Last night as I was driving my teenager to a rehearsal, we listened to some of an audiobook of Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, his summer reading assignment. The writing is stunning. Every time I heard the narrator offer a "Heil Hitler!" -- entirely reasonable for a book set in Germany during the Third Reich -- I had to make a conscious effort not to shudder. I bit back several comments that wanted to spill out. I don't want to transmit to him my anxiety about Hitlerian echoes in our present day. 

This morning I am in a meeting about coming together to mourn and remember October 7. I have thoughts about the ritual components of such a gathering, but first we have to talk about safety. The national threat landscape. Risk assessment. Would we be safe holding a commemoration outdoors? (Would we be safe holding a commemoration in a synagogue?) Early October is one of the most beautiful times of year here, but we all know we can't protect against a gunman if we're outdoors.

And if we were outdoors, would protestors disrupt our mourning with signs and accusations of genocide as we sing El Maleh for the dead and pray for the return of the remaining hostages? (People shouted Heil Hitler at an Israel-Paraguay soccer match at the Olympics.) Today, on day 300 of the hostages' captivity, Hamas has broken off negotiations with Israel again. Also today: is the Jewish governor of Pennsylvania too pro-Israel to be a VP pick? Trump insulting Jews again is now old news.

This week I keep writing and re-writing a line in what might become my Rosh Hashanah sermon, about how "braced-against" is not a healthy spiritual posture. (It's really not.) Do I have a stomachache from drinking too much coffee, or from the way my insides are tied in knots about the experience of being a Jew in the world today? I know many of you are in this emotional-spiritual place, too. I still wear a kippah in public, but now I wonder who is silently blaming me for Gaza when they see me in it. 

Last night my eighth grader began reading The Diary of Anne Frank, and he paused to ask if I have ever read it.

I read it for the first time in fifth grade. Probably too young, but my grandparents and mother fled Prague in 1939; I knew this history already. "It's probably the first reason I started keeping a diary," I told him.

"I just got to the part where it says everyone who was Jewish was required to wear a yellow six-pointed star."

"Did you not know that?" I asked, as gently as I could. He shook his head no. "Do you remember that at Nonni and Papa's house, there was one of those stars, in a little frame?" He shook his head no again.

I think the star they had framed came from my sister's mother-in-law, who was a survivor of the camps. My mother framed it and displayed it proudly, a reminder both of who we are and of how far Jews in America have come.

We have not come nearly as far as she thought, or as I used to think. Or maybe the world around us has backslid.

Even here in the state where I live, a Hitler-praising Massachusetts GOP candidate pledge[d] to 'exile all Jews'. (She is nowhere near me, and she lost, though she won 38 percent of the vote.)

I knew that Anne Frank's diary is part of the 8th grade curriculum. But I didn't imagine that when my son was reading it, I would be having so many pastoral conversations about feelings of unsafety.

This month the University of Chicago released a survey about campus fears after 10/7. Datapoint: one in ten Americans is "more willing to tolerate violent attacks against Jews" than they were a year ago. 

My son is home sick from school today. I sit with him as he watches a thirteen-minute movie on the history of antisemitism made by the US Holocaust Museum. My soul ties itself in knots.

Nothing in that film is new or news to me. But it lands differently now than it would have a few years ago, too. We all know that Jews in Europe thought they were safe, until they weren't. 

And then I make challah, quietly singing to welcome the angels of Shabbat as I knead the dough. We cannot erase the realities of today's antisemitism, but we can hold fast to our Jewishness.

In the car on the way to the orthodontist my son and I were talking about the future. What do we imagine the next fifty or hundred years will bring? He thinks the biggest problems facing humanity are bias (e.g. racism, homophobia and transphobia, antisemitism) and the climate crisis. And he's not sure we can fix either one. Of course, I started arguing for a hopeful outlook. Sure, we may not be able to "fix" either one, but we can make things better than they are now, and in fact I'd argue that we have to. "Sure, Mom," he said. "I mean, of course we do. But you're always more hopeful than I am."

That's normal for his generation, I know. I grew up believing in recycling plastics; he's growing up with climate crisis and coming ecological collapse. I grew up believing that antisemitism was over and homophobia was outdated. He's growing up in an era when our synagogue doors are always locked, with trans friends who know there are states where they can't safely go. I grew up with the certainty that I could make decisions about my own body. He's growing up knowing that every friend with a uterus has lost that certainty, and that rights we thought were solid and stable can be taken away.

I reassure my teen that humanity isn't destined for extinction... though I'm aware that the climate is going to get a lot worse during his lifetime, and that the devastation will likely be worst in places far from here. I reassure him that most Americans don't hate trans and gender-non-conforming folks, or queer folks, or people of color, or Muslims or Hindus or Jews. But antisemitic attacks have been steadily ramping up over the last five years; and so have attacks on queer and trans people, in Florida and Georgia and Missouri and elsewhere; and racism doesn't seem to be going anywhere either...

