Judy Gruen's Mirth & Meaning Blog

Author Archives: Judy Gruen

News and Notes

I write this just two days before the holiday of Passover — a holiday incomparably rich with spiritual depth and meaning. It has always been striking to me that even Jews who have become distant from observing most other holidays or the Sabbath, participate eagerly in a Passover seder. There is something so momentous in the historical sweep of the narrative, so much to consider and review about God’s personal intervention in the Jewish exodus from slavery to peoplehood, that it’s no wonder this holiday has such staying power.

For those of you who celebrate Passover, I wish you a meaningful and inspiring experience!

New articles
Speaking of Passover, here is a column I wrote titled Invite These Five Women to Your Seder, about the women who were instrumental in the Exodus story.

I will also have an essay in the Jewish Journal titled “The Atheist at the Seder,” which should be online by March 29. If you’ve read my memoir, The Skeptic and the Rabbi, you will recognize the story and, I hope, will appreciate the message!

Unrelated to Passover, I also have a review of a new movie called A Bag of Marbles, about the extraordinary experience of two French brothers during the Holocaust and how they survived. It is in French with English subtitles, and is currently in theaters in L.A. and New York, with a continued rollout to other cities in coming weeks.

Books I’ve Recently Enjoyed
I find myself returning to favorite reads now and then, including Sense and Sensibility (followed, of course, by the excellent 1995 film adaptation) and Edith Wharton’s short story collection Roman Fever. I also just finished The House at Tyneford and We Were the Lucky Ones, both of which are World War II-period novels, both very well done. For Passover reading, I bought a Hagaddah with brilliant and deep insightful commentary by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson.

Ebook sale!
Have you been meaning to download a copy of The Skeptic and the Rabbi, but haven’t gotten around to it yet? Don’t wait any longer! Now through April 14, the ebook versions on Kindle, Nook and Kobo are only .99!

Latest reviews of The Skeptic and the Rabbi
“Honesty shines throughout the book, as Gruen refuses to sugarcoat her narrative. The memoir is a terrific read for anyone curious about the Torah lifestyle,” wrote Leah Aharoni in her review of my book in the current issue of Jewish Action Magazine.
I am so pleased and proud to have this new review, as well as one by the Association of Jewish Librarians. From their review: “A thoughtful guide for people―young and old, individuals and couples―seeking greater connection and meaning in Judaism. Recommended for synagogue libraries.”

Ready for Spring

After a long winter, I am heartened to see the first buds on one of my favorite trees in my backyard — you’d think I would know the name of it if it’s my favorite, but I do not. The pink buds will slowly open into lovely heart-shaped green leaves, and our lemon tree is sprouting new fruits every day, which I look forward to picking and using in my tea and in my cooking.

I am still — still! — not back to my full energy. My malaise has been slightly mysterious, and I have dosed up on Chinese herbs, supplements, rest, acupuncture, chiropractic sessions, and contemplation. Maybe I did that in the wrong order! All are working, but too slowly for my impatient self. One lesson I know I have to learn is to just accept what is happening and have faith that God will allow me to regain my full strength as He renews and restores the bloom on trees and plants for spring.

Wishing you all good health, happiness and the pleasures of spring!

News and Notes from Judy

Baby Love

Dear Readers,

This season has brought joy and blessing to our family. Our fourth grandchild, our second grandson, was born January 14, at a strapping 9 pounds, 2 ounces. His name is Reuven Yitzchak (Robert Issac), carrying the name of both his great-grandfathers.

We feel enormously blessed to have children who are bringing in a new generation to the world. So many people are not making parenthood a priority; and I hope they will change their minds for all the right reasons! We are especially fortunate that our grandchildren live nearby, filling our lives with joy, trips to the park, and yes, sometimes sprained shoulders or sore backs from too much lifting of little people topping 30 or 40 pounds!

This was also the third time I had the privilege of attending a grandchild’s birth. It is dramatic and awesome to witness it. What a miracle!

New columns, reviews, and other professional news

Professionally I have also been busy. My recent columns on Aish.com include my observations after my first experience knowing someone who chose physician-assisted suicide — something that affected me very powerfully. Other columns focused on Harvey Weinstein and the “Me-Too” phenomenon, a promising twist in the world of fashion, and more. You can check out my whole line up of stories on this wonderful website here.

I also taught my first Zoom-based seminar on the mechanics of persuasive writing to a group of women writers around the world. It was so satisfying to teach what I have learned over the course of so many years, and I look forward to more such opportunities.

My new book, The Skeptic and the Rabbi: Falling in Love with Faith, has earned a growing number of glowing reviews, and was chosen as the book review of the month in December on Story Circle Network.

Reviewer Susan Hanson wrote: “While offering the reader a greater understanding of Orthodox practices, Gruen’s memoir can speak to a person of any faith–or even none. Indeed, the experience she describes could easily belong to a young Muslim woman who chooses to wear the hijab in defiance of her family, or a Christian who forgoes a lucrative career to work with the poor. At heart, this is a book about finding and claiming one’s identity, about authentic choices, about embracing tradition out of love and not duty.”

