"...And it was Good."

Just over a month ago, after the holiday of Simchat Torah, we finished our yearly cycle of reading the Torah and started anew.  The first parasha, "Bereishit" (literally "In the Beginning", often translated as "Genesis"), recounts creation.  The levels of depth in these lines are infinite.

This year, one particular concept was brought to my attention.  About (almost) each thing created, it says, "Let there be...", "And there was...", and "It was good."

In his new book, "Covenant and Conversation," Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (Chief Rabbi of the UK), wrote a beautiful explanation of this concept.  Whenever I include quotes in my explanation and application of this concept, it is from his book.

On a fundamental level, this account of Creation lays the groundwork for a Jewish approach to life.  Life and the world are seen as inherently Good.

This begs the question, "If everything was created Good, how do people become evil?"  Rabbi Sacks claims, "Their tragedy was that often they came from dysfunctional families in difficult conditions.  No one took the time to care for them, support them ... They lacked a basic self-respect, a sense of their own worth.  No one ever told them that they were good."  This description refers to extreme cases, such as criminal offenders.

So if ignoring the good in an individual makes one being evil, how can we make people great?
By acknowledging the good in them.

"To see someone is good and to say so is a creative act - one of the great creative acts. ...  Within almost all of us is something positive and unique, but which is all too easily injured, and which only grows when exposed to the sunlight of someone else's recognition and praise.  To see the good in others and let them see themselves in the mirror of our regard is to help someone grow to become the best they can be.  'Greater,' says the Talmud, 'is one who causes others to do good than one who does good himself.'  To help others become what they can be is to give birth to creativity in someone else's soul.  This is done not by criticism or negativity but by searching out the good in others, and helping them see it, recognize it, own it, and live it." ... "When we recognize the goodness in someone, we do more than create it, we help it to become creative.  This is what G-d does for us, and what He calls us to do for others."

I think this is a very powerful message for parenting.  So often, parents feel an urge to criticize the things their child does wrong.  Whether it's something simple, "You put your shirt on backwards again." Or something more damaging.  Think of how good our children would feel if we acknowledged the good in everything they do.  Recognize the positive effort, "Wow, you put your shirt on all by yourself!  Can I help you turn it around the right way?"

I can only imagine the potential for this strategy as children get older.  When children have hobbies and talents that begin to develop, a parent cheer leader and advocate (in a healthy way of course) can make the child truly feel GOOD.

Beyond parenting, this concept can be applied to all relationships in life.  With parents and friends, it is not only important to see the good in them, but to tell them that you recognize it.  By pointing out a good quality, it brings it to their attention.  On one hand, it makes them feel good.  Further, sometimes your acknowledgement of their strength causes them to feel a healthy sense of pride and exude that strength to a greater extent.  You therefore make a contribution to the good they bring into the world. This is just about as close as we can get in this world to emulating Divine Creation.

Instilling Gratitude

Adina is finally reaching an age where she can make positive contributions to projects that we do together.  Not only is she getting better with coloring, cutting, and gluing, but I see a blossoming in her ideas as well.

This week, I decided to do a Thanksgiving project with her.  She doesn't really get the connection of the turkey animal to the turkey we eat yet, and I thought this whole concept would confuse her a bit.  So instead, I decided to do a "Thankful Project."  For the past week, at random points throughout the day, I would tell her something I was thankful for and ask her to do this as well.  While I have taught her to say, "Thank you," when given something, we had never before discussed the feeling of gratitude.

Yesterday, for our morning activity, we made an "Adina Tree" and a "Mommy Tree" by tracing our hands and arms.  Then, while Adina colored the "sunshine" all around the trees, I cut out leaves.  (She could relate to this project because she has been very into noticing the changing colors of the leaves and pointing out whether trees still have leaves or if they've lost them all already).  Before she glued each leaf on her tree, I asked her to tell me one thing she is thankful for.  It was slow going at first, but then she kept saying so many more that I needed to add "stickers" to her finger because we were out of leaves.

Now this project is all well and good, but the lesson for Mommy came later in the day.

