Here are some fun (and frum) activities we have done recently:

Over Pesach we went to St Albans, where there is a park with an outdoor gym, plenty of space for playing with a ball, a lake with birds and even some Roman walls for the history freaks. (We even had a backup of a museum in the park, in case it rained!) Another day we went to Dunstable Downs for kite-flying, where we met 2 large multi-generational families of Chassidim, who were also having a good time flying kites.  Outings  like this are kosher in content, cheap/free and provide opportunities for exercise and appreciating the wonderful world Hashem made. 

Our children’s primary school went for this idea for their Lag B’Omer outing.  The school is always sensitive to the fact that people’s finances are tight and that many parents don’t want to lay out substantial amounts of money for 2, 3 or 4 children to go to an amusement park.  This year, they took the older children, either by bus or car to Hampstead Heath, where they walked down to Parliament Hill, to fly kites which they made in school, play in the adventure playground and do some other activities.  The kids had a really good time, despite getting drenched on the way home, although it seems that the highlight was calling the police out because a woman walking her dogs became rather aggressive when asked if she could do it a bit further away from the children!

 I recently took the younger children to the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green, which was a lot of fun, particularly the interactive displays in their Beautiful Games temporary exhibition.  Our Year 2 son, who has been learning about the Great Fire of London in school, enjoyed a trip to the Monument, followed by a bus ride past St Pauls and visit to the War, Plague and Fire Gallery in the Museum of London.

Our youngest son and I went to the Tate Modern last week, where we saw the Yayoi Kusama exhibition, which was excellent, if disturbing, (I avoided the film with the warning about explicit scenes!) and the Alighiero Boetti: Game Plan exhibition, which was quite good.  We both particularly enjoyed the huge man outside, which is an overspill from their Damien Hirst show, and having lunch on the balcony overlooking the river.

In fact, if you are looking for an interesting walk, or a different place to go on a date, then the South Bank is excellent.  Around Waterloo Bridge there's the London Eye and street performers, then there's the South Bank complex, which often has free events and sometimes has booksellers outside, a la Left Bank, and between London Bridge and the Tate Modern, there's Borough Market,  the Clink, Vinopolis, the Golden Hinde, the Globe and then the Tate, all of which are interesting, and almost all of which can be enjoyed in some way without compromising one's religious principles.

 

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There is a common misconception that frum people are boring.  I’ve seen it often with less religious relatives at weddings, who come prepared for a very serious event with  lots of praying and are surprised and delighted to discover that generally there are fewer speeches than at  a more secular event and that the dancing is lively, to the point of wildness, and inclusive. A seder guest once remarked to me that there had been concern that our seder would be very frum, but instead it was really fun!  Actually our seder is pretty frum, but it’s also a lot of fun.

It’s not hard to see why people think that the two things are mutually exclusive.  Looking in from the outside, a religious lifestyle can seem full of constraint and restrictions. However, not only does the Torah provide for many fun and meaningful activities – Shabbos for a start, but there are many other areas of engagement which are compatible with being frum and which are also lots of fun.  Whilst I am a bit of a museum geek and enjoy visiting exhibitions, our children are less enthusiastic about them.  When we go out as a family, we usually try to go somewhere outdoors as it’s more suitable for a wide age spread of children and everyone can find something they will enjoy doing.  (Suggestions for possible outings in another post.)

Thinking about kids, Shabbos and yomtov offer tremendous potential for fun, both in the framework of shul and Shabbos meals, and outside.  Without the computer, the children are forced to be creative and when the majority  were younger, we often had Shabbos in company with pirates, wedding parties and arctic explorers as the mood (and available props) took them.  On a shul front,  our shul runs excellent childrens’ programmes, from toddlers up, featuring singing, age-appropriate davenning, games and discussion, and of course, Kiddush and treats. 

At the Shabbos table, singing some niggunim/songs without words, rather than only zemiros, enables everyone to participate, while a devar Torah on the sedra can be framed as a discussion, which will engage everyone. Some families go round the table and ask everyone to share something that happened that week – an incident of hashgacha pratis, or something special they saw, etc.  The main thing is to capture everyone’s interest and keep it Shabbos appropriate.  We had a riotous meal one chol hamoed Pesach featuring practical demonstrations of the amount of wine it is necessary to drink for the Four Cups. (For the uninitiated, it’s a measurement based on how much liquid fits in a person’s mouth...).  I’m not sure I would want to do it on Shabbos, but it was certainly memorable, fun and we’ll always remember the halacha!

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As the freezer fills up and the “to cook” list gets shorter, there is time put up a quick post.  I’ve been trying to think of something original to say about Pesach, and last night I got my inspiration. Our six year old son went with his older brother and my husband to bake some hand baked matzos to use at the seder.  Last year was the first time he went, and he seemed to enjoy it, but this year he really enjoyed it!  He was very excited about going and last night he asked me what was my favourite thing about Pesach.  He told me that his favourite things are the makkos/plagues at the seder, which we act out with all sorts of props, masks and finger puppets, and baking matza.  He gave me a detailed explanation, with actions,  of how it works, including  a tour of the building and what the man in charge was wearing:  a black bekitshe, black trousers, black shoes, black kappel and a grey beard and peyos. (Eminently suitable for coming into contact with lots of flour!) His enthusiasm was so infectious that it lit up my preparations. 

