Shabbat: A Turning Toward Each Other

What am I grateful for? This question has come up at many of the community Shabbat celebrations I have attended. Sometimes the question comes in the form of a request to name a highlight of the week, to which most people answer, “I am most grateful to be here, with all of you!” And I am sure it is true. Shabbat can feel like a relief, and it feels nice to share that sense of relief with others who value this time enough to have attended such a gathering. Each of us is there, trying, in our own capacity, to press the stop button, to add some sense of humanity, of belonging, and perhaps a little bit of the sacred to our lives, and it feels good.

And yet, I have also felt this expression of gratitude for being together to be low hanging fruit, grabbed out of convenience in the moment the question is asked; if the highlights we shared with people who don't know us were more personal, this might actually make us feel more unique and isolated, just when we were trying to feel connected.

I never suspected, though, that taking the ritual of talking about highlights of the week into the home setting would change this dynamic so profoundly. It helped that in our Parenting Through a Jewish Lens class it was suggested that we might want to use the Blessing of the Children as an opportunity to recognize our kids for one of their personal triumphs that week, and then for parents to turn to each other and share an appreciation of each other. Hearing a reflection of what stood out for others about our behavior set a tone for subsequent conversation that helped bring the sacred sweetness of Shabbat into our relating with one another. It helped us to see the best in each other and focus on the personal strengths we bring to the things we do. Highlights were no longer about good things that just happened to us, but more about actions we had taken that had a positive impact on ourselves and those around us.

May these rituals and conversations continue to help us grow, reflect, and take positive actions that strengthen our relationships within and beyond our families. Thank you Parenting Through a Jewish Lens.

Talk About Jewish Lens

Since my son was very young, and we were very new parents, we have always had a nightly routine. It has changed somewhat throughout my son’s 2+ years, but always includes a bath, one (or many) books, and some iteration of “cuddle time.” In our family, bedtime is one ritual that is sacred in our lives, when sitting at the kitchen table for meals or snacking on healthy food simply falls through the cracks of our working-parent existence. However, since beginning our Parenting through a Jewish Lens class in October, bedtime has changed.

One of the most important pieces of advice I have gotten as a new parent is that just when you despair that your child will never sleep through the night, will never stop pooping in the tub, or will always throw tantrums when they can’t get what they want, things change. Sometimes these behaviors extinguish themselves, sometimes they demand special focused attention, sometimes they get worse, and sometimes they get better. But the one thing we can count on is that they will change.

Every Sunday morning, we get ourselves dressed and out of the house in order to meet with our knowledgeable teacher and other Jewish parents of young kids for PTJL. When we started this class five weeks ago, we didn’t know what it would be like, what we would learn, or how this learning would influence our development as a Jewish family, but we were open, and interested, and motivated, and we made sure to show up.

During the first class, we talked about morning and evening rituals, and ways that Jewish tradition helps us to ease these very present transitions in the day. One way we talked about is by saying the Shema at bedtime. This is our tradition’s way of easing the transition from wakefulness to sleep, by affirming our belief that we will be protected during the night. When we left this first class, we thought that by saying the Shema at night, it would be an easy way to bring Jewish tradition into our bedtime ritual. Five weeks strong, we are saying the shema every night. My two year old asks to say it when he is ready to “snuggle,” and covers his eyes . During this moment, everything else stops. My husband and I cuddle our son together as we say this prayer. 

At our fifth class, many parents voiced frustration about time spent in houses of prayer: How can we model Jewish engagement for our young children when we spend the time there chasing them around or keeping them from disturbing others? The other night, during bedtime, my son answered this question for me. After the Shema and before going into the crib, my son and I snuggle while he initiates conversations about his day, such as “Talk about the library,” or “Talk about pre-school.” From there I muster up everything I can about what happened that day, and try to engage him in conversation about it, although he usually just wants me to talk. The other night I was shocked when he said, “Talk about Jewish Lens.”

The funny part is that while we learn during PTJL, he goes to babysitting. He is not there to engage in a discussion of Jewish values. WE are. Yet somehow he knows that this matters. Even our very young children know, can understand and internalize our values. So when our son says Shema at night, even though he doesn’t understand what the words mean, he knows it matters. And when we go to services on Saturday mornings, we may not spend a moment praying, but he knows this matters. And when we snuggle together at night, talking about his day, he knows that our time together with him is what matters. Our children are not the only ones learning, growing and changing. We are too.

Pizza: It's What's For (Shabbat) Dinner!

During this crazy time of the year as we’re caught up with Chanukah and Thanksgiving, it’s easy to forget that we actually get to celebrate a holiday every week: Shabbat! I love that our tradition gives us this weekly opportunity to press the pause button on our hectic lives and encourages us to spend time with our families. For those of us with young children, though, this can seem more daunting than enjoyable. In my work with families, I try to help them see that there are so many things they are already doing from day to day that are Jewish.

