A Necklace for Purim

A wonderful thing has happened to our little town. Four years ago, a young Rabbi, his wife and two young children, moved from Brooklyn to Longmont to open a Chabad Jewish Center. I grew up as a very Reform Jew, but one with an equally strong identity. I went to a Jewish summer camp, was Bat Mitvah'd and when it came to raising our children, even after years of not really participating in a Jewish community, there was no choice. I wanted our children to grow up with the same positive self-identity I'd enjoyed and which I especially helped me grow into a strong minded and spirited Jewish woman.

Longmont is a lot like where I grew up, with a small Jewish community. Unlike where I grew up, there is no regular synagogue in Longmont and the kids have often been the only Jewish kids in their class at school.

To be honest, I was more than a little hesitant to go to the Longmont Chabad. I had many pre-conceived ideas of the Chabad culture and many of them stereotypical, a hard thing for me to admit about a segment of my own tradition and faith.

But all that changed when I met Rabbi Borenstein and his wife, Shayna. Their ease and warmth instantly put us at ease and we started going to events where we were amazed to see large groups of other Jewish families from Longmont. I could see that they were committed to creating an open and welcoming center for the small, but growing Jewish community in Longmont to be together as families, with our children, and throughout the elegant unfolding of the calendar celebrations that mark our lives in such strong ways.

One of those ways is a monthly women's circle. It's a mish-mash of old, young, in-between and we gather for a gentle evening of study, and also to engage in a fun activity where there is always lots of delicious food and plenty of laughter, all led by Shayna, the rebbetzen, the Rabbi's wife.

This month, we came together for an evening of jewelry making in honor of Purim and Esther. We met at The Bead Lounge, a lovely local business. We sipped wine and ate cheese and chocolate. The tables were filled with shiny beads and we were told we could make either a necklace, earrings or a bracelet. I chose to make a necklace.

I looked through the colors and shapes and settled on a color palette I'm recently very drawn to. Metalics in bronze, copper with opaque round beads. And then I saw them. Stone hearts, maroon and smooth. I chose three of them and felt them get warm in my hand as I poured some more wine and settled in to make my necklace.

I'm a fairly deliberate person and usually like to plan things out in advance. But I let the three hearts lead me and before long, I was putting together a delicate strand of beads and stones as Shayna talked about Esther's open hearted strength and simple path toward significant bravery.

As I listened, I found myself counting out two sets of 18 small copper beads to frame each side of the necklace. 18 is the Kabbalistic number for life, for chai, and 36 minutes was also the time between our first and second twin's birth. Two lives, the night before they were about to turn 8 years old.

The gentle ladies helped me with the heart stones, so that they would hang downward. I added gold-toned spacers, five on each side, one for each member of our little family.

Before I knew it, the necklace was finished. The ladies agreed it was indeed beautiful.And simple. To me, the necklace looked like a dream, like the dream that is my family, my husband and my girls, my three hearts. To me, the delicacy of the necklace represents the fragile nature of it all, how quickly it can be taken and how quickly it goes. The simplicity represents the way in which I choose to live my life and raise our girls.

I haven't worn the necklace yet. I'm waiting to put in on for the annual Purim party, where we'll gather again, as we did last year, a little older and knowing each other that much more, as communities do when we come together to signify our lives with meaning and ritual.

I'll look forward to the glass stones and beads warming themselves against my skin. They'll be reflecting how I feel inside, from the kindness, joy and burgeoning community of kindred folks.

Day Ten and it is a Good Day

I'm taking a class on Jewish Leadership, a six week class being offered by the Chabad Jewish Center of Longmont and tonight's class pretty much blew me away. In the class, we're studying six figures in Jewish history, starting with Hillel and moving through quite a few people I've never heard of, despite a lifetime of study and engagement in my tradition. Hillel is well known to all, as are his examples of humility and equanimity, not to mention this quote: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me. And when I am for myself, what am 'I'? And if not now, when?" Despite this quote being so much of my growing up, attending Jewish summer camps, hearing these words now, at this time in my life, blew my mind. Hillel's personal history and struggle with the balance between humility and his own sense of his large capacity, is one that I can identify with in my own small way.