Nap time didn't go quite as planned.  I felt tired.  The house was a mess and getting messier.

Yoni came home right in the middle of it.

Cheerfully, he asked, "How was your day sweetie?"

Poor guy.  I started in on my laundry list of complaints.

Yoni calmly sat down and said to me, "Do you feel ok?"

"Yes," I responded.

"And the kids are healthy?" He asked.

"Yes, they are."

"Did you eat a good lunch and breakfast today?"

At first, I thought he was asking questions to try to figure out if there was a reason for my not so cheerful mood.  Then I realized he was giving me perspective.  Yes, there were a couple of things to complain about. But look at all of the things to be thankful for!  Just a few hours before, I had sat down with Adina discussing how many things we should be thankful for, and here she sees me telling Aba all the negatives.

It seems as though the best way to teach children gratitude is to constantly dwell on things we are grateful for ourselves.  Making thankful trees for art projects are fun, but I need to internalize the concept so that I can impart it on my kids.  Lesson learned. :)

Life as a painting... and where we stand when we view it.

Since my first year in college, when I began delving into the depth of a Jewish world view, I have combined many different explanations and analogies within my mind to understand this world and our purpose in it.

One of the first analogies I heard has always stuck with me.  At each stage in our life, we are drawing a few lines and putting different splotches of color onto a canvas.  Sometimes it can look pretty or seem exciting or boring, or even dreary.  Only at the end of our life can we step back from the canvas to see how all of those random colors and lines blend together to form a beautiful painting.  

This analogy has also helped me at different points in my life when I struggled with emuna (faith).  If I believe G-d's hand is guiding the paintbrush, even those big black splotches have meaning and make a positive contribution to the painting as a whole.

Freshman year of college, on one of my first weekends back home, I tried to apply this analogy to my life with the following poem:

(written November 23, 2004)

Every place has a story.

I walk down the street and memories race.

How can so much meaning

be embedded in a place?

The world is my canvas,

but up to this time

I had only walked along

a thinly drawn line.

And along that line,

I knew it all.

Now reimmersed,

I so easily recall.

With every step I take,

I remember the feel.

My naive perceptions of life

once again seem real.

But although on some layer

that line remains,

the picture around it is forming

and its essence is changed...

Now why have I started thinking of this analogy over the past week?

I've started to look at relationships as paintings.  When we're in the day to day involvements of a relationship, we see only the color splotches and lines.  We see it so close up that a little splotch that's not exactly where it's supposed to be can nag at us or become bothersome.  We analyze the line formations.

When you have a distance relationship for a few months, you take a few steps back from the painting.  You see and appreciate the beautiful picture formed by all those little lines and splotches.  Now, as Yoni has returned home, I try to keep that big picture in mind.

The weather patterns of life...

A good friend of mine brought something interesting to my attention this past Shabbat.  She mentioned that she saw my last blog post with the poem, and she couldn't think of what to write as a comment.  "It just seemed very emotional and sad," she said.  Then she recalled something from a few months ago (back in the spring).  At that time, she had been going through a difficult time with one of her children and people commented that her blogs were always very gloomy.  Someone even made the comment to her that in contrast to my blogs, which were full of happiness and cheer at the time, hers were that much more depressing...

Now, her life is filled with exciting new things - youngest child entering school, new job, etc. and my life is a little more emotional than it was 6 months ago.  Even though we live in the same city, it seems as though our lives have different seasonal weather patterns.  This analogy seems especially pertinent living in a place like Seattle where the periods of sunshine and rain are so pronounced throughout the year.  For nearly three months, we wake up to sunshine every day.  The days are long and the sun shines persistently.  If a raindrop falls from the sky during this period, it seems out of place, and we know it will soon end.  Then the winter comes.  Every day is gray and rainy.  We don't expect any different.  We accept the gray and rain and know that it will have an end in its own time.  However, if a sunny day does happen to pop in and permeate the clouds, those rays of brightness mean so much.

