jewish identity is built upon a rich heritage and deep familial ties to another remarkable culture. As your parents, we value all that has gone into making you you—all the centuries of lived experience on all branches of your family tree—while still cultivating and nourishing your Jewish soul.

While I’m mindful of this process and the pitfalls we may encounter, I’m not worried about it. I think your early childhood is a good basis for your life. You spend your days energized by the diverse adventures of the world around you. And at night, when we snuggle, you cannot settle down to sleep until we chant together the ancient words of the Shema. This quintessential Jewish prayer calls to us as Jews to celebrate the Oneness at the heart of the universe, the Oneness that unites all Creation, the Oneness from which we arise and to which we return.

In the dark, in my embrace, after you have recollected the highs and lows of the day, you chant these twelve simple words in Hebrew and word by word they become the pathway to your dreams.

I love you,

Mommy

Shabbat, Money, and the Material Needs of Our Neighbors

Dear Peanut,

The other day you and I sat on the floor of your room with pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters around us. We were reviewing the basics of monetary value—the nickel was surrounded by five pennies, the dime by ten, and so on. We marveled how the nickel equaled fewer pennies than the dime, even though it is a bigger coin and looks like it should be the quarter’s baby. Up until now, although you know money is exchanged for goods like groceries, toys, and supplies for our home, your only direct experience with money comes on Friday night, just before Shabbat.

It’s odd that Shabbat should be your association with money, because Shabbat is supposed to be an escape from the financial and logistical concerns of all the other days of the week. Yet for you, the appearance of coins is the first tangible sign that Shabbat is about to happen. Every Friday night, even though it is a work night for me, Daddy and I are committed to giving you a sense of the joy and calm of Shabbat. You have added to the pleasures of Shabbat by declaring that Shabbat is “cupcake day”—the one day a week when you’re guaranteed a cupcake for dessert.

And so each Friday night we say our blessings before the meal—over candles, the lighting of which ushers in the restful presence of Shabbat; over you, giving voice to our ineffable gratitude for your life; and over the grape juice and challah, when, for a fleeting moment, we don’t take for granted our good fortune or our full refrigerator. Before any of this however, the coins come jingling out of Daddy’s hand. We take down one of our many tzedekah boxes—most of which are your handiwork—and you distribute the coins among the three of us.

Shabbat is about the intimacy of our love for one another as a family, but in our house, we can’t revel in this love until we remind ourselves that our family doesn’t concern only the three of us. Our love is incomplete if we are only oriented toward the success and comfort of each other. Those tzedekah coins remind us that our family is just a small thread in the grand tapestry of Creation and our lives are interwoven with the life of every other human being, precious few of whom we know and love, most of whom are strangers to us.

So, holding our coins, we talk about the ways we can help fix the broken parts of our world—bringing school supplies to kids in need a few miles away; making sure no one in our town or the towns surrounding us goes hungry; using the money to help people in far away places like Haiti and Japan. Then the coins slip through the slots, you shake the box and we hear the clink of metal, and we make our way to the Shabbat table.

I was not raised with a weekly Shabbat experience, so I don’t know what the long-term impact our Friday night rituals will have on you, but my hope is that they will help cultivate and maintain a spirit of generosity and open-heartedness in you. Rabbi Israel Salanter once taught that the material needs of my neighbor are my spiritual needs. I pray this truth is imprinted on your soul every time you hold a coin, hear the blessings, and take that first delicious bite of a cupcake on Friday night.

At the very least, for a second or two before I dash out the door, I am poignantly, joyously aware that our family is part of something much larger and much more awesome than just the three of us. And for that, I am thankful.

As always, I love you,

Mommy

The Goal of Family Life

Dear Peanut,

            These last few days, Peanut, you have been a scrumptious dream of a child. Buoyant and happy and inquisitive. A few days ago, you, Daddy and I were at the Metropolitan Museum and you grabbed Daddy’s hand and said that the two of you needed to go off for a while, “Because we’re explorers Mommy!” And off you went, to discover Asia and the exquisite indoor Chinese garden just beyond the art of Nepal and Japan. When we met up again we wound our way through the American Wing and “the big house”, a mansion with rooms decorated in period pieces by designers ranging from pre-Revolutionary War artisans to Frank Lloyd Wright. Finally, we found ourselves in the Greek and Roman wing and we stood in awe of a special exhibit, the Lod Mosaic, and after we caught our breath, we ran around it, trying to identify all of the animals who emerged from those tiny tiles. It was a delicious afternoon.