We have been preparing our almost three-year-old son for a week without his favourite food (toast and peanut butter) by getting him excited about eating matza and drinking wine on Pesach.  He’s been checking – what do we eat on Pesach? Matza. What do we drink on Pesach? Wine.  What do we not eat? Chametz.  I’m not sure if he knows what chametz is, but this morning he checked out a few foods to see.  Is bread chametz? Yes.  Until we got to a very important one asked with a big grin – are sweeties chametz? Reassured that there would be Pesach sweeties, he asked “is supper chametz?”  “No,” I replied, “supper won’t be chametz.”  “Yes,” he said, “Noodles with soy sauce!”

We’ve been making Pesach in our own home now for 14 years, and helping our parents make Pesach since we were children, but every year it’s still exciting in its own way.  Watching the children approach it differently each year as they grow up and remembering them experiencing as small,  then big children, and now as almost adults, is a tremendous pleasure.  Who could forget the year when one of the kids threw up at both sedarim? Or last year, when the lights went out as we were about to serve dessert on the second night? We abandoned the dessert, lit some more tealights and sang through the rest of the seder by candlelight –so atmospheric that it’s almost worth trying to do it again.

The beginning of Pesach always comes with slightly mixed feelings for me – my father died on the first day of Pesach, so my mother and I have yahrzeit, which doesn’t really go with the festive atmosphere.  We try to say something about my father at the lunchtime meal, as it’s not really appropriate at the seder.  He would have been so proud of his grandchildren and I always miss him more at yomtov.

Wishing everyone a chag kasher v’sameach.

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Perhaps no other festival inspires such a love/hate relationship for women as Purim. No, not even Pesach, when people might get very edgy beforehand, but everyone loves to sit at the seder with a house, which has been cleaned to whatever level they feel necessary.

Purim has so much potential to be an amazing day, and is so often filled with stress, whether beforehand or actually on the day.  For those blessed with children there’s the costume dilemma, then there’s the mishloach manos issues – how many? To whom? What? See here to be reassured you’re not the only family to whom this happens! And finally the seudah, when without the cooking restrictions of Shabbos or yom tov, one can give free rein to one’s creativity in the kitchen.

For some women, who love to sew, or bake, or decorate, then Purim is absolute heaven.  But for many women, whose skills in one or more of these areas might be lacking, then the whole thing turns into a stressful and guilt-ridden exercise.  This is not helped by Jewish publications which publish series of articles demonstrating how to make fancy and unrealistic creations.  We stopped buying one such magazine a couple of years ago, having become progressively more and more irritated with it, when they showed how to make individual pearl trimmed matza bags for your seder!  No, it’s fine, I don’t have anything else to do in the run-up to Pesach!

The mitzvos of Purim, apart from hearing the megillah, are designed to promote ahavas Yisrael  - giving tzedakah, sharing a festive meal with friends and family and sending gifts of food to neighbours and friends.  All of these, approached correctly, can greatly enhance interpersonal relationships.  How sad then, that Purim has turned into another frenzy of “keeping up with the Cohens”, resulting in a day filled with sugar-high kids with smeared facepaint, frazzled women and drunk men.

Let’s reclaim Purim as a wonderful day for connecting with each other and with God. If you enjoy and are good at “patchkerai” then that’s great.  If not, here’s what we do to aim for a less stressful day:

Costumes: Since the kids have become too old to be fobbed off with bridesmaids’ dresses and cobbled together outfits, we have just cut our losses and bought cheap costumes online. Each year, a couple of the children will wear a costume from our stock and we now have a good selection of outfits in a range of sizes.  Half the fun is actually choosing it, anyway. 

Mishloach manos: Fix the number for both adults and children.  If someone gives to you and you don’t have one for them, then just smile and thank them and consider giving to them next year – it’s not an exchange, it’s a gift.  We keep a bowl of sweets and coins for tzedakah near the door to give to children who come for whom we don’t have anything.  We limit the kids to 4 or 5 each, otherwise it’s too expensive and takes too long to distribute.  We go out as early as we can (having eaten breakfast in an attempt to cut down on the amount of nash consumed) and work out a route which basically does the left hand side of the main road on the way down and the right hand side on the way back.  Anyone who is giving to people very nearby, can go on foot.  Items to bring with you in the car:  carrier bags for rubbish and dismantled mishloach manos, sellotape, labels, a pen, coins/vouchers for tzedaka collectors encountered en route, water and tissues.

I refuse to spend a lot of money on packaging – it wastes time, money and resources, so we keep it as low key as possible.  Also, it’s worth considering the recipient, which is why I let our 9 year old daughter give out shiny silver bags to her friends, but not our 6 year old son – it’s just not the sort of thing a 6 year old boy notices on his way to a chocolate bar!

I  used to insist that the children gave at least one real food item such as a piece of fruit, but have now come to the realization that for kids a packet of nash, some chocolate and a carton of juice is a real meal!  I usually try to put in at least one home-made item and people seem to appreciate it, or at least they say they do.

Seudah: Accept all offers of food from guests, but give guidelines as to what would be useful, as well as telling them how many people there will be.

By the time it gets to the seudah, people are either too drunk (or will be soon) or too full of nash to worry about anything fancy.  Some things are essential, like chicken soup with kreplach.  I have made themed seudas before, but really you can keep the food quite basic.  I make sure there’s plenty of challah and dips/cruditees. I usually put out cakes and sweets that we have received in mishloach manos as dessert. Since the food you give is supposed to be something you could eat at the seudah, we might as well eat it at the seudah.  I just make icecream to go with it, and this year one of the guests is bringing fruit.

I hope these ideas might assist in achieving a more relaxed Purim, leaving some time to daven and think about the meaning of the day.  Purim is considered to be an eis ratzon/mesugaldike zeman – a time when our prayers are more likely to be answered positively. In the same way as we have an obligation on Purim to give to everyone who asks, we are told that Hashem will also give to everyone who asks, so let’s forget the externals and reclaim Purim as a wonderful day of connection with ourselves, each other and God.

