JBN Blog

 Sukkot starts this Wednesday night, coincidentally in the middle of international babywearing week 2011.  Sukkot is one of my favorite holidays.  It’s a time when we strip our lives down to the essentials and celebrate the simple joy of having enough, of harvests that have come to fruition, of shelter that protects without isolating us from our surroundings, of journeys in progress and destinations only vaguely imagined, and of time spent celebrating the moment with friends and family.  
Like a new parent who’s spent so much of the pregnancy thinking about birth without considering what will happen when the baby arrives, I sometimes feel overwhelmed by Sukkot coming so soon after the High Holidays.  I’ve made it through a holiday marathon only to find that it’s not really over.  Actually it’s just beginning.  There’s a sukkah to build, a temporary hut with a roof made of branches or bamboo.  There’s food to be cooked and guests to invite and a lulav and etrog to buy.  Luckily our sukkah went up this year without extensive repairs, the lulav is on order, my freezer is stocked and my husband is on guest-inviting duty...
...Which means, that with most of the physical and logistical details out of the way, I should be able to experience the holiday.  With young kids, the soul searching of the high holidays can be a big challenge.  Just try getting a few minutes to think, let alone the sustained time and concentration for serious self-reflection and repentance.  Sukkot is different.  The spiritual task of Sukkot is to be present in the moment and appreciate it.   Kids are great at that, and our challenge is simply to join them in their playfulness and enthusiasm.  
The flimsy structure of the Sukkah is supposed to remind us of the huts the Israelites camped in on their journey through the desert after leaving Egypt on their way to the promised land.  Like new parents, surprised after the momentous experience of birth that the journey of parenthood lies entirely before them, the Israelites were overwhelmed, uncertain, and a bit scared of what lay ahead.  They had only a vague idea of where they were going and their plan for how to get there was one step at a time with faith that God would be with them.  This is the moment of Sukkot, and as parents of babies and young children, this is our holiday.  It’s our chance to acknowledge the precariousness of this moment, to celebrate the potential it holds, and to embrace where we are on the journey with faith that somehow we’ll find our way to where we need to go, coming closer and closer though we may never really arrive.  
It seems fitting that Sukkot overlaps with International babywearing week this year.  I’m also a big fan of babywearing, for many of the same reasons that I love Sukkot.  You could say that a sling (or a wrap, or an ergo, etc.) is to a stroller, like a sukkah is to a house.  It’s simpler, keeps you in closer contact with your surroundings.  It takes up less space, and goes more places.  In some ways it is less comfortable, but more cozy.  It’s perfect for the beginning of the journey.  When my first son was born, I couldn’t imagine choosing a stroller.  I had no idea what features I would need, or how much I should spend, but most of all, I didn’t really want to put down the baby.  I did want to go places, to function in the world, and to take my baby with me, and babywearing felt right.  I bought a couple of carriers, borrowed others and learned to use them from the amazing Boston Babywearers, and soon, I felt present both in my world and in my baby’s.  
With my babies now two and four years old, I’m wearing them only occasionally these days.  It turns out my little one loves his stroller right now, and often wants to walk himself.  But as I begin getting into the spirit of Sukkot, trying to embrace the simple joys of life, I’m missing the long stretches I spent wrapped together with my babies, always available to steal a moment of connection and presence as I stretched between my world and theirs.  Though I’m not wearing them as much, this is a great opportunity to notice that we’re still in that place, on the journey together, not sure exactly where we’re going, but going there together, with faith that we’ll figure it out and appreciation for where we are right now.  
So here’s to a happy international babywearing week, (you can find a schedule of events in boston here), and a simple, joyous Sukkot.  Whether we’re wearing or not, whether or not the weather and children allow for relaxed meals in the great outdoors, lets all find some way this week to celebrate this moment in our journey.  