Tonight I learned about a man I'd never heard of before, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai, a working man, who left the world of commerce to begin a lifelong devotion to study at the age of 40 and then appointed to take over from Hillel upon his death. It was suggested he was 55 when this responsibility was bestowed upon him and what did he do? He split town and headed to Galilee to take the Torah to farmers and laborers, not because he was shirking responsibility, but because he felt wanted to convey what he'd learned to the people, continuing Hillel's tradition of openness and accessibility. His sense of lineage, prophetic awareness and then the courage to act in unison with those two elements, struck me as very meaningful and in a very specific way.

Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai, like Hillel, and I suspect like the rest of the figures we'll be studying for the next month, share something I'd like to bring into my life and in particular, into this chapter. Both of them acted with a unity of purpose and action and with a remarkable lack of the 'personal.' And this is a very powerful reminder for me that no matter how personalized my situation might seem to be, to be able to pull back long enough to remember that my situation is just one of many, important, but not more so than the rest.

I'm chewing on this idea, that one could be so engaged in the living of a purposeful and mission-based life that pausing to reflect on my spiritual or personal progress would not be a part of the process, or at the very least, an after thought. Hmm...this flies in the face of two generations of self-focused pursuits, the time in which I've grown up and pursued my interests, whims and have informed my career choices.

Wonder what it would be like to flip the coin, but to still keep Hillel's words and Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai's prophetic awareness at the center? I think that is what I'm working toward.

---

Tonight is my tenth night of writing this series, "Water Flows Underground." Today is a good day and I'm grateful for the experience and the comments, as well as the lessons I'm learning. Heading to bed early tonight and taking a deep breath to move into day 11 and beyond.

Deliberate Acts of Kindness or How I'm Warmer Today than Yesterday

You know the bumper sticker: "Perform Random Acts of Kindness"? I've decided that this well meaning message depresses me. It makes me think too much about winning, or not winning the next multi-state Powerball. Or about all the horribly random things that happen in not such kind ways.

Kindness is a way of life. It's opening the door for anyone in front or behind you, not because they are old or infirmed, but because extending energy to benefit another being is like constantly living inside one of those Snuggie blankets my kids want to buy for the dog.

I'm in a playful mood today. And that would qualify as random since my SOM (state-of-mind) has been decidedly depressed, angry, resentful and exhausting/ed. How did this shift happen? No, I didn't land the job of my dreams. Bill Gates didn't Google my new domain names and decide to give me a blank check for my new venture. Publisher's Sweepstakes didn't arrive at my doorstep this morning with cameras and balloons.

How did my mood shift from yesterday's melancholy to today's almost giddiness? Simple. Kindness knocked on my front door this morning.

Well, actually, kindness first drove up in a large white truck and came in the form of two energy audit employees from Longs Peak Energy Conservation program. in Boulder County. This past December, in a frantic last act of 2009, I submitted a weatherization application for families in our financial situation. We live in a 1950s ranch house that could double as a flappy tent in the winter. Every summer and fall we promise each other to try to save up to pay for what it would take to stay warmer and stop paying so much in heating bills each winter. Ten years later, I know that our current situation will not let that happen and after a few too many mornings of iced-over windows, and as the clock neared mid-afternoon on December 31st, I faxed in our application. By January 4th, we were qualified for an energy audit, insulation, sealing and possibly an energy-smart refrigerator. When they told me that it could be up to six weeks until we were scheduled, I shot an email back telling them that we had ice on our windows and our heating bill was approaching our mortgage and equally unpayable. They set an appointment with us for the next week.

Today's kindness had two names. Gary and Zump. Gary wore a beautiful blue glass cross he later told us he and his wife make for friends. Father of two home-schooled children. Works all day weatherizing homes and a few nights a week as a dishwasher. Zump studied anthropology in college and reads Michael Ondaatje and is a dead ringer for a half dozen Hollywood actors. I immediately scroll through my mental list of available friends in a match-making frenzy. When Zump tells Jack that his ex-roommate is also a photographer and had been laid off his newspaper job and that after many years in the business is unable to work in his field, I see a long held and tense part of Jack relax. They gently talk us through how the process works, walking through our house, pointing thermal cameras at our walls.

