The Drippings of My Menorah

Do you clean your menorah each night after the flames have finished burning? Goodness knows I don’t, and each night it gets a little trickier to light the menorah. There’s old wax stuck in the hole, even after you use a random household item to try and scrape it out, and the cheap Chanukah candles break when you push them in. Or if you’re using oil (in our house we have both), then the cups from the first few nights are always grimy and slippery from previous splashes. So in our house, where we light quite a few menorahs, by the time we get to the eighth night of Chanukah, we have a pile of broken candles that never made it, lumps of broken off wax drippings (many imprinted with fingerprints) and a few discarded, slimy wicks from the oil menorah. And if you have one of those candle menorahs where the shamash, the lighting candle, is elevated in the middle of the row, every time you try to place the shamash in its proper spot, you bump into the candle next to it, resulting in additional spillage!

The mess of the Chanukah candles may seem  like a silly issue to discuss, but just the other day I was thinking that this issue may serve as an interesting metaphor for Jewish growth. When a person first becomes excited about Judaism, it is like setting up the menorah. There is great anticipation about participating in the new mitzvot, and the first acts of Jewish observance that one does on one’s own can be  compared to the first night of Chanukah. The menorah is in pristine condition and the candles fit in easily (unless, of course, it wasn’t cleaned after last year).

Time passes, however, and for many people who have moved toward greater Jewish observance, living a more involved Jewish life often results in the loss of some of the original sparkle of being new. It gets harder. Unexpected obstacles arise: bosses who have “emergencies” just before Shabbat or relatives who don’t understand the implication of “kosher style.”

More challenging than the unexpected obstacles, however, are the slimy drippings of apathy and routine. Mitzvot that were once exciting start to feel like common acts. There is a constant struggle to grasp again the beautiful inspiration that so energized those original first steps.

The Talmud records a disagreement between two of the great academies of Talmudic study: the Academy of Shammai and the Academy of Hillel. The first believed that eight lights should be lit on the first night of Chanukah, and one less on each night that follows. Hillel’s students, on the other hand, said that on the first night one candle is lit, adding one each night until eight candles are lit on the last night (Talmud Shabbat 21b).

One explanation cited in the Talmud for their different opinions was that the Academy of Shammai was comparing the candles to the decreasing number of bulls brought on the holiday of Sukkot. The Academy of Hillel, on the other hand, was underscoring the idea that matters of sanctity should always be increased rather than decreased” (ibid.).

It was decided that the practice of Chanukah should be observed according to the opinion of the Academy of Hillel. Each night we increase the light until the eighth glorious night when all eight candles burn in its full glory.

Following the path of traditional Jewish life can have its challenges. But the greater the effort that we invest, the brighter the light that we shine. The mitzvah of Chanukah is intended to proclaim to the world our faith in God’s constant and active role in our lives. This is what we do when we tell that boss that we cannot work late on Friday or explain that the term kosher of “kosher rye” refers to a style and not that the bread is actually kosher.

Jewish life is a spiral of cycles. There are the daily cycles of prayer, the weekly cycles of Shabbat, and the yearly cycle of holidays. Each requires preparation. If I, as a working mother of five, don’t pick away at the “wax drippings” of chaos that dominate my home every morning, then I won’t have time for the daily morning prayers. If I don’t prevent “slippery spots” from entering my schedule, then I have to work harder to prepare for Shabbat, and if I don’t prepare in advance, then I cannot make the most of the beauty that inhabits each of the Jewish holidays.

If I were to continue my metaphor of the crowded menorah, then perhaps I would say that not only do I shine brighter the more effort I invest, but I would also connect to the shamash.  For everything that I do, my role is now that of being a continual helper. How I treat my own menorah -- my own spiritual development -- is reflected in the lights that surround me, the neshamot (souls) of my children.

This year, as the lights of Chanukah increase and we each stand by our menorahs trying to remove the drippings from the night before, think not of the struggle against the wax, but rather of the incredible brilliance and rays of  holiness of your beautiful Jewish soul.