 

In addition to appearing on a number of radio programs and podcasts, writer Kylie Lobell did a nice profile of me in the Jewish Journal.

I am so pleased by the enthusiastic reception to my book. If you don’t have a copy yet, don’t wait any longer! Please consider making your purchase from Barnes & Noble, which has  generously stocked the book in many stores and of course also online.  Reviews are especially appreciated on both Barnes & Noble and Amazon, by the way.

Are you a member of a book club? If so, The Skeptic and the Rabbi has a terrific readers’ guide, and I am happily bookable for Skype- or Zoom-based book club events!

The Flu Blues

This has also truly been “the winter of our discontent,” with virulent flu viruses causing mayhem and misery for millions of people. I have been among those hit hard, and still trying to recover my full strength after being walloped very suddenly on December 10 — a night that will live in infamy for me. It came over me minutes after Jeff and I were seated in the balcony section of a concert hall and enjoying the Concerto Number 3 in G Major of the full set of Brandenburg Concertos, played by the wonderful Los Angeles County Chamber Orchestra. We had to leave before the first movement finished, presto! I hope I will be fully energetic again soon, and I hope all of YOU are well and stay that way!

With warm wishes for a healthy rest of the winter,

Judy

Leashless in Los Angeles — a Fond Farewell to Our Family Dog

Dear Readers,

The past few months have been jam-packed with excitement for my family and me. Joyously, we celebrated the marriage of one of our sons to a wonderful young woman in Baltimore; my book, The Skeptic and the Rabbi: Falling in Love with Faith, is now published and getting rave reviews from readers and reviewers; Barnes & Noble is promoting my memoir on special in-store displays in many stores nationwide, and my book launch event at The Community Shul, my synagogue in Los Angeles, drew a nearly full house. After publishing three previous books that have not received anywhere near this kind of reception, I am hugely grateful! Now I am trying to focus on the upcoming High Holidays, with Rosh Hashana just a few days away, and thinking about the biggest issues of life — what am I doing with my life, and am I fulfilling the job that the Almighty set out for me? I am looking forward to this reflective, and to me, ultimately joyful time.

Here’s a new essay titled Why Choosing a Torah Life Was the Hardest Thing I Ever Did, my first piece for Forward.com and one that explains why I wrote my memoir in the first place. This esssay is generating a lot of positive discussion on social media, which is a good thing.

Aside from all the exciting news, though, our family also bid a sad goodbye a few months ago to Ken, our beagle-lab who had just turned 15. He was a wonderful family dog, cute, funny, troublesome, and lovable. This column about him first appeared on Aish.com with a different title and is reprinted here with permission.

Ken believed that frequent rest periods helped him stay fit for leaping onto the kitchen table to steal snacks.

No sooner had my daughter posted the news of Ken’s passing than the condolence comments and crying emojis poured online. Friends and relatives called to express their sympathy. A neighbor hugged me in the supermarket, tearful, saying how much she would miss him.

But at the equivalent of 105 in human years, our dog’s time had come. Mischievous to the end, our beagle-lab mix had made a final, illicit foray into the kitchen garbage for meat scraps, which were fatally entwined with bits of aluminum foil. It did him in.
We adopted him when he was a year old, quelling demands for a dog from our ten-year-old son. Ken was charming but socially needy – a beagle trait I discovered when I came home to see that he had dealt with his anxiety over my absence from home by chewing through the arm of the living room couch, topping it off with an underwear chaser. Over the years we tried various gambits to keep both Ken and our furniture secure. Suffice to say that Ken’s lack of a dog whisperer prompted frequent redecorating.

Since I worked from home, every day was “take your dog to work day,” which both Ken and I found highly satisfying. Despite being only 30 pounds, he made me feel safe. His job was to protect home and hearth, and until his hearing started to go last year, no stranger approached without Ken woofing a shrill warning.

Ken lived in an era where dogs had become the new kids. I rolled my eyes when I dropped him at the groomer and heard her say, “Don’t worry, sweetie. Mommy will be back soon.” With four kids of my own, I was pretty clear that I was not Ken’s “Mommy.” I laughed at seeing sweater-clad dogs in strollers, advertisements for doggy day camp, doggy spas, holistic vet care, and doggy boutiques. Yet there was something poignant in them, too. As the childless and single population keeps rising steadily, pampering pooches offers a way for people to express their human yearning to nurture and to love. (I wonder if dressing dogs like children and treating them like four-legged celebrities explains another modern trend: doggy therapy.)

I admit that I wasn’t totally immune from the impact of this zeitgeist. I was relieved when the staff at The Loved Dog emailed a picture and reported that Ken was “socializing well” with other dogs while we were out of town. And I bought a raincoat for him because he so detested being out in the rain. The London Fog-style gear made him look like a doggy detective, his slim rawhide bone jutting out like a cigarette at a rakish angle.

