Life Lessons

Today, G‑d sent me one of those days where I had an opportunity to strengthen my spiritual muscles.

One of the tires, while appearing fine superficially, was actually almost completely peeled off.

Lost . . .I could have been lost, completely lost, with no clue how to get home.

I’m an excellent cook, but everybody has their off-days, especially when making a huge amount of food.

My phone’s been really weird about charging the last few days. Seems like something is off-kilter in the charging port. I’ve had to juggle the charger, wiggle it around, get it in exactly the right place and the right angle for that elusive, all-important red light to go on.

“My child is not walking,” I informed the doctor.

Our upstairs neighbors for the past four years have been, well, challenging to say the least.

This week, for maybe the first time in my adult life, I attended a Hachnasat Sefer Torah that affected me deeply, in ways I could not have imagined beforehand.

I knew it wouldn’t be easy to give up my smartphone on Shabbat and the holidays.

When someone deserved commendation for a job well done, my mother made a practice of telling the boss.

She screamed at me for minutes on end, as I sat there, unable to get a word in, feeling terribly guilty and ashamed for the missed appointment and having wasted her time.

Chunks of time roll by without me even thinking to say thank you, without me remembering or acknowledging the gift of three years ago.

The activities were fun, and I wanted to share the fun with Betsy. I lobbied the youth group advisor to let Betsy come along. The advisor was adamantly opposed.

But how can I be a friend still? How can I conjure her up at a moment’s notice—not because of something I see, but something I do?

I was an orphan. And I was shoeless.

The sight that greeted us was not at all what one would expect to see at a parade. There was no music, no cymbals, no clown twirling batons and making people laugh and letting everyone know what was being celebrated. In fact, it soon became clear to me that this was not a parade at all, but a procession of enemy prisoners of war who had been captured by Russia.

I live in Los Angeles, where wealth, celebrity, youth and beauty are valued above all else.

I stood there with my face covered, tiny tears gathering in the corners of my eyes.

All of my life I have walked around trying to patch it up temporarily by getting validation from the outside. But nothing and nobody could ever fill it for more than a little while.

A few days ago, thank G‑d, I marked my 58^th birthday. A fleeting day filled with a perhaps paradoxical mixture of serious reflection, a pink birthday crown, feeling grateful, being feted, and too many calories. Along with the joy, I felt an undercurrent of anxiety.

My eleven-year-old son came running into the house, crying hysterically, “A gangster PUSHED Tatty!” His face was bleeding so profusely that blood was dripping from his beard.

When did a poor man in tattered clothing knock on my door begging for a slice of bread? Had I ever seen someone who was thin with hunger?

What do you do, what do you say, when someone tells you that she is in pain?

As I received my diploma, many people were looking at me with either envy, admiration, or a mixture of both. At that point they thought, “This is going to be one very successful woman!” People wanted to know, what would I do next?

I grew up lost and confused. It took many years, 38 to be precise, before the process (and my entire worldview) was totally rebooted in a way I would never have expected—all in the space of just a few moments.

Was I really returning home, or just to the memories of what once was?

I had heard from a friend in Los Angeles that all religious girls were straight-laced, cliquey and snobby. Since I wasn’t observant, I was told that religious girls wouldn’t want to have anything to do with the likes of me. And I was assured that I wouldn’t want to be friends with them, either.

I looked around to see if there were any other Jews around. To whom was he talking?

Even after Barbara went off to graduate school in Boston, we stayed in close touch. Until she intermarried.

I heard angry shouts, banging and desperate cries.

As I gracefully explained to the babysitter why there were 500 pounds of manure in the back of my van, I needed to remember how blessed I was.

Many people on both sides of the ocean come together to bury a Jew whom no one knew.

When I’m in my irritable mood, I don’t want to listen to a single complaint from anyone in my household.

We are trapped in a cage of blackness, while the sun begs to warm our skin and light our lives. If only we would look outside.

When my family first moved into the Orthodox Jewish community, I had a serious case of culture shock.

It is dawning on me that perhaps my methods of “connection” are not really that great.

Why does imperfection scare us so?

These picture-perfect scenes are the stuff of my childhood, yet I know they’re not mine.

Iit’s perfectly natural for us to feel disconnected from our aging images. What makes us truly who we are, our essence, doesn’t get old—ever. Our bodies decline with time, but our souls don’t decline in any way...

What I wanted was to take over at the wheel and push G‑d into the passenger seat. I’d had enough of His messing with my plans and rescheduling my events . . .

Growing up, my family wasn’t particularly religious, but there was one rule my mother enforced energetically: there was to be no pork in our Jewish home. That was our line in the sand. And Twinkies back in the 1970s contained lard, which put those all-American snacks firmly across that line . . .

The struggles we encountered with so many different ideas became a channel for us to understand ourselves and the world around us. It became (and still remains to this day) a means for us to both rise above and contend with the ups and downs of an ordinary day...

If we don’t know, we can’t grow. It’s as simple as that. Whether they say anything or not, people around you are noticing. I guarantee it. Enlist them to help you see for yourself what you need to see. Approach it like you are asking them for a gift—the gift of honesty and loving intention—and it will be...

At fourteen years old, I entered the local precinct to find out. Not by choice, of course, but because I was the ideal witness to identify two suspected muggers. I was one of their victims...

Jewish eating isn’t simply a gastronomical pleasure—it’s also a spiritual experience. That was why I was standing at the edge of Lake Naivasha, about to dip my mother’s new dishes into its murky depths, one hundred meters away from a group of four hippos...

When the street was wrapped in darkness and our mothers’ voices called us in a discordant chorus to come home for supper, Rachel rose, took one last look at the street, and disappeared inside her flat. No one raised their eyes to speak to her; it was as if she didn’t exist...

I thought I was special, your “favorite,” until I met and heard at the funeral about all your other favorites. I felt a tad disappointed, until I realized that feeling like the “favorite” amongst so many others was an indication of the enormousness of your love...

Is it no strength, or no desire? If I knew I was being paid big bucks to do laundry, would I find the strength? If I was preparing an important dinner for the royal family, would I find the strength to cook and clean? If a client called, would I suddenly find the strength to talk? I think that I would, because I would have desire...

Standing with Josh amid the madness, I experienced the elusive magic that beckons just beyond reach in those hazelnut instant coffee commercials. The calm. The peace. The comfort. Standing with Josh, I had what we all really need, and that’s each other...