Twenty Years Since Leaving Egypt

In our household, there is no holiday quite as beloved as Sukkot. One might find that funny since I hate being cold and I live in Montreal, Canada, where winter comes early and it has been known to snow on the holiday.

My husband, David, loves building his sukkah - and the personal possessive pronoun is the way he thinks of it. He even calculates how many invitations we get to other people’s sukkot over the holiday to make certain that we are home the majority of the time, preferably with guests.

When we first purchased our home, the attached courtyard/patio was a huge draw because of its ability to be transformed into a sukkah. There were, however, several issues to contend with before we could make a proper sukkah there. For instance, the existing walls are not quite tall enough. Luckily, my husband used to work in construction, and so, after consulting with our rabbi, he got to work making creative adjustments. Since then, once a year, he proudly gives friends a tour of the halachic (Jewish legal) concepts he used to “create a kosher” sukkah.

Our beautiful sukkah is not, however, the reason for my special feelings about the holiday of Sukkot. For me, there is a sentimental connection, particularly to Shabbat Chol Hamoed (Shabbat during the interim days of the holiday). Shabbat Chol Hamoed, you see, is the anniversary of my starting to observe Shabbat.

It all began just over twenty years ago when I spent my junior year of college at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. During that first month, when all the students moved about testing different friendships and cliques, I made arrangements with two friends to use the upcoming fall break, which began right after Yom Kippur, for a tour of Egypt. At the time, it didn’t occur to me that we would be traveling over the Sukkot holiday.

In the time between booking the trip and our departure I had become close with a group of students who were becoming observant - a path that I had also begun the year before. Even before I boarded the plane to Israel, I knew that I was going to become more traditional, but I did not expect to actually become Shabbat observant. With this new group of friends, I found the company of people striving toward the same goals and enjoyed beautiful Shabbat meals with local families. Additionally, the experience of celebrating the High Holidays in Jerusalem had a profound impact on my connection to traditional Judaism.

Coming off the high of a particularly inspirational Yom Kippur, I was suddenly faced with a true conundrum - whether to go on the very expensive trip for which I had already paid, or to celebrate Sukkot in Jerusalem. I went on the trip, but made my own “compromise.” I brought grape juice and cups and little cakes so that I could make kiddush (on the bus) in honor of the holiday. I also brought a prayerbook and made certain to recite at least one service each day.

I cannot deny that the tour of Egypt was  both fun and fascinating. Throughout the entire trip, however, I had this small, nagging feeling of discomfort even as I tried to be aware of whatever I could do to adhere to Jewish law.

Upon our return, as the bus began its ascent to Jerusalem, I felt an entirely new sense of anticipation. It was Friday afternoon, Chol Hamoed Sukkot. I had called ahead and knew that my friends had already arranged Shabbat meals for me. I kept glancing at my watch, worried that we might not make it to the city before sundown. Finally, we were there. Standing on the streets of Jerusalem, I experienced another inspirational moment as the first light rain of the season began. It was all-the-more amazing because Sukkot is the holiday during which we pray for rain in the Land of Israel. My friends and I grabbed a taxi, and I was back at the Mount Scopus campus with just enough time for me to drop off my stuff and change into Shabbat clothing. The rain stopped in time for everyone to enjoy the Friday night meal in their sukkot.

Twenty years later I can still remember the feelings I had disembarking from that bus in Jerusalem, the experience of that first rain, and, perhaps most significantly, the conscious choice to fully observe that Shabbat. In our daily prayers and during our holidays (especially Passover), the Jewish people spend a great deal of time remembering and being grateful for God taking us out of Egypt (yetziat Mitzrayim). In my mind, the return trip from Egypt was my own personal yetziat Mitzrayim.

When God took the Israelites out of Egypt, it was the beginning of their journey to the Promised Land. In fact, it was the beginning of a history of journeys. That first Shabbat in Jerusalem was the beginning of my own personal journey that has taken me to many places, both emotionally and physically, and has now led me to Montreal.