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This article first appeared in United Synagogue's Daf Hashavua 

One of the most enigmatic heroines in the Tanach is Esther.  She has two names, no close family, conceals her national identity and may or may not be beautiful.  Yet she is one of the seven named prophetesses, highly regarded as the heroine of the Purim story and is a favourite Purim costume for little girls worldwide.  Let’s look at the passage in the Gemara (Megilla 13a) discussing Esther: “She is called Hadassa and she is called Esther.  If Esther is her name, why is she called Hadassa?”  The Rabbis say that a person’s name represents their essence, so if Esther had two names, each of them must tell us something significant about her.

The name Esther is generally taken to come from the root meaning “to hide” – Esther knows how to hold her tongue and not reveal her nationality to Achashverosh. The Gemara also points out that it is close to Ishtar – the Babylonian fertility goddess, so that the local people would recognise the owner of the name as beautiful, like the moon.  On the other hand, Hadassa means “myrtle” and the Gemara says that her appearance was average – like that of a myrtle – not tall and not short.  More unusually, another rabbi says that she was actually green like a myrtle! It seems unlikely that this is meant to be taken literally, but rather to be interpreted figuratively - perhaps that she was sallow.  The rabbi’s comment continues, that God “extended to her a strand of chesed,” in other words, people found her appealing.  In fact, according to the Megillah itself, Esther is “beautiful [of] form and fair to look at.” Hadassa also refers to tzadikim, righteous people, as described by the prophet Zechariah.

Either way, although good looking, she would not have won the king’s beauty contest on her appearance alone, but she was blessed with “chein,” that indefinable quality which inspires affection in everyone the owner meets. She won over Hegai, the guardian of the harem, who provided her with every beauty necessity without her asking for it, then captured the heart of the king. Even having fasted for three days, at which point she probably did look green, she was still appealing enough that Achashverosh welcomed her unscheduled visit.

Regardless of her external appearance, Esther’s strength was internal, as symbolised by her name.  Once she had accepted the mission to try to save the Jewish people, she did so with all her might.  The Maharal of Prague points out a number of reasons why it was relevant that Esther, as the redeemer, was an orphan.  Despite the care of Mordechai, she would undoubtedly have sometimes felt lonely and turned to God to comfort her, just as the Jewish people cried out to Him when they went into exile in Babylon.  She had such a close connection that she was able to break through the shallow glitter of the king’s palace and use her hidden, Esther, wisdom and sensitivity to become the catalyst for the redemption of the Jewish people, fulfilling her destiny as Hadassa, a righteous person.

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This article first appeared in United Synagogue's Daf Hashavua

Purim ! At last – a chance to make a lot of noise in shul, wear fancy dress and get drunk. How wonderful: all the things that are frowned on the rest of the year suddenly become acceptable! But surely this is not what the rabbis intended when they instituted Purim as a celebration of the downfall of Haman and the overturning of his plans to wipe out the Jewish people “young and old, infants and women on one day”?

There is a medrash, which describes Haman visiting Achashverosh to set his evil plot in motion. He complains about a particular people, scattered across the empire, saying that they spend all their time eating and drinking, regularly celebrating Shabbat or yom tov.  God responds to this accusation, saying “You wicked man, who begrudges them their festivals! I will overthrow you and add yet another festival to celebrate your downfall.” Haman’s complaint is not just a case of playground spite, but rather a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Jewish connection with the physical world. Reb Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin comments on this, tracing its roots back to the serpent in the Garden of Eden. He points out that it is possible to use physical pleasure as a means of achieving closeness with God, as we do when we celebrate Shabbat with tasty meals, combined with divrei Torah and zemirot.

But if on Purim we are taking the physical and using it to become closer to God, why the need to use it to excess and become drunk? Perhaps this story answers the question.  A man is travelling across the country, with a driver.  They stop for a break at an inn, where the man meets his long-lost best friend from childhood.  They are delighted to see each other, but just as they settle down to catch up, the driver says it is time to leave.  The man buys the driver a drink, and then another drink and then ensconces him with a bottle of whisky, enabling the two friends to spend the whole night talking and enjoying each other’s company.  In the morning, when the driver has sobered up, the friends are able to part, having re-established their connection.  The two friends represent God and a person’s soul, whose close connection with each other is sometimes hampered by the driver - the body.  By taking the body out of action, the soul is able to achieve a truly close connection with God.  There are two ways of doing this – by ignoring the body’s needs, as on Yom Kippur, or by anaesthetising the body, as on Purim.  It is no coincidence that the two days are often linked – with Yom Kippurim described as Yom K’Purim, a day like Purim.  Both days, at opposite ends of the physical spectrum, offer unparalleled opportunities for closeness with God and revealing one’s inner beauty. This is a true celebration of the victory over Haman and his worldview.

 

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On Sunday evening, we were privileged to hear the Gateshead Rav speak at a fundraising dinner for the school attended by some of our children.  I very much enjoyed what he said about the challenges facing parents and teachers today.  I was particularly struck by the second part of his speech in which he used a section from the Shabbos davenning to show how these challenges have changed over time.