            It was all the sweeter because just a week or two ago, you were in something of a bad mood. Perhaps you were cranky from being home-bound from all of the snow storms during this ice-age winter of ours. I think, however, the more likely explanation is a growth spurt. Daddy and I have noticed that before you physically and developmentally push forward into a new phase, you settle into a period in which you are strong-willed, testing boundaries and demanding that you get your way. It's trying for us, you seem discontented, and in general there is a gray cloud over our home.

            When I was younger and defined myself as a daughter not as a mother, I attended a study session on family systems. The teacher used some of the turbulent family relationships in the book of Genesis as his case studies. He suggested that these texts teach that the goal of family life is to force us in close proximity with other human beings so that our lives may be rife with quarrels and power struggles and daily frustrations. This way, he suggested, if the family dynamic is a healthy one, the younger generation will be raised with excellent conflict-resolution skills, which is really what a person needs to survive adulthood.

            The goal of family life is to live with conflict? This proposition turned my expectations of family on its head. At the time, I believed that the goal of family life was to live in idyllic peace where everyone loves, understands and accepts one another, and where household decisions were made with relative ease. Clearly mine was an unrealistic standard—how much easier it is for families to live up to the standard of being a breeding ground for conflict!

            That means, then, that a major part of child-rearing must be devoted to how we guide our children in expressing anger and impatience. I confess: patience has never been my strong suit; this is one of the most challenging aspects of parenthood. But you, Peanut, by your very presence, are my spirit-guide, testing me to role-model taking a breath, staying composed, and demonstrating even-handedness. Sometimes I fail, sometimes I succeed. (Thank you to the wise woman who told me if you get it right 70% of the time, you’re doing fine as a parent.)

            With each new storm before the calm—period of struggle before a growth spurt—I think you are honing your conflict-resolution skills, learning to verbally disagree in a constructive way, and figuring out how to negotiate boundaries. I’d like to believe that beautiful afternoons together are the reward for successfully pushing through a period of conflict.

            My prayer is that these storms of childhood will pave the way toward an adulthood filled with equanimity and wisdom. When you grow up, I want you to traverse the world with the same eagerness and passion as you explored the museum a few days ago. And when you go forth and discover your own grown-up adventures, I want you to know, wherever I may be, my love goes with you.

I love you,

Mommy

The Delight You Take in Your Body

Dear Peanut,

I’ve been going to physical therapy lately—nothing serious, just strengthening my middle-aged back. As my therapist gives me pointers on how to conduct daily activities, she reminds me, “When you lift heavy objects, be like a three or four year old who hasn’t developed bad habits yet. Have you ever noticed when little kids need to move something heavy, they bend their knees and use their legs to help support the weight of the object?”

Well, I have noticed, because that’s the way you, Peanut, move heavy things. And you hold your back up so straight. And you burst into dance for any reason at all—celebration, silliness, even anger. I am grateful for the health and robust energy that pulses through you. I watch how you completely inhabit your body, Peanut, and it fills me with utter satisfaction.

What's more, right now, you allow me total access to your body. With winter upon us, you and I have a nightly routine of moisturizing your tender skin so that it doesn’t dry out and become itchy. It’s one of my favorite moments of the day. I take every hug and snuggle that I can, knowing the day will come when you push me away rather than draw me closer and when the door to your room closes so you can have privacy.

Knowing that day is around the corner, when I see the pureness and delight you take in your body’s movements, it doesn't just gratify me; it saddens me a little too. I know these days of blissful self-assurance are a gift of early childhood. Most of us end up feeling disconnected from our bodies and develop the “bad habits” my physical therapist warns against. I don’t want that to happen to you.

Even more sadly, our world defines girls by their physical appearance, and as a result many girls become painfully self-conscious of their bodies and angst-ridden that they don't measure up to ideals of beauty. Right now, your greatest pleasure is prancing around in your princess gowns and sparkly jewels. I fear the day when you look at the princesses and ballerinas whom you admire so much now and find yourself lacking.

Of course your father and I do our best to help you cultivate a healthy lifestyle that will ensure continued well-being and joyous activity. And we take as our guide Judaism which teaches us to enjoy our senses, to take pleasure in the physical world, and to attend to the bodies we’ve been given. Our tradition believes that our lives are on loan to us from God. For the short time we are here, we must treat ourselves with kindness and compassion, and allow ourselves the entirety of our bodily experiences.

While there may be much about my own life that I have wasted, I don’t take a moment of your life for granted. I pray you will know always the wholeness of body and mind of this stage of your life. Meanwhile, I share with you these reflections, so that one day in the future, if you ever need the prompting, these words can trigger a spiritual and physical memory about the wondrous days when you fully lived in your body. It is an awesome sight to behold.