One of the things I love most about Jack, my life partner and best friend, is how instantly he puts people not only at ease, but willing to talk about the loftiest things. It's something that still makes me stop and shake my head with admiration. Very few people go away from an encounter with him untouched. Within 30 minutes, we'd put up another pot of coffee and were talking religion, raising mindful kids in a mindless world, surviving these tough times and more, as if we'd had this conversation with them a hundred times before. Jack's pulling books off the shelf and sharing Norman O. Brown's Love's Body with Gary, who has now been joined by another Longs Peak Conservation employee named J.D. The synergy of his initials are not lost on us, having just absorbed the news of J.D. Salinger's passing. Gary had called J.D. to look at our huge single pane picture windows to see what we can do about the biggest source of heat loss in our house. During this discussion, a new weatherstrip is installed on our front door, our old light bulbs replaced with LED ones, and a blowing test is conducted that shows us just how severe our thermal loss really is.

Zump also did the favor of showing us, or I should say Jack because I refused to look at them, our last year's gas bills. Well, it seems like our house has a bit of a consumption-envy problem. Our bills reflect a much grander and bigger household than we've been living in. I guess our house has been heating that much imagined finished basement I've been yearning for all these years. And we've been footing the bill for our house's identity crisis.

The details of the day don't really matter. What matters, at least to me, is this - we were brought to the this process purely because of our financial means, or lack of them. What could have been another in a long line of humiliating experiences in being without much of a pocket, was in fact, a day in which we were cared for by people who performed their work with steadfast attention and -- yes -- love. They could have gone about their day and done an excellent job without touching our lives, but the fact that they took the time to connect with us as humans and as humans who understood because they are much in the same place.

Their kindness allowed us to relax and to stop blaming ourselves for our leaky, cold house. Their kindness let us celebrate that we were able to benefit from a program that is here to help people in our situation and that sometimes all it takes is just that - to ask for help. Their kind approach to our house, to their work, took away my sense of despair and isolation, at least for today. They helped me feel secure again in my own home, something I haven't experienced in a while.

Today's kindness was not random, it was deliberate. It was part of a way of being in which we take the time to at least consider kindness as a mindful choice with everyone we come into contact with. I feel blessed to have had these two fine people tending to our home with such humanity and integrity.

The constant leaking of heat out from and cold in to our home for all these years is an obvious symbol. It speaks of the blinders I've often put on in regards to our financial roller coaster. It speaks of an imbalance of what I give myself and what I give to the world. Of the veneer I put on in the face of stress - one that is very much like our single pane windows.

But today, because two strangers entered our lives with deliberate acts of kindness, the cold will have to work harder to gain entry. The windows still need work, but I have a number to get that started.

Today, this day before February 2, before the loyal groundhog checks her shadow, and tells us what we already know, that winter is far from over, our house is warm. Our home is warm.

Light the First Light of Chanukah - In Two Parts

I have two stories to tell about this first night Chanukah 2009.

Story #1 is a story of reaching back in order to move forward. Being able to do both at the same time through the simplicity of ritual.

Story #2 is about taking the light of Chanukah and sharing it with someone who really needs it.

Both stories are about what my father taught me about living in this world. About caring for my family and taking that care back out into the world.

Story #1: Held Together and Almost Smooth
Chanukah is a holiday I have always cherished. As a child, I never felt any yearning for Christmas, or to have a Chanukah bush, like many of my other Jewish friends. I loved all the Jewish holidays, but Chanukahwas a different kind of special because it was my dad's territory. And territory that he lovingly shared with me as his special Chanukah assistant. I don't know why Chanukah was his realm. I also don't know why my brothers weren't involved in the preparations, other than they were probably spending their time looking for where the presents were hidden. I didn't care. Chanukah was about my family, but it was really what went on between my father and I and that made it extraordinary.