So it is with our lives.  Each person has their seasons of sunshine and clouds.  Thankfully, we don't go through the same weather patterns at the same times.  As friends, we all balance each other and know that each weather pattern will soon pass, leaving something new in its wake.

On a happier day... :)

In the days following my last post, I got a number of people calling or e-mailing to check in and make sure I was doing alright.  First of all, thank you everyone for caring and being there!  In a way, I started to feel bad for posting when I was feeling at the low point of the week.  Most of my week, I hadn't felt so frustrated and impatient and at wits end.  But on Thursday I did, and that's when I wrote my blog.  I think subconsciously, I did this on purpose.  As people have since explained to me, I am really good at conveying a facade of being perfectly in control of everything.  The truth is, I always want to feel put together, so even when the stress starts getting to me, I don't allow others to see it so easily.  And then the stress or overwhelmed feeling reaches a certain point where I can no longer completely ignore its existence, and by then my reaction to it is at least a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10!  Sorry for the math analogy yet again, but while my stress level was slowly rising ... 2 ... 3... 4 ... 7 ... 8... I was still putting on the happy face.  Then I hit a 9 and I felt very alone at a 9 because most of the people in my life still thought I had everything in control and I was still at a 2 or 3.

So a part of me wanted to reach out and let people know that one or two days a week, I am feeling pretty bad about Yoni's absence and I need your support.  I know asking for it directly would be best, but I am not the best at asking for things, even when it is things like emotional support.

But thank you to everybody who got the message and gave it to me.  I have to say that since Thursday night, thank G-d, I have been in such a better place.  I attribute this completely to the people in my life who reached out and took some of the burden off of my shoulders simply through empathizing.

We had a really lovely Shabbat.  Thank you Gallors for being so sweet and agreeing to do a later lunch so that my kids could get their normal nap and we could still eat out and enjoy lovely company for the seuda. (By the way, while I was waiting for Adina to wake up because we needed to go to the Gallors to eat, she took the longest nap that she has taken since Yoni left.  I ended up waking her up after over 3 hours....Go figure :-P)

Then today started out disastrous.  Libby woke me up at 4 AM because she was being taunted by a raccoon outside.  It took nearly an hour and a half to calm her down and then by the time I finally fell asleep, I spent exactly 15 minutes in dream land until Mr. Ze'ev woke up.  Then between the heat (Seattle doesn't believe in central air conditioning) and the lack of structure inherent in Sundays, the kids were both in "lovely" moods today.  It could have gotten me down.  But still feeling all of the support shown in the past few days, I dealt with each moment as it came and did not allow myself to get worked up (too much).  Then Sasha saved me from the post-nap "fun moods" by inviting us over to play in their backyard.  (Thank you!!!!)

So where am I getting with all of this?  Yes, I count the calendar each day.  Yes, I calculate how long until G-d willing Yoni will get to come home.  But when I feel support, when I feel like I am not doing all of this alone, when the littlest bits of kindness brighten each day, it makes those days pass so much more quickly and most importantly, so much more happily.  The happier we are, the faster the days will pass, so it is really in my best interest to make the most of each day and find ways to make them filled with joy.

P.S.  The two best practical pieces of advice I received last week, that have already made a big difference:
1) Close the door when I go to the bathroom and have 2 minutes of private time amidst any ensuing chaos.
2) If the kids have eaten dinner but I am counting down the minutes until bath, put them in the bath early and just let them play for a lot longer than usual.  I can even bring a good book into the bathroom and just hang out while they play and play.

Retrospective

I am not sure if "retrospective" is actually a word, but if it isn't, it should be.  It so perfectly describes the perspective of looking at things in retrospect.

I often think about how much more I would have gotten out of experiences in the past had I been able to experience them with the head I now have on my shoulders.  With age comes maturation and a whole new kind of perspective.  I look at mine and Yoni's time of engagement and the beginning of our marriage.  In some ways, I have few memories of this time.  This fog could possibly be a result of the two children I have had in close succession between then and now, but sometimes I think the past seems so foggy because my brain is now in such a completely different place.  At that time, I was really just starting off on my whole internal spiritual journey.  My understanding of my internal purpose in life barely existed, and was for sure not what it is today (and I still have plenty of room to grow!).  Sometimes, I wonder whether I would have had more perspective at that time if I had been "observant" for a longer period of time prior to becoming engaged/married.