Today my little guy turns two and along with the celebration of how beautifully he’s growing, I find myself a little sad that we don’t really have a “baby” in the house any more, at least for a while.  Thinking back to what was going on two years ago, I can hardly believe it’s been so long, though I can barely remember life without him.
Two years ago, Velvel was born in the midst of the high holiday season and the beginning of the school year.  Throughout the pregnancy, I tried to stave off worries about how his birth, whenever it happened, would fit in with the regularly scheduled events of the season.  And, like we did with Zalmen, instead of revealing  the exact “estimated due date,” we told people, “early September - before the holidays.”
As his birth came closer, I thought early thoughts, hoping he would give us more time to get to know him before other things started competing for attention.  I worried about whether the bris would fall on Rosh Hashana, or even if he would be born on the holiday itself.  As a cantor in a synagogue, there are three days a year my husband really can’t miss work, and two were well within range of the baby’s estimated due date!  So a chunk of my energy went into willing the birth to happen at a convenient time (a spin on the traditional blessing b’sha’ah tovah - at a good time).  
As it turns out, Velvel wasn’t thinking those early thoughts along with me, and he arrived in my forty-first week, four days before the new year.  I spent my first ever Rosh Hashana at home on the couch.  We had a bris between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.  And on Yom Kippur, I ventured out in public for the first time with Velvel, spending much of my time focused more on the baby than the prayers.  I’m going to have to be vigilant not to let the holidays overshadow Velvel’s birthday as he grows up.  In the year he was born, it felt more the other way around.  
But along with the challenges of a September birth, come some unique blessings - the blessings of starting a new life, a new stage, a new family configuration, at a time already designated for  reflection and new beginnings.  The energy that I wasn’t devoting to willing the birth to come sooner went largely toward reflections on all the newness, changes and adjustments that the year would bring --  becoming a mother of two, guiding my toddler through the transition to “big brother,” finishing school with baby in tow, and starting some sort of rabbinic work.  In reality, the anticipation of and adjustment to a new baby meshed beautifully with the spiritual preparation and transformation we’re supposed to experience on the high holidays.  At the time I felt a bit like I had missed the holidays, absorbed in my focus on the baby.  Looking back, I realize that I experienced the holidays through Velvel’s birth.  
I envy women who are struck with a nesting instinct that inspires them to clean.  Somehow, my nesting instincts lead to more messes.  As that September approached, I started worrying that I would have the baby before I had a chance to bake challah for the holiday.  I wouldn’t be ready to give birth, I knew, until the challah was waiting in the freezer.  So a few weeks before, Zalmen and I started baking.  We made braided loaves for the coming weeks, round ones for the holidays, and the biggest challah I could manage for the bris.  There is a tradition of gathering with friends and family on the first Friday night of the baby’s life, and two of the challahs served double duty at this meal, which turned out to be the first night of Rosh Hashana.  
The holidays challenge us to consider who we will be in the coming year.  I wondered, planned, hoped, dreamed, about how I would be mother to both the child who had confidently held the position of center of my universe for the past two years, and the unknown new little person everyone said I would love just as much (and it turned out I do!).  The new year, like a new baby, is a moment full of potential, of the opportunity to make good choices, to do things right.  Waiting for and bonding with this new baby focused my thoughts on all the potential and responsibility of the new year that was also the very beginning of his life, the open book.  
At the same time, the holiday prayers communicate an element of destiny in the year to come, referring to a book in which God writes what will become of each of us - a book that closes as holiday season ends.  The image of this book, reflects an element of the future that is determined, or at least influenced, by actions of the past and the reality of today.  Holding and gazing at the newborn baby, I was discovering the inborn elements of his personality that were already becoming apparent, wondering at the mystery of those elements that would reveal themselves over time, imagining who he would grow to be, noticing that even in his first week (actually even before his birth) he was his own person, different from his big brother.  
We gave Velvel the middle name Shefer, in part in honor of the Shofar of the holiday season, and his birth was, in many ways like the blast of the Shofar.  His labor and birth, though long anticipated, caught us a bit off guard and demanded full attention.  It started quickly, developed with immediate and growing intensity, and culminated with a sense of awe, deliverance, hope, power, and the presence of the divine.  Velvel’s birth, like a shofar blast, was at once beautiful and piercing. And unlike Zalmen’s birth where we opted for privacy as a couple, supported by our midwives and doula, and nurses provided by the hospital, Velvel’s birth was a very personal spiritual moment that I experienced surrounded by family and midwives who felt like trusted guides, no doubt each having their own powerful experience along with me.  The experience was followed, appropriately, by a celebratory meal of take-out pizza as Velvel started nursing, Zalmen went to sleep, and the family took in all the newness and joy.  
It was a very different high holiday season, intertwined with Velvel’s birth and the transition our family was making.  But, everything the holidays were about happened that year in its own way, in its own time.  And each holiday season since carries an echo for me of the new year that came hand-in-hand with a new baby.  
I’m lucky to have a high holiday season baby, whose timing unavoidably focused my new year reflections on the miraculous newness of his life.  I think, though, that no matter what time of year a baby is born, the themes of the high holidays before or after the birth can feel more relevant, and though an infant may keep us parents from spending as much time in services, or preparing the holiday meal as we sometimes do, we end up finding new ways of connecting with the holidays through our relationships with our children.  

This blog post is a condensed version of a longer article.  Read the full text here.  