I love you,

Mommy

Questions About God, Answered and Unanswered

Dear Peanut,

I have one basic rule with you—to always answer your questions as honestly (and age appropriately) as I can. I hope that by being open to your questions now, you’ll always know that every subject is safe for us to discuss, even those subjects (especially those subjects?) that were off limits when I was a kid, namely sex and death. And God.

God. I had some awareness of a unifying presence in the world from early on. I recall being about your age and twirling on the springtime grass of the front lawn. Suddenly I stopped and looked up, and as the world spun around me, I noticed how the sunlight sparkled through the green leaves of the trees. Somehow, the radiance of the light, and the newness of the air, and the freedom of my body led me to feel that God was present. How I even knew who God was, I don’t know.

As Daddy and I raise you, I’m conscious of bringing God into our conversations. This is a break from the way I was brought up. My parents were of the generation of Jews, molded by modernism and rationalism, who didn’t talk much about God, nor, I suspect, thought much about God. The lack of information about God intrigued me enough to want to explore religion and eventually lead me to the rabbinate. I wonder sometimes what kind of impact our God-talk will have on you as you grow older.

For now, you certainly show a keen theological awareness of your own. One day, when you were just past two, we were eating breakfast and you asked, “Mommy, why do men have beards?” Following my rule, I answered truthfully: “Because men and women have something inside them called hormones that help them be men and women. So men have beard hormones that help them grow beards.” You pondered that for a while as you ate your cheerios, and then shrugged a little as if you understood, saying, “Well, I guess that’s the way God made them.”

Another time, you asked me what prayer is. I answered that prayer can be many things but for most people prayer is a way we can talk to God. Again, you gave it some thought, and then said, “But Mommy, you said we all are God, or have some of God in us, and so aren’t we speaking to God when we speak to one another?”

I think in recent weeks your moral development has surged forward and you are now struggling with some perplexing theological ideas. You’ve been talking a lot lately about life and death and the dividing line between the two. You immerse yourself in movies, and the movies you love the most are the ones that make you cry the hardest because of loss or fear (even as you know the characters will live happily ever after). You’ve also had some bad dreams lately that jolt you awake in the middle of the night.

In your own way, you are wrestling with theodicy—how can the good presence of God allow suffering and pain in this world? This is one question for which I simply do not have the answer and it breaks my heart. I can live with my own unanswered questions, but yours…they haunt me. All I can do is hug you and let you know how very much you are loved.

It is not an answer but it is a response. I hope it is enough.

I love you,

Mommy

The Blessing and Curse of Being a Rabbi's Kid

Dear Peanut,

I've been confronted with the first challenge of this blog. A very dear friend, someone who knows our family better than almost anyone else, asked me a question that haunts me a little.

She knows how private Daddy and I are, and she knows how sensitive children can be when their parents reveal too much about their lives without permission. And so, she asked: is it possible that Daddy, you, or I will come to regret the public nature of this blogged ethical will?

So here's lesson #1 of this blog: In life, find friends you trust enough to know the entirety of who you are. People who will not shy away from your flaws and who will love you all the more for them. People who will read a few hundred words of your writing and know exactly the right questions to ask you. If you can also get lost in gales of laughter with them, then you know you've found a friend of spirit.

The reason this is blogged, and not just a private document between us is because you have the blessing and the curse of having a rabbi for a parent. (A subject I'm sure we'll explore here.) As a rabbi, I'm a teacher and a communicator—a door-to-door salesman, really—for Judaism. My hope is that somehow in the details of our lives together, I will be able to communicate the intersection of Jewish values with parenting and life.

In the particular the universal is revealed. Maybe, by sharing my real concerns and desires for you, I can connect to other people’s lives. Maybe this will guide others as they try to shape the moral lives of the next generation or discover new ways to bring an appreciation of the sacred into their secular experiences. Maybe this will help me grow in my own Jewish and spiritual life. At the very least, it will accomplish the goal of beginning an ethical will for you.

Still, our friend's question remains in the air. So I promise to try to maintain the balance between discretion and openness. I will try not to reveal any names or personal details that may invade our privacy. And, I’ll expand my entries beyond the experiences of our family from time to time.

In some sense, the epistolary nature of this blog is a little 19^th century, but it works as a device, allowing me a focus to my reflections. Thank you, Peanut, for being that focus, and for bearing with the blessing and curse of being a rabbi's kid.

I love you,

Mommy