Dealing with Challenge

At the outset, he had an extremely positive outlook and oftentimes said, "However uncomfortable I am right now, it could always be much worse." These self-soothing words were a source of comfort, motivation and positive perspective, all of which served as a real anchor...

Behind every Jewish family there is a story, and when I look at my sons, I think of all of them: the six million killed in the Holocaust, as they live in my every word, my every tear and in every moment I tell their story...

Almost as soon as the Nazi occupation began, Irena began making forged documents for Jewish friends. She also offered food and shelter to the increasingly persecuted Jewish population. Then, in 1940, she witnessed the imprisonment of nearly 500,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto...

My appreciation deepened as I continued to think about benefits of my so called “curses.” All those difficult issues of my youth suddenly seemed more like anchors than problems: Tough like iron yet grounding and stabilizing...

I don't know how justified I am to talk about life threatening events as I don't remember the accident. I don't remember how it feels to be unsure of whether you will live or die. I don't remember the worry, the fright, the pain; in some ways I don't understand what happened to me...

It has been nearly two years since that fateful night. My family is still suffering the aftermath. I have not been able to work because of the pain. Every day has moments of deep sorrow, but there is also tremendous joy...

How does one reach out to others, to give and to receive, if the very act of waking in the morning causes the pain of realizing one has loved and lost?

After school, I would journey alone from a world defined by the future to a world that had no future. What would I say to Grandma? How could I tell her that I was making plans for later, for what I would be doing once she was no longer here?

I surf between CNN, Fox, and the Jerusalem Post scanning photos of our soldiers: rough beards, weary postures. Some raise their fingers in a "V" while supporting wounded comrades. I squint, searching for Akiva's face among them...

We were close enough to talk. To scream. To hear each other’s cries. Close enough for me to hear him say, “I’m going to die.” And close enough for him to hear me say, “I love you.”

Six months ago I had a late-stage miscarriage, and gave birth to a baby that had passed away in the fifth month. I got out of the hospital, and began to write...

With the exception of semi-frequent snake nightmares, I've lived with this fear fairly uneventfully. That is until last week...

I don't know how I will put aside my pain for the coming Shabbat. The pain is too raw, too overwhelming, yet in a strange way, I need it. I want it. It is my connection with my dead son...

I don't have patience for the rivers of apple juice flowing across the dining room table, and when the lock on the front door finally breaks, locking me out of my apartment at dinnertime with three starving children, I feel like sitting down on the floor and crying with them. I don't, of course, because I'm the mom...

She said, "You are the only person I am telling. When you light candles this Friday night, know that it's all on you." I assumed she was joking, but she repeated this phrase, "Only you."

I know that there is a purpose for every human being. For me, that purpose had to be to leave all that I knew and what was familiar to me, and to start over...

When I first noticed it, I told myself it had probably always been there and I had just never paid attention. But as convincing as I can be, even I didn't buy that...

One year ago, my two sons, one daughter and I stood at his bedside to say goodbye to the man who had been the mainstay of our family...

As a teenager I used to think if I could just see into my crystal ball and know who I am going to marry and what my life would be like, I could understand today better. But would knowing my future have truly gotten me through the day or the experience of that moment?

One month ago, I was literally running out of breath. The breath of life. My lungs were dying. And while my hope and belief in life were alive and well, the idea was to get my body to catch up with my faith. This required some work...