Day 9 of bidud. First day of Elul. I feel totally worn out from 9 days of solo parenting (K comes next week) five kids all the time, with no exits from the house because of our two week mandatory quarantine.In addition to handling the endless stream of kid requests, cooking, cleaning and laundry, and unpacking, our lives are still not quite set up, despite my mother’s amazing daily runs to fetch whatever new thing we realize we are missing. The electricity and plumbing in our new apartment aren’t working perfectly, the apartment is still largely unfurnished as we wait for our lift to arrive next month, and I have a long list of administrative tasks to set up our life here. I’ve fallen from overwhelmed to depressed to fragile to bleak.My own dislocation and turmoil is magnified by outside events. All of our friends in the Bay Area are suffering from the weirdest and scariest weather week in our memory, and here in Israel there is a great sense of shame at a gang rape in Eilat that is utterly horrifying.
The month of Elul is upon us, and change seems essential and yet so hard to achieve. As often happens, T, age 7, senses my despair.”Mom,” she says to me, “I think you should go rest. Or maybe take a shower with all the lights out.” I smile. And then, with utter seriousness, “I’ve got things under control.”And the crazy thing is, she really does–she’s managing her four older siblings to stay on task with cooking Shabbat dinner and lunch tomorrow, cleaning rooms and setting the table, and cleaning the floors and bathrooms. “I’ll call you when everything is done, and the whole house is shining,” she says.
Holed up in my room, trying to find some solace or balance or sleep, I hear the doorbell. The kids answer the door. It’s my former Pardes roommate, Joanne Davis, with a freshly baked challah and a request to start learning Torah together. This just a an hour after our friend Leon Wiener Dow biked over with various Shabbat treats, and my parents stopped by to drop off some groceries and my sister dropped by with new adapters and cords for our computers, which weren’t working with the different voltage. With us being in quarantine these encounters all involve a comical dance of physical distance, but so it goes. Meanwhile, my friend Ari is spending the entire day shopping for a car for us so we can have it when we get out of bidud.
So much in my life is less than ideal: solo parenting, not being able to leave the house, switching to a new language, jet lag, living in a still mostly unfurnished house, no structure, Kenny still not with us for a few more days.And yet, I am aware that the relaxed interconnectivity of people’s lives here is part of the reason we returned. I love that friends, family, neighbors and even friends of neighbors have already brought us cakes and challah, honey and olive oil, deodorant and electric outlet converters and toothbrushes and countless other items to help us set up a new life.
I want to end with some Torah I just learned. According to tradition, the first of Elul was the day that Moses ascended to Mount Sinai…for the third time. The first time he came down and upon seeing the Golden Calf, broke the tablets. The second time he went up requesting the 10 commandments and G-d was not ready. So on the first of Elul, he ascended yet again, and 40 days later, on the day we celebrate as Yom Kippur, the 10 commandments were granted.It’s a good story about the possibility of change, but not without setback, resilience and grit. Hello, month of Elul. I can’t imagine what you’ll bring.
Pomegranate Dreams 