The Journey

Posted on March 12, 2017 by Nicki

ZakBM

Six duffel bags lay waiting at the front door, most already zipped shut and sealed. Like six enthusiastic but well-behaved children, the slick gray canvas and blue trim of each shone quietly and excitedly, ready to go. One remained open, just in case. I spied a beloved stuffed animal squashed into a corner, and the sleeve of the raggedy t-shirt I told him not to pack peeked out from a pile of socks. That looked like way too many socks.

“Can I close this?” My husband was ready to go too. I knew he was anxious about transporting the six of us and all our luggage across the world. So was I. Not for the first time, I wondered if it was worth it.

The flight was long, 15 hours, and even though one of the best things to happen to the Bay Area is the now direct flight from San Francisco to Tel Aviv, it felt like we had embarked on an endless and strangely unknown journey. Suddenly I wasn’t at all sure we were doing the right thing.

We were en route to Israel to celebrate my son’s bar mitzvah. He had spent most Mondays over the past year preparing for this important day, learning how to sing his Torah portion and delving into its meaning with the rabbi. Like all bar mitzvah boys, he had worked hard at mastering the trop and understanding what it meant to reach this milestone, and I knew he was both excited and nervous.

As was I. From afar, we had planned what we hoped would be a special celebration at the Kotel in Jerusalem, but of course we had no idea if anything would work out as planned! What if we couldn’t find a Torah that morning? There are dozens of bar mitzvahs celebrated at the Kotel every Thursday, what if we couldn’t find a good spot? What if our friends and family couldn’t find us? And this winter was a particularly wet one in Israel – what if it rained?

As we dragged our bags along the wet sidewalk to the line of taxis at Ben Gurion Airport, I fleetingly wondered if perhaps we should’ve done this at home in California…

The sky that morning was bright and blue, and the absence of clouds meant that the air was cold and brisk. I shivered in my jacket and my cousin wrapped her scarf around my neck. We stood together and watched the bar mitzvah boy recite the blessing before reading the Torah. His father and grandfather stood proudly on either side of him, as if to guide him along this spiritual journey, and uncles, cousins and friends surrounded him in a circle of warmth and love. The fringes of his tallit (prayer shawl) waved gently in the wind, and behind him the Western Wall rose large and impressive, as it has for thousands of years – an enduring testament to our customs, traditions and beliefs.

I tore my eyes away from my boy for a few minutes, and watched the celebrations happening around us. I counted at least five bar mitzvahs near us, and a large group of young girls danced in a circle close to the wall. I spied a chuppah procession slowly making its way along the plaza above us. Tears, laughter, and jubilant cries of “Mazal tov” filled the cool air, and through the noise I heard my son’s now low voice singing the end of his Torah portion.

“Mazal tov!” we clapped and yelled as we showered him with candy and wishes of love and happiness. My mother and sister kissed me, aunts and cousins hugged me, and complete strangers joined our festivities and wished us and our man of honor well. Holding the Torah firmly in his arms, my son looked up at me, his brown eyes shining in the bright, winter sun. He stood there below the Kotel, handsome and proud, now a Jewish man part of a great, worldwide Jewish community.

The journey from the East Bay to Jerusalem and back again is a long one. As we trudged up the stairs to our front door, lugging bags filled with Wissotzky tea, Israeli za’atar and halva from the Carmel market, I remembered my apprehension at the beginning of our trip. How I had worried about the weather and the flight and what had we forgotten and what if everything didn’t go according to plan?

What I hadn’t planned was the tremendous connection we all felt as we stood at the Kotel on that cold, sunny Thursday: connection to each other, to our history, to the land of our people, and to all the hundreds and thousands of Jewish people celebrating bar and bat mitzvahs, weddings, togetherness, not only at the Kotel on that day but every day around the world. More than worth it.

A version of this essay first appeared on J. The Jewish News of Northern California.

This is a Finish the Sentence Friday post, where writers and bloggers gather together to share their versions of a completed sentence. This week’s prompt is “The places I belong are…” Hosted by the wonderful Kristi of Finding Ninee and co-hosted by Hillary Savoie of http://hillarysavoie.com/.

More Than A Smudge Of Flour

Posted on March 27, 2015 by Nicki

Her robe was fuzzy and peach in color. It reached all the way down to her ankles, and the long sleeves sat just above her wrists. She would fasten the pearly buttons haphazardly, missing a few here and there, and it always sat slightly skew on her shoulders. With her curly, brown hair still unbrushed, her glasses slipping down her nose, and her feet wrapped in her favorite slippers she looked like a nutty professor who’d just this minute leapt out of bed.

It took a few presses of the doorbell before she answered.

“Hi Gran! Where were you?” Our voices were loud and happy with afterschool relief and love for our Gran, as our eyes took in the well-worn and familiar peach robe. There was a smudge of flour on her cheek.

“Sorry my darlings, I didn’t hear the bell above the noise of the mixer. I’m baking biscuits.”

Always. She was always baking something. Biscuits. Ginger cake. Her famous bulkes (Jewish cinnamon buns). Or trying a new challah recipe.

