There are two boys and a father
Who wait every morning
For the school bus
Perfect.
They are perfectly dressed
In matching clothes
Belts. Polished shoes.
Neatly folded socks.
White, white pants.
Hair perfectly combed.
Little boys, brothers
They wait
Every morning
With their father
And their perfect schoolbags
For their bus.
One morning, there is a perfect cake
Borne aloft by the father
Lovingly prepared by a perfect mother
To accompany one of the perfect boys
To school.
Perfect.
On mornings when I wait at the stop for my ride to work
I gaze at the perfection
Of the morning sky
And the luscious trees
And the birds serenading the traffic.
And I watch the perfect boys standing together
With their father
Who gazes at them.
And says, "Stop running around--you'll get dirty!"
And "Be quiet! Sit down!"
And "What's wrong with you? You're being wild!"
And never once smiles.
And I sigh.

Today, I am a woman. What I mean, of course, is that last night I single-handedly chaperoned twenty screaming eleven-year-olds to their teacher's wedding in Jerusalem. Yes, you may have my autograph.

We arrive at the mini-bus to find a group of anxious, cheeping girls who breathe loud sighs of relief upon glimpsing my adult presence, telling me that the driver "looks scary". As I alight, I am handed: two cameras, a cellphone, a card for the teacher's gift plus a pen, an envelope filled with the money for the scary-looking driver, a package of tissues and one of those rolls of gum that looks like tape.

"Can you hold this, Mrs. Pomerantz?"
"Can you hold this, Mrs. Pomerantz?"
"Mrs. Pomerantz, can you hold this, please?"
"Do you have a cold?" I ask Little Miss Entire Packet of Tissues.
"No," she says breezily.

It is a half-hour drive to Jerusalem. A very long and loud and lusty half-hour drive, and the scary-looking driver, initially quite cantankerous, turns out to be a raging speed demon as well. I say Tefillas Haderech (Prayer for the Traveler) with heartfelt concentration. The girls, unused to being out and about town at 9:30 PM, and excited at the thought of seeing their beloved teacher wed, are literally bouncing out of their seats.

Do you remember being eleven? I don't, but I imagine it's something very similar to what I am experiencing.

The "talk", which is another way of saying, "the excessive pitch and volume of twenty hyper voices" turns, of course, to weddings.

"I always joke with my mother about why she never invited me to her wedding!" giggles one girl. When eleven year olds congregate, I notice, they like to giggle.

"Ugh, you should see pictures of my mother's wedding! My aunt was wearing, like, a GREEN shirt! Everything was so old-fashioned!"

"I know. And those HAIRSTYLES! They're so funny!"

I gulp. These girls--y'know, the ones with the mothers with the old-fashioned hairstyles? Their old-fashioned mothers got married the same year I did. It's what? Twelve years ago? And we've already become the object of ridicule.

"Tell them not to leave me any garbage on the floor!" the driver exhorts, keeping a careful thirty kilometers above the speed limit.

I barely hear him. My mind is on another time and place, twelve years ago, when my husband and I swore that WE would always be cool, never old-fashioned. OUR kids would never look back at us and laugh. NEVER! No ridiculous bumps, leisure suits, or frilly-dillies. WE would be the coolest parents to ever hit Planet Earth.

Uh, I think we should start setting smaller goals.

Now they're eleven. They think they're on top of the world. One day I hope they'll have the privilege of overhearing twenty eleven-year-olds burst their bubble. It's a rite of passage.

Pinch me, I believe I must have been dreaming. Four wonderful days in the United Kingdom, visiting Manchester and London, was absolutely "gorgeous", to use a colloquial expression! The people were so warm, the community exemplifies hachnasas orchim and vibrance; I was so inspired and enthused, not to mention privileged, to meet so many exceptional people. Thank you, England, for such a life-changing experience.

One unexpected treat was the soul-stirring view of the Grenadier Guards, parading down the street in front of Buckingham Palace, followed by...Queen Elizabeth herself! We were close enough to the soldiers to touch their furry hats (did you know they have a whitish horn on the side, embedded in the fur?). I have to say it filled me with such a sense of awe and majesty that this year, on Rosh Hashanah, I will be able to recall that sensation and have a tiny inkling of "malchus", royalty. It is always amazing to me to realize how G-d has created the world such that everything, down to the minutest detail, can be a springboard for spiritual reflection. We only need to find it. There's the rub. 

I'm looking out my window at the office (I work once a week writing intellectual property for a computer company) and I see...sheep. Lots and lots of fuzzy little sheeps, circling around a mound of dirt. No owner in sight, but there is a responsible-looking dog sort of moseying along with them.

Y'know, when people ask how I could have left America three-and-a-half years ago and moved across the world to Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel), I really don't understand their question. How could I NOT have left? How could I have given up the opportunity to live in this beautiful, resplendent, magnificent country, where there's such a special quality of life that can't be replicated anywhere else. That's my basic response to them and it usually satisfies my askers. But on days like this, when the sky is filled with clouds and the verdent winter hills are lusciously jade from the heavy rains, my heart soars. And a herd of sheep out my window doesn't hurt.