 I’ve been reading a lot lately about the question slated for San Francisco’s November ballot, that would ban circumcision of minors.  As it’s formulated, the only exception would be medical emergency.  MGMbill.org, the organization proposing the bill not only in San Francisco, but nationwide, refers to circumcision as “mutilation” and to circumcised boys as victims of abuse.  
This chapter of the ongoing circumcision debate in the U.S. is getting a lot of media attention, particularly in the Jewish community, maybe because the ballot initiative is gaining enough popularity to make it plausible that it could pass, or maybe because of the lack of religious exemption and the association of the bill with a comic book that’s been called anti-Semitic.  Foreskin Man features caricatures of religious Jews tearing a baby out of his mother’s arms and circumcising him as she struggles to free herself and her child from their grip.  This image highlights the tension between the anti-circumcision movement’s claims of human rights abuses and Jewish community’s concerns for tolerance and religious freedom.
But the debate over circumcision is not new - not to Jews and not to Americans.  Rabbinic texts decry the ancient Greek prohibition on circumcision, leading to defiant observance of the mitzvah of brit milah, the commandment of ritual circumcision (a.k.a. bris).  In secular American culture, circumcision has come in and out of fashion over the years, with a trend recently towards leaving babies intact.  
Trends in the American Jewish community fluctuate as well.  There have, at times, been trends among more secular Jews to choose routine in-hospital circumcision.  On the other hand, there are families who prefer a mohel, a specialist in ritual circumcision, even if they feel more culturally than religiously connected to the ritual.  These days, some families choose to have private brit milah ceremonies with a select few guests, saving the larger celebration for a less intimate moment.  And, yes, there are Jewish families who choose not to circumcise their boys at all.  
What’s different about this debate for our generation is that the public discourse has moved from disagreement - Circumcision is medically beneficial vs. No, not really.  Why cut off a piece of the body when you don’t need to? - to polarization - Circumcision is an excruciatingly painful abusive form of mutilation that needs to be banned to protect innocent children from irreparable physical and psychological trauma!  vs. Circumcision is one hundred percent safe, nearly painless, prevents cancer and STDs, enhances sexual pleasure for men and women, and besides, foreskins are gross!  God was right!  With accessible forums for disseminating and finding information, anyone can put their opinions out there.  So, there’s highly charged information available on both sides of the circumcision divide, and sadly, not a lot to be found in the gray area in between.  
I’ve certainly benefited from easy access to information as a parent, but the volume of highly emotional, high-stakes discourse on this issue makes a parent’s job more complex.  How do you know who to trust?  Where are the sources that break it down without bias, that acknowledge the concerns on both sides and help intelligent adults make their own decisions based on the best available information and their own assessments, values and priorities?  
I’ve been wishing for a while that there was a guide for Jewish parents struggling with the issue of circumcision, a resource for parents who consider themselves obligated by the mitzvah, but feel conflicted, knowing they would otherwise choose not to circumcise, and for those who don’t make Jewish choices based on a sense of obligation, who are struggling with the weight of an age-old Jewish tradition to circumcise in an American cultural context that increasingly favors leaving baby boys intact.  Since I haven’t found that kind of guide yet, I’ve decided to try to write it myself.  
Here’s a first attempt at articulating my approach to living in the gray area.  As with all polarized issues, I recommend reading anything on circumcision with a grain of salt.  In searching for the gray area, I’ve tried to present this analysis pre-salted, but of course, add to taste.  Click on any of the tips below for an in-depth discussion:
     1. This is your choice to make.
     2. Weigh the medical concerns. 
     3. Weigh the Jewish concerns.
     4. Know the differences between the Jewish procedure and the medical one.
     5. Circumcision is not the same as “female circumcision” or Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). 
     6. Consider the physical and psychological effects.
     7. Understand the dynamics of the debate.
     8. Find a mohel you can trust and ask about his / her procedure.
     9. It’s okay to feel ambivalent.
     10. Get on the same page as your partner.

So, back to the San Francisco ballot initiative, and the national anti-circumcision lobby.  I don’t want to see laws banning circumcision, not because I think circumcision is the best choice for all baby boys, not because I expect all Jews to practice brit milah given the legal choice, but because I don’t think there’s an easy answer to this question.  And questions without easy answers are powerful catalysts of thoughtful individual decision-making and meaningful action.  
It is easy to make the choice to circumcise in a traditionally observant Jewish community.  There is an expectation to do it, and no real motivators to challenge the norm.  It was easy to choose to circumcise in the eighties when it was at the peak of popularity in secular American society.  Everyone was doing it, and it was Jewish tradition!  For many people, it would also be easy to make a decision if it was illegal.  For many American Jewish families who aren’t strictly observant, secular law would make it a simple choice.  (For others the choice would be much harder.)  
But easy choices aren’t necessarily meaningful choices.  They often don’t involve a lot of thought about why we’re making that choice, what our other options are, or what values our choice projects.  So I’m hoping attempts to ban circumcision fail, but I’m not sorry they’re making the news.  I hope it spurs traditionally observant Jewish families to think about why Jews do brit milah, what makes it important enough to do even when secular society isn’t on the band-wagon, what it means to each of us.  I hope Jewish families who choose their traditions a la carte find more meaning and stronger sense of identity by choosing brit milah in a culture where it makes them more distinctive.  And I hope those who choose not to circumcise will be inspired to find creative ways to express their identity and commitment to Jewish life.
As the issue continues to get more press coverage, as I’m sure it will, we will certainly see the organized Jewish community responding to the human rights claims in the public sphere.  I’ve been encouraged by some of the thoughtful responses I’ve read from individuals, and disappointed by some that I find narrow-minded.  Let’s hope that on the whole, as a Jewish community, we can respond in a respectful and reasonable way to the real concerns many people have about circumcision, while upholding it as a parent’s choice, like so many other difficult and potentially life-altering choices we make, that comes with the awesome responsibility of having children.  

