Musings of a Jewish Mom

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  • The Great Suppression

    Or The Unintended Consequences of Chronic People-Pleasing

    I seem to be in the midst of a sort of life review. I don’t know if this means that I am about to die, or if it’s a more symbolic kind of birth of one self and transformation into another. But in any event, the review is happening.

    I’ve been thinking about various ways throughout my life I have, consciously or unconsciously, suppressed myself. I know very clearly that what I really enjoyed doing was expressing myself creatively. And yet, I have gotten to this advanced age with very little to show. How did this happen? There are many layers to this answer but I will put forth one of them.

    In 1992, when I was 33-1/2 years old, I gave birth to my wonderful daughter Hannah. Wonderful is not at all adequate to describe who she is, but for the purpose of this story that will be my descriptor. Well, Hannah is a wonderful daughter but unfortunately had a rough start to this life. Within her first three months she had been hospitalized twice, and cried enough tears to fill the Ganges. Her teeny tiny (less than 6 lb.) body experienced this existence as very painful, and she let us know this. Consequently, I did not sleep for about her first six months (I don’t mean not at all, but practically so). The cumulative effect of this lack of sleep was that I would walk around Kew Garden Hills, pushing her stroller, and crying. Of course some postpartum hormone wackiness was probably thrown into the mix. So I went to the doctor. Oh Mrs. Swisa, we have this nice new medication that will help you “take the edge off”. Karen meet Paxil. Paxil meet Karen. Initially it was love at first sight. Even though I was still sleep deprived, it didn’t matter so much. I didn’t feel it so badly! I was calm. And I had no edge! Wow! My edge had been taken off.

    How does people pleasing have anything to do with this? A lot. So two months after Hannah was born we moved into an attached house because we needed more space. We had been living in a one-bedroom apartment with our son David and we just needed more room. Our new home had three bedrooms. The master bedroom was for David, the regular bedroom was for me and my husband, and the tiny bedroom was for tiny Hannah. Wait a minute? The three year old had the master bedroom? Why? Well, since we had gotten married in 1988, a steady stream of relatives presented themselves at our door and needed a place to crash. So we bought a sleeper couch to accommodate our guests. I have never seen such a large sleeper couch before or since. I don’t know where we found this but it was tremendous. So, because we were always having guests, the decision was made that David’s bed and the gigantic sleeper sofa would be in the master bedroom. I don’t know why in retrospect we could not have put it in the living room but God forbid our guests would have been uncomfortable not having any privacy. So rather than having the master bedroom in which I could have fit Hannah’s crib, I was sleeping in the smaller bedroom, which did not have room for her crib. So every night I would hear Hannah cry down the hall. I would go from my room to hers to try to comfort her. It would take about an hour to get her back to sleep. I would stealthily return to my room, pull up my blankets, and there would be another “Wahhh!”. The procedure repeated itself, all night, every night for about six months. It may have continued after I started taking Paxil but I can’t remember and even if it did I had no edge so it wouldn’t have bothered me that much.

    In retrospect I ask myself, why was the comfort of our many guests more important than having my baby next to me so that I might have gotten just a little bit of sleep and she a little less distress, during this time? The answer is “people pleasing”. Quite honestly my people pleasing behavior was so much of a reflex at this point that I don’t even think it crossed my mind to suggest that perhaps my and my newborn daughter’s needs might have trumped the comfort of my guests. 

    I was an expert at people pleasing. I could meet a person and tell what they needed before they even knew it.  The cumulative effect of knowing what everybody else needed was that I no longer knew what I needed. I just wasn’t there. No wonder the idea of selfless service appealed to me, I was already living it, but not in an intentional, God-devoted sort of way. More so as a form of maladaptation and fear.

