Month: January 2021

What day is today?

Esther Goldenberg

Have you ever looked straight up in the sky at noon and noticed that the sun, despite what you’d learned in elementary school, was not directly overhead? What about when the sun is directly above you at noon EST, in, say, Augusta Maine, but not yet directly above your sister in Augusta Georgia, even though you’re on the same times zone?

As Earth revolves and orbits the sun, it appears different places in the sky. We, as people, assign meaning to that. Some people say the day begins at dawn — even though dawn is at different times every day. Some people say the day begins at 7am — even though the sun is in a different place every 7am. According to Jewish tradition, each day begins at sunset. Whenever you decide the day begins and ends, it’s really a cycle of one thing following the other.

Morning. Day. Evening. Night. Morning. Day. Evening. Night.
Day. Evening. Night. Morning. Day. Evening. Night. Morning.
Evening. Night. Morning. Day. Evening. Night. Morning. Day.
Night. Morning. Day. Evening. Night. Morning. Day. Evening.

This is fine. It’s all the same, really. But it could lead to some confusion. In fact, as the world got smaller and people got closer together, it did lead to a lot of confusion. Then in the late 1800s, the world decided to create standard time zones. Did you know that in America there were over 100 time zones? Just imagine coordinating zoom school with those clocks! If you can imagine that struggle, you can sympathize with the rail industry and train riders. We can thank them for having agreed upon times all around the world — even if they don’t coordinate exactly with the location of the sun.

We could change those time zones if we wanted to. We could make it the same time all around the world! 12:00 noon in Chicago could be 12:00 noon in Israel and 12:00 noon in Australia. It would just mean that some people have their awake hours when the clock says different things. But we would all know what time it is, because we’d be in agreement.

The same thing is true of the day. Today is the 22nd day of the first month of the year we call 2021. We can all agree to that, because we’ve made it standard. In the northern hemisphere, it’s winter.

Have you ever wondered why the new year (January 1) begins in the winter? Wouldn’t it make more sense for it to begin in the spring? Isn’t spring when things begin? In this week’s Torah portion, the Children of Israel finally flee Egypt. It happens on the night of the full moon in the month of Nisan. And in Exodus 12:2, God tells Moses and Aaron,

This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of the year.

But wait a minute. We call January the first month of the year. And isn’t the Chinese New Year celebrated in February? Okay, so it’s easy to understand how the Gregorian calendar and Chinese calendar might not follow the Biblical calendar. But what about the Jewish calendar? The holiday Rosh Hashana, literally translated as the head of the year, aka new year, isn’t in the spring. It’s in the fall! We celebrate Rosh Hashana on the day that’s referred to in the Torah as “the first day of the seventh month.” It’s not called Rosh Hashana in the Torah at all.

So, what’s happening here?

Well, it’s always my opinion that you should draw your own opinions, just as I do. If we share our opinions, we can learn from each other, even if we agree to disagree. In this case, I think we no longer celebrate the new year in the spring because there was a general consensus to move it. Sometimes change comes from above, and sometimes it comes from within. Many years later, if or when we notice, we might look back and say the cycle is the same regardless of when you begin.

Spring. Summer. Fall. Winter.
Summer. Fall. Winter. Spring.
Fall. Winter. Spring. Summer.
Winter. Spring. Summer. Fall.

So, what day is it really today?

This is the day that God made! Rejoice and be glad in it! Psalm 118:24

There are no small roles

Esther Goldenberg

This week’s Torah portion is full of big drama! If you were making into a play or a movie, there would be a lot of roles to cast, a lot of big shoes to fill:

God
Moses
Aaron
Pharaoh

There are others, but those are the big names. In this portion, Vaera, God tells Moses to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave Egypt. And God gives Aaron to Moses as a helper/co-leader/speaker. Pharaoh doesn’t agree, not seeming to care much who the messenger is.