This Sukkot, I will sit in our beautiful, unique sukkah with my handy husband (who will probably have helped build one or two other sukkot in the neighborhood) and our incredible children and thank God for the wonderful blessings He has rained down upon me. On Shabbat Chol Hamoed (provided there is no snow), I will retell this story to my family while we huddle together under the heat lamp that my husband so thoughtfully installs for me each year.

The Gift of Gifts

The other night, a friend of mine told me how incredulous she was about how strongly her husband’s family focussed on the gift-giving aspect of Chanukah. In her own traditional childhood, her family had only given children Chanukah gelt, a few pennies or coins. Her husband’s family, on the other hand, celebrates Chanukah with a large party and lots of gifts. The Chanukah menorah was lit, but that appears, in her opinion, to be the extent of tradition.

As I listened to my friend’s insights I noticed that I felt mildly uncomfortable. From a strictly traditional opinion, she was right: There is no historic tradition of gifts associated with Chanukah. On the other hand, my own memories are filled with warm recollections of my parents giving my brother and me little presents each night (and one or two big ones). Those long ago evenings, when my brother and I would ask over and over if my father would soon be home so we could light the menorah, as we tried to pretend that we weren’t really asking how soon until we could get presents, built a foundation for the Judaism that I knew I wanted to give to my own children.

Even before I chose a more traditional lifestyle than the one in which I had been raised, my excitement for the Chanukah holiday had refocused on the act of lighting candles, rather than the gifts (not that I didn’t appreciate them as a teen as well).

In my early twenties, I began to take a deeper interest in Jewish life and Jewish law. I spent a year in Israel studying Judaism in depth. The more I have studied, the fewer halachic (Jewish legal) connections I have found for the giving of gifts, while, at the same time, the more I have noticed what an important role they play in modern Jewish life.

My friend felt that this tradition of giving gifts was a reflection of Christmas and Jewish assimilation. Sadly, this is probably true in many North American homes. It’s even true that when I was a kid, I felt that there was a competition–and often that I had the better end of the deal.

On the other hand, one can, and many have, traced the root of gift-giving back to a custom of Chanukah gelt. Gelt itself is a Yiddish word that might lead one to perceive an Eastern European origin to this tradition.

It is a tradition, however, that has its roots in two Talmudic discussions: One stating that lighting the Chanukah menorah is so important that one who cannot afford oil (or candles) should beg in order to purchase oil, and the second, expressing a correlation between lighting the Chanukah menorah and having intelligent children. From these two concepts, the custom developed to reward children for their studies with a little bit of money. This is Gelt. In time, a penny turned into a small token, which, probably in competition with Christmas, became a bundle of presents.

Let’s face it, most American Jews can recall being asked at least once if they really receive a present on each night of Chanukah. Indeed, most of us can also recall being asked whether Chanukah is “the Jewish Christmas.” This second question is quite ironic, given that the holiday of Chanukah is actually a celebration of a victorious battle against assimilation. At the time of the Maccabees, many Jews found it more comfortable to Hellenize their lives rather than fight to maintain a traditional Jewish lifestyle.

When I was a child, I rarely associated Chanukah with Christmas. We had our holiday and they had theirs. But I can, of course, be honest enough to admit that if I had not received Chanukah presents, I probably would have been jealous of, and desirous for, Christmas.

As a small child, the presents were a major focus, but, because of that, I developed a love for this holiday. As I grew older, my brother and I received fewer presents, but that did not diminish my connection to the holiday.

As a teenager, the societal pressure to celebrate Christmas bothered me tremendously. I was the outspoken choir member who insisted on adding Chanukah songs to the holiday concert and the high schooler who made certain a menorah was also part of the holiday display. My actions were driven by my Jewish pride, not by my desire to compare Chanukah to Christmas. I wanted the Jewish students who were less connected than I was to have a reason to be excited about their own heritage.