Most Orthodox families don’t have dogs – having to take care of six or eight kids is more than enough responsibility, thank you very much. So when we welcomed guests who were trying out a traditional Shabbat experience, Ken’s warm greeting made our family seem more relatable and familiar. Our sleepover guests were also forgiving, or at least pretended to be, when Ken trotted into the dining room with the remains of a cinnamon Danish or box of Milk Duds in his mouth he had filched from their unzipped luggage.

“My wife would have killed me if she knew I was eating those again,” mumbled one abashed diner at our table.

I miss that old dog. I am still startled when he doesn’t greet me at the door. It feels wasteful scraping leftovers into the garbage instead of into his bowl. He made us laugh with his doggy antics and he had an uncanny sense when something was wrong. When I lay in bed with one of my frequent migraines, he lay next to me protectively, baring his teeth if anyone tried to move him from the bed, even my husband.
In Hebrew, the word for dog is kelev, which means “like a heart.” Anyone who has loved a dog can relate to how true this is.

A few days after we said goodbye to Ken, I asked one of my sons, “Do you think I’d be crazy to get another dog?” I was already gazing longingly at dogs on parade with their “human companions” in the neighborhood.

Before he could answer, his four-year-old daughter, witness to many of Ken’s messy antics, marched over and warned, “Don’t get another dog, Nana. Dogs are TROUBLE.”

We’ll see.

News and Notes from Judy

Dear Readers,

It’s not exactly news that I have been sending out far fewer columns of late. I’ve struggled with this decision because I love staying in close contact with my readers, and appreciate so much the emails I receive afterward. I miss that. But I also needed to stay tightly focused on finishing my next book, The Skeptic and the Rabbi: Falling in Love with Faith, which will be published in a mere four weeks! I am very excited about this major milestone in my writing career, and hope you will like it, review it online, You can download an excerpt from it from the link above.

Many of you have already pre-ordered the book, and I thank you for that! For those who have not, please consider ordering from a “real” bookstore, the kind you have to drive or walk to. Yes, online sales and Amazon rankings are important, but lets support bricks-and-mortar bookstores so that we do not lose them altogether. Also, indie bookstores are extremely supportive of the authors of She Writes Press, my publisher, and it’s only right to support them in return. Not sure where the closest indie-owned bookstore is near you? Find one through IndieBound.org. Yes, my book will be distributed in Canada as well, and an e-version will be available in a few weeks.

 

L.A. Book Launch Party — September 10!

If you are in the Los Angeles area, I’d love to see you at my book launch party at The Community Shul on September 10, 8 p.m. You can buy books there, and I’ll be talking about the book as well as reading a few excerpts. Book signing and refreshments to follow!

If you hop over to my website, you will see some other changes as well, including a link to where I’ve had other recent articles, such as in The Chicago Tribune and Aish.com. I’ve also begun ghostwriting and book editing and enjoying working with my clients very much. If you have a writing project that requires guidance and an expert editorial eye and sharp writing, please contact me.

 

Catch up on my book reviews on Goodreads

Just a reminder that I am adding new book reviews on my Goodreads page frequently. Recent favorite reads have been “A Man Called Ove,” “Britt-Marie Was Here,” and “The Color of Water.”  And I hope you are a member of Goodreads, because I will be offering a second giveaway for my book that will begin August 23 and run through September 2.

Yes, a new column is here, too

Last week I couldn’t resist weighing in on the micro-tenure of Anthony Scarmucci as Communications Director in the Trump administration, and what it might say about our society’s potty-mouth tendencies.

This column appeared in the Jewish Journal. I hope you’ll add your own comments on the paper’s website and share it on your social media networks.

Anthony Scaramucci’s Profanities – and Ours

The ouster of trash-talking Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci from the Trump White House reinforces one of my strongest beliefs, which is that foul language is still foul.

Scaramucci’s 11-day tenure may have set a welcome record for the fastest in, fastest out of a supremely unqualified White House staffer. His tirade against chief of staff Reince Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon, during an interview with Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker, contained enough expletives to blow up a Trump Tower, and was published last Thursday on the magazine’s website with no tidying up of the expletives.

I imagine that aside from his NC-17 language, Scaramucci would still have been kicked out after the interview broke. He revealed himself as a man of incredibly poor judgment and an almost maniacal meanness. This guy was going to be a Communications Director? Wow, just wow.

Still, let’s face it: expletives in everyday talk have become epidemic. The definition of vulgarity has been defined increasingly down. I hope that the egregiousness of the Scaramucci episode might be a wake-up call that language still matters.

Admittedly, I’ve always been sensitive to harsh language, even though I grew up in a home where the worst expletive ever uttered – and that only in extremis, such as when the UCLA Bruins had just fumbled the ball at the ten-yard-line in the fourth quarter – now barely rates an ellipsis after the first letter in print. I already miss those fast-disappearing ellipses, which now appear as almost quaint.