I invite you, too, to come live in the best place on earth. We can be neighbors :-).

Galus (Exile) is tough and terrible, with hester panim (G-d's concealment of Himself and His ways) getting more and more brutal by the day. I want to just process one small idea here, one precious thought, something that is really burning within me. This post, as you will notice, has a more serious tone than usual, and that's because the topic is one of dire importance. I feel that, by far, today's generation is faced with the deepest, blackest curtain of indecision and confusion, compounded endlessly by thousands of splintered, false voices that distract us from Truth and Light. In this darkest part of night, how are we to know which way to go? How do we avoid getting lost? How can we steer clear of the tragic state that the Mesillas Yesharim (An eighteen-century classic by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, entitled The Path of the Just) calls "ke'iver be'afeila", like a blind man in a thick darkness, which connotes a far deeper level of inability to see?

The answer is surprisingly simple. It's turning to our talmidei chachamim (Torah Sages, or rabbis). It is so vital that each one of us take to heart the injunction of "Asei lecha Rav"--make for yourself a Rav (rabbi). No one can afford to be unanchored, and especially when the winds are so turbulent and the sea is so choppy. Today, we cannot be alone. Each of us needs a torch to light the night; someone who understands us and can guide us; someone we can trust to have the Torah wisdom and insight to carry us forward.

It is my fervent hope and blessing to you, dear reader, that you, too, can find a Rav or Rebbetzin (female spiritual guide) to light your path, like a wonderful torch illuminating the dark, intense night.

A CNN news story caught my eye because it featured a famous pianist, Lang Lang, who has taken the world by storm. I love my piano--no, really. I love making music, feeling music, bringing music into my home and weaving it into our family culture. And my secret dream has always been to become a concert pianist, but I'm not sure that's happening any time soon! Anyway, so this Lang Lang pianist talks about his upbringing, where he was dubbed a prodigy at the tender age of, like, three, and his father drove him to greatness.

The melodic tone of young Lang Lang's dream ended rather abruptly when his piano teacher fired him, calling him talentless, and the heartbroken father, who had moved to a new city to enable his son to become a star, give him a good piece of, er, fatherly advice: to throw himself off the roof of a building rather than dishonor the family.

Gulp.

I'm not going to touch the subject of Far Eastern honor culture here. What I'd like to reflect on, for a moment or two, is the complex synergy between who we are and what we do. Is my life my work? Is my life my family? Is my life my friends, my accomplishments, my bank account? What, in essence, IS my life? In Lang Lang's case, his father clearly felt that his life was his musical career. When that did not pan out, his life was worthless, a crumpled piece of yesterday's newspaper, rightfully destined for the garbage.

In Jewish thought, every moment of life is inestimably precious, even if that droplet of life exists in a total vacuum. The person in a vegetative state, being sustained by a respirator and myriad tubes, is precious and valuable and their life is just as exquisite and sacred as the person receiving the Nobel Prize or tending to humanitarian causes in Rwanda, or...or the woman writing hasty blogposts in Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel :-)!

Just a sprinkling of thought, on the very periphery of my exhausted mental state. Life is precious and purposeful, regardless, perhaps, of its by-products. Life is a means, but it's also an end. I'm really glad Lang Lang shelved his father's bit of advice.

This is gonna be a short post, being written under the ominous shadow of a mountain of deadlines, but it's been so long since I've blogged I just HAD to bite the bullet. Yuck. Where DID that expression come from, anyway?

This blog is about society and change and comfort zone. There. No foreshadowing, no carefully layered nuances and plot-building. No prologue or preface. Basically, I'm giving it all away at once. As my grandmother says, "How d'ya like that?" :-)

Our Sages teach us a principle: "Oy l'rasha, oy l'shchainoh"--Woe is to an evildoer; woe to his neighbor! And conversely, "Tov latzaddik, tov l'shchainoh"--Good for the righteous person; good for his neighbor. In other words, we are creatures of the society in which we live. As someone with a bit of an anti-authoritarian streak in her, I have balked at this principle. I have definitely felt capable of bucking the trend, of swimming against the current. But I have come to see that even if, by and large, one can continue to hold his or her own against the immediate environment, there are subtle changes that penetrate. For the good and for the bad.

There are so many personal examples I've witnessed in myself, on both sides of the fence, and every time I try to bring one to mind here it just seems to eclipse or take away from the others. So I guess I'll just leave the phenomenon open-ended. The bottom line is that I have noticed, without a doubt, that the society or societies in which I live and mingle with definitely influence me. And "society" in this case is a conglomerative umbrella term (can you tell it's raining out?!)--in this context I mean it as a catch-all word for community, neighborhood, apartment building, friends circle, synagogue members, work colleagues, grocery store personnel--whatever. The changes can be permanent and specific--like choosing to eat a certain hechsher (kosher supervision and certification) of chicken, or temporary and relatively banal--like wearing a more chic-looking outfit if I'm going to attend a wedding of a certain type of friend. But it certainly give me pause to know that, to a certain extent, I am a drifting boat and something else is moving the oars.