 So who else has seen a talking donkey recently?  Okay, I haven’t really seen a talking donkey since I saw the movie Shrek a few years ago.  But last week I saw something almost as bafflingly amazing.  Zalmen, my four year old was finishing up a play-date, and we were saying goodbye to his friend at the door, when, out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed Velvel, my adventurous toddler, walking out the far door from the kitchen, looking very pleased with himself as he held in one hand, a bowl of ice-cream and in the other, his little spoon.  “How did he do that?” I wondered aloud as I started trying to put together the series of miracles involved in a 21 month old helping himself to a bowl of ice cream.  I got about as far as, “There’s Ice cream in the freezer, and Velvel can open the freezer,” - beyond that point, I couldn’t figure it out.  But here’s the thing, just the fact that Velvel can and does open the freezer on his own is pretty miraculous.  From his physical strength, with which he’s been astonishing me from day one, to his confidence that he can do it, to his initiative in just going for what he wants, to the chutzpah it takes to gather all those other qualities given the likelihood that his father or I are going to step in and foil his attempt.  When I think about it, just opening the freezer is a pretty amazing thing for this kid to do.  But that’s only when I think about it.  In reality, he tries to open the freezer several times a day, and succeeds regularly, but most of the time I don’t stand there looking on with awe and pride.  That’s because I’m too busy pulling him out of the freezer, holding the door closed, telling him “no ice-cream,” or trying to teach him to ask me before he raids the snacks.  I barely realize how much of the time I’m too busy trying to make the kids act the way I think they should to witness with wonder what they do all by themselves.  Sometimes it takes a talking donkey to catch our attention powerfully enough that we notice the less vocal miracles that surround us.
In parshat Balak, the weekly Torah reading (Numbers 22:2-25:9), we read about the non-Jewish prophet Balaam, hired by Balak, the King of Moav to curse the Israelites.  It’s a strange story, from Balaam’s awareness that his power to curse lies with Adonai, the God of Israel, to his repeated consultations with God to see if maybe now would be a good time to curse the Israelites, to God’s seeming ambivalence about Balaam’s involvement in the scheme, to Balaam’s series of increasingly beautiful blessings, to the story of the Israelites’ bad behavior which immediately follows the blessings bringing a plague on the camp.  
But the part that catches our attention, if not Balaam’s, is the talking donkey.  Why a talking donkey?  How?!?  Many of the commentators try to explain the talking donkey away.  She didn’t really talk.  She brayed and Balaam interpreted.  Or the whole donkey incident was a dream sequence.  Personally, I’m partial to the midrashic interpretation that the donkey was one of the special things God made at sunset the first Friday night of creation, held in waiting until the moment they were needed for miracle duty.  Because they are created before the time is up, they don’t require God to break and overturn the natural order.  God didn’t suddenly give that donkey the ability to talk.  Just like God certainly didn’t scoop Velvel’s ice cream or suddenly endow him with the dexterity and coordination to scoop it himself.  The midrash claims that the talking donkey is just one of those normal natural miracles that you don’t happen to notice every day.  There’s a logical explanation, but because it’s not immediately apparent, it catches our attention.  
But perhaps even more baffeling than the talking donkey is Balaam’s reaction - namely, that it doesn’t catch his attention.  Instead of saying, “OMG a talking donkey!”, he continues to argue with it.  The prophet, whose job it is to understand or purportedly even to shape God’s will, not only can’t see the angel with the big scary sword, not only is less aware than his donkey, not only is unable to deduce that when his trusty donkey veers off course something else must be wrong, but even the talking donkey doesn’t tip him off.  Instead of snapping to attention, he threatens the donkey to get his way.  
Why doesn’t he get the hint?  He’s doing what I do every day as I fight Velvel out of the freezer.  He’s working so hard to make the world conform to his desires, he fails to notice the miracles that make up the world as it actually is.  Here, he’s missing a big one - several big ones actually - over several focused attempts to shape how his world works.  He’s so busy trying to make the donkey go he doesn’t notice it talking.  He’s so busy trying to go curse the Israelites he doesn’t notice the angel standing in his way.  He’s so busy trying to do his job as a prophet, he loses sight of the will of God that should be expressed through that role.  He misses miracle after miracle, angels, talking animals, the amazing power God has given him if he’ll use it appropriately, and the miracle of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt and journey through the desert.  
Balak misses that one too.  God doesn’t instruct the Israelites to make war with Moav.  It’s not clear from our text here in Nubers, but in Deuteronomy it’s explicit.  The Israelites are not to make war with Moav.  God intends Moav to keep their land.  But Balak, seeing the results of God’s miracles for Israel, seeing their greatness, is overcome with fear, and instead of focusing on the miracles, focuses on how he had imagined the world to be.  He wants to be the powerful force in the region and doesn’t want to see another strong nation appear, and he sets out to make it so.  Balaam’s blessing declares that those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel are cursed, but Moav is busy trying to maintain control, and can’t be bothered with witnessing the miracle or being blessed through it.  It doesn’t work out well for them.  In the next parsha God sends the Israelites to make trouble for Moav.  
Balak’s attempt to control the world doesn’t work out for him and neither does Balaam’s.  He fails at cursing the Israelites, thank God, which incites Balaam’s anger, so rather than being rewarded, he’s forced to run away.  
But this parsha doesn’t leave anyone unscathed.  The Israelites, just like everyone else in the parsha, miss the miracle.  Having escaped an attempt to curse them and ultimately destroy them - escaped it through the direct intervention of God - what do the Israelites do?  They allow Moabite and Midianite women to draw them into participating in their sacrifices and idol worship.  Do they fail to notice that these are the peoples who just tried to curse them?  Actually, the Torah doesn’t tell us whether the Israelites notice anything that goes up until this point in the parsha.  The action all goes on literally over their heads from mountaintops overlooking them.  Shouldn’t they have smelled the twenty one sacrificed animals roasting?  In any case, this is yet another instance of the generation that is destined to die in the desert working out their slave mentality, their lack of faith.  This isn’t the first miracle they’ve quickly forgotten.  And, again, it doesn’t work out well for them.
So what is it that keeps us from noticing the miracles around us?  Why do we insist on arguing with the talking donkey?  For Balak, the king of Moav, he’s blinded to the miracles by fear.  The torah tells us, “vayar Balak ben Tsipor et kol asher asah Yisrael La’emori vayagor Moav mipnei ha’am me’od ki rav hu.  Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites and Moav was very afraid of the people because it was great.”
The word vayagor is pretty unambiguous - it’s fear.  And fear is not an unreasonable response to seeing a powerful group of people coming your way.  But power doesn’t necessarily have to mean threat or danger.  There’s another word in Hebrew that holds both possibilities.  That word is yirah.  It’s a word we hear a lot on the high holidays.  It translates as fear, but also as awe.  Situations that are awesome can be scary.  Maybe that possibility is inherent in anything powerful.  
Back to Velvel opening the freezer.  I’ve seen him do it, and it can be a little bit scary.  I’ve seen him grip the handle with both hands, plant his feet just where the door hits the floor, and lean back with all his might.  A kid with a different balance of awe and fear wouldn’t do it.  And a some of the time I don’t want to let him do it either.  But in those moments, where there’s not immediate serious danger, when I can push myself a little away from the fear end of the spectrum, I find myself with an opportunity to experience the wonder and the awe that he feels.  
It’s a balancing act.  We can’t spend all day everyday just watching to be sure we catch the miracles.  And we can’t ignore potentially dangerous situations because they’re also awesome.  But I think we can be aware of which we we lean ourselves, and which way the other forces in our lives push us.  For me, Velvel often represents the impulse towards fearless awe, while Zalmen mingles the two together with cautious respect.  I remember watching Zalmen at the shore of a lake around Velvel’s age.  He watched, seemingly forever, fascinated, but when we suggested going in... no thanks, you go in.  Velvel, on the other hand would run straight for the waves of the ocean, reveling in the stunning and enticing beauty.  Often I feel drawn to push back at their natural tendancies, to mediate their reactions, but sometimes, when I can, its awesome to try to just experience it with them.  
In our culture, we have a lot of influences towards the fear end of the spectrum.  I see it in pregnancy, birth, and parenting, because that’s what I’ve been doing the last five years or so, but I’m sure it’s everywhere.  There’s so much to worry about, tests to make sure things are okay, foods to avoid, foods to eat enough of, parenting techniques and choices with opposite expert opinions warning scary results no matter what you do.  There are chemicals to avoid, germs to fend off, walls to keep them from jumping from, and the list goes on.  
With so much to fear, its easy to forget the awe.  We can miss the miracles, and I don’t believe that we can do so without consequence.  It certainly doesn’t work out well in the parsha.
Sometimes people ask what the line, casually placed on much of the Jewish Birth Network Literature, “More Awe, Less Fear” means.  This is what I’m talking about.  Taking enough of a step back from the fear to make room for the awe and experience the miracles that happen whether we notice them or not.  
On passover, at our family seder, we played a round of “I’m leaving Egypt and I’m leaving behind.”  I decided to leave behind multitasking the kids.  I can’t say that I’ve perfected that intention yet, but when I make room to just be with them while I’m with them, when I stop trying to make them do what I want, and take time to appreciate who they are, I get a chance to experience the miracles.  
This is also a driving impulse behind the Jewish Birth Network’s Birth Circle program - just carving out time and space to acknowledge the miracles of pregnancy birth and parenting, in hopes that it might allow people to experience them miraculously.  
I think that impulse is also part of the power of Shabbat.  Blocking out time to let the world be, rather than constantly using our human impulse to make it what we want opens up room for the wonder.  
Interestingly the word yirah doesn’t appear in our parsha.  The word vayar, he saw, does, though.  The two words may not be related as their roots share only two out of three letters, but some grammarians would argue that two is enough.  It’s certainly enough for a little word play.  People in this parsha see plenty.  And they see with the same letters as yirah - hinting, I think at the opportunity to experience the situation with awe.  But instead they act out of fear, insecurity, and the impulse to be in control.  Our job is to see the opportunity, choose to integrate the awe, and experience the miracles and blessings that we find right in front of us every day.  