When I first wrote about the topic of profanity about a dozen years ago, offering tip sheets to parents and teachers to help prevent or discourage swearing among kids, the studies I found about the impact on profanity almost uniformly agreed: the more people swore, the more they became desensitized to the inherent anger in those words, and the angrier they became as people. People who swore without restraint were usually seen by others as less intelligent, disciplined, and unhappier than their cleaner-talking friends and neighbors. Revisiting this topic just last week, I discovered that newer studies dismiss profanity’s desensitizing impact. Instead, researchers pat profanity-users on the head. Swearing is just cathartic, they say. It feels good, and is therefore good for you.

There’s a time and a place for profanity. I like the old-fashioned times and places: the battlefield, the moment when you accidentally drop a heavy book on your foot, and “Ouch!” just won’t cut it. Those days are gone, but everyone knows that language counts, it’s just that we’ve become oddly selective about what words and phrases cause outrage. On college campuses, you can hardly say the word “white” or “American” or “rape” without mass fainting spells and demands for punishment for the speaker. Racial epithets, which are terrible and dehumanizing, are still somehow okay if used by someone of the same race. But we are also euphemism-happy, calling a used car “pre-owned” and referring to a job firing as a “department realignment.” That politician didn’t lie, she “misspoke.” And on and on.

The free-flying and promiscuous use of foul language – as verbs, nouns, adjectives, as anything and therefore as nothing – is only making our uncivil society less civil than ever. And our kids are listening, copying our actions and our words. Do we really want to live in a society where everyone is swearing all the time? If we do, what words will we have left to express true outrage, anger, fear or frustration? They’ve all been used up, empty and yet coarse at the same time.

How ironic that we are increasingly careful about what we put into our mouths, fearful of GMOs, pesticides, additives, and food dyes, but heedless of the words we are spraying like verbal toxins into the atmosphere? If we are what we eat, aren’t we also what we speak?

Judaism recognizes this truth. The laws of lashon hara, literally “bad speech,” are vast and intricate. They cover everything from implied insults to name-calling and certainly any outright profane language. The laws are so sweeping because it’s our speech that makes us human, and our words can hurt, or our words can heal.

Isn’t it time to rethink our promiscuous use of profanity?

Hat’s Off to My Wonderful Husband on Father’s Day

As Father’s Day approached this year, I had no fear. Unlike many years, when I had no clue what I could give my gift-averse husband, I thought I had the gift thing in the bag. This was no easy trick. Longtime readers will be familiar with the occasional column in which I work out my frustration at buying clothing for my husband, only to have to return the shirt/jacket/pants because the man insisted that “he didn’t need it” or found it not quite to his taste. I suppose it’s very nice to have such an unmaterialistic husband, one who sees the good in everyone and even in every item in his closet. This has forced me to point out frayed collars and shirts that have grown as sheer as flimsy gauze after thousands of washings.

Do you have any idea what sort of Herculean self-control it took for me not to chortle out loud and spit my seltzer across the room when my husband called to report that he had split his pants bending over at a job site? He had not outgrown the pants, but the pants had announced their retirement at an inopportune moment. I value my marriage too much to have said, “Serves you right!” but don’t think I wasn’t tempted. So what did he do? He untucked his shirt to cover up and kept working. Though frankly, I’m surprised that no one asked him where he bought the pants. Few things are more trendy today than brand new clothes that look like they’ve been through the shredder. They cost twice what clothes that are still materially intact cost. We are too old-fashioned to think giant air vents in our clothing are going to be a flattering look for either of us.

But it wasn’t pants I had in my sights; it was a hat. Jeff’s daily hat of choice, a once-elegant topper he got from a customer long ago, also had signs of terminal wear and tear. Voila! I ran out and bought him a new hat, saving it for Father’s Day. But two weeks before the big day, I couldn’t stand it any longer. Unable to contain my excitement, and wanting to lift his spirits after a terribly aggravating day at work, I presented him with the box. Even I had to admit the fit of the hat was a bit off. He promised me that on Father’s Day we’d exchange it at the hat store.

And then, the man who can’t stand shopping has the chutzpah to text me a photo of himself — Friday before Father’s Day — wearing a big smile and a new hat. He boasted that he bought not one, but two new hats at an outdoor kiosk. “Now we don’t have to go shopping!” he said, like that was a good thing.

My husband after an unexpected moment of retail therapy. My gift plans are foiled again!

Well, he may be hard to buy for (except books, so thank goodness for that!) but I salute my husband as one fantastic husband and father. In today’s world, where we read and hear of so many stories about absent fathers, uncaring fathers, fathers who walk out on their families, my husband is the old-fashioned kind of man, in the very best sense of the phrase. He is unstintingly dedicated, loving, patient, and hard-working. He has taught the kids through example that building a successful marriage, putting God and family before yourself, commitment to spiritual growth, and of course, relaxing with music and a glass of fine wine, are all keys to a happy and meaningful life. He’s taught them wise aphorisms such as “Work before play,” “Let’s keep the main thing, the main thing,” “Ask the Almighty to help give you clarity,” “Remember that we have so much more in common than what may divide us,” and, my personal favorite, “We’ll do whatever Mom says.”