I worry that we may not take this reality seriously enough. We may not consider it with the appropriate amount of forethought when we make a decision--which city and community to live in, where to work, which block to buy on, where to send our kids to school, even which Gym to work out in or which company to interview at. 

I guess the metaphor for this would be pores. Our skin is full of these pores. They absorb and release all sorts of stuff, some of it good and some of it bad. Is it such a stretch to imagine them taking in the intangible, the spiritual? What do you think? 

I just love the sight of little, stubby legs protruding from under a huge umbrella. Delicious. It's raining in Israel, and the whole country is singing. My kids make a mad dash for the puddles and I couldn't even care less. It's raining, and that's a good thing.

It's so interesting to me how the same reality can be both good and bad. Rain is a blessing. It will make the produce grow well. It will make my garden healthy and green. It will lower my water bill because now we've been hit with a drought tax. At the same time, the rain makes the sky grey and bleak. It will ruin my carefully-coiffed wig. (Carefully coiffed? Yeah right!) It's inconvenient and messy and, well, y'know, wet. But I am rejoicing at every droplet. I hardly give a though to the rain's sludgier side. (And anyway, I look pretty cute in a hoodie :-))

Isn't that the way it is with many things in life? Every event can be both bitter and sweet at the same time. It's how we choose to view it. Same thing. Different perspectives. Last night, I spoke to a woman who is very, very wise and special. When I asked her how her day was going, she sighed. I know what usually comes after a sigh--"Can't complain!", or "Stressful!" or "Tiring!" or "Could be better..." Imagine how shocked I was to hear her say, "My day is just terrific. It is just wonderful! It is going great, thank G-d!"

"But you ALWAYS say that!" I protested. "C'mon!"

And she said, "Because that's the reality I choose. I choose to be having a great day--so I have a great day. Life's too short and precious to complain."

She's singing in the rain. Today, so am I. I wonder how it would transform my life to sing in other downpours as well.

Reading the news is like eating that fourth brownie. You know you should stop cuz it won't do you any good, but you just can't. Blech. I honestly have to say that it is a very rare occasion indeed when I actually come away from reading a news article having gained something positive. I see the media, by and large, as a fear-mongering monster, designed to suck the joy out of us, article by dismal article.

So it wasn't surprising when I came away from reading all about the projected swine-flu pandemic feeling rather...sick. I mean, there's already a pandemic of terrified, paranoid, and hysterical people in full swing, waiting for the horrors of swine flu to unleash themselves. I mean, haven't you stockpiled Tamiflu in your medicine cabinet?

We stood in shul (synagogue) a scant month ago, on Rosh Hashanah, and then again, ten days later, and, after crowning G-d King of the Universe, we begged Him for a year of good health and all things wonderful. It is really, really easy to get caught up in morbid fear and paralyzed by what-ifs. It's much more difficult to remind ourselves that there is Someone in charge, and He runs the world--not CNN, or the Center for Disease Control or...and this is going to be a huge shock (sit down for this one!)...even Barack Obama!

Today, I am choosing faith over fear, simply because it makes a lot more sense to me. What about you?

Not that I've been away from this blog for, like, two months or anything ;-0. As I told a friend, "For me, the words 'summer vacation' are a euphemism for the words 'life stops'!" It's good to be back. I'll tell ya one thing--Wednesday, the first day of real, live school, the silence in this house was PALPABLE!! (Yummmm....! No, really, I love them, I really do. But a little chunk of silence? Delish!)

While I usually try to be funky or fun or semi-clever with titles, I opted for the stark, unpretentious sort for this post. Probably because it describes a reality that is stark, unpretentious, and highly unfunny. I will describe it as best I can. See if it jogs your memory the way it painfully jogged mine.

First Day of School
Backpack ready, check. Lunch, check. New uniform, check. Let's go, Mommy, we gotta get there already! We'll be late!
I hope I get the teacher I want. I hope she's nice.
I'm saving a seat for my best friend.
The classroom.
It looks like this: Neat rows of desks and chairs, paired in twos.
Girls talking excitedly, re-bonding, sitting together. Best friends have saved seats, other girls pair up in the moment.
And then, against the wall...
Against the wall are the loners.
They sit next to empty chairs. There is no one to sit next to them. Yet.
They wait, with half-eager, half-dreading eyes as each girl files into the classroom.
Will she pick me? Will she sit next to me?
Will she alleviate the loneliness of the chair beside me?
Will she be my friend?
Will this year be different than last year and the last year?
Finally.
Those silent, empty seats scream out very loudly.