Listening to my friend’s dismay at the customs of her husband’s family, I felt, at first, embarrassed that this was the type of home in which I had been raised. The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized that because my parents had never mixed our Chanukah presents with even the slightest hint of that other holiday--there was no Chanukah bush or tinselly decorations--the gifts had been just one more aspect in developing my proud Jewish identity.

As a parent living a traditional Jewish lifestyle, I have not cast away this seeming remnant of assimilation. Instead, my husband and I have incorporated the important Chanukah lesson of Chinuch (education, a word that shares the same Hebrew root as Chanukah). On the nights when our children receive Chanukah presents, each child must answer a question about either Chanukah or the weekly Torah portion. Likewise, when there are gifts to be exchanged between my husband and myself (or the kids and one of us), we must also answer a question.

The other night, I did not say any of this to my friend. I smiled and listened and gave sympathetic answers of tacit agreement. Perhaps I should have said that the end result of the Chanukah presents my parents gave me was the greatest gift of all--my strong sense of my Jewish self.

Search Me!

When I was a small child, I was delighted when my school gave each of us a paper bag containing a feather, a candle and a wooden spoon. With these implements, we were armed to go home and help our parents search for chametz - only my parents didn’t. Along with the majority of children who attended the Jewish day school in our small community, I did not come from a home that actively practiced Jewish observance. We had no Shabbat dinners, we had no hesitations about ordering ‘pork lo mein’ at the local Chinese restaurant, and we certainly didn’t clean every nook and cranny of our house in preparation for Pesach.

Obviously, we were proud to be Jewish--after all, my parents had chosen to send their two children to the local Jewish day school. My mother was even a member of our synagogue a capella choir that sang at Friday night services. We were somewhat observant of the “major” Jewish holidays such as Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Chanukah and Pesach. We were aware of Sukkot and Purim and Shavuot, but not much more.

In my house, the idea of “turning over the kitchen” (as many say euphemistically to describe making the house kosher for Passover) was nonexistent. Looking back, I recall putting all of what we thought might be chametz into one cabinet and taping it closed, but we certainly didn’t search out bread crumbs and cookie pieces under the couch. So each year, my little paper bag with its white candle, wooden spoon and soft feather was put on the table and, eventually, thrown out unused.

It was in college that I became more observant, and, for several years after, I was a bit of a transient. I lived with family or friends, so I didn’t actually own a place to clean. More importantly, I always made plans for the entire week of the holiday so that I would not have to return to my abode, and therefore could simply sell my chametzy space.

Learning to clean for Pesach was something of a rite of passage --but one I was gently eased into. The first apartment that I was required to clean was one I shared with two other women. In the four years or so that we shared that apartment we developed a ritual of sorts. Each of us was responsible for her own room, but one Sunday close to Pesach was designated as group-cleaning-day during which we would divide up the kitchen. Our camaraderie made the work fun, and, at the end of the day, we rewarded ourselves with dinner at a local burger joint.

Now that I am the mother of three small children, I don’t expect the Pesach cleaning to be the work of camaraderie. My husband and I will most likely have to divide and conquer. His job will be to remove the children from the house. (Did I mention that my toddler has a fondness for sliced bread and could give Hansel and Gretel a run for their money on bread crumb trails?)

Let me take a moment to explain that I believe that some people are born with a predisposition to cleaning. They actually enjoy finding and destroying dirt. And I hope and pray to G-d that some of my children will soon feel this way, so I can off-load some cleaning on them!

I have never liked to clean, and at this point in my life I don’t expect that to change. But there is something different about Pesach cleaning. I feel a tremor in my heart when people start talking about Pesach cleaning, and surprisingly, it isn’t a tremor of fear!

The Jewish calendar is full of opportunities for one to start over. Rosh Hashana, the New Year, is a time of repentance. Purim is compared by the sages to Yom Kippur, as an opportunity for atonement, etc. Of course at those times I try to do Teshuva (repentance) and to inspire myself to be a better person in all ways. But, like cleaning, metaphysical soul-searching has never been one of my strengths--I am, without a doubt, a down-to-earth, pragmatic type of person who wants to do something.