So honey, this column’s for you. I forgive you for making me return yet another present. I guess we’ll fire up the grill, put some beers in the fridge, and have a barbeque.

Happy Father’s Day!

 

My book is almost here!
My book is almost here!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey, look what’s coming soon! Enter the giveaway on Goodreads to win a signed copy (Giveaway ends July 1). Pre-order now! Publication date is September 5.

“This marvelous book should connect with the widest possible readership – ferociously religious or fervently secular; Jewish, Christian or humanist; baby boomer, Gen X’er or millennial . . . Judy’s relationship with Judaism comes across as a serious romance, but one that raises as many new life questions as it settles. The call to ‘rules, rituals and restraint’ that she associates with Rabbi Daniel Lapin, her teacher (and mine), don’t bring an end to thinking and choosing but provide a means to think more deeply and choose more richly.”  — Michael Medved, author of The American Miracle: Divine Providence in the Rise of the Republic

“Judy Gruen writes with down-to-earth warmth and humor about her personal spiritual journey. As she navigates family, friendship, love, loss, parenting, and community, you will root for her like you would cheer on a new best friend―someone who you just know somehow cares for and understands you, too.”  —Lori Palatnik, founding director of the Jewish Women’s Renaissance Project

“Judy Gruen shares a message of sanity so vital today: you can be spiritual, sane and yourself in the modern world. She writes with delightful humor and depth about her unexpected path to a life of Jewish commitment.” — Rabbi David Aaron, author of The God-Powered Life

— Michael Medved, author of The American Miracle: Divine Providence in the Rise of the Republic

My Friend’s Amazing Recovery from Stage 4 Cancer

I was devastated when I learned that my dear friend Esther Chana had stage 4 ovarian cancer. She is one of my favorite people in the world, and I am in very good company; her fan club overflows with people from our community.

Whether in person, over the phone or even via email, you can feel Esther Chana’s full attention, caring, wisdom, humor and love focused on you. She is a therapist, and her psychological insights are so astute they are uncanny. Some years ago I confided a deeply troubling problem to her and we discussed it from time to time. She offered an utterly life-changing insight about my situation that no one whom I had taken into my confidence had thought of.

On her refrigerator she has a magnet that says, “As a matter of fact, I AM a rocket scientist!” because she did that too, before becoming a therapist.

When I first heard her news, I was angry at God. Hadn’t Esther Chana and her husband, Avraham, been through enough? Their trials were ongoing, sometimes numbing in their frequency. For years she had lived with chronic pain, the result of a serious car accident and the corrective surgeries that had left her with painful internal scar tissue. During the financial downturn beginning in 2009, her therapy practice was cut in half, and Avraham lost his job as well, entering a lengthy dry spell before he found adequate work again. Her aging parents had chronic health problems, and Esther Chana logged many hours with them in the emergency room. A few months before her diagnosis, they were flooded out of their apartment for many months.

And far worse than all of those things put together, Esther Chana had lost her only child, Avital, when the toddler was less than two years old.

“No, not Esther Chana!” I cried out. “God, You give her test after test and she never complains. Who survives stage 4 ovarian cancer? She doesn’t deserve this! It’s not fair!”

Because Esther Chana was part of the lifeblood of our community – hosting Shavuot-night learning in her home, keeping an open house most Shabbat afternoons for the singles who flock to her for friendship, dating advice and even matchmaking suggestions (she has made four successful matches so far), and hosting holiday meals for up to 30 at a time – the women in our community instantly rose to help with anything and everything needed.

Team Stryker Is Born

Perel Dena gave Esther Chana weekly massages to help with her muscle pain. For an entire year, Ellie cooked macrobiotic and organic meals for Shabbat and holidays. Sharon designed tee-shirts, shopping bags and mugs that read “TEAM STRYKER” for all of “the troops.” Avraham suggested the name after the Stryker armored combat tank used by the U.S. military. Stryker was also the brand name of the hospital bed where Esther Chana lay during her stays at the hospital. On the logo that Sharon designed, right above the tank were the last lines of Psalms 20, which is recited in times of distress.

Karin, another Team Stryker member, discovered a little article about ovarian cancer research in a magazine at a gym she had gone to on a whim. The information in that article led Esther Chana’s doctors to change her diagnosis from ovarian cancer to an undetermined type of cancer — still stage 4. The new type of cancer was even more aggressive than ovarian cancer, but thought to be more responsive to treatment.

Esther Chana and her husband are close with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg, and at Avraham’s request, Rabbi Weinberg convened a gathering for her friends, teaching us how to pray for a recovery. During the gathering, Rabbi Weinberg, who also has endured multiple, life-threatening medical challenges, asked us all to say why we felt we could not imagine life without Esther Chana. To my surprise, he suggested that we boldly “demand” that God heal her. Shmuel, a single man in his early 30’s who had converted to Judaism, offered, “Esther Chana and Avraham are my ‘Jewish parents,’ and I am counting on both of them to walk me down the aisle when I get married one day,” he said. This was one of the most powerful moments for me.