One of these family rituals is Shabbat dinner. There is overwhelming evidence showing the benefits of eating together as a family, from better long-term academic performance to improved health for all involved, and most importantly the relationship building that happens when we eat with the people we love, spend time together and talk about what’s really important to us.

            I know that at the end of a busy work week, putting together a nice dinner for your family can seem especially challenging. Many of us have in our minds that Shabbat Dinner = Roast Chicken. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love a leisurely chicken dinner, but with 2 working parents, a 1 year old and 3 year old, we don’t always have the time and energy for that. More often than not these days, Friday night dinner at our house is homemade pizza. It’s a great way to use up the leftovers in your fridge, and even if you live with picky eaters, if it’s on a pizza, it seems to be more palatable. Some tips on getting this meal on the table:

• If I make pasta with tomato sauce earlier in the week, I reserve about half a cup for the pizza.
• Keep some frozen pizza dough in the fridge, it’s just as easy to double or triple the recipe.
• Trader Joe’s has some GREAT prepared pizza dough, whole wheat, spinach, etc.
• Involve our kids in preparing dinner, they can help roll out the dough, place the topping on the pizza, sprinkle the cheese, etc.
• Whatever leftover veggies you have in your fridge will work great, throw some cheese on top and bake away, don’t over think it!
• Serve with a simple salad, if you have a salad spinner this is another great way to involve young kids in helping to prepare dinner.

Once you sit down to dinner with your family, make a point to mark this meal as something different, something sacred. By saying the Shabbat blessings over the candles, bread and wine, we have the chance to show that Shabbat is different from the rest of the week, and that the time we have to spend together over the next day is special. I love the tradition of incorporating a blessing over our children into our Shabbat dinner ritual. It doesn’t need to be formal, just a moment to reinforce how much we love them and how important family is.

           

Sometimes Friday night just won’t work for your family, and that’s OK! Find another time during the week to be together, there’s nothing special about dinner, breakfast works too, or a Saturday lunch. Just making the point to be together is what truly matters.

           

Here are some of my favorite resources for making Shabbat dinner a little easier for all of us:

The Family Dinner Project- Great information on why it’s so important to eat together. Helpful hints on conversation starters and easy recipes as well.

100 Days of Real Food- Suggestions for meal planning with HEALTHY food. Terrific recipes.

French Food Rules- A fabulous jumping off point for thinking about what’s important when it comes to eating in your family

Real Simple Magazine- A great all around recipe resource, especially this easy to follow month of meals

Sarah Ruderman Wilensky is an experienced Jewish educator and founder of JewFood. She specializes in teaching about Jewish identity, holidays and culture through food, and has worked with every age group, from toddlers and preschoolers to elementary-school students, teens, adults and families. Sarah is a Jewish Educator at the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Boston and runs the families with young children program at Congregation Beth El of the Sudbury River Valley. She lives in Newton with her husband, two young children and cat, Brisket.

Parenting Through a Jewish Lens Opened Our Eyes to New Ways of Thinking

Life changes when your first child is born.  All of a sudden you are whisked into a world where focus and priorities are forever altered and everything you do is accompanied by the thought “what is best for my child?” During the first year, there is so much to learn and do that new parents are often overwhelmed with the small things and little questions.  This was especially true for my wife and me as we moved to the Boston area from Montreal only a couple weeks before my first son was born. When that initial parenting stage passed, our lives didn’t become any calmer, rather new activities took over and questions now arise that are often much more complex.

                My wife and I were raised in Conservative Jewish households. While my wife felt comfortable with this branch of Judaism, I never quite did. When life settled down after moving and having a baby, we both wanted to find our way back to some sort of Jewish community and were open to exploring wherever we might fit in.   We joined a Reform synagogue, largely because we liked their kids programs.   Now I felt comfortable, but my wife didn’t.   As our son grew older and began attending the temple’s religious school and our daughter was at their nursery school, the question of how to include our faith and beliefs in our children’s lives became one that was harder to answer. This was especially true being in a community without our family and familiar surroundings to fall back on.  

When we heard that Parenting Through a Jewish Lens (then called Ikkarim) was being offered at our temple during the time my son was in religious school, and with babysitting available for my younger daughter, it was really a no brainer to sign up.   Not only could we tell our son that he wasn’t the only one who had to go to Hebrew school on the weekend, but we felt a need to dig deeper into the role Judaism played in our everyday lives.