Pesach cleaning gives me something to do to prepare. It gives me an activity through which to channel my spiritually focused mental energy.

The Passover cleaning is analogous to giving one’s self a thorough check-up. We check in every drawer, move the dresser to seek out crumbs, thumb through the well-used books and even rifle through coat pockets, just in case there are any tucked away bits of pretzels, cookies or even bread. And as we do these seemingly humdrum activities, we can think about how we have acted during the year, the tzedakah (charity) we did or did not give, the mitzvot that we might have overlooked. And, we look for these things not with the intention of beating ourselves up, but in order to make ourselves better.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Sounds like I’m a real saint! Hardly. While I do look forward to this process of spiritual improvement, I still dislike the physical act of cleaning. Therefore, I have decided to take proactive steps that can help me on my cleaning mission.

1) To overcome laziness! Laziness, atzlanut, is so tempting at this time of year. It is so easy to just assume that no Cheerios could possibly have been overlooked in the living room...but then I recall the story I heard of a family discovering a child’s secret Cheerios stash when they turned on the air conditioner and the Cheerios came flying out!

2) To focus on Teshuva (repentance) and doing more to build my relationship with G-d. The Haggadah instructs us to have in mind that we too were redeemed from Egypt. At the time of their redemption, the Midrash explains, the spiritual level of the Children of Israel was less than stellar, but they cried out to G-d and He heard their cry. I too need to learn to cry out as they did, so that in the harried hustle and bustle I will remember who really runs the world.

3) To fight against my tendency toward anger. Anger is a symptom of arrogance, of thinking one is absolutely right without giving anyone else a chance to be judged favorably for their actions. In fact, Maimonides equates anger with idol worship because a person assumes that they know what should have been, even better than G-d does. At this time of year, with so much pressure to get everything done, it is hard to remain calm--especially when I find a three year old child sitting in a room that was just cleaned, innocently eating pretzels from a bag held slightly askew.

This year my children will bring home their own paper bags with a wooden spoon, a candle, and a feather. And perhaps I will look at that wooden spoon and think with joy of all the pleasure that others will savor from the delicious foods I will cook. And perhaps that candle will remind me that my own Pintele Yid (Jewish spark within) needs to be allowed to shine. And perhaps I will use that feather to tickle my children so that their laughter echoes through the house instead of the stern sounds of rebuke. This year, that bag will not go unused.

(Oh yes, the paper bag will be for me to use when hyperventilating when I think about the work I have yet to do!)

You've Got To Give A Little

When I was five or six years old, my parents gave me a scarf for the eighth night of Chanukah. I can picture all of the candles alight on the kitchen table as my dad and brother went to the basement to shoot a game of pool and my mom followed shortly thereafter. Left alone in the kitchen, I sulked over the lousy final present. After all, shouldn’t the last night of Chanukah be the night reserved for the best present? I can honestly say, I don’t know exactly what I was thinking, but I do know that when my mom came upstairs a few minutes later she found me holding the box over the flames. Thank G-d, no damage was done to anything but the box (not even to the ugly scarf).

In our family, Chanukah was definitely about the presents. Blessed with generous parents, my brother and I received something on all eight nights. We waited anxiously for my father to return home from work so we could quickly eat dinner and begin our “Hot and Cold” search.

In hindsight, perhaps the best part of the Chanukah gift giving custom was the many lessons I learned from it.