The surgery to remove Esther Chana’s cancer also removed half her stomach muscle. Her prognosis remained precarious. Still, she announced to her doctor, “When I get to my five-year mark clear of cancer, I’m going ice climbing in June Lake,” referring to a tiny mountain town in the Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains known for its skiing and where Esther Chana and Avraham loved to go each winter.

The doctor looked at her, paused, and then broke into a wide grin. “I think that’s fabulous!” he said.

“I know that suffering is supposed to be one way that God tells you He loves you,” Esther Chana once said to me. “I’m not angry and I’m not afraid, but I think I have enough love, thank you.”

She also told me, “One of the hardest things for me is having had to take so much from people when my impulse is to give all the time. This has been an important lesson for me.”

Climbing Ice

Slowly, slowly, Esther Chana healed. Cancer had wreaked havoc with her body but couldn’t touch her astounding optimism and steely resolve. Last year, she and Avraham walked Shmuel down the aisle at his wedding. As her five-year “clean” anniversary loomed in sight, she began training for her ice climb in June Lake. This, despite the heavy side effects from her surgery and aggressive chemotherapy, which included chronic pain from neuropathy, gout and diabetes. She went through four trainers before she settled on a Romanian athlete named Ciprian, who at first thought her goal was crazy. Seeing her determination, he, too, became a beliver in Esther Chana.

Climbing ice

Two weeks after her climb, Esther Chana hosted a seuda hodaah, a celebratory meal of thanks marking an occasion we had all barely dared to dream we would see: five years cancer-free. “I never asked myself, ‘Why me?’ but ‘Why cancer?’” she told us that night. “I believe that pain is prescriptive. Sometimes I got frustrated and started to push away from God. I had to learn to accept what God was prescribing to be close to Him and accept it with gratitude. I got to a point of zero anxiety and fear. Ultimately, I got to a point where I accepted that for some reason, I needed

“I never asked myself, ‘Why me?’ but ‘Why cancer?’” she told us that night. “I believe that pain is prescriptive. Sometimes I got frustrated and started to push away from God. I had to learn to accept what God was prescribing to be close to Him and accept it with gratitude. I got to a point of zero anxiety and fear. Ultimately, I got to a point where I accepted that for some reason, I needed the cancer to be close to Him.”

Avraham filmed his wife at the climb, and we watched it in their apartment that night. The snow was slushy from rain, making the climb that much more arduous. In her snow suit and boots, she was tethered by a harness to the belay rope, and smiled broadly at the camera as she looked up at the snowy heights. In her living room, along with most of the other members of Team Stryker, I watched her take the inverted ice axes that she used as trekking poles and determinedly plunge them, one after the other, as she made a nearly vertical ascent.

 At Shmuel’s wedding

 

We all watched with tears of joy as we celebrated the remarkable recovery of a remarkable woman. Esther Chana, who hated the idea that she had become a taker and not a giver, may still not appreciate how much she continued to give all along. We witnessed her fortitude and willpower to heal, her steadfast commitment to grow and not become embittered, and her strengthened faith in the face of a nearly fatal illness.

Mazal Tov, Esther Chana. Team Stryker blesses you to live in good health till 120.

(This article originally appeared on Aish.com.)

Did you know my forthcoming memoir, The Skeptic and the Rabbi, is almost here? Please pre-order now from your local bookstore or online. I am so excited to share this book with you! 

My Passover Redemption

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It is 1:15 a.m. on Seder night. My fatigue is settling in, along with the brisket. It’s a good, satisfying fatigue, born of the hard work I have done—with the help of my children—to clean, shop, cook and make a Seder for family and friends. After twenty-two years of making Seders, I admit to occasional twinges of Passover resort envy, often triggered when friends call to wish me early holiday greetings before they jet off to their Passover program in Scotland, Italy or Costa Rica. This can be a bit much while I am going mano-a-mano with the business side of a scrubby sponge in the kitchen.

My husband and our kids insist that there’s no better place for Seders than at home. This is very satisfying for me, despite the labor, and I focus on making the holiday with simchah, happiness. And yet, every year, I start to get shpilkes around 1 a.m. on Seder night. Despite the joyous singing, I am distracted by the thought that the brisket still needs to be wrapped up and tucked into the fridge, and the other food put away. I head to the kitchen, hearing the echoes of “Avadim Hayinu” replaying in my head. I have an indescribable feeling of satisfaction because the Seder is the holiday that consecrates our birth as a nation.

More than ever before this year, I feel an irreducible, transcendent connection to my Jewish identity, to God and through my children, to the Jewish future.

That feeling lasts about thirty seconds. No sooner do I fling open the refrigerator door than I recoil in horror—the refrigerator light goes on. I forgot to set the holiday mode before the holiday began! For technical reasons, triggering lights to go on and off violates the laws of holiday observance. I let the door fall shut, and faster than you could shout “Dayeinu!” all that spiritual uplift I had basked in the moment before suddenly went pfft!, like air hissing out of a popped balloon.