    Over the next 32-1/2 years there were a number of times that I wanted to stop taking Paxil. Hannah has been sleeping through the night very well for about 32 of these years (or at least if she isn’t she’s not waking me up). When I got pregnant for the third time with my son Johnathan, I told the doctor that I was taking Paxil and I thought I should stop for the baby’s sake. I figured that since even ibuprofen was not allowed during pregnancy, surely a psychopharmacological medication would be contra-indicated. He said, there’s no known risk to the baby and it’s better that you don’t get depressed. I wasn’t depressed. I was actually quite happy because I really wanted to have a third child and I was thrilled that I was pregnant. Why did he think I might get depressed out of the blue? And if that did happen postpartum, why not re-prescribe me the Paxil then? I don’t know what he was thinking. All I know was that God forbid, as an expert people pleaser, would I listen to myself and not the doctor. I remember a few years later asking another doctor about stopping Paxil and he said “you need to be on this for the rest of your life.” Oh, ok, why? He said if you have depression, you have it for life; it doesn’t go away and this medication will make it manageable. But I wasn’t depressed. At the time I went to that doctor I had a 2-1/2 year old child, a 9 year old and a 12 year old. My husband is self-employed so we were always on a roller coaster of highs and lows financially. Then my father’s partner died and he came to Cherry Hill so that I could take care of him. I wasn’t depressed. I was overwhelmed, exhausted, stretched very thin. But I wasn’t depressed. I wasn’t hopeless. I could have used some help, some friends or family nearby. I needed that much more than I needed a chemical to “take the edge off.” But once again, I complied with my doctor’s orders and kept popping that little pill every morning.

    A few years later, in a moment of not very great sanity, I decided I just wasn’t going to take those damn pills anymore. Of course, most sane people know that you don’t just stop taking antidepressants, you must wean yourself off of it. I admit I wasn’t thinking clearly. It was one of those periods of downturns in our finances. I had no insurance. The medication was expensive. And besides, by this point I had been so proficient in not knowing what I needed that I decided I’m just going to stop. Well, if you want to know what Hell is like, start taking Paxil for a number of years, and then stop it cold turkey. I believe I actually looked the Devil in the eyes when I did that. It wasn’t immediate. At first I felt pretty good. And then I felt euphoric! The year was 2005 and I was on top of the world! I was going to collaborate with the relatively new artist Kanye West (who was still taking his meds at that time, I guess). My usual rather reticent self was replaced by a totally extroverted personality. I would talk to anyone and everyone with complete ease! Wow, this is great! But then the crash. And oh what a crash it was. I cannot or will not look back too deeply into that time because it was the closest I ever got to losing my mind. Needless to say, I crawled back to the doctor and begged for a new prescription of my beloved Paxil.

    Throughout all of this I sense a theme: one of being such a very good, compliant little girl/woman, and total obliteration of my inner voice. 

    All of this brings me to the present. Last year, about a month after my brother died, I had a visit with a nurse practitioner who was managing my medication. “How are you doing today Karen?” Me: “I’m really sad, my younger brother died unexpectedly and I’m just really really sad.” Her: “Maybe we should change up your medication to see if another one will help you more.”  Me: “Ok.” So Paxil got switched to Prozac. My brain and my stomach really did not like this, to put it very mildly. Me and Prozac were not going to be friends. After trying Prozac for three weeks I told her that I saw no point in taking a medication that made me feel like absolute shit. So we agreed that I would stop the Prozac and that because I had taken it, this would effectively be my weaning off of the Paxil.

    At first I felt very strange. My brain was kind of freaking out, as if it was saying: hey man, why’d you remove that “edge taker off-er”? I was determined to stick it out as I felt that finally I was off of the Paxil and without having gone through hell, just a few weeks of discomfort on Prozac. 

    This all happened about five months ago. By now I am living with my edge back on. And I like it.

  • Jeff

    This Thursday, May 1st, 2025 would have been my brother Jeff’s 62nd birthday. This is the first birthday that I can’t say happy birthday to him in person.

    I really loved/still love my little brother. Just because I can no longer see him in his physical form does not mean I love him any less, perhaps more. 

    Jeff and I shared a love for many of the same things: books, music, comedy in any form, films, and God, although he probably would have called it Higher Power.

    My brother’s life was shaped by being born with a broken heart (literally). From infancy my parents’ had the knowledge that their baby boy had a serious birth defect (more than one actually). As he got older the effects of these defects became more and more apparent. The blue fingernails and progressively bluish tint to his lips was an outward sign we could all see. He couldn’t do sports as a little boy although I know he would have really liked to. So he used the muscle that he could use which was his very agile brain. Boy was he smart. At a very young age I remember he knew every US President by heart and could recite it for you. He was an avid reader and a really good piano player. 

    His life was also punctuated by frequent visits to a pediatric cardiologist who specialized in congenital defects. My parents had to go into Manhattan each time he had a checkup, which they tried to make into something pleasant by taking him to a different restaurant each time (there are plenty there to choose from).