Can I really promise him that he and his loved ones will be safe from rising seas and worsening storms, from the next pandemic or superbug, from Christian nationalism and white supremacy, from the drumbeat of bigotry? Of course not. I suppose it's always been true. What parent has ever been able to truly promise their child that everything would be okay? Our work as human beings is to live and love and work toward repair even though (or especially because) the world is as broken as it is! But I wish I could give him the luxury of growing up with the kind of whole-hearted optimism I knew.

I've read a lot of articles lately about why kids are struggling with depression and despair. It strikes me that for many of the teens I know, the combination of climate crisis and bigotry (e.g. antisemitism, racism, transphobia) feels pervasive in the world as they know it. How can I tell my kid everything's fine when there are literally hundreds of bills around the country trying to legislate his best friend out of existence, or when a kid on his schoolbus starts praising Hitler (possibly parroting Ye)? All I can do is redirect us toward, "there's work to do to fix things, so let's do what we can, together."

Every night
I tuck my teen in bed

and close his door, humming
the lullaby you used to sing.

Most kids of his generation
don't know "A Bushel

and a Peck." 1950:
you were glamorous,

flirting with the bugler
you would later marry.

I don't think he remembers
"put another nickel in,

in the nickelodeon,"
though you sang it

when he was swaddled
in velcro-edged blankets.

Another top hit
from when you were fourteen,

the age he's
barreling toward

now.

Songs that didn't make it into this draft of this poem include "Sisters, Sisters" (White Christmas, 1954 -- the year my parents married), "Annie Mae, Where Are You Going," (origins unknown, though I suspect it's a camp song from the late 40s or early 50s), and "The Billboard Song" which exists in many folk versions, though of course I'm attached to the one Mom used to sing. Sometimes I wonder which songs from my son's childhood -- or, perhaps, from mine -- will delight and comfort him in the (hopefully distant) future when I'm gone.

Practicing one last time before Shabbat morning services began...

These are the words I spoke to my son at his bar mitzvah, which I share here with his permission.

Drew, when you were small I remember reading in some parenting book that one way to gauge a child’s temperament is to bring them to a crowded place and set them down. Some would cling to a parent’s leg. Others would run off to explore. I didn’t even need to try the experiment: I knew you’d be running off to a new adventure.

You share that spirit with my grandfather Eppie, from whom you inherited your Hebrew name. Eppie was brilliant; was good at fixing things with his hands; and was a terrific storyteller. I see echoes of him in you. 

Before you were born my spiritual director said, “this child will be one of your greatest teachers.” I laughed – what, my kid’s going to be the next Dalai Lama? But he was right. In just these first 13 years I’ve learned so much from you. How to find joy in leaf piles and snowfalls and Minecraft. How to dread the winter a little bit less, because as you told me when you were seven, early nightfall means more time to see the stars. 

There is so much about you that I admire. I admire your kindness. I admire how deeply you care about your friends, and how you want to make the world safer for them.

I admire your empathy. I admire your curiosity about how the world works, and your determination. When you decide you want to learn something, you stick with it – whether it’s chanting Torah, or speed-solving a Rubik’s cube.

I admire the way you grapple with what it means to act ethically. You’ve watched The Good Place twelve times, which means I have too, and we have regular conversations about whether Judaism favors deontology or virtue ethics.

I admire your boldness and love of color. Your fabulous nails and brilliant suit remind me of your Nonni, though I’m not sure she could have wrapped her head around the colorful manicure. And the way you make a point of checking on me reminds me of how Papa used to tell you to take care of me, every time he left here or we left Texas.

I’ve heard you say you’re “not very good at spiritual stuff,” but you make spontaneous blessings: usually the שהחיינו, or הטוב והמטיב when something wonderful happens – or as we pass a car accident, reminding God who we need God to be, the One Who is good and does good.  You understand how pausing to make Shabbat can change how we feel at the end of a tough week. You call me over to notice the moon or the sky. I admire how you don’t pretend away the things that are difficult – the pandemic, or a grandparent’s death – but you still notice the beauty in our world. 

It is amazing to watch you grow – and I don’t just mean your height! Jewishly, today I’m no longer responsible for teaching you kid stuff. You’re already beginning to approach your Judaism and your life with maturity (aside from the jokes about Achashverosh and his “scepter.”) Today you begin a new phase of your Jewish life. We don’t yet know what this new chapter will be – that’s partly up to you. 

The blessing that tradition offers me for this moment is:בָּרוּךְ שֶׁפְּטָרַנִּי מֵעָנְשׁוֹ שֶׁל זֶה.

Blessed is the One Who has freed me of some responsibilities and conferred new ones on you! 

When I became bat mitzvah, Nonni wrote a blessing for Papa to read to me. Two of the things they said, I want to offer now to you, from me and from them: May your cup always be full – and when life gives you lemons, may you make lemonade. May you always know yourself to be both a son of the covenant, and a citizen of the world. 