                Our class was amazing!   While we read interesting texts, it was the discussions that came out of them that really broadened our horizons and helped both to reinforce ideals we already had and to open our eyes to new ways of thinking.   The people in our group were an eclectic bunch and to our surprise, the majority of couples weren’t made up of two Jewish partners yet wanted to raise their kids Jewish.  Navigating being a Jewish parent from a Catholic, Presbyterian or even Baha’i background is a big challenge and offered an entirely new perspective on our Conservative versus Reform debate.  

The wonderful thing was that the class did not push anyone into a particular path, but instead opened up our minds to how incredibly flexible Judaism can be and demonstrated that throughout history even the greatest scholars and prophets have not always agreed on their interpretations of the Torah. And, even after all the stimulating educational sessions and invigorating discussions, we were left with something that to us was far more valuable: many new friends within a community that we were still getting to know.  Several years later we remain close with a number of families from our PTJL class.

                I recently joined the Parenting Through a Jewish Lens Alumni Advisory Group.   While there are many great opportunities through Hebrew College, synagogues, and other organizations for continued Jewish learning, we still have a bond to PTJL and its concept of learning through the angle of parenting; and we have an even bigger bond to the families we met.   The experience of PTJL does not have to end when the class is over.  While the PTJL Alumni Advisory Group is a relatively new endeavor, there were two great inaugural events last year that we are building on by offering further opportunities to learn, grow and have fun together as parents and families.   I am already looking forward to the Latkes and Light event on December 4^th (5-7pm at Hebrew College in Newton), a family Chanukah program for alumni, current families and friends. I hope you’ll join us.  

Parenting Through a Jewish Lens Gave Me a Sense of Community

            The summer of 2009 was a time of big changes for our family.  My husband and I had made the decision to move our children – then ages 8, 6, and 2 – from Pittsburgh to the Boston area.  We were happy to be moving to a place where we had family just a short drive away, but we were torn about leaving the unique and close-knit Jewish community we had come to love in Pittsburgh.  After unpacking our boxes and reprogramming the “home” button on our GPS, one of our first goals was to look for a Jewish community where we could begin to connect with other families like us.

            The task proved to be more difficult than we had expected.  In Pittsburgh our older kids had gone to a day school with 20-30 kids per grade and in which all the families knew each other; now there were nearly 60 kids in each of their grades, so it was easy to fly under the radar as a new family.  Moreover, since neither child was entering the school as a kindergartner, we missed out on the “getting acquainted” activities tailored for new families.  Our two-year-old wouldn’t be old enough for Jewish preschool for another year, so we couldn’t connect through that venue either.

            We next looked to find community in the synagogue setting.  We attended High Holiday services at Temple Aliyah and began going to Shabbat services there, too.  However, as any parent knows, most of our conversations after services were limited by our children’s needs – especially our two-year-old, who by the end of a Shabbat service and kiddush lunch was ready to nap (if we took him home) or decompensate (if we did not)!

            Some of the young families I’d begun talking to at Temple Aliyah invited me to join a Parenting Through aJewish Lens class that would begin there later that fall.  I decided to give it a try, admittedly more for the chance to get to know people than for the Jewish content.  It turned out that the Jewish content was what made it such a great way to get to know people.  As a newcomer, it can be difficult to move beyond “So what brought you to the Boston area?”  But as I sat in a classroom week after week, talking about Jewish texts and concepts and how they apply to our lives and those of our children, I got to know what really mattered to my classmates, who were gradually becoming my community. 

Because the class met at Temple Aliyah, I got to know not just my classmates and our PTJL educator, but also Temple Aliyah itself.  I saw congregants arrive for evening services and committee meetings; Rabbi Perkins was a guest speaker one evening; and before long I came to associate the place itself with a supportive community interested in Jewish learning and practice.

            What did I gain from my PTJL experience?  I gained a sense of community with a group of people who are parents like me, and I found a synagogue in which I have since celebrated my own adult bat mitzvah, and where I look forward to celebrating when my children become b’nai mitzvah in the years to come.

Heidi Schwartz lives in Needham with her husband and their three children. She took part in PTJL at Temple Aliyah in 2010.

 

 

With the Smell of Fresh Challah, Shabbat is Here

Each Friday morning, children and families arriving to school at the Bernice B. Godine JCC Early Learning Center are greeted with the smell of fresh challah and are invited to take a small taste of the warm bread.

My office sits next to the entrance to the preschool and I’ve come to anticipate both the glee that Friday morning challah brings, and the oft-repeated conversations of parents and caregivers Mondays through Thursdays, patiently explaining to eager toddlers and preschoolers: there’s no challah today, sweetie, it’s Tuesday.