Suddenly, I am resentful and mad: Does God really want me to have to throw out all this brisket, at $8.99 a pound? Where am I supposed to find a yom tov goy, a non-Jew to whom I could explain my predicament and who could rescue me by setting the holiday mode on the fridge, at nearly 1:30 a.m.? Why does this religion have so many rules? What am I supposed to feed my guests for the second Seder feast if I can’t store my food in the fridge? Tuna fish?

I announce the news at the table, complaining as bitterly as the maror we ate that any possible redemption in this situation is impossible.

“Don’t worry, Ma! It’s all going to be fine,” my eldest son says. I glower at him. How dare he display such faith at a time like this! His blithe disregard for my situation annoys me. We open our dining room shutters, looking for the absurdly implausible appearance of a non-Jew who just might be sauntering by in the middle of the night and who would be willing to listen to our crazy rules and offer to help us. Unbelievably, the rest of the family has the audacity to continue singing while I sit there feeling like a faithless flame-out.

I am ashamed of myself. What is my suffering compared to that of our ancestors, enslaved for hundreds of years? They had reason to complain! Yet the old “This too is for the good” Jewish philosophy refuses to kick in. What message is God sending me? All I had wanted was to make Passover with happiness and dedication!

At 1:40, my husband and one of our sons go outside to scan the street. All we see are Jews, Jews everywhere; the land is filled with them! Usually, it’s a comforting feeling to find a landsman in a time of trouble, but not in this case. We get excited for one moment seeing a couple heading toward a car, but unfortunately, they are Jews, too.

At 1:48, as I feel myself falling to the forty-ninth level of spiritual darkness, fighting tears of frustration and wondering how to elegantly serve canned tuna for second Seder, a car slowly pulls up and parks directly across the street from our house. Like a shot, my husband, one of our guests and our eldest son fly out the door. I fear that the sight of three grown men all wearing long white robes hurtling toward him might not just scare the heck out of the driver. I watch from the dining room, holding my breath. A conversation is taking place. To my utter amazement, I watch the driver get out of his car and enter my house.

My yom tov goy has arrived.

The sight of my “savior” renders me nearly speechless. But not quite. I blabber excessive “thank yous” and apologize for the intrusion.

“I realize you must think we’re very strange,” I offer, thinking, “Well, that’s an understatement!” But the young man holds up one hand to stop me—not that I blame him—explaining that he is a waiter at Shiloh’s, a kosher restaurant a few blocks away, where he just finished working at a Seder. “I know all about it,” he explains cheerfully.

In the kitchen, I show him how to set the holiday mode. And with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, the waiter from Shiloh’s sets the holiday mode, saving not only my brisket, but my sanity as well. I offer him some brisket as a thank you, but he declines. He comes and goes within three minutes, his appearance inexplicable. We asked him what made him park right across from our house, just three blocks from the restaurant. He had to make a phone call, he said. And he chose to make it right where we needed him.

That night, I gained a spiritual high, lost it in a moment, and then regained it in a much more profound way. As miracles go, I know that sending a yom tov goy is no great shakes compared to, say, splitting a sea or smiting the firstborns. But on that Seder night, it was the biggest miracle I could have asked for—a full redemption, and a reminder that God knows what we need and sends it when we need it.

We then all sang Hallel.

(This essay is adapted from its original form when it appeared in the in article was featured in the Spring 2013 issue of Jewish Action.)

Guess what’s coming September 5? My next book, The Skeptic and the Rabbi: Falling in Love with Faith. Preorder now!

 

Three Cheers for the Delightful “The Women’s Balcony”

Women's Balcony imagesIsraeli screenwriter Shlomit Nehama has done something pretty amazing: she has written a movie with a strong feminist voice about encroaching religious extremism that still respects Jewish religious traditions, has a sense of humor and a huge heart.

In Hebrew with English subtitles, “The Women’s Balcony” is a total delight and I urge my readers to see this film when you can. In fact, though the story focuses on a small Orthodox community in Jerusalem, its themes are timely and should resonate with people of all religions.

In the movie, a community begins to splinter apart when a fundamentalist rabbi takes advantage of their crisis: the women’s upstairs balcony in the synagogue has collapsed, the congregation is temporarily homeless and their injured rabbi is temporarily unable to lead. The new, younger and more dynamic rabbi begins to preach extremist views, including the theory that the balcony collapsed because the women didn’t dress modestly enough and did not cover their hair. A few of the women believe his fire-and-brimstone talks and start praying fervently with their hair covered. Marriages begin to fray as more of the men start seeing things the rabbi’s way, and women’s friendships, formerly tight-knit, also begin to unravel. The camp is divided.