    Some time after his Bar Mitzvah the doctor really sounded the alarm that if Jeff did not undergo open heart surgery soon he would be lucky to make it to age 18. My parents were very very scared since this was still relatively new surgical territory.

    But at age 16 Jeff had his first open heart surgery at the Mayo Clinic. I was privileged to be there to help my mother, who, needless to say, was very very nervous. Again, at age 18, Jeff needed to undergo a second open heart surgery at the Mayo Clinic. I went with him and my mother to be a support. I distinctly remember the day of this second surgery, October 6, 1981. As my mother and I sat anxiously in the waiting room while they operated on Jeff, the news came on the television that Anwar Sadat had been shot to death. Most older Americans can recall what they were doing when they heard that JFK or MLK was shot. Younger Americans can tell you what they were doing when they heard about the destruction of the Twin Towers. I can add to that memory repertoire with my recall of the moment that I heard that Sadat had been killed. It was a particularly painful moment as his death made me a lot more skeptical that peace would take place in the Middle East.

    Back to Jeff. Thank God he recovered and went on to live a productive and sober life. He became a librarian and married a human angel named Cindy. He was the proud stepfather of Charlie and Lucinda and the proud pet dad of many a fur baby. 

    He had a great sense of humor and we both shared a love of the absurd. 

    This Thursday, on his birthday, I will be getting my left eye surgically enhanced. I like to believe this is Jeff’s birthday gift to me. Since he no longer needs a physical gift from me, he is giving me one. May this gift of balanced, clear vision enable me to give something back to this world. My brother Jeff was all about service. He ministered to countless alcoholics in their hour of need. May my new vision be part of his legacy, and that this gift will be used in the spirit of service. Amen.

  • To Be or Not To Be

    Why am I willing to stand in the town square naked at this time? For me, it is a matter of life and death.

    For years I have written pieces only for my personal use. Often I even discarded what I wrote so no-one but myself knew what I had written.

    Now, I want to write what I think and feel and I want it to be seen. I want to be seen. And heard.

    Why now?

    Because I have been living in the shadows for way too long. I have played it safe. I kept my cards close to the chest and no-one really knew what I thought because I didn’t tell them. 

    The cost of this has been that I feel like I’m just passing through life. Yes, I have had children, and now a grandchild, so something will be left of me after I’m gone. But on my tombstone it will have my name and dates of existence. Maybe beloved mother, daughter, wife. But no-one who passes that tombstone will know who I was. This writing out in public is my way of leaving behind some truth of who I am. 

    I don’t want a generic headstone. I want my kids to write on my tombstone something that is specific to me. Maybe, “she really loved dogs,” or “she was a pretty good cook,” or even, “Man, could she fart.” That would be better than “here lies Karen, generic beloved etc. etc. etc.” At least a passerby some time in the future might pass by my headstone and get a snapshot of who I was. Or even a good laugh.

  • Do I Look Fat in These Genes?

    I really loved my paternal grandmother. She was an amazing woman, brilliant, multilingual, and tough as nails. Because of her determination and quick thinking, she was able to get my father’s family out of Austria just in the nick of time. She was a Polish Jew who emigrated to Austria when she married my grandfather who was an Austro-Hungarian Jew. She was probably the only literate person (except perhaps for the Catholic priest) in the small country bumpkin town that they lived in. Other villagers used to come to her to read the letters they had received or to write ones when anything official came up. She spoke Polish, Yiddish, Hungarian and German fluently when the family still lived in Kittsee. When, not by choice, the family moved to Shanghai in 1938, she adapted and learned Cantonese, Japanese, Russian, English and many of the other myriad languages that were spoken in the Hongkew Ghetto in which they lived. She was so smart that she not only learned these languages but learned them fluently. I can still remember when I was about 6 or 7 she told me I was an instigator. A what? I had never heard that word before and when I looked it up in the dictionary I was very upset. Was I a bad girl? But the point is that even though English was far from her first language she knew it well enough to admonish me with a less common word. That’s smart.

    But…she was a short, fat woman with very flabby underarms. I loved my grandma but boy those batwings were really not pretty. Fast forward to me now, also a Jewish grandma. Besides inheriting her affinity for language, I inherited her figure and her batwings. Boy do I dislike those batwings. I google: how do I get rid of batwings but the solutions always involve exercise so that’s not going to happen. So I’ve got my affinity for language and I’m a short, fat, and now old Jewish woman.