This weekend, we were honored to celebrate with a newly engaged couple (Mazal tov again! :) ).  Both the chatan (groom) and kallah (bride) were raised living a religious lifestyle.  They both have a firm grasp on their faith.  Yet I saw in their eyes the very same bewilderment that I felt a mere 4 1/2 years ago - Completely unaware of what the future will bring - emotionally, physically, intellectually.  No matter what your background or where you are in life, the time of engagement and "newlywed-hood" is a time of a whirlwind which will scarcely be remembered in detail as life evolves and the couple grows both as individuals and together as a cohesive unit.

It was so refreshing for me to see that I was not unique in my bewilderment.  I shouldn't feel regret at not having enjoyed it enough because it was not paired with the perspective I now bring to life.  At that stage in my life, I experienced it the best way that I knew how.

Now, this naturally brings me to think toward the future.  Ten years from now, Twenty years from now, G-d willing fifty or sixty years from now, what new perspective will I have?  What will I wish I had thought about when I was a young Mom?  How will I wish I had enjoyed certain moments for their intricate deeper meaning which right now is completely lost to me?

If you are blessed to have had more life experience than me, please share your pearls of wisdom that you feel upon looking back to your twenties...

Warning! Politics below...

Don't worry, I am not writing anything about United States politics...
This is a little venture from my usual parenting blog entries, but it has been on my mind a lot recently, so I wanted to write about it.
The topic is shul politics.  Unfortunately there has been a lot of damaging and incredibly disturbing politicking going on at our shul the past couple months.  It is not appropriate to go into the details here, but I will go into my thoughts about this whole concept and the reaction I have had.

What is the point of a shul?
A communal opportunity to connect with G-d.  That is it.  That is why the shul exists.  If it were not for G-d, there would not be a shul.  According to the Torah, if it were not for G-d, there would not be anything at all, but that is besides the point...
So how can people allow the shul to become a tool used for such a disruptive battleground, tearing Jews apart rather than bringing them together?

I wrote this poem a couple weeks back, when things were at their worst...

A penny has two sides,
A square has four.
A dodecagon has
so many more.

Amidst the stories,
from all the sides,
Deeply embedded,
a pure truth hides.

An honesty
of heart and soul;
Where judicious peace
is the ultimate goal.

It will never surface
with egos involved,
So the labyrinth
will never be solved.

If people could shed
hatred and vanity,
Then we could find a solution
and stop this insanity.

That pretty much sums it up, but for those of you knowledgeable in the Torah, take a look at this week's Torah portion.  Korach.  What was his biggest flaw?  Why did he desire power?  What happened to him...?

Remember When...

Last night, I had a very touching moment.

We were having a little melava malka (post-Shabbat hangout involving food and good times). Yoni made us root beer floats, and decided to opt out of playing games and instead provided musical entertainment.

After exhausting his repertoire for Jewish music, he began some of our old favorites. We had some emotional moments as he played "I loved her first" which he serenaded us with during the father daughter dance at our wedding. And then I requested he play "Remember when." It has been a long time since I heard this song! On one hand, it brought back so many "Remember when" moments of where I was in my life the last times I listened to the song.

Remember when ...

I was a teenager with my whole life unknown and lying at my feet. Possibilities were endless. I had some direction, but in retrospect my path was a mystery. I heard this song and dreamed of finding someone to marry. I dreamed of having babies and growing old with the father of my children. These were visions, but so far from the reality of my academic world and my friends. Now that world I lived in seems so far away, and I am immersed in the world described by the song.

Two verses of the song particularly spoke to me. They so clearly describe the stage of life I am living now.

Remember when...

Old ones died and new were born

Life was changed

Disassembled

Rearranged

We came together

Fell apart

We broke each other's hearts

Remember when.