 As we near the end of counting the fifty days between Passover and Shavuot, the Jewish Birth Network is counting down the days until our first Birth Circle.  Maybe it’s bashert, meant to be, that the Birth Circle series starts the weekend after Shavuot.  And I don’t mean just because of the similar reaction so many people have to mentioning either one: “What’s Shavuot?”  “What’s a Birth Circle?”  In a way, they are both celebrations of the same value:  the value of stories.  
Shavuot, though it’s a major holiday, is one of the less observed and less understood events in much of the Jewish world.  Rather than the classic narrative - they tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat - Shavuot is about receiving the Torah, the tangible, readable, interpretable vessel of that classic narrative and all the imperatives that come out of it.  Shavuot is about encountering the divine, not in a moment of crisis, but as a traveling partner setting out on a journey.  
Jewish thinkers have struggled with the question of what exactly the Jewish people received at Mount Sinai.  Opinions range from the whole Torah, with every commentary and interpretation that will ever be made, to just the ten commandments, to no more than the first (silent) letteraleph of the first commandment.  This final opinion, whether we understand it as the primary “truth” of what happened or not, points to the power of the experience at Mount Sinai as an encounter with divinity, the closest the people would come to knowing God, their travel partner on the long journey ahead.  
When we think of the experience at Mount Sinai as a moment of encountering God - a moment of connection, intimacy, a spark of understanding - we can see Torah as we know it - the tangible scroll, the words written in it, the translations, the interpretations, the commentaries, the sermons that apply it to contemporary life - as a kind of sacred story-telling.  When we engage with Torah, we are in a sense passing on the experience of encountering the divine.  
Today, when people think about encountering God, if they think about it at all, they think about miracles, and part of what makes Shavuot a bit unusual or harder to relate to, is that the miracle of Shavuot is encounter with the divine.  Other than the divine encounter, it was an ordinary day.  True, the people eventually needed to learn how to escape the slave mentality, and the Torah could act as a guide.  But there wasn’t an immediate pressing need for a miracle, like when they were stuck between a sea and a pursuing army.  
In fact, the connection between the experience at Mount Sinai and Shavuot is drawn by the Rabbis.  In the Torah itself, Shavuot is a harvest holiday (like the harvest elements of Passover and Sukkot).  It is a moment for offering the first fruits of the year with gratitude for the everyday miracle that they grew.
When we think about miracles today, the one experience that people tend to understand as truly miraculous is the birth of a baby.  We may or may not be lucky enough to experience the birth process as miraculous, but the experience of participating, with whichever partners are involved, both human and divine, in the creation of a human being is miraculous.  We can measure, study, analyze and to some extent control birth, and yet it maintains an element of mystery, a sense of awe.  However we understand, or don’t understand, God, the emergence of a new human being is an encounter with something beyond our normal capacity as people, and it touches us powerfully, and changes us as we move forward.  
Like the encounter at Mount Sinai, there are many ways of retelling the story of a birth.  There are distinct individual perspectives on what happened, why, and how.  There are multiple interpretations of the story.  Even the same person may understand the story differently in different moments.  And then, of course, each birth, each mother has her own experience, different from any other.  
The core activity of a Birth Circle is telling birth stories, in a supportive, respectful environment.  Each woman has a different story to tell, and may reflect on it in a new way at each Birth Circle.  And through the process of telling and hearing each other’s birth stories, accounts of individual encounters with that mysterious divine creative energy, our community is enriched just like it is through studying Torah, and retelling the stories of our holidays.  Just like Torah, it can take ongoing reflection, multiple interpretations, and the attention of a community that affirms the value of the story to draw out all the meaning and power the story holds.  
Birth Circles are a great way to connect with others, to build community, to exchange baby care tips and get people’s recommendations for all the resources you need when you’re pregnant or have a new baby.  And they can also be a place for sacred story-telling.  They can hold the many experiences, values, perspectives, fears, triumphs, disappointments, surprises, and strengths that make up the tapestry of our communal relationship to the miracle of the birth process.  
JBN Birth Circles are about the Jewish community acknowledging: Birth is miraculous.  Stories are powerful.  Telling the stories of our birth experiences - from pregnancy, to labor, to nursing, nurturing, and sleep deprivation - helps us understand ourselves and others as people and as Jews, and enriches our community with fresh memories of the experience of encounter with the divine.  