The night before the first night he'd go into the attic and get the box that contained all our decorations. They were wrapped in tissue paper, most likely saved from the last year's gift wrapping. Blue and gold wall hangings with menorahs, Judas Maccabee, Stars of David and dreidels. One roll of blue crepe paper, one roll of white. Both rolled up as if they were brand new.

Dad had a specific place for each decoration which we returned to every year. And an order. First the menorahs were taken out and cleaned. Then the wall hangings were put up. Then finally my favorite part. The blue and white rolls of crepe paper. He'd get out the step ladder and some tape and have me stand at one end of the den, holding the blue paper as he slowly unrolled it until it reached diagonally across the room. He'd climb up the ladder and tape it to a pine beam. He take the other end I'd been holding and fold it, then tape it up into the next corner and the next. We'd repeat the same process with the white paper. After he'd taped the last corner, he and I would stand in the middle of the den and look up. A perfectly symmetrical Star of David stretched across the den ceiling. The decorations were simple, not ostentatious - no lights except for the ones we light on our menorahs or eight nights in a row.

And then there were his latkes. In the days before food processors, he'd first peel the potatoes, getting every scrap of peel off, then grating them finely by hand. He chopped the onions, cracked the eggs, added salt, pepper and matzoh meal. I'd stir the mixture for him until it was the consistency he liked - held together and almost smooth. The oil went into the pan and we'd wait until we heard the sizzle. He spooned them gently into the hot oil, four or five at a time and then we'd wait, always the hardest part for me then and now. Before we knew it two, three pans would be full and he'd put them in the oven to stay warm until our extended family would arrive. But not before he'd take the two most perfect ones and dollop some sour cream and applesauce on them and we'd eat them before anyone else had a chance. Just him and me.

I woke up this morning and cried as I drank my coffee. It was my first Chanukah at home without my dad. Last year we spent Chanukah in Costa Rica, lighting the menorah in the tropical breeze. It was Chanukah out of context with the Chanukah of my life and I don't remember if I felt sad. I was happy to be somewhere warm and beautiful with my family and to have left my grief back in Colorado. But this year was different and I could feel it coming even before I took my first sip.

The sadness started earlier in the week when my daughters and I went to our regular market, King Soopers, a normally decent place to get Jewish holiday supplies. But when I walked up and down the promotional aisles stuffed to the gills with Christmas candy, decorations, toys, lights and more, I couldn't find the usual small section dedicated to Chanukah. I strolled over to the "ethnic" food aisle to see what was in the Kosher section. A few boxes of candles and overpriced grape juice, but nothing else. I found a manager and asked him where the Chanukah section was. He looked uncomfortable and responded that he didn't think they had one this year. "Not even chocolate gelt - coins?," one of my girls asked. He looked down at the floor and said, "Let's take a look." We followed him back to the promotional aisle and he did in fact find a few mesh bags of Chanukah gelt. He apologized for not having more and we thanked him. I left the gelt there, feeling miffed at being disregarded by a store in our community.

The next day I went to the Super Target in Longmont, also a place I've relied on in the past for a small but well-stocked supply of Chanukah goods and a place I was sure I'd find what I needed. This time I was with just one of my daughters who was home sick from school. She sat in the cart as we headed to the holiday section. Up one aisle and down the next. Nothing. We repeated this seven, eight times. No Chanukah in sight. I could feel my anger boiling up, but I kept a lid on it so not to set a bad example for my daughter. "Let's see if we can find someone to help us," I told her as we headed up to someone in a red employee shirt. "Can you tell me where the Chanukah supplies are?" She asked if we'd looked in the holiday section. I told her yes and that there was nothing. She found a manager and asked her if she knew where the Chanukah section was. The manager got the same uncomfortable look as the one at King Soopers. "We only have one end cap (what the shelf space at the end of an aisle is called) for Hanukkah this year and it's in the food section." I expressed my disappointment and she nicely told me that she'd already spoken with the corporate office to request three sections like they had in Boulder and that I'd not been the first to complain. My daughter looked back at me and asked, "Mama, why don't they like Chanukah?" The woman looked at my daughter, then at me and apologized. She walked me over to the Chanukah end cap and I saw the same pathetic samples as King Soopers. They did have Chanukah candles on sale, so I grabbed the last two packages and headed to the check out line.