Anticipation is often the best part of exchanging gifts -- something I discovered the hard way when I was probably around 10 years old. A few weeks before Chanukah, I stumbled across the place in the basement where my mother would stash the gifts. I knew what I had asked for and was delighted to see a wrapped box of just about the right size. Lo and behold, just my luck, a corner of the wrapping had come loose. Now what would you do? Of course I peeked. It was the Barbie Dream Van for which I had so fervently hoped. I was so happy, but I had no one with whom to share my excitement because no one could know that I knew. I certainly had great expectations of playing with it, but when I brought the large box to the table from its hiding spot that Chanukah, I felt something missing inside. There was no curiosity, no anticipation, no need to shake it to try and guess what was inside. I had spent my excitement before I even had the gift, and I am certain that my parents were well aware of my dampened level of excitement. I can honestly say that never again did I wish to peek at the presents ahead of time.

As we grew older, the family rules of Chanukah changed. Once we were in college, the “rule” became two presents for each person. And when my brother married, his wife was incorporated into the two-gift custom. Alas, I wish I could say that I was not, deep down, still that spoiled little girl who tried to burn her scarf. Truth be told, however, I was resentful of the fact that I now had to give gifts to four people, but was not receiving back as many as I gave. Married couples, of course, were allowed to give as one unit. So while I was buying two each for mom, dad, brother and sister-in-law, I was only receiving four, two from mom and dad and two from my brother and sister-in-law. (Now you do the math and tell me how that was fair!) Every year it was a struggle not to announce how cheated I felt on this deal.

By the time I graduated college, I had become more observant and had spent a year in Israel immersed in Jewish studies. Through my studies, I gained a new appreciation for the holiday of Chanukah. The word Chanukah shares the same root as the Hebrew word chinuch, education. The main mitzvah of Chanukah is to publicize the miracle. This is accomplished by lighting a menorah in a public area where others will see it. While I was not yet ready to forego exchanging gifts (Hey, I was a poor graduate student at the time!), I needed to incorporate my new understanding of Chanukah into the gift exchange. I therefore started my own personal custom of buying each person one book of Jewish content. Not only did giving Jewish books tie in to the real “theme” of Chanukah, but I also found myself excited at the prospect of choosing these presents.

It was only with the birth of my first niece that I can truly say that my inner gift giving spirit fully changed. There is nothing comparable to having a small child to spoil, especially when the toys then stay at someone else’s house. This change, however, was all encompassing. I began to thoroughly enjoy finding and giving gifts...and I worked at it. I tried to think about what each person would really want, not just what was cute or easy to find. On a highly limited budget, this was no easy task!

Judaism teaches us that if we wish to truly love someone, we must learn to give to them. This doesn’t mean that we should just bring them a cake or a bouquet of flowers, or do some random act of giving. In order to truly give to a person, you must really look at them and see what their needs and wants are. You need to try to understand them, an action that really connects you to them. Of course I already loved my family, but now I really feel in sync with them when I give them something I think they want.

Now I too am married and have my own children. My oldest child is 2 1/2 and quite old enough to be aware of receiving gifts. My husband and I are at a point in our lives where we must choose to establish our own family customs. Certainly we will continue the extended family gift exchange (which has now been modified to giving gifts just to the children). But what will we do in our own home? A gift each night? Probably not. But to take away all giving seems to me to be sacrificing a crucial element of childhood.

During my lifetime of Chanukahs, I have experienced a journey from selfish receiver to joyful giver. Indeed, now, I am often more excited to watch everyone else open their gifts than to open the gifts that I receive. And, because of that, I can now honestly apologize to my parents for ruining the surprise of my Barbie Dream Van.

Shavuot - Every Jew's Birthday

Five days before our wedding, my husband celebrated his third birthday. Really. From a Torah perspective, it had been three years since his conversion to Judaism, marking the birth of his Jewish soul.

Following the traditional Ashkenazi custom, D— and I did not see each other the week before our wedding, so I sent him a “birthday present” through a mutual friend. As I placed the “Happy Birthday You Are 3” card in the gift bag, cute cartoons and all, I was struck by how significant the day was. This man was my bashert, my divinely intended mate, and yet only three years prior, our marriage would have been impossible.