The Rav said that the phrases "Kadesheinu be'mitzvosecha, v'sein chelkeinu be'Sorosecha, sabeinu mituvecha - Sanctify us with Your commandments, and give us a portion in Your Torah, satisfy us with Your mitzvos"  show the progression of struggles in Jewish life over the last century.  In the late 19th/early 20th century, particularly in America, it was very difficult to keep Shabbos.  One hears stories of people who were sacked every week when they did not turn up on Shabbos, and had to start again on Monday morning, looking for another job, which they would almost certainly only hold for the rest of the week.  It is almost impossible for us to imagine the pain and inner struggles that these brave men (for it was mostly men) must have faced.  For those who could not face the toil that shemiras Shabbos took on their families - no welfare state then! - there were even minyanim that began and finished early on Shabbos morning, so that people could at least daven with a minyan and hear the leyning, before sadly going to work afterwards.  The Rav told a moving story to illustrate this.  He said that in Brooklyn everyone would visit the beautiful sukkah of the late Bobover Rebbe, R' Shlomo Halberstam. One year, the Rebbe observed that his sukkah was "not only not the most beautiful sukkah in the world, but not the most beautiful sukkah on the street!" He directed the fascinated listeners down the block to the sukkah of an older man.  This man had always kept Shabbos, even when he was being fired each week for doing so.  Each week he collected a pink slip, a dismissal document., which he kept, and now he had covered the walls of his sukkah with his pink slips - a physical testimony to his mesirus nefesh for Shabbos.  The Rav said that nowadays keeping mitzvos like Shabbos and kashrus are mostly quite easy - kadesheinu be'mitzvosecha.

Then he said that although in previous generations there were individuals who were great talmidei chachamim, the majority of the people did not have the opportunity to learn very much.  However, now, more people are learning whether full time or in "spare time" than ever before - v'sein chelkeinu be'Sorosecha.

This generation's challenge is "sabeinu mituvecha" ensuring that our children and talmidim are so full and satisfied with Yiddishkeit, Torah and mitzvos that they do not feel a need to look elsewhere for gratification.  This means that we need to ensure that what they are learning and experiencing is fulfilling and satisfying, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually.  The Rav told a story about the Chafetz Chaim, who set up kosher food distribution in army camps (presumably the Russian army?) during the First World War. After a  while the organisers came and told him it was a waste of time because the Jewish soldiers were eating the kosher food and then going and eating the non-kosher food afterwards.  The Chafetz Chaim suggested that maybe the portions were too small, but the organisers replied that no, they had left overs. "In that case," said the Chafetz Chaim, "the food is not tasty enough and the soldiers aren't satisfied."  He said that if a yiddishe neshama is fully satisfied with something kosher, it will not go chasing after something which is not kosher.  This would apply across the board - food, activities, intellectual pursuits.  

Authentic Torah Judaism provides an incredibly rich range of experiences, filling all categories - emotional, intellectual and spiritual. It is our responsibility as parents and educators to facilitate our children appreciating this.

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Last week, I read an article by Azriela Jaffe, reprinted on JewishMom.com.  I went to have a look at Azriela’s website to see what else she does, and found a link to “Making Chatzos”.  Intrigued by the idea as I often find preparing for Shabbos unstimulating, which is why I make different food (OK, not that different, but not exactly the same each week) and postpone doing it.

Making chatzos means having everything ready for Shabbos by halachic midday, which, last week, was 12:11 in London, about 3 hours before Shabbos actually came in. Ideally one should have the table laid, urn, hot plate and slow cooker set up and possibly even have showered.  Having the house clean was no problem as our cleaning lady comes on Friday and although she wouldn’t have finished by 12:11, she would be on the last stages.

I planned out a menu, shopped on Wednesday rather than Thursday and started baking on Wednesday afternoon. The rest of the family were completely underwhelmed! On Thursday I spent quite a lot of time cooking, leaving myself only the amount of cooking that I knew would fit into the morning for Friday. 

The idea  of being ready by chatzos is to have a calm and pleasant entry into Shabbos,  and to bring Shabbos into the rest of the week.  The chatzos website suggests that one tries it gradually, so although I thought it would be nice to lay the table, I concentrated on getting the food ready first.

I discovered several interesting facts:

1.    I had suspected for some time that if you spread out your Shabbos preparations over a longer time, you won’t actually end up doing the other things you would have done instead, had you just made Shabbos on Friday. I have now discovered, that at least in my case, it’s true.
2.      Our children need an adrenalin rush! When they came home and I was almost ready for Shabbos, they said, “What shall we do? This is really boring!”  They created their own adrenalin rush by postponing showering till the last minute...
3.      Whilst I am not a very physically brave person, I also need an adrenaline rush...
4.      I am a very last minute person – I thrive on deadlines, which is why I enjoy working for a newspaper.  Chatzos was an artificial deadline, not like Shabbos, so I found myself at a loose end on Friday afternoon and decided to cook another couple of things anyway – one of the main pitfalls the Chatzos website warns against.
5.      It might have been better to try this in the summer, when there was actually an afternoon to enjoy rather than just a couple of hours. 

My husband is not a last minute person and I know that he finds my attitude a bit stressful sometimes.  I had thought that he would appreciate a calmer Friday, but when I told him what I was doing, he asked, “Why would you want to do that?”

 In fact the only person who actually appreciated my efforts was our Shabbos guest, who is herself a Chatzos lady. Having said that, I think I will try it again, although I’m not sure I want to commit to doing it every week. Aiming for 12:13 this week...

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Time for some menus:

Bas Mitzvah seudah (rather late!)

We had an orange theme – so black tablecloths with black and orange paperware and serviettes – looked very effective.

Starter: Humus, tuna dip, Moroccan olives, cucumber salad ( yes, I know that’s not orange!)