Remember when...

The sound of little feet

Was the music

We danced to week to week

Brought back the love

We found trust

Vowed we'd never give it up

Remember when.

The beauty is that I know, G-d willing, some day the rest of the verses will portray my life and the world described in the beginning of the song will be a sweet memory. Even though I'm not quite toward the end of the song yet, I'll include the verses here for those of you reading this who are in that stage of your life and might appreciate the eloquent illustration of growing up with your family.

Remember when...

Thirty seemed so old

Now looking back

It was just a stepping stone

To where we are

Where we've been

Said we'd do it all again

Remember when.

Remember when...

We said when we turned gray

When the children

Grew up and moved away

We won't be sad

We'd be glad

For all the life we've had

And we'd Remember when.

Keeping the perspective of these last verses helps me appreciate the current moment to a much greater extent. I know one day I will longingly reminisce about these sleep-deprived days of changing diapers and giving kisses to heal boo-boos. Just yesterday morning, Yoni and I looked at Adina and had a moment of realizing how old she is getting. She has started getting a lot taller and thinner. She is growing into her little girl body and no longer looks like such a toddler. Yoni looked at me and said, "One day Adina will probably be as tall as you. If not taller!" Whoa, that's hard to imagine! I am appreciating the days when I can sweep her off her feet and make her laugh for minutes by giving airplane rides and doing the "silly walk."

A Little Perspective...

During the rainy Seattle winter (I actually can't complain because we have had a lot more sun than usual...), it is easy to get a little down. It is easy to feel bad about staying in with the kids all day, being far from family, having Yoni gone so much...
The past couple weeks Ze'ev has made it particularly difficult for me because he has gone on a monstrous nursing strike! (Yoni says he hopes this isn't a prediction of Ze'ev's inclination later in life... apparently he will be forbidden to join a union...).

In the past few days, I have received two levels of perspective (both care of my favorite blog - JewishMOM.com)

The first level of perspective: Emuna. (Faith). Everything that happens, no matter how difficult or bad it seems, is happening because it is supposed to and for a reason.

http://jewishmom.com/2012/01/31/the-jewishmom-com-despair-busting-challenge-week-one/#comment-15527

(In the 7th comment I explained my thoughts on the concept...)


And the second level of perspective: It could always be much worse! Thank G-d, we are all healthy, thriving, with enough to eat, a roof over our heads, etc...

Prepare to cry...
http://jewishmom.com/2012/01/28/brothers-heartbreaking-tribute-to-their-mom-4-minute-video/

Wow.
http://jewishmom.com/2012/01/29/rainbow-in-the-night-5-minute-official-music-video/



I don't usually link to other blogs from mine, but this week my life coincided perfectly with everything JewishMOM.com had to say.

Inspiration for Blog

Being a stay at home parent is a more-than-full-time job. Each day is comprised of diaper change after diaper change after meal time after nursing after boo boos and hugs.... etc. And after a long, tiring day it sounds so nice to put on pajamas and curl up in bed for a good night's sleep. But the children often have different plans for Mommy. The baby needs to nurse at 1 AM. The toddler wakes parched at 4:45 AM, asking for milk. At that point, Mommy doesn't fall back asleep and the day begins! This was my experience last night. So at 5 AM, lying in bed, I decided to start a new blog. I have always enjoyed writing, and I find it very therapeutic. Since becoming a Mom, I don't make time for it as I should. But now is the time that it is most important! Not only will the writing help keep me balanced (providing a little intellectual exercise beyond "Old MacDonald"), but I hope it will help me document so many of the meaningful and educational moments I experience on a daily basis as a parent. Due to the perpetual sleep deprivation, days have a tendency to run together. I turn around, and my children are another month older. What did they learn in that month? What did they teach me? Twenty years from now, will that month have made a difference in our lives?

I hope that through my efforts to sit down at the computer a few days a week and write about these moments, I will begin to internalize each day I spend with the beautiful neshamot I am blessed to spend each day of my life with.

*neshamot - souls