They would be so moved to see you reading and teaching Torah, taking your place in the chain of our generations and the flow of Jewish tradition. I think they are proud of you today. And I am so proud of the hard work you’ve done. Every day I thank God that I get to be your mom. 

May a life of mitzvot nourish you. May you continue to find new meaning in Torah and Jewish tradition, noticing how they change as you learn them more deeply and as you learn yourself more deeply. May you experience Torah and Jewish tradition the way you’ve experienced so many of your favorite stories: re-reading, re-encountering, finding more depth every time you return. 

May you always stand up for the vulnerable. May you always act with integrity and listen to that little voice that says, “Eleanor, don't grab that handful of olives from the salad bar” – I mean, “Drew, you know what’s wrong and what’s right.”

May you always find beauty in the world. May you always be curious enough to learn about others, and bold enough to let your own light shine. May you remember that “God is in this place,” or at least God can be in this place if we pause to feel the wow. And may you always know how much we love you, and may that love stay with you in all of your life’s experiences to come.

View from the bimah.

In a way, I started imagining this weekend the moment I became pregnant. I've made a conscious effort all along not to become attached to any particular vision for who my kid will be. Still, I couldn't help picturing a celebration of b-mitzvah. This tradition is so core to who I am, who I've chosen to be.

Of course, I couldn't have imagined the years of pandemic that preceded this weekend. The b-mitzvah celebrations with exactly 10 in the room, six feet apart, masked and distanced... It's not like that now -- though now most people test at home, so we don't really know what the numbers are anymore.

One of my kid's best friends tested positive this morning and won't be able to join us. Of course the worries mount. What if someone I love gets sick at this celebration and doesn't recover? (What if I get sick again and this time the impacts on my longterm health are worse?) What if, what if...?

We've asked everyone who's traveling to test before coming. We all tested again this morning. Masking protocols are still in place at my shul. We're all vaccinated. We've done everything we can to keep each other safe. "Breathe," R. David said to me this morning. "Let yourself celebrate. Your son is 13."

I've been so focused on pandemic protocols and on logistics -- from ordering kippot to setting up chairs -- that I haven't let myself do that, yet. Three of my parents' siblings will be here. Three of my own siblings will be here! And many people whom we love. After these last years, that feels miraculous.

Tonight when we welcome Shabbat, I'm going to do everything I can to let go of the logistics and the pandemic anxieties. What matters is that my son is becoming bar mitzvah, and I feel so lucky to be his mom. We can only walk through this doorway once. I want to be as present as I can.

A sliver of the invitation.

It's strange to be approaching a lifecycle event with my parents gone. They would have been so excited about my son becoming bar mitzvah. I still sometimes have the urge to call to tell them what we're planning -- and then I remember. I speak to them when my house is empty, but it's not the same.

It's strange to be approaching a lifecycle event that isn't death-related. The most recent times I've gathered with my extended family have been Dad's funeral (in early March of 2022), the unveiling of Mom's headstone (February 2020, just before Covid began), Mom's funeral (11 months prior.)

I was so shell-shocked at the funerals. We all were. They were sorrowful occasions in which we found occasional sweetness. This time it's the other way around. A sweet reason to gather, tempered by the sadness of the fact that the patriarch and matriarch are gone. They would have loved this so much.

It's strange to be approaching a lifecycle event that's been so long in the planning. When my son was six, he went with me to Rhode Island so I could preside over the bat mitzvah of the daughter of a dear rabbi friend (so he could simply be Abba / Dad that day, instead of also being The Rabbi.)

I explained this to my six year old. Without missing a beat, he asked, "so when I have a bar mitzvah, will you have another person be the rabbi so you can be mom?" I told him that yes, that was my plan, and asked if he had any suggestions. "Obviously," he said, all but rolling his eyes. "Uncle David!"

I remember texting David in that moment to tell him that my son wished to engage him for a bar mitzvah some seven years hence, and laughing. (After all, my son was only six. Another seven years was more than his whole lifetime over again.) And now here we are. It's three weeks away.

I'm excited and sad and scattered. There are so many details and logistics, hotel reservations, caterers, the whole megillah. And my parents aren't here, and I'm not sure that will ever stop aching. And yet my son and Judaism are two of my greatest joys, and I can't wait to celebrate them together.

I've been working on what I want to say to him when we offer parental blessings toward the end of Shabbat morning services. There's so much I wish I could convey -- about our traditions, about who he's becoming, about my dreams for what his life might be. I'll only manage to say a little of it. That's ok.

It's strange to be approaching a lifecycle event that's a milestone in his life, not mine. It feels huge for me because I care so much about this and about him, but this is his journey of making Judaism his own. My job is to rejoice, and to bear witness, and to breathe deeply and do a little more letting-go.

I sat with my twelve year old on the deck, and listened as he chanted the first few lines of his Torah portion. His voice cracked once or twice. That's been happening lately. All I could think about was the parents in Uvalde whose ten year olds won't grow up to be twelve year olds with cracking voices. 