    Do I look fat in these genes?

  • Squashing and Unsquashing

    When did I actually stop expressing who I am? 

    I had been told a story by my late father which I’m not sure is factually true. My dad was known for playing fast and loose with facts which is why I have some doubt. But even if some of the details of the story are not true I think there is probably some truth to it.

    My dad told me that when I was two years old I went along with him and my mom to a doctor visit. Apparently the doctor was a very old school, serious Viennese man who was all business. My father told the doctor that I could draw. The doctor looked at him as if he had just landed from his alien space ship. “Sure, sure Mr. Singer. I’m sure she can draw.” “No really, she can. Give me a piece of paper and a pencil.” The surly old Viennese gave him a piece of paper and a pencil. I took the pencil to paper and proceeded to draw Wilma from the Flinstones. Now I know the Wilma part was true because I do remember identifying the shape of her bun and her face and drawing it over and over as a little kid. I don’t know if I was actually as young as two. That seems really young to me now but whatever. Also apparently the doctor was so amazed that he told my father: You must send this child to art school! I will pay for it if you need help but you must encourage this ability in your daughter.

    I don’t know what happened after that but I know that I never went to art school funded by my parents or by a serious Viennese doctor.

    I do remember when I was a little older going to Sunday School. The part that I liked the best was arts and crafts. I used to love doing those projects, particularly ones working with copper paper and all kinds of exotic materials that we did not have at home. I did also love the songs. A zillion years later and I still have perfect recall of the songs I learned then even though these days I forget why I have walked into another room.

    When I got into elementary school I was sort of known as the class artist. And I was happy. I loved doing art and I certainly enjoyed being recognized as skilled. Everything was fine until fifth grade when a new girl came to town. I saw her drawings and I concluded: she’s better than me. I put down my pencils faster than a Japanese bullet train. If someone’s better than me then I must not draw. I invalidated myself way back then and this invalidation wormed its way into many experiences at many times and through various art expressions. I loved music too, and played the piano. My first major at Queens College was music. I particularly loved the classes that taught the foundations of composing. I thought I was in my element. Until the required performance part that happened late into the second semester. How is it that 50 years later I can still recall the sweat on my brow and the near stoppage of my heart as I sat in front of the professors playing? Absolute trauma. Oh no, this major is not for me.

    There are many other instances, too many to recount in a blog post, in which I squashed my passions for the arts, for self-expression. This squashing most certainly led to a suppressed rage which, being a good little girl, never was unleashed on the outside. But boy, the way I eviscerated myself! The Marquis de Sade couldn’t have done a better job.

    So today I am choosing to unsquash myself. I don’t want to be a people-pleasing, minimally expressed woman making everyone else comfortable at my own expense. I feel like a volcano that just needed to take a good belch. The lava is flowing now and it feels so good.

  • I Can See Clearly Now The Glasses Are Gone

    Last week I had a cataract removed on my right eye and a new multifocal intraocular lens was inserted. I am now seeing without glasses even though my left eye is yet to be corrected.

    So many things that I’m seeing now that I was not able to see before. All of a sudden I see I have a suspicious looking freckle on my left eyebrow that I never saw before. I went to the dermatologist to get it taken care of. It was precancerous but I never even saw it.

    Which gets me to wonder how many things did I not see because my vision was faulty. Of course, being who I am, I do not mean this on a purely physical level. What if the reality that I think is real is just a product of a distorted vision? How would I even know that I’m not seeing clearly while in the midst of not seeing clearly? It is only because I had a correction that I now know that I didn’t see clearly. How much of my “seeing” might be faulty and I just assume I’m seeing things as they really are?

    This is a good question and it is hard, if not impossible to know. How can I know what I don’t know? But the asking makes me question all that I think I know. I think the only thing that I can know for sure are not the perceptions of my mind but rather the perceptions of my soul. There is a place in me that “knows” which is not of my mind. This place of knowing, this “still, small voice” is the only voice I really trust. I know when I’m bullshitting myself or not. I try to have a very finely tuned bullshit detector (which my daughter frustratingly! has inherited and uses it on me often). I can discern the difference between my “chatter” thoughts and those that come from a place of knowing. It’s not that easy to describe this in language, and I really dislike using jargon. I am hoping that those who understand what I’m talking about will understand. For those who don’t, I’m sorry, because I find that language is an imperfect vehicle to describe what I’m talking about. How do you explain what colors are to a blind person? How do you explain spiritual knowing to someone who has not accessed that part of themselves? 