These repeated exchanges illustrate for me at least a few important points about toddler development:

                                                               

Toddlers learn through the five senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, and tasting. Spiritual practices that engage the senses have the greatest impact. Toddlers who cannot yet articulate the word “challah” recognize it by sight, taste, and smell.  A simple song like Shabbat Shalom (Bin Bam) indicates that “Shabbat is Here!” (another musical hit with the toddler and preschool set). 

It doesn’t take much to make a big impact. But it does take repetition and routine.  I’ve seen many a toddler sing “happy birthday” to the Shabbat candles.  If Shabbat candles were as common as birthday candles, it will be the opposite. 

Young children have not yet developed a sense of time. “Yesterday,” “next week,” and “Friday” are not yet meaningful concepts. Harried parents already know this: think of the futility of telling your toddler you need to leave in five minutes, or ten. Toddlers live fully in the “now,” in the present (an enviable spiritual state, but frustrating when you are late for work!).  Ritual is one way that we help mark time for young children. Repetitive ritual creates consistency and feelings of safety and security.

What children (of all ages) want and need most of all is the whole-hearted attention of loving and caring parents and caregivers. The Sabbath gives us permission to set aside the to-do list and everyday stresses, to stop being productive. Whether you make challah from scratch using your great grandmother’s beloved recipe or can barely manage to defrost a mini bagel from the freezer, who you are, right now, is more than enough.   

My fifth point speaks not to what is developmentally-appropriate for toddlers, but rather, what is “developmentally-appropriate” for families with toddlers:

It’s natural that parents of young children feel that they have little time for themselves, or for their partners.

Taking time for yourself as an individual helps you to be the loving parent – loving person - you wish to be.  Everyone tells you to get more sleep and exercise. I want to encourage you to pay attention to your intellectual and spiritual needs. Make time to talk with peers and with your partner about what matters most, not just what’s most urgent.  These are the conversations that strengthen your family and feed your soul, and if you’re partnered, will remind you of why you fell in love in the first place. 

Each Fall I meet with parents of young children in the ten week course Parenting Through a Jewish Lens www.hebrewcollege.edu/parenting.It’s never simple for individuals or couples to carve out time to take the class – even with the free on-site babysitting – but once there, they find that the Jewish wisdom we explore can transform their personal and family journeys. 

Rabbi Julie Zupan serves as the Jewish Family Educator for the Early Learning Centers of the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Boston (http://bostonjcc.org/Home.aspx) and is on the staff of Reform Jewish Outreach Boston (http://www.reformjewishoutreachboston.org/). She is an instructor for Parenting Through a Jewish Lens, a ten week course offered by Hebrew College.  Rabbi Zupan can be reached at rabbizupan@hotmail.com.

A Jewish Parenting Group Shapes My Road Map

Five years ago this week I started on my Jewish parenting journey when my son was born.  As an interfaith couple we had decided to raise a Jewish family, but neither of us had specific traditions we felt we had to observe, and therefore we had an open road map for the paths we might take.  We knew we were having a boy, but we didn’t know whether we wanted family from far and wide to come and visit a mere week after his birth, as they would if we held a bris according to the traditional schedule. We consulted with a Rabbi with whom we had studied in a class offered through the Union for ReformJudaism.  She talked to us about the traditions of a bris, and gave us suggestions for how we could integrate them with our family’s needs, beliefs and abilities.  Through these discussions we were able to honor our newborn son in a way that was comfortable for us, and that gave him a starting point for his own Jewish journey.

Shortly after he was born, I started attending a Parenting Through a Jewish Lens class, then known as Ikkarim.  Through readings of a range of Jewish texts and thoughtful discussions with my classmates, our family road map started to take form and my husband and I were able to begin our own family traditions.  As parents, each day we encounter decisions we have to make for our children, and there is rarely only one right answer.  I found PTJL helped me make choices that guided us along a path that was right for us. 

Recently, I was asked to chair the Alumni and Friends of PTJL Advisory Group, working with an enthusiastic staff committed to assisting all who have taken the class, and those considering what the class is about.  We have an exciting year of events coming up for the entire Boston Jewish community, including our Latkes & Light Hanukkah party, and Matzah Matters, our family Passover event.  For those on the committee, aside from planning the events, we use our time during meetings to have text-based discussions with exciting leaders, and to talk about issues with which we continue to struggle with as parents.

When the course is over, the experience is not.  I continue to be involved with PTJL because my family benefits from the learning experiences and support offered through the Alumni Group.  We welcome all who are interested in joining the committee.  Please contact Marcy or Elisha at parenting@hebrewcollege.edu for more information.

For me, being involved in the Alumni and Friends of PTJL Advisory Group is a way that I can stay connected to learning and continue to be an active part of my son’s Jewish journey.