“Orange soup” – sweet potatoes, carrots, potatoes, onions etc and baked beans put it just before it’s blended

Paprika chicken with potatoes, sweet and sour red cabbage, green beans with garlic and lemon

Chocolate brownie with chocolate sauce, peanut butter icecream, mango icecream

Tonight we are hosting an Italian Friday night for women who attend my husband’s shiur at the JLE. This is what we’re eating:

Garlic bread

Salmon with green sauce, spicy potato salad

Pasta and bean soup

Chicken cacciatore, potatoes with rosemary and garlic, caponata (like ratatouille with aubergines and olives), roast onions, broad bean stew

Oranges in syrup, chocolate cream cake

All recipes from Claudia Roden, either Book of Jewish Food or Italian Cooking

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I seem to have gone from trying to post at least once a week to being lucky if I post once a month!  Still plenty to say, but not such a lot of time to say it! In the last month we celebrated our third daughter’s becoming a bas mitzvah.  Now that all the celebrations have concluded, with the return of my husband and our daughter from a trip to Israel, (I can’t quite work out why when he works full-time and I work part-time, it’s easier for him to get away...), I’ve been able to put some thoughts together.

When our children began to reach halachic adulthood, we were very conscious of the fact that our third and fourth children are boy/girl twins and that we did not want our daughter to feel that she was undervalued in comparison to her brother.  A friend of ours, who grew up in a very chareidi community, told us that when she became bas mitzvah, she had a few friends round for tea, but when her brother became bar mitzvah a year later, he had a whole weekend of celebrations.  Given that this was still bothering her several years later, we did not want the same thing to happen in our family.  So, we have made a similar celebration for each of our daughters so far to that which we hope to make for our sons, beginning next year, iy”H.

Our shul has very kindly marked the girls’ bas mitzvahs with a communal seudah shelishis – see here for a report of the most recent one.  We have made a seudas mitzvah, on their birthday or as close as possible to it, for our family and friends and the children have been treated to a trip to Israel, with as much touring and sightseeing as possible.  See here for my husband’s article about the reason for this.

While I appreciate that in some circles, a bas mitzvah is marked with little display, we feel that our daughters are as entitled to their “moment in the sun” as our sons.  Some people would say that this happens for a girl when she gets married, but these days, who knows when (or even, if) this will happen.  Also reaching adulthood is just as significant for a girl as for a boy – she now has an obligation to do mitzvos, just as he does – so why not welcome her to the adult world with some fanfare?  In circles, such as ours, where women have a serious religious and secular education, and have the potential to pursue fulfilling and satisfying careers in whatever field they chose (and I’m including homemaking and bringing up children in that) to distinguish between the level of celebration for boys and girls seems archaic and unnecessary.

Our daughters have all spent some time during the year preceeding their bas mitzvah learning with my husband, following which they have prepared a dvar Torah to present at the seudas mitzvah/seuda shelishis.  In order to convince our oldest daughter that she really did have to speak, I had to offer to speak as well, at both events, which I have continued to do for our other daughters.  I’m hoping not to do this at the bar mitzvahs!  But I think it is important for the girls to see that both men and women can speak in public and share Torah ideas.  It’s also an opportunity to focus on each child’s positive characteristics and give them a tailor-made bracha for the future. I hope that our daughters were able to take away something meaningful from the speeches at the seudos, and if not, mine are saved on my computer!

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This afternoon my sister and my mummy and my baby and me went to Northala Fields. It is on the way to the airport. There were ponds and we took my scooter and a bike. When they rebuilt Wembley Stadium, the rubble was made into mounds. There were lots of fields and grass. We went to the playground, which was a good one, and played for quite a long time. There were swings and a fireman’s pole and there was a toy that had a pole that had two poles going down each side and you put your legs on each side and slid down.  Whilst I was getting in the car, I picked up some stones to bring home. Then we  drove home.

Editor's note:

The most striking feature of the park is four huge conical mounds which we have driven past many times on the way to Heathrow, but never knew what they were. Some time ago our youngest daughter went to a park with a friend and had a really nice time - she told me that it had circular paths and it was past IKEA, but we couldn't work out where it was, and the friend didn't know what the park was called. Last week, she came with me to collect my husband from the airport, and suddenly called out, "That's where we went!" So now both mysteries are solved.

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One often hears of hachgasha pratis (divine providence) stories, in which, for example, someone was miraculously saved from a terrible event because they were unexpectedly delayed, either due to a surprising phenomenon or the performance of a mitzvah. Some people say that these stories, whilst inspirational, are of little value by themselves since there are undoubtedly an equal number of people who experience the disastrous consequence, because they were delayed unexpectedly by the performance of a mitzvah or who missed it because they were busy doing an aveira.  So just to balance out any positive hashgacha pratis stories you might have heard this week, here’s a negative one:

I often pop out in early in the morning to buy bread for the children’s lunches.  Since I’m very nearby, only out for a few minutes and most of the children are usually still in bed, I rarely, if ever, take my mobile phone with me.  One day last week my phone was next to my keys and I just grabbed it and put it in my pocket on the way out.

At this point in a classic HP story, either one of the children would have needed me urgently and been able to phone me, or I would have been unavoidably delayed and able to phone home, or a disaster would have happened on the Golders Green Road and I would have been able to alert the emergency services.  However, this is a negative HP story and so this is what happened:

While I was out, I checked the phone was still there and it was. However, when I came home and went to take it out of my pocket…it wasn’t there.  I checked in the car – no phone.  Called it and got my voice mail.  So, I zoomed back down to the shops and saw my phone, lying face down in the road, next to where I had parked.  Great! No one had stolen it – maybe there’s a happy ending after all?  But no, when I tried to turn it on –sadly, it had died.  There was no obvious damage, but it was more scratched than it should have been, just from falling out of my pocket and it seems that my poor phone had been run over.