For the first 24 years of my life, we spent every Shabbat dinner with my Gran and extended family, in a weekly rotation between our house, my cousins’ and my grandmother’s. Those were wonderful family gatherings of gatherings and tradition, laughter, stories, jokes and ~~arguments~~ heated discussions. And yummy food.

My mother’s chopped liver. Gran’s fried fish balls. My aunt’s youngberry tart. Specific dishes of wistful deliciousness that taste of nostalgia every time I try to replicate them.

Sometimes my Gran made challah when she hosted Shabbat dinner. She didn’t have a signature recipe but no matter which one she used (and most of the time I think she did her own thing, she wasn’t one to follow measurements and instructions) her challah was always fabulous. Sweet but not too sweet. Yeasty and cake-like and braided to perfection. Always a treat to have homemade challah, made with love and what I now know to be a lot of effort, on Shabbat.

***

This morning I wake up extra early, hoping to get into the kitchen and prepare the challah dough for its first rise before the kids and their breakfast clutter the counter. But one son is already toasting his waffles and I can hear his siblings not far behind.

With my gray robe belted tight against the chilly morning fog, I set the tin of flour on the counter. Running out of time. Why am I doing this? The kosher bakery down the street sells great challah, perfectly braided and baked and all I’d have to negotiate is a parking space.

Instead I am navigating four hungry and bickering children, boxes of cereal, spilled milk, and countless reminders from me to “Hurry up” in between the multiple cups of flour I had long ago lost track of for my homemade challah. Why indeed?

“Are you making challah, Mom?” one surprisingly observant child asks. “Yep,” I mutter, trying to remember if I’ve mixed in four or five cups by now because six cups will definitely be too many but four cups is undoubtedly not enough.

The dough is too sticky and it clings to the mixing bowl, the counter top and my fingers as I try to move it into a bigger bowl with room to grow. What a mess.

I look up at him for a brief second, and catch his smile as I say yes. He loves warm, fragrant homemade challah. Suddenly I am happy to be making it. It’s messy and inconvenient and I always make it when I’m in a rush and too busy to give it the time and attention it deserves.

But as chaotic as these mornings are in the kitchen before he leaves for school, perhaps his future self will remember his mom making challah in her robe on foggy Friday mornings. Perhaps he’ll longingly taste these Shabbat memories when he blesses the challah in years to come. Or maybe he’ll ask me to email him my recipe so he can make it himself.

I will never be sure if it’s four or five cups of flour.

The dough is finally ready to rise and I leave it sitting in the bowl, covered with a damp dishtowel for protection.

I glance in the mirror on my way up the stairs.

And notice the smudge of flour on my cheek.

This is a Finish the Sentence Friday post, inspired by the prompt, “The chore I hate doing the most is…” Hosted by Kristi from Finding Ninee, Michelle (this week’s sentence thinker upper) from Crumpets and Bollocks and Jill from Ripped Jeans and Bifocals. Baking challah is obviously not the chore I hate doing the most (actually it’s not a chore at all, it’s a pleasure)… but it is the messiest!

What the Gruesome Images from the Jerusalem Terror Attack Taught Me About Hope

Posted on November 19, 2014 by Nicki

bottom image source: The Jerusalem Post

The images are gruesome. Heartwrenching. So much blood. I don’t want to see. And for a while I don’t. Not really. I scroll quickly from one post to the next. Four killed in terror attack. Har Nof. Rabbis. Synagogue. Even as my heart is rushing and the tears are falling, my fingers slow down. To read. And to see. To really see.

A blood-soaked tallit (prayer shawl) crouches in crumpled horror. The red-splattered bookshelves stand feebly by. They are a quiet, ueseless protection to the forever stained siddurim (prayer books) they hold. Kehillat Bnei Torah Synagogue is a bloodbath.

“No. No. Nonononono,” I whisper, now unable to stop the onslaught of image after horrific image.

It’s the one of the bloodied tefillin-wrapped arm that stops me cold. His lifeless hand is curled around the ends of his tefillin, and his tallit is blemished with the hatred of others. Whose arm is it?

Reflections on Fall and Rosh Hashana

Posted on September 30, 2014 by Nicki

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. For me. Possibly my favorite time. Sweet wishes and loud kisses. Crisp sweet apples, sticky honey and rosy pomegranates full of hope and promise.

I grew up in a place where the sweet anticipation of the Jewish new year – Rosh Hashana – made sense in nature. September is spring in the southern hemisphere, where the earlier-rising sun, fragrant jasmine, fresh-cut grass and tentatively tweeting birds color the day’s gentle breezes with renewal, rebirth and hope.

We dipped round apples into amber honey, prayed and wished for a sweet year, tasted the first bright yellow peaches, and the soft smells and colors and sounds of spring were warm and obvious reminders of life and creation. Rosh Hashana (literally translated as Head of the Year): the birthday of the world.

But here above the equator, the days are imperceptibly shorter. The birds have flown, the grass is too long and the light is low. Vibrant pink and green give way to gentle gold and brown. It’s fall.

Summer is fading, winter is coming… and still, it’s my most favorite time of the year. The promise of creation is everywhere. It’s Rosh Hashana.