I felt so angry, but below that anger was so much sadness. I thought of my dad, a Holocaust survivor, and his quiet pride and happiness at being able to stretch a blue and white Star of David across his own den ceiling, of being able to openly celebrate Chanukah with his family.

I looked at the faces of my three girls and felt so sad that they should still have to carry the pain and the burden of living in a society that insists on one way above all the rest. But I also realized that they had learned a hugely important lesson in being who they are with the same quiet pride and happiness that my father reflected back to me.

So when I woke up this morning of the first night of Chanukah, I woke with the heaviness of the burden and I missed my dad. I looked toward the day with hesitation and not so successfully fought of wave after wave of tears. The biggest hesitation I had was following through on my offer to make apple latkes for the first night gathering at my sister-in-laws. I didn't want to do it. I was afraid to do it. I felt the weight of my entire people, or at least the weight of the Longmont Jewish community, on my shoulders to do it.

When I got home from work, Jack had performed the blessing of peeling and coring the apples and also surprised me with doing the same with some potatoes. I didn't remember saying I was planning on making regular latkes, but when you're faced with a colander of peeled potatoes...

I made the apple latkes first.

But the potatoes were waiting.

I looked for some wine to drink, but could only find a tiny bottle of vodka. I took a couple of swigs and then mixed a small drink of ginger ale and vodka.

I opened the Jewish Cooking Cookbook by Arthur Schwartz and turned to the potato latkes. I put the potatoes in the food process and sliced them thin. Added two eggs, dash of salt, pepper, one diced onion and because I was making these for me, they had to be gluten free. I substituted the matzoh meal for potato starch and mixed. Put it back into the food processor and pulsed until the mixture was the right consistency - held together and almost smooth. I added oil to electric griddle and waited for the sizzle. I ladled small ovals of the mixture onto the griddle. And waited. Every time I was tempted to prematurely turn over a latke, I took a sip from my drink. My dad probably would have been sipping a screwdriver, which was my first choice, but we were out of OJ. The waiting paid off. Latke after latke turned out perfect. Brown, but not charred. Light and like a pancake. At almost 51 years old, I'd finally accomplished recreating my dad's latkes. And even more importantly, I was happy and felt deeply connected to my tradition. The simple ritual of cooking latkes had taken me back in order to move forward.

The front door flew open and the kids ran in. "Can we have a latke?" I put four on a plate and we ate them. I looked at the photo of my dad from a few years ago, taken on a summer Shabbat in Los Angeles and smiled.

But the story doesn't end there. They never do.

Story #2: Lighting the Light for a Stranger 

It's still the first night of Chanukah. We'd stopped at the liquor store to buy a bottle of wine as a present for my sister and brother-in-law. I waited in the car with the girls, staying warm and giggling at how delicious the latkes smelled. And then I saw her. She looked to be about 75 years old and she stood on the corner in a light blue parka holding a neatly written sign: Disabled. Homeless. Gas. Food. Money. I looked next to her and saw a walker and an oxygen tank. I signed deeply, deeply enough to get the girls' attention. "What, Mama?" Then they all looked out the window and saw the lady. "What does her sign say?" One of them read it and we sat there. I unlocked the door and got out. "Mama, what are you doing?" "I'm giving the lady some latkes." I wrapped up two potato and two apple latkes in some foil. And then I remembered I had a little bit of money in my wallet. I reached back into the car and took out a $5 bill.

"Hi," I said as I tried to approach with respect. She looked up at me as I offered her the foil wrapped package. "It's just some potato pancakes, and here's five dollars."

She smiled. "Thanks, I love potato pancakes."

"Please tell me you have somewhere warm to sleep tonight," I asked her. The temperatures in Colorado have been below zero for the past two weeks. She assured me she'd called her sister. We had no room in the car and family was waiting. She thanked me and I wished her well.