So there’s the negative HP story – the one morning when I decided to take my phone with me, it became the victim of a hit and run driver.  So now you can relax and enjoy the regular HP stories, confident that they have been balanced out.

On the bright side, the phone company were great and within a couple of days, I had a nice shiny new phone, which will not be coming with me to buy bread in the mornings!

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We had an amazing time on our recent break in Israel, visiting both familiar places (and restaurants) and new places (and restaurants!)

Sightseeing highlights included a walk at Ein Gedi, which was greatly enhanced by fascinating ibex and hyraxes and where we saw the remains of  a fifth century shul; a trip to the Ramon Crater, with its stunningly beautiful and unusual scenery, and a Nabatean cavaranserai; the very clever audio visual presentation at the Herzl Museum.

Best restaurants:  RYU for Asian comfort food, Benny Dagim (not surprisingly, for fish) and Moise for a great French restaurant experience. Don't forget excellent website eluna for recommendations and money off vouchers for many restaurants.

We also had quite a few “only in Israel” experiences.  On our drive along the shore of the Dead Sea, we visited Qumran, home to the Essenes, authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls.  I was delighted to see several bus loads of Christian pilgrims there and in fact there were many pilgrims and other tourists everywhere we visited – the tourist part of the Israeli economy has certainly bounced back.  Before you look at the ruins at Qumran, there is a short film about the community who lived there.  The guided tour who arrived at the same time as we did were of Oriental appearance, so we weren’t surprised when having been told to go into the film, the guide came and told us “It’s in Korean!” Since the film largely consisted of hairy men wearing tefillin badly, and it had Hebrew subtitles, watching it with a Korean soundtrack was a novel experience.

On Friday morning we decided to take a bus to the market in Machane Yehuda and pick up a few bits for Shabbos.  The bus arrived when and where it was supposed to, but as we were driving along, there was a thud, as though it had hit something – we thought maybe a bollard, until we saw a man somersaulting past the windows!  The bus stopped, everyone got off, the bus driver called his company, and ambulance came and took away the man, who by this time was sitting up and having a drink of water, and we didn’t go to the market.

Also interesting to see that despite the constant slurs of apartheid against Israel, there were, as ever, many Arabs strolling around in central Jerusalem, riding the new Light Railway, and even eating in kosher restaurants, including one place where we saw a lady with a hijab and her husband, sitting at the next table to a man with a big kippah serugah/"settler" stereotype with no apparent concern on either side.

We are always amused by the poor standard of English translation on the signs in Israel, particularly given that there are millions of Israelis for whom it is their first language, and millions more who speak it well as a joint first/second language.  We were particularly struck on this occasion by a sign for “(Name) Rrestaurant”, taking the rolled “r” to extremes, but the winners were on Har Herzl, where we found, next to Herzl’s burial place, a sign which said in Hebrew “Kever Herzl” and in English “The Grove of Herzl.”  My husband was so disbelieving that he really thought they meant a grove,until I pointed out that there were no trees anywhere nearby!  And my favourite, also on Har Herzl, where the signposts directing people to different areas of the gardens had one arrow labelled “Zionist Leaders Plot.”

Thanks as ever to all those involved in childcare and to the children for managing without us!

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I haven’t blogged recently, simply because I’ve been too busy…my husband and I went away for our annual “marriage recharge” without the children (that’s another post), and this is what I did on the day before we went.

6:30 – 8:30am Sent off emails of photos for the week’s paper, made 6 lunches and sent 6 children off to school

8:30 – 10am Breakfast, straightened up kitchen, wrote 2 short articles

10-11am Visited shiva with my husband

11am – 1pm Brent Cross for “negative shopping” (taking back things) and collecting currency for trip, Tesco’s to stock up on food before we go away

1-2pm Lunch

2 – 3pm Bank etc

3 – 4pm Packing

4 – 6:30pm  Collect children, spend time with them, make supper

6:30 onwards – Supper, put children to bed (ha ha!), pack some more, write instructions for childcare

11pm Call from “boss”: “Are you sleeping?”  “No. If you thought I was sleeping, why did you phone??” Write last article, as paper goes to press.

Whole day interspersed with sorting washing, running washing machine, folding and distributing washing...

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I can’t believe the yomtov season is over – it feels simultaneously ages ago and only yesterday that I stood in front of the shul timetable and said, “Well we’re here (top of 1st column) and we’ve got to get to there (bottom of 2^nd column)!”

It’s been a memorable three weeks – good davening, great meals with a wide range of guests and tremendous help from the children in preparing, serving and clearing up (thanks also to my mother who did loads of washing up!!) and some special highlights:

The  highlight of my yomtov was lighting candles on the night of Shemini Atzeres and not davenning, as I have done for over five years, for Gilad ben Aviva to come home safely.  Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the deal, no-one with a heart could fail to have been moved by the first glimpses of him returning to Israel, and conducting himself with such dignity.  He must be a very impressive young man to have survived such an ordeal and cope with the public welcome in this way and kol hakavod/well done to the Israeli media who have kept their distance and given him and his family the privacy and space they need.

Other personal highlights – our annual simchas beis hashoeva, which was one of the best ever, and spending time as a family on outings. We went for a walk on Hampstead Heath, followed by lunch with friends, and visited Kew Gardens (no sukkah this year!) and Oxford, which the adults enjoyed more than the children! We paid a brief visit to the refurbished Ashmolean, which was very impressive.  The younger children, who are still prepared to be intellectually curious, enjoyed it and even my husband, who wasn’t gripped by the content, said that the presentation was excellent.  It was definitely better than our last vist there, about 9 ½ years ago, when the kids set off so many alarms that we had a team of staff watching us, until we felt uncomfortable enough to leave!  Thanks to the Oxford student chaplains for letting us crash their sukkah for lunch.