The moon, the first of this new Jewish year, is a thinly curved sliver hanging low in an inky sky. Breathtakingly simple. Quiet and bright. Trees are fiercely ablaze in orange, deep red and yellow. There’s been little to no rain all year, no drop in California’s sunny temperature for hundreds of days, but the green leaves still yield to the changing light, the traveling sun and, as the earth turns, those beautiful fiery branches ignite hope.

My love of the fall has surprised and delighted me. I am a sun-loving girl raised way down south, where my favorite time of year was always Rosh Hashana in the scented, hopeful spring.

But, as summer slowly fades into fall here, I feel compelled to reflect on a year both euphoric and difficult, a year of war and of celebration, a year of illness and loss and also one of life and encouragement. I feel inspired now, when I am eating orange persimmons instead of peaches, to celebrate creation even as nature is preparing to hibernate, to wish for a sweet new year of bright light and promise as the night falls earlier and quicker.

It’s the birthday of the world. And birthdays are for celebrating. For wishing. For hoping. For reflecting, and re-evaluating. Spring in the south and fall up north, birthdays carry the promise of life. Possibly of love and smiles and thoughtfully good intention.

My favorite time of year. Time for pumpkins and pomegranates and apples dipped in honey.

And also, fall is definitely time for red boots.

This post was inspired by my friend Michelle T’s beautiful insight on Creation. Thank you Michelle for your wisdom (and for encouraging me to think and not just eat my way through the holiday!).

Wocka Wocka!

Posted on April 26, 2014 by Nicki

I don’t know what “Wocka Wocka” means. It’s what the muppets’ Fozzie Bear says after he cracks a joke – he considers himself something of a stand-up comic, so he cracks a lot of jokes. And then says, “Wocka wocka wocka!” I adore the muppets, but I feel more of a kinship with Miss Piggy than with Fozzie and his creative chortling.

But Wocka Wocka! starts with a W. And today is W in the A to Z Challenge (three more left, but who’s counting…). And today is our Wedding anniversary. And we were married at Wingate Park Country Club, in Pretoria, South Africa. So it seemed to be meaningful that today was a W day, despite the lack of meaning in Fozzie’s mirth.

Sixteen years married. The sun beat down so unseasonably fiercely on the golf course at Wingate that fall Sunday, our guests took cover under bright red umbrellas emblazoned with “Dunhill Tobacco Company Ltd.” Dunhill probably did not intend its umbrellas be used to shield the revelers from the South African midday sun at a small wedding, but thank goodness for that rosy shade! If not for them we might have had to share our chuppah (wedding canopy).

Pretoria April 26, 1998

Those first few anniversaries we celebrated with such earnest, so deliberately – cards and gifts to each other, phone calls and emails from around the world, a romantic dinner at a special restaurant. A day, this day, to celebrate each other, the moment he smashed the glass under the chuppah, the exuberant Mazal Tovs resounding in our ears for years.

As our union steadily and not-so-slowly expanded from two to six, the day itself waned in importance. We still exchanged cards – maybe a gift on the odd year, but his birthday is three weeks before and mine is two weeks after, so to add more wrapping paper to the pile seemed ridiculous and unnecessary. With one, two, three and then four kids around, there was less time and space to feel uniquely special and celebrated in our duo. “Happy anniversary,” at 6.47am, a meaningful but hastily scrawled funny card, a quick kiss. Probably dinner out, but not too late, and a rush to meet him in San Francisco, or pick him up from the train station in the rain, to make the reservation on time, stay interesting and interested and don’t yawn!

Sixteen years today. It’s a pretty long time. Driving age. We didn’t exchange cards. Neither of us has had the bandwidth to plan ahead. It wasn’t a mutual decision not to do cards – in fact, I realized it right now. I didn’t get him a card, and he didn’t get me one. I’m vaguely relieved we are equally oblivious – if he had given me a card with no reciprocity, I would’ve looked terribly inconsiderate and felt, quite frankly, like an asshole.

And we are going out this evening, but to celebrate our friend’s birthday, not our anniversary. Maybe our eyes will meet and we’ll quietly raise a glass to each other for a second. Or not.

Before either of us had the chance to utter “Happy anniversary” this morning, the kids were asking to watch TV, and what are we doing today, and can I go in the hot tub and and and. “It’s our anniversary,” Ryan said to more than one of them. “Oh,” he, he and she replied. The oldest was nowhere to be seen. “Can we watch TV?”

We looked at each other. I rolled over. Pulled the covers on top of my head. When I surfaced again the littlest two were stumbling into our bedroom with a tray: four slices of dry toast, and a bowl of strawberries they found in the fridge. And two freshly-picked flowers adorning their breakfast-in-bed bounty.

“Happy Anniversary!” they giggled.

It’s not really about the day we got married in 1998. That was a wonderful day. A wonderful day for a wedding and a wonderful wedding of love and celebration. And we love to remember that day and those red Dunhill umbrellas, and “Staying Alive” on the dance floor, and that crazy hora chair-thing they do at Jewish weddings, and Ryan’s cousin broke his foot, and my aunt usurped the microphone and serenaded us all at the end.

It’s more about everything that happens from one April 26 to the next.