Shortly before we started Torah portion practice, I'd told him that there was another school shooting. I wanted him to hear it from me and not from a friend at school in the morning. I assured him that where we live is one of the safest places to be. He said, "I know, Mom," and changed the subject.

I believe what I said to him. The place where we live is as safe a place as any I can think of. And yet I can't promise him that an angry gunman won't break into his school, or into our synagogue, or into the supermarket where his auntie shops with his Black cousins. I can't promise safety. No one can.

And I don't want to tell him my real fear -- that in Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner's words, our country loves guns more than it loves children. That we're so incapable of reckoning with worship of the 2nd amendment that we will never be able to make this nation safe for him or for anyone. 

After 3500 mass shootings in the last decade, and 27 school shootings this year, Republicans remain opposed to gun safety measures. Anne Helen Peterson notes that this is life under minority rule. Sherrilyn Ifill notes that feelings of helplessness benefit the status quo, and we need to resist that. 

I think of the parents of those fourth graders in Uvalde, a scant 90 minutes from where I grew up. Right now some of them are sitting with the most horrific loss there is. I think of the clergy in Uvalde who need to try to provide comfort for an unbearable grief that cannot, should not, be assuaged.

When I dropped my son off at elementary school this morning, I wanted to cry. I don't really think his school will be next, but some school will. It's an article of faith for me that despair is never the answer, that a better world is always possible. But right now it's hard to see how we get there from here. 

I tend a botanical garden.
Here jungle trees stretch
tall as I can see, dripping
with trailing lianas
that dip into still pools.

Over there, soft dark podzol,
topped with towering taiga spruce.
In between: a small field
of sunflowers lifting
bright faces to the sky.

I've started keeping bees.
I watch them dance from flower
to flower, then meander dizzy
back to their hives. Honey jars
line up like amber trophies.

In my son's Minecraft world
there is no pandemic.
No one spits at nurses
or lies about elections.
No one's father has dementia.

My son thinks I'm playing
for his sake. I build
shul after shul, and in each
I pray for a world
where evil vanishes like smoke

like the mumbling zombies
who go up in flames
every time the blocky sun rises,
gilding the open hills
and endless oceans with light.

The call comes in late evening. It's someone from the school, calling to tell me that there's a positive COVID test in my kid's pooled testing cohort. I can feel an internal shift, a cloak of calm clicking into place. "Okay, what does this mean for us," I ask, and my voice does not shake even a bit.

It means I should bring him in early tomorrow morning and he'll go directly to the school gym where everyone in his pool will receive a rapid test so they can discern who among them has tested positive. No, I can't go in with him. Yes, someone will be there at 7:45 to let the kids in for their tests.

When I hang up the phone, I'm aware that I'm vibrating at a different frequency than before. It's akin to the way that news of a congregational death shifts my internal gears. Everything that was on my to-do list for tomorrow has been back-burnered. This is more important right now.

I remind my kid that he's had his first shot, which makes him safer than before. I remind him that most kids who get COVID experience something like a cold or a light flu. (I do not mention any of the awful news or social media stories about instances where that is not the case.) He changes the subject.

"It's still scary," he says as I tuck him into bed. "There's no fighting, but it's kind of like a war. There are so many people dying." My kid is incredibly lucky. His life has been as gentle as possible during these first 20 months. Even so, he and his generation will be shaped by this in ways I can't know.

The morning of his test dawns clear and bright, blue skies and unseasonable warmth. He does not test positive. He stays in school, has a normal day, runs around outside at recess, rides his bicycle to Aubuchon at 3:05 and delights in petting the hardware store cat. This is the new normal.

Last year I was grateful that we'd made it all the way to Thanksgiving before hybrid school reverted to all-Zoom. This year I'm grateful that we've made it so close to Thanksgiving before our first experience with this kind of fire drill. And, of course, grateful that he tested negative -- at least this time.

On Veteran's Day my son led me on a walk. He'd gone exploring with a friend, past the hayfields behind our condo neighborhood, and found a marked ski trail that he wanted to show me. As we walked, we saw someone on a tractor in the distance -- haying one last time before the rains, maybe.

Though most of the deciduous trees here are bare now, in this sheltered curl of hillside there were still some leaves on the trees. They tinted the sunlight golden and orange and rust. Someone had made a lean-to out of sticks, though it was too small for my tall son to crawl inside.

I had to go slower than I wanted, and I sat down on fallen trees several times to breathe, but I made it there and back. On the way back to the condo, my son talked about how lucky he feels that there are woods like this walkable from each of the places where his parents live.

Today the skies are heavy. Rains come and go, as do high winds. I suspect the autumn leaves we marveled at yesterday are on the ground now, beginning their journey toward becoming mulch. Challah dough is rising, soon to be shaped into a spiraling six-pointed sun or Jewish star.

I wonder whether we will look back on these years as the end of something, or the end of many things. The end of when we could have stopped the global warming juggernaut, the end of the myth that "red" and "blue" America actually understand each other -- or even want to try.