Shul wise, it was a wonderful yomtov – we had a bris on Shemini Atzeres, (and another one on Isru Chag),  and a great problem – not enough space: the men found it difficult to shuffle round for hoshanas, there were so many of them; the tea to honour the chassanim and neshei chayil was overflowing, and so was the Simchas Torah lunch.  I particularly enjoyed the tea this year for the wide range of speeches – where else apart from our shul would you have the child honorees talking about the meaning of the shofar, the second day of Rosh Hashana in Israel, the kashrus of whisky and “L’Dovid Hashem Ori”, while the adults gave presentations on the life of Rashi, Jewish themed opera and Methodists??

Now back to real life – tomorrow a bris and a wedding, followed by making sheva brachos on Monday night, which I agreed to do without considering the logistics of a 3 day yomtov followed by a wedding and a work day...should be fun! 

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Following a meaningful Yom Kippur during which I made to shul not just in the morning, but also for mincha, thanks to a very kind babysitting daughter, we had an amazing “break fast” meal.  We are now down to 3 people in the family who don’t fast – quite a difference from a few years ago. Our youngest daughter was born on Yom Kippur and doesn’t like to have to wait till afterwards for birthday cake.  The last couple of years I have made her a small cake for breakfast, but this year, it was 3 cupcakes, beautifully decorated by her older sister.  We always make the post fast meal into a bit of a birthday party.  This year, a friend brought a guitar and we had a kumsitz after the meal….not necessarily what everyone in her class was doing that night!

The sukkah is up and decorated and all we have to do now is cook for the huge number of guests we are expecting. (Including our family, we are looking at serving over 100 meals at this end of yomtov.)  I haven’t worked out the exact menu yet, but the outline for this week is:

1^st night

Soup

Chicken (with Coke?)

1^st lunch

Mock stuffed cabbage – meatloaf cooked with cabbage and rice in tomato sauce

2^nd night

Turkey schnitzels, based on this ( second recipe down)

2^nd lunch

Lamb stew with butternut squash and chickpeas, couscous

Shabbos food as normal

Dessertwise, the honeycomb icecream we made for Rosh Hashana was so delicious that we’re doing that again, also a peanut butter and chocolate crunch icecream from last week’s Mishpacha.  There will probably be some apple crumble, brownies and I’m hoping both peanut chews and this more sophisticated Rice Krispie treat.

Looking forward to a great yom tov!

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Every year, Hatzola NW organises a Tehillim rally during the aseres yemei teshuva. It takes place in our shul, as it’s the largest public space in the area, and although it’s primarily for boys, who come en masse from virtually all the local Jewish schools, a number of women and girls also go. (There is a similar event for women at one of the girls’ high schools, with a live link up to America.)

Yesterday, our whole family went to the boys’ event.  It was very impressive – there were hundreds of boys there, mostly sitting in school blocks, with their teachers.  The menahel of one of the local primary schools obviously felt that his boys needed more than just a couple of teachers at the end of rows to ensure that they behaved well, and stood in front of his block, guaranteeing with his imposing height that the children conducted themselves appropriately.  Seeing all the children in their different uniforms davenning together generated a real feeling of achdus.

After a short inspirational drasha from the head of a local kiruv organisation, the gathering recited a couple of chapters of Tehillim, responsively, lead by a well-known local rav, leading into an emotional Avinu Malkeinu, which had half the women in tears.  Then there were selichos, 13 middos harachamim and the shemos, like we say at the end of Yom Kippur. 

As well as davenning, I was also watching the half of the crowd I could see from our side of the ladies’ gallery.  It was fascinating!  Many of the boys were davenning very fervently – screaming out the verses and swaying to and fro.  I wondered what an outsider would think – whilst I looked down fondly and thought how lovely it was that the children were davenning with such kavanah, to the uninitiated, they looked disturbed.  I’m pretty sure that this sort of religious frenzy was not  the sort of thing that the builders of the shul in the 1920s would have had in mind!

It was also interesting to watch the behaviour of the various rebbes and teachers who had accompanied the children.  One row of quite small chassidishe cheder boys had a teacher at each end, one of whom was reassuringly holding the hand of a very small boy who looked a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing.   A much loved rebbe, who is now teaching the children of his former pupils, was trembling as he said the shemos.  I felt very blessed to have someone with so much yiras Shamayim teaching our children.

Overall, it was a genuinely inspirational occasion, smoothly organised, and definitely one of the highlights of the yomtov season.

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Subject to change due to constraints of time!

Dessert gaps to be filled, depending on preferences of  dessert-making team.

We eat simanim for the starter on both nights:

Apples and honey

Dates, pomegranates, (gefilte) fish, fish head, carrots (grated carrot salad), beetroot (grated salad) cabbage (coleslaw), butternut squash kugel.

