Life Lessons

Instead of hearing a song in the noise around us, we hear a series of clangs and screams and vibrations. Instead of seeing a dance, we see a kick, a turn of the head, and a raised arm. The thing is, a kick is just a kick, and a clang is just a clang. A hand doesn't do much good if there's no arm to extend it...

If I could be given any gift to help me in my job as a teacher, I know exactly what I would ask for. I haven't ever seen one, but I know that I need it: a special kind of mirror that I can hold up for my students to gaze into, and instead of seeing themselves as they always do, they would see themselves as I see them...

She is in constant pain from her arthritis. She knows that so many of her dreams are lost--her husband who is gone, the children she wanted but never had. Yet she is happy. Every visit, we are blessed with another little glimpse into a world that is long gone...

The park was empty save for a young woman pushing a child on our favorite swing. I could not see the child as he was blocked by the green plastic bucket seat perfect for older babies. I did, however, see the woman, and my nose crinkled...

Moments later, oxygen masks dropped from the overhead compartment, and the pilot announced that all in-flight personnel must return to their seats and put on their masks. They raced past us shouting "Put your masks on! Now!"

And that is when I lost it. I felt my anger contracting my soul in order to make more room in my body to hold it...

Whatever mood I find myself in, there is one aspect of this ritual that remains consistent: There is always a glaring life lesson reflected back to me from those crisp, cool waters. When I am receptive enough to allow that lesson to penetrate, then those are the mornings when a good swim changes my whole life...

For my son, there was one teacher who stands out. He was a new teacher, fresh out of rabbinical school and trying his hand at education...

With each long stretch of uninhabited, barren land we passed, interrupted only by an occasional primitive Bedouin village or a lone, wandering donkey or sheep, I was feeling that in every sense of the phrase, I had gone too far...

So here I am, alone this hour, looking at you, Dad. I smile. You smile back. I stroke your hand, running my fingers over your big blue veins, and feel the gift that you are to me- more than ever...

At first I couldn't imagine how I could take in a child at that moment, but I couldn't say no to a Jewish child who needed a home...

Every time the phone rang for the past two weeks, my whole body tensed. But not any more. The call has already come early this morning...

As I realized that all along I have had the wrong definition for accomplishment, the darkness began to fade...

I knew then that even if by some miracle I could talk my way out of not having a Gentile document... I could never explain the latkes and doughnuts in my bundle.

In the comfort of the bus, G‑d sent me my own miracle- and made me realize that everyday brings its own causes for celebration...

Please believe me when I tell you that, to me, your daughter is an angel. She is on my shoulders; she is like a butterfly in my garden. She is the most beautiful person I have never known, and I carry her within me. Every day...

I would always see her behavior as unkind, insensitive and truly narcissistic, and she would even admit to this and say that she can't change. So, round and round we'd go...

Sometimes, all I really want is for the other to recognize that I was wronged. And more often than not, a simple apology will make everything alright...

My greatest fear for years had been to be dependant on someone and not be able to look after myself. My fear became my reality...

He released his wife's hand, tapped my wrist as though to say, look, and pulled back his jacket sleeve just enough to show me that tattooed on his veiny, wrinkled skin were the numbers almost every living Jew recognizes...

He made of each Chasid a "rebbe," made each Chasid feel that responsibility and love for every Jew, made each Jew sense her or his own greatness and holiness.

That night the girls pleaded to sleep on the couch-bed in the living room in order to stand vigil lest an eagle swoop down from the sky and try to eat the poor pigeon. They would protect her. So, I felt I had no choice but to allow the stakeout. Plus, I saw something that they didn't see. The pigeon was dying...

As I gaze out into the front yard I notice the new, tiny buds peeking out from the soil below. Why didn't I notice them before? I hear a wisp of a voice within me: This is a wake-up call. Don't go back to sleep...

I bought the paints, the brushes, a book, some canvases, and the table easel, went home and cleared off the dining room table and set everything up. There it sat for about two weeks. I walked by it. I peered at it. I arranged it. I examined it...

I hope that starting this column will be an action that screams, "I will not forget what I did. I will not forget the lessons I learned. And I will not forget the miracle I experienced…"

I have lost someone who loved me. The thought takes my breath away. I watch the dirt fall onto the plain wooden coffin, and I know that my father's body is in that box...

I think there are certain times of the day, certain events you experience, that lead you back to a place in your memory where you realize just how deep, important and penetrating to the soul your experiences have been...

I've been a committed student of a Middle Eastern Dance class that meets every Wednesday night, and even though my mind was begging to differ, I knew my body would thank me later. But all I could see was a postpartum pooch shimmying in a baggy tee-shirt...

I'm onto a new perspective. What is life without a few wrinkles? And I need to stop listening to those commercials about washing that gray away...

I am one of those super-responsible Type A personalities, the kind whose first words as a baby were “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.” I have been doing a pretty good job since then, right up until the moment I broke my leg..

I naively believed the builder's claims that the job would be completed in under a fortnight. Two months later, they were still going strong...

Only moments before the lights went out, I had been pondering how I could get everyone out of their hibernation in order to spend a little time together...