I think about climate grief and rising authoritarianism and mistrust. I'm so ready for Shabbat, for 25 hours of setting worries aside. All I can do is trust that when I make havdalah, I'll be ready to pick up the work again. That the fallen leaves will sustain growth I can't yet know.

Our Torah stories are the same every year. But as we change and grow, we find new ideas and understandings in the same old stories.

In the verses from Toldot that we just heard, Isaac is old and his eyes have grown dim. He is preparing to die, and he wants to give his firstborn son a special blessing. Esau and Jacob are twins, but Esau was born first. Isaac sends Esau off to hunt, saying, "bring me back some stew and I'll bless you."

That's when Rebecca steps in, instructing Jacob to fetch a couple of goats. She'll make a stew that he can bring to his father, and that way, he'll get his father's blessing. "But Mom," says Jacob, "Esau is hairy and I'm not. If Dad touches my arm, he'll see me as a trickster and I'll get a curse, not a blessing!" 

"If he curses you, let the curse be on me," says Rebecca. "Just do what I told you to do." So he does, and she covers him with Esau's clothes and with goat skins so he feels hairy to the touch. He takes the stew to his dad. He claims to be Esau. He gets his father's special firstborn-oriented deathbed blessing.

When Esau gets home, he's furious. He begs his father for a blessing, and the blessing he gets is not a very happy one. Esau starts muttering about how he's going to kill Jacob as soon as their dad dies. Rebecca tells Jacob to flee, and that's what sends him off on his big life's journey.

In previous years, reading this story, I've thought about how in the ancient world the older son was always supposed to inherit. Yet throughout Genesis, it's the younger son who gets lifted up. Maybe Torah's teaching us that status, or birth order, doesn't determine our fate.

I've thought about how Jacob, whose name means "Heel" because he emerged from the womb clutching Esau's heel, is kind of being a heel here. It feels like poetic justice when his uncle Laban tricks him into marrying the wrong sister. Maybe Torah's teaching us that the karma of our choices stays with us.

This year, all I can think is: Rebecca in this story is really not teaching the kind of moral lesson that I wish for. It looks like she wants to make sure her favorite kid gets the blessing, so she tells him to trick his father by pretending to be someone he's not? I don't feel good about that.

Earlier in the story, when pregnant, Rebecca asks God why it feels like there's warfare in her womb. God tells her that two nations struggle inside her, and that the older will serve the younger. Maybe that's why midrash teaches that she was a prophet: she knew that Jacob had a special destiny.

Maybe she was practicing what would later be called consequentialism: as long as the outcome is good, then the act that produced that outcome must be moral, right? If it gets us to "Jacob becomes the ancestor of the Jewish people," then whatever steps she took to get there must be okay?

I disagree. How we work toward our goals matters at least as much as whatever those goals are. Integrity matters. Truth matters. Facts matter. I would never instruct my child to pretend to be someone he's not, even if there were some kind of reward for that pretending.

And generally speaking, Jewish tradition takes integrity really seriously. Rambam teaches that we should never "be one thing in mouth and another in heart," that our insides should match our outsides, that deceiving another human being is like stealing their mind and we should never do it.

So why are most of our sages okay with what Rebecca did here? Most of the sages of Jewish tradition argue that this wasn't really a deception, because our mystics teach that Jacob's soul was formed first in the womb. His essence was special. They see Rebecca as helping Jacob become who he truly is.

My friend R. Mike Moskowitz compares it to someone coming out and changing their clothing style. When Jacob changes his outward appearance, with Esau's borrowed clothes and the goat skins on his arms, now his dad is finally able to experience him as he's always seen himself, as he truly is.

I like that interpretation. I agree that parents need to see our kids as they truly are! But for me, it's a stretch to read these verses that way. If we choose to do that, I think we need to be honest with ourselves that we're doing a lot of work to make Rebecca's actions okay when on the surface, they just aren't.

Maybe what Torah is teaching us here is that even our patriarchs and matriarchs were human just like us, and they made mistakes, just like us.

Because even if you want to argue that only the outcomes matter -- the choice that Rebecca makes harms Esau. And I think we can make a case that this choice harms Jacob and Isaac's relationship, too. Even if her intentions were good, Rebecca's choice has negative impacts on the entire family.

(Just wait until you see how Jacob's kids treat each other. Let's just say the unfortunate tradition of parental favoritism doesn't stop here, and the next generation is a little bit of a mess as a result. Maybe you remember a kid named Joseph, whose brothers hate him so much they sell him into slavery...)

I wish that Rebecca had been able to say to Jacob: don't worry about your brother, just go be real with your dad. Tell him you love him, and ask him for the blessing you most need. Ask him for the blessing you're going to need after he dies. Ask him for the blessing that will help you set off on life's journey.

And as for me, I bless you to be continually growing and changing, to wrestle with our traditions and with God, and to always act with integrity as you live into the wholeness of who you are. I wish that Rebecca had been able to say something like that to Jacob. But at least I can say it now to you.