That wasn’t a plot twist, in fact, it was quite expected. God told Moses that Pharaoh’s heart would be hardened and he wouldn’t agree. What would follow would be some semi-persuasive plagues. We don’t get to all ten this week, but we get a good running start.

Whenever I read about the plagues, I think of my little cousin Avraymie who once told me the story of the righteous frogs. It was a short story, it went like this: “And when Pharaoh didn’t let the Israelites go after the plague of blood, God sent the righteous frogs.”

Honestly, until that time, I’d never considered those frogs to be anything but plain frogs. But that was just my limited thinking. There are no small roles, only small actors. And these little frogs played a big part in the transformation of the Children of Israel into the Nation of Israel. They were on a mission from God!

And, aren’t we all? What the frogs lacked in size, they made up for in number and righteousness. If one or two of those frogs hadn’t shown up, they might not have been missed. But if they’d all decided not to show up, the story would’ve gone very differently.

What about you? What’s your mission from God? There are no small roles. I’m doing my best to show up big and bold for mine. What about you?

You’re invited

Esther Goldenberg

I would like to invite you over for Shabbat lunch. But…

Well, we have this international pandemic happening right now. Not only that, but at this very moment (Friday morning, just a few hours before Shabbat begins), I’m sitting in a small hotel room in Gaithersburg, Maryland. There aren’t any picnic benches outside, and it’s a bit cold for eating on the grass. And are you in Gaithersburg?

My daughter and my dog and I are sharing this room for a week or so, and it’s a bit crowded. Plus, there’s no actual table, just two trays you can pull up to the sofa so you can eat while watching TV (or while not watching TV). We have a mini fridge and a microwave, and we’re hoping to be on a plane back to Israel early next week, so we hardly have any food. A banana, a bunch of grapes, some instant oatmeal, tofu, bread, pickles and peanut butter (of course), pretzels and hummus, popcorn. The cupboard isn’t bare, but it’s not exactly the makings of a shared Shabbat meal.

Well, we’ll be back in our apartment in Israel soon! But… then we’ll have 10-14 days of quarantine. And the apartment is small — about the size of this little hotel room. And we have a small table and two wobbly chairs. Even pulled out from the wall, with two people sitting on the sofa, the table probably could only squishily seat four people and four plates, with serving dishes on the counter, not on the table.

From reading the above, you can probably see why it didn’t even occur to me to invite you for Shabbat lunch. But by the time I wrote my opening sentence to this blog, issuing the invitation, it had. And I’ll tell you what changed: I read the following lines from this week’s Torah portion, Shemot.

Now the priest of Midyan had seven daughters. They came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. But shepherds came and drove them off. Moses rose to their defense and he watered their flock. When they returned to their father Reuel, he asked, “How is it that you have returned so soon today?” They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds, he even drew water for us and watered the flock.” He said to his daughters, “Where is he then? Why did you leave the man? Ask him in to break bread.”

Exodus 2:16-20

When I read this, I thought of Rebekah meeting Eliezer at the well when he came to find a wife for Isaac. Eliezer had asked God to show him the right woman by showing him someone who would offer water for him and his camels. Rebekah did that, and she invited him back to her family’s tent for a meal. So what was the difference between Rebekah and these women? (By the way, one of these women was Tzippora, Moses’ future wife.) In my opinion, it’s the same answer as the difference between me before I considered inviting you to lunch and after.

Before I’d considered inviting you to lunch, I had the stressors I listed. Limited space, limited food, limited virus-free breathing room. I had limitations. They were so present in my current moment, that I almost hadn’t noticed them. I just unknowingly assumed that I wouldn’t invite anyone for lunch. Reading the question that basically asked, ‘why aren’t you inviting someone over?’ allowed me a pause. In that pause, I came back to the three words that I mentioned last week: limitless, creative, relaxed.