How had it all come to be? My husband’s story is really his to tell. I can only summarize that during a visit to Israel he felt a connection to something far greater than himself and realized that he wished to be part of the Jewish people. Returning to his hometown, D— first reassessed his intentions carefully, and, when he realized that he still wished to be Jewish, he sought out a rabbi to show him the way.

From my own perspective, it is astounding that we even went out in the first place. After all, on paper he did not come close to meeting my “qualifications.” I had been observant for nearly 10 years and had had the privilege of spending time studying in Israel. Modesty aside, in my circle I was considered to be quite knowledgeable, and more than one prospective partner had failed to meet my high-standards for learning. In my mind, the man I married would have been observant at least as long as I had been, and he would have far surpassed me in the area of Judaic studies. What is it they say? Man plans and G-d laughs.

G-d, as you may have realized, works in mysterious ways. Through my husband, I have learned many lessons in humility, and continue to do so. D— did not need all those years of experience that I expected him to need. Since deciding to become a “member of the tribe,” D— had undergone a grueling and intense educational regime.

For anyone who is unfamiliar with the process of converting to Judaism, it is a process not to be lightly undertaken. Indeed, when I was getting to know my husband, I spoke to a woman in his hometown community with whom he was close and asked if she thought, given the fact that he was so new, that he was truly dedicated. Having witnessed, at close range, his conversion process, she was shocked that the question could even be asked. Beyond completely turning over his life, giving up non-kosher restaurants, Friday nights at the pub and a host of other old personal pleasures, he was required to spend hours upon hours in Judaism classes. He was tested for knowledge and carefully observed to verify his sincerity. With every step he took closer to the Torah, his identity blurred, shifted and changed. And while D—’s commitment grew with every challenge that he faced, he also had to struggle to deal with the changes in the important relationships of his previous life that he wished to maintain in his new life. There were constant explanations necessary, as well as asking his many friends and family to accommodate his new lifestyle.

D—’s process, from decision to conversion, lasted close to 3 years. Much of what I had learned in my 29 years of existence, he had to learn in that short span of time. Holidays, life cycles, even vocabulary, things that had always been part of my existence, were all part of his learning process--a process we now continue together.

My husband’s “dip day,” as we jokingly refer to the day on which he went to the mikvah and ritually immersed himself to complete his conversion, was the 3rd of Sivan. Our wedding anniversary is the 8th of Sivan. In between those two dates is the holiday of Shavuot, the anniversary of the day G-d gave the Jewish people the Torah on Mount Sinai.

It is no coincidence, I realize, that these two days, so important in our personal lives, occur around Shavuot. The holiday of Shavuot is all about preparation for changing oneself completely. When the Children of Israel left Egypt (as celebrated on Passover), they were a fleeing assortment of ex-slaves connected primarily by bloodline. When they stood at Mount Sinai, only seven weeks later, they expressed with one heart the desire to accept the Torah from G-d and to dedicate their lives, and the lives of their children after them, to living the Torah’s ideal. Shavuot is often compared to a marriage, with G-d as the groom, the Torah as the wedding contract and the Children of Israel as the bride. It was the beginning of a beautiful, if sometimes turbulent, relationship.

Three thousand plus years later, just prior to Shavuot, D— joined the Jewish nation, accepting upon himself exactly what my own ancestors had accepted at Mount Sinai. And three years later, just after Shavuot, on our wedding day, we joined together and pledged to each other and to G-d that our lives and the lives of our children would be lived by these extraordinary ideals.

As Shavuot approaches, and I look forward to celebrating yet another “dip-day/birthday” with my husband, as well as our anniversary, I am once again awed by the gift that I have been given. Everyday, I have with me a source of inspiration. While I was born a Jew and have chosen to strive to live my life to the full extent of that birthright, my husband accepted the Torah upon himself freely and of his own accord. And while I may have had years of life experience and the gift of a Jewish day school background, my husband is constantly finding new and exciting insights that energize our home.

Thank you G-d, for all your mysterious ways and for opening me up to even consider saying hello to such a “little kid.”