This is my d'varling from Shabbat morning services at my shul (cross-posted to my From the Rabbi blog.)

My refrigerator is covered with memorabilia. Mostly it holds art made by my son. There are a few school pictures held up with magnets, and a picture of the two of us from a few years ago, and some cherished postcards. But pride of place goes to a front page from The Berkshire Eagle from last December.

For the last few years, my son has had the honor of kindling the first lights on the North Adams city menorah. The first year I think he pulled little chains attached to the bulbs. In year two, the city electricians changed the mechanism; now I think it's a matter of screwing in each bulb a bit.

He loves lighting the lights of Chanukah alongside the big light-covered tree, and being on the front page of the local paper is exciting too. In years past, I've clipped out just the Chanukah story to put on the fridge. But last year I saved the whole page, because of the story that appears alongside.

"Vaccine endorsed by panel." It was such enormous news, last winter. Against all odds, medical science was prevailing against a previously unknown virus. A quarter of a million people had died in the US by then, but help was on the way. As soon as the vaccine was approved, we would be safer again.

Sometimes I miss that moment. I couldn't have imagined then how disinformation would be weaponized -- lies about microchips, or the government tracking us. I couldn't have imagined how many people would insist on their "freedom" to continue spreading a mutating pathogen.

Last Chanukah, the news of the first vaccine was light in the darkness. Today brings another miracle: my child will receive his first dose of vaccine. Cases are low where we live, and masks are required at his school; in general I think he's safe. But oh, the relief of knowing that he will be safer!

And the relief of knowing that his vaccination makes others safer. "It's just me-versus-us thinking," he said to me this morning. "If I'm just thinking about me: I don't like getting shots, so I wouldn't want to get the vaccine! But I have to think about us, like, the whole community. We live in a society."

"I wish everyone understood that," I replied, dropping him off at school. When I think about how many people resist masks and vaccines, I despair. When I think about my child getting his shot, all I can say is shehecheyanu v'kiyimanu v'higianu lazman hazeh: how lucky we are to be alive right now.

Lech-Lecha: art by Laya Crust.

At the start of this week's Torah portion, God says to Avram,

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְהֹוָה֙ אֶל־אַבְרָ֔ם לֶךְ־לְךָ֛ מֵאַרְצְךָ֥ וּמִמּֽוֹלַדְתְּךָ֖ וּמִבֵּ֣ית אָבִ֑יךָ אֶל־הָאָ֖רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֥ר אַרְאֶֽךָּ׃ 

Lech-lecha / go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you. (Gen. 12:1)

לֶךְ־לְךָ֛ / Lech-lecha -- can you hear the same sound twice there? That could be translated as "Go, really go!" Or we could translate it as, "Go from yourself," or "Go for yourself." In this verse, God is inviting Avram into a journey. It's a journey of growing up: it's time for him to leave his father's house and become his own person. It's a journey of discovery: figuring out who he is and who he's going to become. It's a literal journey of exploring new territory, and at the same time, an internal journey of becoming.

In this week's Torah portion God and Avram enter into a brit, a covenant -- a sacred agreement. God gives him a new name, Avraham, and promises that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars. God promises to be in relationship with Avraham and his descendants, always. God promises that though Avraham's descendants will go down into Mitzrayim, God will lift us out of that Narrow Place. In return, Avraham gets instructions about mitzvot, commandments. Those are our part of the brit.

Toward the end of this week's Torah portion, God says to Avraham,

הִתְהַלֵּ֥ךְ לְפָנַ֖י וֶהְיֵ֥ה תָמִֽים

Walk in My ways and be tamim. (Gen. 17:1)

The word תָמִֽים / tamim can be translated as blameless, or pure, or whole, or perfect. A few verses later God gives the mitzvah of brit milah, so a lot of commentators say that that mitzvah is how we become "perfect." But Rashi (d. 1105) thinks God is saying, "walk in My ways and be wholehearted, even when life is difficult and you feel like I am testing you." And Ramban (d.1270) points out that לְפָנַ֖י / l'fanai means, "before Me." For him, the verse is God's way of saying, "follow the path that I will show you."

What does it mean to walk in God's ways, or to follow God's path? I think it means listening for that inner voice that says לֶךְ־לְךָ֛ / lech-lecha -- go forth, always keep learning and growing, life is a journey. It means choosing a life of mitzvot, and doing our best to follow that path with all our hearts. This is what it means to be a Jew: we're always learning and growing, we're always going forth into something new. The mitzvot are our roadmap, our way of walking, and they're our end of our covenant with God.

These two instructions are like bookends, and here's the other thing I notice this year. At the start of the parsha, God says "Go forth to the place that I will show you." In the beginning, God is showing us the way. God isn't a person who has a body, but it's as though God were walking in front of us. And at the end, God says הִתְהַלֵּ֥ךְ לְפָנַ֖י / hithalech l'fanai, "walk before Me" -- now we're taking the lead and God is our backup. God is letting us chart the course, and trusting us to know where and how to go.