For more information about the Birth Circle series, traveling this summer and fall around the Boston area, see www.JewishBirthNetwork.com/birth-circles.html.  Or click here to register for June 12 at Mayyim Hayyim.

When I was pregnant with my first baby, I read a lot: books, websites, magazines, whatever I could find.  In my reflective mode, I’d say that I was looking for resources to help me make sense of this huge transition and who I would be as a pregnant woman, through the birth process, and as a mom.  There was lots of information out there, resources that helped me understand what was happening physiologically, and what choices I could make in response to those concrete facts.  But there were no definitive resources on how I was going to feel, how I would respond, what the experience would be like for me.  Maybe that’s why I loved reading birth stories so much.  

 Birth stories, written in the first person, struck me as a delicious mix of the facts as they played out in one individual case, and the Mom’s (and sometimes the Dad’s) thoughts, feelings, interpretations, and reactions throughout the process.  Reading lots of birth stories, each with a different cast of characters, a different rhythm, and a different woman’s perspective helped me start to get a feeling for what it might be like.  It helped me relate to how different choices could lead to different outcomes, and how those choices and outcomes would feel different to different women.  It helped me figure out what kind of choices I thought I would want to make.  It also helped me feel less like I was doing something new and unknown, and more like I was joining a very big and well-respected club.  