    So to those who know what I’m talking about, I throw out a challenge. Question what you think you know and ask if these thoughts are really true or just “mind chatter”.  Are you really seeing clearly? Are you requiring a correction? This is of course an open-ended question and doesn’t require an answer. Just food for thought.

  • FYI

    Someone who knows me very well asked me today why am I calling my blog Musings of a Jewish Mom, especially when my first two posts had nothing to do with Judaism and more to do with turtles.

    My answer was: because that is who I am. I didn’t think it needed explanation but since the question came up I will answer more deeply.

    I do wonder, if I had been a Black woman, and I called my blog Musings of a Black Mom, I wonder if the same question would have been asked. Never mind, I’m not going to play the antisemitism card for now. And I certainly have no intention of this blog being political in any way because that is not my focus or mindset.

    I have always considered myself a spiritual-minded person. I went to Hebrew School until third grade and then decided it wasn’t for me. Interestingly my parents never pushed me about that. From third grade until I was 28 years old I was always looking for mystical paths, mystical connections. It was not until I met my husband, who is Jewish and Israeli to boot, that I realized that what I was looking for was right under my feet. By under my feet I mean, my roots. 

    One of the reasons why I turned away from Judaism in my younger days was because I thought it was just too sad. My father was a Holocaust survivor, and I grew up on a steady diet of stories of very close calls with certain death by the hands of the Nazis. This imagery tormented my young mind. So much so that by the time I got to college one of my majors was German Literature. In my naive mind I thought that if I study German Literature I will understand the German mind and I will understand why the Germans wanted to kill the Jews. I was going to figure this whole antisemitism thing out! I was even awarded the Outstanding Student of German Literature Award at my college (not that there were too many of us), and I’m sure that part of the reason that I was awarded that was due to my German professors’ collective guilt. Needless to say, I learned a lot about German literature but got no closer to understanding why the Nazis wanted to kill us.

    When I met my husband, who is also a Moroccan Jew, I got exposed to a very different type of Judaism than I had been aware of. When I went to Israel to get married I entered this big, joyful, noisy Jewish family! They were not crying and kvetching all the time! Even their prayers had uplifting melodies that were quite different than the tunes I had grown up with, which always sounded to me like crying.

    After being together for 38 years, my husband’s life-affirming expression of Judaism has rubbed off on me. I am very proud to be a Jew. I recall a time when I went to study at the University of Vienna that my father warned me not to let anyone know that I was Jewish. I kept my mouth shut while there until one day one of my professors point blank asked me what church I went to and I told them none because I’m Jewish. Luckily this was 1977 and not 1937 so all I met with was a shrug. Well, I don’t want to hide being a Jew anymore. I don’t want to hide any aspect of myself (as previously blogged I have come out of my turtle shell). So if there is anyone that is uncomfortable that my blog is called Musings of a Jewish Mom, please, don’t come in. There are so many other houses to visit, you don’t have to come to mine. But if you want a nice chicken soup and some homemade challah, come on in. The door is always open.

  • Wonder

    There are some days that are so extraordinary that one must stop and wonder. This past Friday was one of those days. 

    So it was Good Friday according to the Christians. For me it was the day preceding Erev Shabbat of Shabbat Shira, a very significant day of the Jewish calendar. All of that is just interesting background but maybe on a cosmic level something was going on.

    I woke up that morning with a plastic shield on my right eye, which had just had cataract surgery the day before. I could barely see due to the copious amounts of surgical tape that I had affixed there to make sure the shield did not move under my CPAP machine the night before.

    I went to the eye doctor to have the shield removed and to have my renewed eye examined. All good. For the first time in over 50 years I can see out of my right eye without glasses. Hallelujah!

    I came home and shortly thereafter called the South Jersey Regional Animal Shelter to inquire if a dog I had applied for was still available. She is, they said, but there is a family looking at another dog who also want to look at her. Deep breath. I must be philosophical about this. If this dog, who I think is meant to be my dog, is adopted by another family, then she really was not meant to be my dog.

    We drive down to the shelter. When we get there I ask, “is Olive Oyl still available for adoption?” Yes, she is.

    We meet her and inside I am saying “Yes!” as she snuggles up to my ankles. I know this is our new family dog.