This is what a good parent does. First, a good parent shows their child where to go and how to be. Here's the the map, these are the instructions, this is how to keep your spiritual life flowing and how to be an ethical person in the world. And then, as the child matures and becomes ready to make informed choices, it's the parent's job to step back and let their kid lead the way. Not stepping too far back -- still there to offer support or guidance -- but giving the kid an opportunity to make choices and to shine.

This is the d'varling I offered at my shul at Kabbalat Shabbat. (Cross-posted to my From the Rabbi blog.)

In my son's final days of fifth grade, his class has been doing an ELA (English Language Arts) project writing "The Covid Chronicles." I don't know what anyone else's chronicle looks like, but my kid wrote some 5000 words in five chapters about what the last year has been for him, starting with the very first time he ever heard the word "coronavirus." 

The first thing I noticed is what isn't in his chronicle. No one in his recounting gets sick or dies. I know how lucky that makes him (and me.) His experience of the pandemic hasn't been one of illness or death. No ventilators. No hospitals. He doesn't know about the refrigerator trucks that had to serve as mobile morgues in so many places.

He wrote instead about model rockets with his dad, and glow in the dark science projects with me. About the routines of Zoom school and Chromebook lag, and the excitement of shifting to hybrid and getting to be in the school building with friends again. About computer gaming camps, some of which weren't as fun as we had hoped they would be. 

He didn't write about the books we read together, or the anime we watched, or what it was like for him last summer when we started allowing outdoor playdates (mostly in lakes and rivers!) with two friends again. I suspect all of those have receded into memory as simply normal life -- he's forgotten that those choices were pandemic-driven too.

I remember when we first got a couple of fabric masks last spring, thinking we might need to wear them for a week or two. Now dozens of them hang on the coat hooks in our hallway. My son is partial to the dark blue and teal ones made by a swimsuit company, and to an adjustable one adorned with colorful doughnuts with sprinkles on top.

I'm still getting accustomed to being able to go into some places without a mask, now that I'm vaccinated and not everyone requires them anymore. But I still tend to carry one in my purse, in case someone asks me to put it on. Every interaction now involves some negotiation: are we vaccinated? Are we comfortable taking masks off? 

This feels like a liminal time. Things are shifting, but I don't feel like I know exactly what they're shifting to. I wonder how my kid and I will remember this transition. What will this summer's new normal be? 

This morning the alarm went off at seven. I made breakfast for my sleepy kid, finished packing his lunchbox, reminded him to put things in his backpack. A few minutes after eight I drove him to school. All of this used to be our ordinary routine. Today everything about it felt surreal. It's been more than a year since our school mornings followed this pattern. 

A few things are different than they were last time he was going to all-day, every-day, in-person school. Masks, of course. The Chromebook and charger that he now carries to and from school, lent to him by the school at the remote start of this school year. Today each kid brought a large towel, because lunch will be picnic-style, seated on their towels six feet apart. 

This is the fifth paradigm shift in his fifth grade year so far. (Two weeks of remote school to begin the year; then some weeks of hybrid learning; then all-remote for a while in the winter; then back to hybrid; and now this.) Will this "stick," or will rising cases change things yet again? It's hard to trust that he'll really be in school every day. I don't believe it yet. 

It feels strange to be working from home without him in the next room. It feels strange that I can't overhear his schooling anymore. I won't know what book his teacher is using for read-aloud now, or listen to his bass lesson, or hear him grumbling about group projects. Now all I'll know about his days will be whatever little he tells me when I pick him up.

A year ago when school closed for (what we thought would be) two weeks, being with my kid all the time felt overwhelming. Now that he's back in full-time in-person school, being apart is what's overwhelming. It's like when he first went to preschool at not-quite-three and suddenly my days opened up. The condo feels like an empty nest this morning.  

Out for "frozen hot chocolate" with my dad, the year we lived in New York city.

The year I was in fifth grade was the year my parents and I lived in New York city. One of my brothers stayed in our San Antonio house while we were gone. We spent that year in a sleek modern apartment on the 37th floor of an Upper East Side apartment building, with an elevator and a doorman. Everything was different from the life I'd known in Texas.

I remember the diffuse light that filtered through our paper windowshades at night. I remember attending a city school, endlessly running up and down flights of stairs.  I remember a candy shop where my father would buy me white-and-milk-chocolate mushrooms with caramel-filled stems and toffee-brickle caps. 

I remember making maps, endlessly taping together my mother's typing paper and drawing grids to mimic Manhattan, marking every restaurant I had visited, every theater, my school, the hospital where my dad went into traction when he threw out his back.  The literal maps bespoke a metaphorical truth: I was trying to make sense of where I was.

My child's fifth grade year is not like any other that came before. (I hope it won't be like any that comes after, either.) His school supplies live in a plastic box that he carts from place to place. His teacher and classmates are on Zoom. He gave a google slides presentation to his library class last week with headphones on at our dining table.