As we drove away, I broke down. All the tears I'd been holding back just came forward. I told Jack we had to do something, that I couldn't bare the idea of that lady being on the street in the cold. I got on my phone and called the local shelter, but their warming center wouldn't be open for another hour. I called the Boulder Homeless Shelter and cried on the phone as a sweet woman tried to figure out how to get this woman to some warm shelter. She finally suggested I call the police and they'd come and get her without making her feel like a criminal. I called the police and told them about this lady. The dispatcher told me it could be someone who makes her living doing this, but when I told her the woman's location and that she had a walker and an oxygen tank, she promised to send a car and see if they could help.

We got to our family gathering and had a beautiful, embracing evening. Presents, lighting the candles, five varieties of latkes, soup and homemade sufganiyot. Playing dreidel and lots of laughter. Everything I remember my first night's of Chanukah always being. And everything I want my children's first nights of Chanukah to be.

As we were driving back home and approached Longmont, we came to a red light. I turned to Jack and asked, "Can we see if she's still there?" Without blinking an eye, he moved into the left lane and started driving in that direction. The girls woke from their car-drive-home sleeping and asked, "Are we going to see if the lady is still there?"

We crossed Main Street, then Hover, turning right. Turned left into the King Soopers parking center and toward the liquor store. None of us said a word.

She was gone.

I took Jack's hand and he turned the car toward home.

"The lady is somewhere warm?"

Yes, my darlings. The lady is somewhere warm.

Chag Sameach, Dad. 

Yoga Mama 30 Day Challenge

I turned 50 in December. As my nine year old daughter informed me, that officially made me the oldest mother at her school. I've gotten used to little kids assuming I was my kids' grandma, but to hear my own talk about how old I am in comparison to her friends' mothers, got me thinking I needed to start a serious stay young and on the planet program. So when my DH's siblings began asking me what I wanted for the big occassion, I passed on the maid (too much pressure), the massage and the other suggestions. I had heard about a new Bikram Yoga studio that had opened in Longmont that offered a $59 introductory unlimited month and a little voice inside my head said, "DO IT."

I didn't think I'd like the hot form of yoga and quite honestly, my only recent exposure to yoga had been while pregnant with my oldest and that was nine years ago. I'd always steered clear of hot yoga because it drummed up unpleasant olfactory memories of waiting for subways in 120 degree stations in NYC and that wasn't my idea of relaxation.

But you only turn 50 once, so I figured what did I have to lose? As it turns out, nothing and more than I imagined to gain. It's been two months and while I know it's pat to say this and I can see the eyes rolling as I write it, but yoga is changing my life. Besides my body returning to some sense of flexibility and strength that it hasn't known in more than a decade, the more I sweat, the more I learn about myself.

March 1st, I signed up for a 30 day challenge, not for any other reason than to see if I could do it. I can buy goodies at the studio at a discount if I complete the challenge, but I'm doing it for different reasons. I'm now 7 days into the challenge, 23 to go (and yes I'm counting) and I'll be posting my insights, frustrations and otherwise as a way to share this challenge.

Day 1: Took a deep breath and said, yes, I can.

Day 2: Took another deep breath and said yes I can again.

Day 3: Mistakenly decided I had passed into another realm, where the classes were getting 'easy.' Why did I decide this? Because somewhere between Day 2 and Day 3, my breathing went from out and out gasping to calm and I got really full of myself. I boasted to my family that I was entering a new place where the work would be internal, that the physical had been figured out.

Day 4: Kicked the shit out of me. All of it. Wibble wobbled and I then fell down.

Day 5: Kicked whatever shit day 4 didn't kick out of me out of me. Realized I don't have enough yoga clothes to make it through the week, let alone a 30 day challenge.

Day 6: Learned to laugh in Eagle pose when Zach said our next posture would be 'kickyourasana.'

Day 7: Battled with the entire cobra series and wondered if my lack of flexibility on the back side of my body had a deeper meaning.

Today is day eight and I'm six hours away from my class. Not sure what will be in store for me, except I know I'll feel better having done it. A great birthday gift.