I remember at the time that I also talked with a lot of women who told me about their birth experiences.  Of course, I was interested to hear their stories, and some of the time, I got that same sense of anticipation that came from reading birth stories, mixed with the excitement of hearing it directly from someone I knew.  Sometimes, though, the stories that women told in groups turned into escalating horror stories, each mother playing up the ordeal she had to go through to match or out-suffer the previous story.  Or the stories would come with an agenda:You should definitely do it this way.  Women who do … have got to be crazy!  Ask for …   Don’t let them do … to you.  
Sometimes when I listened to women tell their stories in person, it seemed like I was supposed to learn their lessons, to make the choices they made or wished they had, or to simply marvel in awe of what they could endure.  Instead of feeling more ready, I felt like a newbie, like my thoughts, my plans, my voice was less significant, because I hadn’t been through it yet.  And at the same time, I felt a responsibility to validate the story-teller’s experience, to hear her voice.  
Later, when it was my turn to tell birth stories, I felt the tension from the other side.  On one hand, I wanted my voice to be heard, my experience validated.  I wanted to pass on the wisdom I’d acquired and maybe convince a new mom to make choices like mine.  On the other hand, I knew that there was a good chance the pregnant woman I was talking to, or the other moms I was exchanging stories with, already had their own inclinations about how they would do birth.  What really mattered to me was that my birth experience be heard as part of the mosaic of ways that birth happens and people respond.  But it wasn’t always easy to get that across without sounding judgmental about other choices, without crossing the line between descriptive and prescriptive.  
I wonder why written birth stories can be so inspiring and encouraging, while face to face they can sometimes be a bit intimidating.  Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of in-person encounters that were pleasant and validating, and I’m sure there are written stories that don’t inspire.  Maybe most of the stories I read reinforced the choices I was planning to make.  But I think it was more than that.  I can read stories of births that are different from my personal ideal and still find them beautiful and feel what a powerful experience it is for the mom.  I think the thing about written birth stories is that sitting down to write puts you in a reflective mood.  Without someone to convince (either to do things your way, or that your choices were good, or that you really went through a birth ordeal), writers are free to just describe the birth of their child as they experienced it.  With plenty of time to think and get the words just right, there’s more room for the wonder, the awe, the gratitude, and the sense of blessing to come through.  
But I don’t want to give up on the power of birth stories, shared in person, with the opportunity to ask questions, respond and start conversations, even potentially difficult ones.  There’s an opportunity, when we share our stories in person, when we hear other people’s stories with an open mind.  There’s an opportunity to connect, to understand one another, to feel heard, and to form supportive relationships and communities.  And there’s an opportunity to replace unrealistic or sensationalized images of birth we glean from movies and the media with the range of real women’s experience.  So despite the potential for awkward moments, the chance that a birth story might turn preachy or over-dramatic, we need to keep telling our stories, and listening to others’.  We need to access that reflective place inside, where the story is about welcoming a new person into the world, or about becoming a parent for the first time or again, where it’s about our experience as we went through it.  And we need to listen with an open mind, or at least an open heart.  
 This week we’re announcing our first local programs and I’m so excited about it.  Starting in June, we’ll be offering a Birth Circle each month at a different location around the Boston area.  A Birth Circle is a chance for pregnant women and new moms to get together, meet other people going through similar experiences, share their stories, and ask questions.  It’s a supportive environment for people with different approaches to birth, different parenting styles, and different ways of approaching Judaism.  It’s a forum to share the experiences of pregnancy, birth, and new motherhood with other women who are going through it too, each figuring out the ways that work for their families.  Each month will have a theme to help you focus your story and reflect on it in a new way.  The first circle, with the theme Expectations,  will be Sunday, June 12, 4:00-5:30 at Mayyim Hayyim.  Other host locations / co-sponsors include Temple Israel of Natick, and Temple B’nai Brith of Somerville.  You can read more about it at http://www.jewishbirthnetwork.com/birth-circles.html, and register at<a href="http:// http://jewishboston.com/events/7892-birth-circle"> http://jewishboston.com/events/7892-birth-circle.  Hope to see you there and to hear your story.

In my family, we have big Passover seders.  What started as a nice full table when my grandmothers, and then my mother and aunts hosted the seder has grown slowly but surely as my generation has partnered up and started having kids of our own.  The table has filled to overflowing, and we’ve graduated to bigger tables, and even a bigger room as the family has grown.  I love that my family gets together every Passover, that our core group always comes back.  We’ve had seder guests come and go, and we love opening our home to new guests in years when it works well.  Passover is, after all, a time to open the doors and invite in all who are hungry, or anyone who needs a seder to attend.  There’s something very special about having new guests at the seder, adding their voices, their traditions, their take on leaving Egypt and being free.  
What we’ve lost in intimacy, we’ve gained in the sense of being a whole tribe of people gathering to experience our liberation together.  One year we played the biggest game of “I’m leaving Egypt and I’m bringing…” ever.  Everyone was supposed to either bring an actual object to the seder table to show the group or at least decide in advance which one object they wanted to bring.  By the time the game was over and we were ready to sit down to eat, it felt like we had a shared collection of memories (several people brought pictures of loved ones), objects of sentimental and spiritual value (like musical instruments), and practical considerations (a horse, a lamb, a roll of toilet paper).  
With such a big core group, it’s not too uncommon that someone doesn’t make it for one reason or another, and it always makes me sad when we’re missing someone because of sickness, or injury or sad circumstances that keep them from coming.  But there have been two occasions in the last number of years when we’ve been missing a significant chunk of our core because of pregnancy or birth.  And though we’ve still missed those who didn’t get here, their absence came with a sense of anticipation and joy.  And, after all, Passover is a holiday about change - about shaking up our normal reality and questioning what is going on here, and what does it mean.  Nothing makes that happen in our lives like the birth of a baby.  So it seems totally fitting that every so often, when a new baby is born in the family, our Passover reality is shaken up.  We find ourselves full of questions and wonder, and when things go back to normal, the “normal’ is a little bit different.
Read the full post at JewishBoston.com

This week in my house, we’ve been eating down our pile of hamentashen, putting away costumes, and imposing our yearly ban on buying non-essential food items.  Now that Purim is over, it’s becoming hard to ignore that Passover is coming in just a few weeks.  Whether you’re looking forward to Passover - the seders, spending time with family and friends - or dreading all the work you’ll need to do to prepare - cleaning, cooking, planning a seder - it’s time to start thinking about how your family will celebrate this year.  

 If you’re a young family, maybe you haven’t quite established your family tradition yet.  Maybe one parent is attached to a longstanding tradition, while the other never really had a seder until recently.  Or maybe you have two family traditions that you’ve been participating in or trying to integrate.  If you’re pregnant or have a new baby, the question of a family tradition may feel more pressing than it has before.  Rather than asking, “what will we do this year?” you may be wondering, “What kind of Passover will our baby grow up with?”  If your seders haven’t had little kids recently, you may be trying to figure out how to adjust the plan so that children will enjoy it, and parents don’t end up completely worn out.  