There's one kid in our quarantine pod. Otherwise his social life is digital, like his schooling. He plays Minecraft with two groups of friends (and with his parents.) He voice-chats with school friends on one device while gaming on another. I know how lucky we are to have the devices. It still isn't easy. Nothing about this year is easy.

When he looks back on this year, I hope he'll remember teaching me how to Minecraft, kvelling when I learned how not to be a "total n00b." I hope he'll remember fresh challah and singing Shabbat blessings, learning to ride a horse, and creating vast imaginary realms with his friends even though they are physically staying apart.

I wonder whether this year will feel to him, later, like a year out of time... the way my fifth grade year came to feel once we moved back to Texas, leaving the glamour of the big-city apartment to return to our old limestone house in the suburbs with the giant magnolia tree in the front yard and playmates across the street and one house down. 

This difficult December we need all the beauty and whimsy we can find. I pull the box of Chanukah things out from under my bed. Its corners bear tufts of cat fur from where the cat has been using it to scratch his back all year long. Inside are two chanukiyot made of clay. One is contemporary and blue, and the other shaped like Noah's Ark -- a gift to my son when he was born. I spread a length of tinfoil down the center of the dining table to hold them, and I add the giant wooden chanukiyah that my brother made when I became bat mitzvah. Around all of these I scatter dreidels: wooden, plastic, made of LEGO. Silver and blue tinsel drapes like bunting from the curtain rods, and shiny metallic papel picado banners adorn the living room wall, like the ones I used to see all over San Antonio at Fiesta, though these are blue and silver and they read Happy Chanukah and חג שמח. I will relish the candles' light when the time comes. The dreidels and chocolate coins all over the dining table, the sparkling garland decking our halls, make me twitch a little. They make this small condo feel cluttered and busy. I remind myself that someday my child will have outgrown the desire to spangle our home with tinsel, and I will feel wistful when this chaos is gone.

Because we combine
creation's building blocks:
andesite, birch, clay.

Because seeds will sprout
and we transform wheat
into bread worth blessing.

Because it's our job
to bring light
to dark places.

Because the only way
this world makes sense
is if we keep building.

Sometimes we turn around
and everything we tended
is broken. Still we repair

each shattered place,
growing new flowers
over the earth's wounds.

In an early week of the psalms class I'm teaching for clergy (via Bayit: Building Jewish), we read an excerpt from Psalm in the Spirit of Dragnet by Julie Marie Wade. Our conversation afterwards took us to all kinds of places, and one of the ideas it sparked in me was: what about a psalm in the spirit of Minecraft? I've been playing the game with my son since the pandemic began, and have been surprised at how satisfying I find it. For me there's something fundamentally hopeful about the game. And, of course, building is our root metaphor at Bayit. As an experiment, I read this poem aloud to my son without telling him the title, and he immediately recognized what I was doing, which makes me happy. Here's to more building. 

"Mom, did you know that there are monks who spend months making really intricate sand mandalas and then when they're finished, they blow the sand away, because nothing lasts forever?"

My son says this to me on the first morning of Sukkot. I can't make this up. My d'varling for that morning, which I've just printed out, begins "Sukkot; festival of impermanence..." And here he is, telling me earnestly about sand mandalas.

"I did know that," I say. "Hey, can you think of any spiritual practices we have as Jews that are kind of similar to that?"

His eyes are a study in uncertainty.

"Where we make something beautiful and then let it come apart?"

"Wait a second," he says, and I can see the lightbulb going on. We've just spent four days building our sukkah, procuring fairy lights to illuminate it, and adorning it with all of his favorite sparkly decorations. (He even made a video about it.)

"I'll give you a hint. We build a little house and cover it with decorations. And over the course of the week the cornstalks dry out and the decorations fall down and at the end of the week we take it all down."

"Because nothing lasts forever?"

I nod.

"I wish our sukkah could last forever," he says, wistfully.

"If it did, we'd probably stop noticing how beautiful it is," I point out.

Two days later, we're in the car on the way to the elementary school for the first time in twenty-seven weeks. He is in an afternoon fifth grade cohort that will go to school four afternoons a week while infection rates remain low.

I drop him off curbside. He is wearing the mask he picked for the first day of hybrid school, carrying his school-issued Chromebook and a water bottle that will stay at school and some extra hand sanitizer for good measure. 

As I watch him walk away, my heart seizes. Infection numbers here are low right now. I trust that our local elementary school is taking wise precautions. I know that he is going to be fine. But it still feels wrenching to let him out of my sight. 

I return home, open up Zoom, and spend my Monday rabbinic office hour in our sukkah. A few of the decorations have fallen down. The cornstalks on the roof are beginning to dry out. The "it's not easy being green" etrog poster is now on the floor.

I sit inside our little homemade sand mandala of tinsel and schach. I remind myself that this pang isn't new. It just feels sharper right now because the pandemic has so unaccustomed me to letting him go.