1^st night

Chicken soup

Chicken with honey and apples – something like this

Roast new potatoes

?Peas, ?Broccoli

Apple cake, Chocolate Mousse

1^st lunch

?Beef and barley soup

 Braised steak

 Mashed potato

 Sweet and sour red cabbage

2^nd night

 Vegetable soup

 Turkey roast – 1 white and 1 dark turkey roll, sliced before yomtov, so that they heat up quickly

 Roast pumpkin and rice salad

 Vibrant green beans

 Potatoes of some sort

 Apple crumble and honeycomb icecream

2^nd lunch

Middle-eastern feel – Moroccan carrots, courgette dip, aubergine salad

Loubia (black eyed beans) with lamb

Couscous, salad

Friday night

Gravlax with dill and mustard/honey sauce

Chicken soup

Chicken, potato kugel

Yerushalmi kugel

Red cabbage, green beans in tomato sauce

Shabbos lunch

Egg mayonnaise, cruditees

Cholent, salt beef (turkey if there is any left)

Salads

Cake, icecream 

Seuda shelishis

Not a lot of time for this, as there’s the Shabbos shuva drasha in shul, but we’ll probably manage either cake or challah and something

I’ve made honey challohs from Classic Kosher Cooking and brown challoh from Spice and Spirit, flavoured with garlic, herbs and onions.  Hat-tip to Rebbetzin Rabi who demonstrated how to get nice even “sausages” for plaiting or coiling, by rolling dough flat with rolling pin then rolling into sausage.  Also  her attractive tip to slash the sausage about half-way down, before coiling.

Wishing all readers a kesiva v’chasima tova – may you be inscribed for a wonderful, healthy and peaceful year!

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Yesterday I was privileged to attend a remarkable event.  Chana, the community’s infertility support organization, held its annual brunch in a local park.  About 400 women enjoyed a buffet lunch, with a fresh coffee bar, in a huge marquee. An incredibly brave woman spoke about her struggle to have children, bringing many of the audience to tears and one of the Chana staff made the appeal, giving a vivid description of the decisions which have to be made by the rabbinic leadership of Chana, who have to make the awful ( in the original “full of awe” sense)  choice, in the event that there are not enough funds, of which couples they should assist financially with treatments. 

The main speaker was Rabbi Shlomo Farhi, of Aish UK, whom I have never heard speak before.  He spoke extremely well, managing to combine Torah, emotion, humour and inspiration.  His theme was that God runs the entire world and how  important it is that we recognise that we have no control over any facet of our lives.  To illustrate this, he told the most amazing story:

Some years ago, when Rabbi and Mrs Farhi were newly married, they went to a family gathering on 4^th July at the home of his aunt and uncle.  They lived on the 30^th floor of an apartment block in Manhattan and the family enjoyed the wonderful fireworks exploding, literally, all around them.  When it was time to go home, they opened the door and saw that the whole block was trying to leave at the same time, so the young couple decided to stay for a while, while the rest of his family battled their way through the crowds and set off for home in the people carrier. 

An hour or so later, the Farhis left to go home.  As they were driving along, they saw the family people carrier ahead of them on the highway.  Rabbi Farhi was rather surprised that it had taken his father so long to get to this point on the journey, but pulled alongside him and hooted and waved to say hello.  His father hooted and waved back and they both continued their journeys home. 

The next morning, Rabbi Farhi met his father in shul and asked him, “Abba, how come it took you so long to get home last night?”  His father responded, “How do you know how long it took me?”

Rabbi Farhi was rather surprised and said, “Didn’t you recognise me when I pulled alongside you and waved?”

Hearing this, his father went completely white and said, “That was you??  I’d better tell you what happened:  Last night, on the way home, I felt myself dozing off at the wheel, when suddenly someone hooted and it woke me up.  I hooted back and waved to thank this person.”

At this point, Rabbi Farhi also went completely white, as he realised how short the time frame is between when a person dozes off at the wheel and when he loses control of the car.  He had had the merit of saving the lives of his parents and all his siblings!  The precision necessary for the two cars to coincide at just that moment is immense – an incredible example of Divine Providence.

Of course, as with all these stories there are undoubtedly counter stories in which bad things happen because a person “just happened” to be there at a particular instant, but this story sent a shiver down my spine and I thought it was worth sharing.

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Trying to get in an “Elul” frame of mind, I have had a few experiences in the last few days which have made an impact on me.

Yesterday, I had a meeting at which three people were writing down everything I said.  This is unusual for me, as usually I am the one doing the writing, but it was a powerful reminder of the mishna in Pirkei Avos (Ethics of the Fathers) which says:  “Contemplate three things, and you will not come to the hands of transgression: Know what is above from you: a seeing eye, a listening ear, and all your deeds being inscribed in a book.”

Earlier in the week, while dropping the children off at school, we encountered a Traffic Jam.  I’m writing it with capitals because it was like a scenario from the game.*  The school, as I have mentioned before is on the corner of a T-junction and the management enforce a one way system down the stem of the T at drop-off/pick-up times, for parents.  Of course, this does not apply to members of the public, although I suspect that neighbours either stay out of the way for those 20 minutes or also only go one way.  However, the other day, a large lorry was making its way up the road in the opposite direction, and causing a lot of congestion while doing so.  I let the children out of the car a short way from the corner, as did a lot of other parents, but we still had to get our cars out of the area.  One kind father who had walked his children to school took on the role of the player and tried to direct the traffic to enable the lorry to get out of the jam, while the security guard ensured that all the children reached the school safely.  It is always fascinating when these hold-ups occur to see how, while some people are prepared to wait, and let other vehicles through into gaps, other people always assume that the people in front don’t have a clue and are just sitting there randomly, so that the best thing to do is to jump the queue, block the space and cause more congestion.  While I was watching several people do this, it occurred to me that this is like an allegory for life.  We can’t see the bigger picture and realise that sometimes we might have to wait, or even reverse, to enable traffic to run smoothly. Instead, we jump forwards, taking advantage of spaces that should have remained empty and rather than experiencing a easy passage through a challenge, we end up in a worse situation than before.  

* Turns out I meant Rush Hour and Traffic Jam is an onlive version, which I'm not linking to!

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