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to get upset with your family and how difficult it is to display the same anger for a stranger? How your home looks impeccable when you know that visitors are coming, and if not, it would look like a disaster?

As I sunk into the driver's seat on my commute home, I began my daily personal prayer to G‑d and opened, rather ungratefully, with my list of grievances about how I had survived yet another stressful day...

Postcard upon postcard asking to please send a little sugar, a little butter, some warm socks. It gets cold at night. Frania wants a doll, please don't send a doll. There is no room in the ghetto for a doll...

I knew my election was quite an honor, and that my parents were very proud. I was simply scared. But I didn't tell anyone, of course. That would reveal far too much insecurity...

How would life be if we simply explained its occurrences in a positive way?

Bennie's memorabilia, cherished pieces of his life, remain hidden in a large container, reminders of another time, an era when handshakes sealed a business deal, when families gathered around the table sharing laughter and funny stories, when letters were handwritten...

I tell myself that Marnie loves being a victim, maybe even suffers from some kind of martyr complex. It’s as if she’s trying to reinvent a famous heroine burnt by the stake...

I am always running. I am always moving. There is simply so much to do and so little time to do it. And it is easy to rationalize, to explain, to excuse because I am busy doing good things, positive things, which is why I can never slow down. But as much as you have to do, you have to keep the speed limit...

Every Yom Kippur I thought of Aunt Arlene, but I did nothing. I decided to stay angry...

I've always felt slightly self-conscious as the only family on the block whose father was a Rabbi and made less than $500,000 a year...

You sent the captions, pictures, and mementos with your trust of an album’s completion. And there your pictures sat. For years...

After all, what could he teach a girl who got straight A’s in school and wanted to go to an Ivy League college? And yet, today, what I remember from college seems like a blur of intellectual trivia compared to the simple lessons of my father...

Rose felt like a leaf caught between heavy gusts of wind with no anchoring force to answer her question: To keep her job, or keep the Shabbat?

What’s the difference between opting out and giving up? Why do I think it was okay for me to abandon the ski slope at forty-five while I find it terribly sad that my bachelor brother-in-law may, at the same age, decide it’s time to stop searching for a wife?

Her response was habit, given to hundreds of names the same morning. It was meant to give me the go. But instead, it stopped me. Did she just call me "Miriam?"

“Me, too,” I lied. “It’s… indecipherable.” I had seen that word the day before in a copy of Time magazine lying around the house, and decided that it sounded as glamorous as any other.

It's an old voice, but powerful and steady. It is my Zaidy saying the mourner's Kaddish for his father, whose yahrtzeit is Yom Kippur

My grandmother Sima and her brother Meir were young adults at the time of Hitler’s rise to power...

The lives of our mothers before us don’t just serve as a reference point, but more specifically, they serve as blueprints. When we live with the values that defined them, we allow them to continue to live through us...

The technician smeared some of the gooey gel and started moving the probe around my stomach. I waited for the usual comments of "Oh, look! There's a hand and there's a leg and there's another hand!" But the technician was silent...

He kept it folded into a square, tight, so it could fit in his wallet. "My princess wrote it," Daddy says as he pulls a customer by the elbow...

Near the park, we were forced to detour via a parallel street. At the next traffic light, the Rebbetzin said to me: "I heard a woman screaming; can you go back and see what that was about?"

Roots are deeply embedded in our family and friends, particularly those who have known us most of our lives. They provide nourishment. They anchor us...

I trusted him with my life, my world, my children and I thanked G‑d for Uncle Hershey all the time...

I tried to outrun my enemy the other day. He had been hidden within the words of a trusted friend, ambushing me when I'd least expected it...

She was so beautiful as she lay there on her back, perfectly still. I cradled her head in my arms as we washed her face. Her skin was smooth and her limbs remarkably flexible

It is very unlike me to sit down and write something like this, and yet, I feel that I have an obligation to do so. I am a quiet person, who lives a quiet life, and until about a year ago there was nothing newsworthy or interesting about myself or my five children...

Our society has become increasingly focused on youth and external beauty. We have forgotten the value of wrinkles earned through life experiences...

Ninety is a long way down the road, twenty-nine years to be exact. No need to even give it a thought. I wasn’t about to fall into the creeping fear that so many of my friends have fallen into...

Ten seconds. That's all it takes to transport us from our safe, comfortable zone to a breathtaking view from another dimension, where lives intersect for one brief moment...

When tragedy finally came, these rules could not protect me, and it forced me to confront the real costs of playing it safe. How much had I missed out on, I wondered, as I traveled the safe route?

“Oh Debby,” she answers in delight, recognition sparking. “Please come in. I didn’t recognize you with these new glasses.” The lie stands between us. We both know she could not remember who I was...

What remains from one of the darkest periods of my life is something strange, something I never would have expected: a rare gift that you can only purchase at the cost of thousands and thousands of tears...

From that moment on David surrendered spiritually- making a deal with G‑d so to speak, "If this is what You want, I accept it, but don't leave me." And He didn't...

My newly acquired teacher looks deeply into my eyes. I intuitively sense that her pain is for loss of loved ones who have fought and died so that we can live here...