To the best of our knowledge, when Rebekah was out watering the flock and Eliezer met her, there wasn’t anything weighing her down. She was out in the open air, doing what she usually did, and enjoyed the opportunity of helping a stranger. On the other hand, Tzippora and her sisters had just been run out by a group of shepherds who took the water of their hard labor. I imagine them as being stressed, and probably even fearful. In moments like those, it’s harder to be our truest selves. Their brains were probably just focused on staying alive.

That’s what our brains do. Sometimes our brains can’t distinguish between being attacked by shepherds and a limited living space. It’s just that the more support we have in place at any given time, the easier it is to be naturally open. I’m blessed in that I really do have a lot of support of many sorts in place, and a brief pause helped me center back to that place. I highly recommend pauses!

So, as I said: you’re invited. You’re invited to make your own lunch and eat with me/us over zoom. You’re invited to eat outside on our lovely balcony when we get back to Israel. You’re invited to a cup of tea or coffee that you brew yourself and drink while we talk on the phone. Those are just a few ideas. The possibilities are limitless!

After the end, before the beginning

Esther Goldenberg1 Comment

My mom died three weeks ago.

Is that right? Was it three weeks ago? Or was it two? I know it was a Friday, and today is Friday, but the time in between that one and this one was slippery. She died in 2020, and now it’s 2021. She died in December, and now it’s January. It’s almost her 78th birthday.

My mom died recently.

I got to be with her when she took her last breath. Because of Covid precautions where she’d been living, I’d only seen her twice from a distance in the last nine months. But in her last three days, while she was with the help of hospice, I was by her side. And then when she died, I took her to Chicago.

Friends asked me how I got her there. How did I know what to do? They were curious about the how, but nobody questioned why. It was obvious she’d want to be buried in Chicago.

My mom was born and raised on the south side of Chicago, and lived there over seventy years. She was a part of the fabric there as a teacher and an active member of the synagogue. She did her errands at the same places for years — decades — and seemed to know most people in the neighborhood. It was no surprise that she wanted to be buried in her hometown.

What made it really obvious that she wanted to be buried there, was that she told us. She and my father bought plots in an area of a south side cemetery that they helped the synagogue choose many years earlier. They wanted to go back to their people.

In this week’s Torah portion, Vayechi, we read that Jacob/Israel wanted the same thing:


When the time drew near for Israel to die, he called for his son Joseph and said to him, “If I have found favor in your eyes, put your hand under my thigh and promise that you will show me kindness and faithfulness. Do not bury me in Egypt, but when I rest with my fathers, carry me out of Egypt and bury me where they are buried.”

Genesis 47:29-30

Jacob told Joseph, Joseph promised Jacob, and when the time came, he fulfilled that promise. After Jacob died, he was embalmed, mourned by all of Egypt, and taken back to the land of his fathers. He was buried where they were buried. How did Joseph do all of that? The same way I did. Not masked on an airplane during a pandemic or over Zoom shiva, but with the guidance of experts and in the company of family.

And what did Joseph do after burying his father? He continued with his role in ruling Egypt. Running a country isn’t on my agenda for 2021, but continuing with my life is. Stepping into this new year, the words I’m choosing are: limitless, relaxed, and creative. They’re joining the ways of being that I chose a few months ago: trusting, proactive, and supported. That is how I choose to live. Just one piece of that is, though I’m rusty, first thing on the first of the year, I’m bringing back the blog.

This week’s Torah portion is the final portion in the book of Genesis. It’s customary after completing one book of the Torah and before starting the next to say the words: chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek. Chazak can be translated as “strength,” or as “be strong.” V’nitchazek can be translated as “and we will get stronger,” or as “and we will strengthen each other,” or “and we will be strengthened.”

Two weeks ago (or was it three?) I completed a chapter in my life — the chapter of having parents in the world with me. As I head into the next book of my life, along with the Mourner’s Kaddish, that reminds us that God is great, I’m moved to say: chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek. Strong, strong, and we’re getting stronger. What chapter are you ending? What are you beginning? How will you be in this new part of life? What are you doing that aligns with how you want to be? May we strengthen each other and get stronger together!