    So all of this is amazing in and of itself but not the point where wonder comes in. So in August 2023 our family lost our beautiful dog Eevee after almost 10 years. The grief hit us all hard, particularly my kids. Eevee was such a special girl. She was our “biker chick” huntress. She was so sweet with all of our family but let another dog or any other non-human creature come into her purview and she was a fierce warrior. Sadly, many a small rodent met its demise due to her extraordinary hunting skills. She was, like all of us, a unique blend of attributes—by turns cuddly and cute or fearsome predator. 

    What’s interesting is that in the time since her passing we wondered many times, do we get a new dog? is it too soon? is it ok? Does it mean we don’t love Eevee if we get a new dog?

    We went to the shelters in our area on numerous occasions over the last year and a half. There were a couple of maybes but never the yes.

    Until Friday. So, where the wonder comes in for me is this. When we had been looking for a dog before we got Eevee we also looked and looked. We went to the shelters near us many many times and even traveled to Philly as well. We ended up finding Eevee at what was then known as Cumberland County Animal Shelter.

    Fast forward to April 18, 2025. Cumberland County Animal Shelter is now known as South Jersey Regional Animal Shelter. This is where we had to go back to to find our new family member. It was like coming full circle, as if Eevee was giving her blessing in this adoption. 

    We will never ever forget Eevee or love her any less now that Lily (formerly known as Olive Oyl) has joined our family. But it is as if Eevee is saying to us, it’s ok family, I know you loved me and still love me. I’m ok now but little Lily really needs a family and I sent you to her. Please take her home and take good care of her like you did with me. 

    Thank you Eevee for all that you did for us and for giving your blessing for adopting Lily.

    Thank you Lily for trusting us to take care of you and becoming a new member of our family. We will do our best to give you a great life with lots of walkies and pets.

    Thank you Universe for showing me that Life and Death, Joy and Sorrow are part of one seamless Circle. 

    Now if only I could remember this beautiful sentiment while I’m waiting on hold on a phone call while an AI assistant is not understanding what I need from customer service! The challenge is taking these lofty awarenesses that are apparent at these peak moments of life and incorporating them into the everyday, mundane activities. Thank you for the lofty and the mundane. May it always be so.

    Eevee and Lily

  • Speaking My Truth

    I was wondering, why is the miracle at the Red Sea recalled every day in Jewish prayer. Then I pictured myself as a Jew escaping Egypt after God personally intervenes and releases the Jewish people from bondage there. We get out of Egypt and we begin on our journey only to be confronted with the Red Sea. The Red Sea in front of us and the pursuing Egyptian army behind us. Oy! And I don’t even know how to swim!

    What’s a Jew to do? Moses says, it’s ok, go into the water, it’s gonna be ok. What? But I can’t swim! It’s ok, just go in, don’t worry. 

    So this for me is the essence of the story. Of course every Jewish school child knows that God performed a miracle at the Red Sea and the waters parted and the Jews walked safely across. The miracle to me is the faith that it took to JUST TRUST GOD and place one’s entire life in that trust.

    When I was growing up, one of the main difficulties I faced was “career selection.” The problem was that in school or later in the “real world”, when choosing a profession I could never find exactly the right fit. I realize now had there been a choice that said “mystic” I would have said “Aha, that’s the one.” But that was never one of the options on a career aptitude test. So what does a little girl who wants to be a mystic (of course doesn’t even know the word yet) do? Eventually she becomes a mother because that is the closest I could find to a profession in which being a mystic could come in handy.

    I remember in my twenties, after my own mother died, and being in a state of confusion and sadness, going to see a therapist. It was a few months after she had died and I was (shockingly) still in grief. Karen, “you’re using your mother’s death as a reason not to get on with your own life.” Ok. “So what is it you want to do with your life Karen?” I want to know God. That was my answer. And what was his answer? “So you want to go get a Ph.D. in theology?” Um, no, that’s about as far away from what I was thinking as is watching a porn movie from making love. Well, he sure didn’t get what I meant. I knew what I meant but I didn’t know how to translate it into human-ese. 