I remember the first year my husband and I hosted the seder.  My family seders have always been of the long and enthusiastic variety, with lots of singing, lots of people, lots of reading, lots of food and a good amount of silliness.  Years before having the chance to lead the seder, I had grown tired of sticking to the text in the haggadah, and started bringing extra things to read, to get people thinking and hopefully to start some discussions.  Now that I was in charge, I had the chance to choose a new haggadah, carefully plan all the insertions, and add some new songs.  We were also all very excited because this was the year we would finally have kids at the seder.  My cousin was bringing her twin boys, under a year old at the time, and though they wouldn’t ask the four questions yet, everyone was thrilled to start passing the family traditions on to the next generation.  I remember the boys sitting at the seder table, watching the unusual evening unfold.  And I remember their parents taking them away from the table however many times to deal with all the little things babies need.  In the end, they were in an unfamiliar place, awake when they should have been asleep, trying to sleep in a house where twenty-some adults were singing at the top of their lungs and banging on the table.  We hadn’t really planned for what the kids would need, and I wished we had.  I didn’t know if we should stop the seder for diaper changes or just keep going.  Everyone loved having them there, but I could tell it was stressful for the parents and the kids were overtired and overwhelmed.  

Read the whole post at JewishBoston.com

Purim is almost here and in the midst of baking hamentashen, and thinking up and throwing together costumes, I’ve been keeping an eye on what’s going around the web for Purim.  Two great resources really caught my eye this week.  First off, G-dcast’s rendition of the Purim story, as told by Vanessa Hidary, while not one hundred percent faithful to the details of the Megilla, spins the message in an inspiring, socially responsible, empowering direction that feels so healthy for the girls the cartoon targets.  And it’s a not just a great message for girls.  It’s also a powerful and empowering reminder for women approaching the birth process, and new parents adjusting to life with an infant.  
Watch the clip, in only four minutes, it gives a basic reminder of the Purim story in an entertaining and positive light.  It starts out with Esther, a Jewish girl in Persia, who is proud of who she is, surrounded by supportive friends, smart, confident and capable.  She nervously enters the contest to become queen with the encouragement of Uncle Mordechai and her friends, hiding her Jewish identity in the process.  She takes on a whole new identity.  Esther enjoys the benefits of being queen, but she feels isolated, cut off from her friends and family.  When Mordechai informs her of Haman’s plot, Esther feels powerless to do anything about it.  She sees herself the successor to Vashti, the queen banished for disobeying the king.  She is scared by the story of her predecessor, and afraid to put herself in danger by approaching the king uncalled.  In this version of the story, how does she get up the courage to use her power?  She remembers who she is; who she was when she felt confident, surrounded by friends who believed in her.  She calls up the support of that community and integrates her role as queen into her confident self image, and finds the courage to approach the King and advocate for herself and her people.  She closes the clip encouraging us to “Always have the courage to stand up for what you believe in.”  
G-DCAST is aimed at teenagers, helping them relate to the stories of the Torah and the holidays through story-telling and media.  Its important for teens to have models of confidence, courage and a sense of what’s right as they form their identities as adults.  As adults transitioning into a new stage of life, we redefine our identities again in the process of becoming parents.  

Read the full post on JewishBoston.com.

Last year, at two and a half, was the first time I asked Zalmen what he wanted to dress up as for Purim.  He answered immediately and decisively, “Haman Harasha” - evil Haman!  I told him he still had time to think about it, waited, asked again a little while later, then a few days later, then a few weeks later.  I put off working on the costume in case he decided along the way he didn’t want to be the villain.  But the closer it got, the more he got into it.  He told everyone he was going to be Haman the evil, and everyone was going to make a lot of noise when they said his  name.  He declared that Daddy would be the King Achashverosh.  I jumped in to tell him that his brother Velvel and I were already planning to be kangaroos, which he grudgingly agreed to.  He went on to declare that my parents would be Queen Esther.  Both of them complied.  Zalmen never changed his mind.  He loved the costumes, loved looking at himself and seeing Haman.  He wasn’t crazy about all the noise, but he got into the story and dressing up.  
This year, I started asking about a month ago, “Zalmen, what do you think you want to be for purim this year?”  He enjoyed being Haman so much last year I thought he might want to do it again.  His answer, again quick and decisive, “I’m going to be a kangaroo!”  Again, I told him he had time to think it over.  I told him Velvel and I were not going to be kangaroos again this year.  It shouldn’t surprise me that he’s showing no signs of changing his mind.  He’s going to be a kangaroo.  Never mind that the costume last year took advantage of Velvel’s seemingly permanent home in the pocket of my babywearing wrap.  I don’t know what the rest of us will be, but Zalmen is set on Kangaroo.  
Today is the first day of Adar Bet, the month in which Purim falls.  There’s a saying, “When Adar arrives, joy increases,” but over time I’ve developed a love-hate relationship with this holiday.  As a kid, I loved it.  It was a fun family holiday with baking and a chance to dress up, to be someone or something else for a day.  As I grew older, the story began to bother me.  Of the three women in the story, one, Queen Vashti, demands the smallest modicum of respect and autonomy over her body and loses everything.  Another, the heroine, Esther, succeeds by using her sexuality to manipulate those in power.  And the third, Haman’s wife Zeresh, is pure evil.  The hero, Mordechai, is happy to send his adoptive daughter, Esther to be a concubine in the King’s palace just in case she might gain some power.  And in the end, rather than reverse the evil decree, the King places his support behind the Jews retaliating, killing many of their enemies.  I joined the ranks of women dressing as Vashti because she was the only sympathetic character.

Read the full post on JewishBoston.com.