    Somewhere in my education I had heard the phrase “to pray without ceasing”. I don’t remember who said it, but thank you to whoever it was because I’m borrowing it. This “praying without ceasing” is the state of mind that I want, that I crave. How do you do regular life when all you want to do is hang out with God? Well, that’s the challenge, and that’s when I realize that I really am a Jew. Judaism was designed as a way to be in this world and yet be connected to the Source at the same time. For every action we take, there is a prayer or a blessing. Remember in Fiddler on the Roof when the tailor asks for a blessing on the new sewing machine? I think of a time when I had a job after college that was mostly a lot of typing. I remember thinking, “for this I went to college? to be a typist?” After a short while of kvetching I decided well I’ve got to make a living and if they’re willing to give me money for sitting here typing stuff, so what the hey. Once I changed my mind about what I was doing and decided to just be there, the experience completely changed. What annoyed me and pissed me off suddenly became a vehicle for me to experience mindfulness. I was not just the typist, I was the typing! In fact, the ego division fell away and I was just a being in time doing some stuff. Hah! What a simple clue to happiness! I didn’t need a spa or a vacation or some fancy stuff to be happy. I just needed to be fully in the moment at every moment. Man, just think of all the self-help businesses and pharmaceutical companies that would go broke if people just realized that what they are seeking is there within them all along. There’s nothing really out there anyway except what you say it is. Not to say that there is not real suffering. Of course not. There is, because that is part of the fabric of life. But when one lets oneself really be in the moment, whether that is a moment of grief and pain or of ecstasy and bliss, it all passes if you let it go through you.

    Speaking of letting it go through you, this brings me to the subject of intestines. What, you may say, does intestines have to do with what I’m talking about?Everything I say. May I explain.

    So conventional belief is that thoughts are in the mind which is in the brain. That’s what I was raised to believe and that is what I thought. So if you’re “depressed” you need antidepressants which will alter your brain chemicals to get them to work right. Well what I’ve come to experience is that my thoughts are actually in my gut. And I will tell you why. Why is it we say we have a gut reaction? We don’t say we have a brain reaction, we say a gut reaction. It’s because when we think/feel something it is our gut that is giving us this information. For example, I have a very sensitive gut and when I’m angry or upset the place that I feel it most is in my gut. I have tried a technique that when my stomach is hurting I smile. (You weird girl). No really, try this. When I smile my stomach automatically relaxes. When it relaxes I no longer feel pain. This does not mean that I eschew medications for serious gastrointestinal problems. Of course not, I’m Jewish and second choice to mystic I would have chosen to be a medical doctor if I hadn’t been so distracted. But for everyday stomach discomforts a smile works like magic. And it just makes me feel better too.

    So now in true Jewish fashion I have ended up this discussion with a fascination with the digestive system. It is a well-known (hmmm) fact that all Jewish conversations end up talking about shit. I don’t know how this happens but it’s a fact. I may start documenting this to prove this as scientific data. I don’t know how it is that a people that are commanded to be praying without ceasing are also so curious about the end product of digestion (and everything along the way, “so did ya eat yet?”). Maybe because as human animals we need to keep eating to survive and it’s such a large part of every day life that naturally it lends itself to some introspection. 

    So here’s to being a Jewish mystic mom in 2025. Now let’s eat!

  • The Parable of the Turtles

    So, the other day for some reason, in my very early morning wakefulness, somewhere between conscious and subconscious mind, I get this thought: I really want to see a turtle today.

    I knew I was planning a nature outing with my two adult kids. So maybe this thought wasn’t completely out of the blue. But when it was time to decide where to go, all three of us were stumped. We thought of a number of the usual places that we go to but none of them seemed to be “the one”. Then, “out of the blue”, I thought, how about that park off of Cuthbert Boulevard that we’ve passed many times but never went to? My daughter says, “Newton Lake Park.” I say, “yeah, that’s the one.”

    So we get there. Nice lovely end of winter almost spring day. We start our walk around the lake. Perhaps one-third of the way around one of my kids notices: Hey, there’s a turtle over there on that branch. Lo and behold, there was a sweet turtle basking in the late winter sun. We continue walking and all of a sudden we start seeing more and more turtles. Groups of two, then three, then families of four or more. I’m smiling to myself. And then I share with them my early morning thought: I want to see a turtle today. And boy did I get my wish, in abundance!

    So what is the lesson in this little story? Think about what you want in your life, because your mind is a magnet. If you think about what you want, you will receive that in abundance. Likewise, if you think about what you don’t want, you will receive THAT, likewise in abundance. 

    This lesson is simple but not easy. One must observe the mind with the detachment of a scientist. Then one must direct one’s thoughts to align with what you truly want in your life. Today I want serenity, joy and exhilarating health. And so be it.