When the congregants realize with a shock that the rabbi has repaired the damaged synagogue without the women’s balcony, relegating the women to a cell-like room adjacent to the building, the women finally rebel. This theme of growing religious fundamentalism is timely and universal. Good religion offers a sense of community, identity, purpose and transcendence. But done badly, without sense or heart, it can divide as it conquers, though the conquest will not last.

As someone who wrestled mightily with the structure of Jewish Orthodoxy before I signed on to it (I dislike the Orthodox label but use it as a reference point), the film touched a nerve with me by raising issues that are difficult for many observant Jewish women, such as covering hair for married women, sitting separately from men in shul, and the limits of rabbinic authority. These are the very same issues (among others) that I raise in my long-awaited memoir (long-awaited by me, anyway!), The Skeptic and the Rabbi, out September 5. I hope I did half as good a job as Shlomit Nehama and director Emil Ben-Shimon at adding humor into my story as they did in their film.

“The Women’s Balcony” offers viewers a feel-good, plausible, happy ending, where the bonds of community and the power of love, compassion and common sense overwhelm harsh religious zealotry.

 

We’ll Miss You, Mary Tyler Moore

Mary Tyler Moore
Mary Tyler Moore

One of the highlights of the week for me growing up was watching The Mary Tyler Moore Show with my mom. That show first aired in 1970 — the year my only brother, Allan, had died. Laughter was in very short supply in our home. Everything about the show was terrific, including the upbeat show’s music and lyrics (“Who can turn the world on with her smile?/Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?”) When Moore famously hurled her beret skyward, it was if she were saying, “Let’s give this a whirl! I’m game to see what happens!”

My mom and I would watch and laugh, and I learned that laughter was not just an escape, but also a lifesaver. Even at 10 years old, when the show began, I had set my sights on a writing life. Women’s roles were changing fast, and they had to work hard, usually harder than men, to earn their places in professions where previously only men had been hired. Watching the character of Mary Richards as a young news producer thrilled and inspired me. I wanted to be like Mary: warmhearted and smart; determined yet graceful; finding my way as a modern woman and deciding where and how to break the mold set by my mother’s and grandmothers’ generations.

I felt a pang of sadness when I heard that Moore had passed away. It’s striking that so many performers who were so gifted at comedy lived through so much sadness. Moore’s parents (just like those of comedienne Carol Burnett’s) were alcoholics, and Moore was raised by another relative. She lost her only son in a tragic gun accident, and she outlived both her siblings. She battled alcoholism and was divorced twice. Not an easy life.

The headline in the online version of the obituary in the New York Times stated that Mary Tyler Moore “incarnated the modern woman.” That’s a big claim, but in looking back, it seems largely true: Television was breaking all kinds of ground in the 1970s, and the MTM show was the first to showcase a single career woman not obsessed with getting married, who had an unapologetically active love life (at least sometimes — as her character said to her TV boss Lou Grant, “I’ve been around the block. Well, maybe not around the block, but nearby”). She wasn’t afraid to stand up for herself even in the face of belligerent and buffoonish men who often, in modern parlance, liked to indulge in “mansplaining.”

It’s impossible not to think about Mary Tyler Moore’s funny, understated strength, her humor and grace under pressure and feel the loss of this kind of role model for younger women today. Younger comediennes and actresses demonstrate their idea of women’s strength not with grace and cleverness but with foul language, the language of anger. Being angry and “nasty” has become something to boast of. How bizarre. Women are outpacing men educationally and have continued to prosper in nearly every field of endeavor. Why so much anger? They demean themselves and the very idea that women are “whole people” by their obsession with their reproductive organs. Many performers make what was meant to be privately powerful into the stuff of their comedy routines. At the recent women’s march in Washington DC to protest the election of the country’s new president, many found “inspiration” from this area of anatomy and fashioned the most disturbing and bizarre fashion accessory ever dreamed up in a gender studies department. Did nobody tell these women that this was a fashion faux pas of the highest order?

I hope that younger women — all women! — will now go back and enjoy old episodes of the Mary Tyler Moore show. Laugh at the witty repartee between Mary and her friends and coworkers, and marvel that it wasn’t that long ago when a woman could prove her worth in our society without losing her grace, the force of her optimism and wisdom — in short, her very feminine strength.

RIP, Mary Tyler Moore.

Judy Gruen’s memoir, The Skeptic and the Rabbi, will be published in September by She Writes Press.

My Chanukah Miracle

As I pulled the seat belt across my shoulder and inserted the buckle, I felt my delicate gold chain falling off my neck. It was a dreadful feeling. If that chain had come loose, so had my small gold pendant. Perhaps it had already fallen off in the mall where I had just spent the last hour and a half. I undid the seatbelt, searching for my pendant in and under the seat and the floor. Nothing.

I had been Chanukah shopping, trooping up and down escalators, striding along the walkways from Nordstrom to Macy’s and back again, peeking in boutiques on different floors. The mall was nearly 870,000 square feet, and I gauged my chances of find my special pendant, less than one inch around, about as good as my winning the Pulitzer Prize.

I had bought this piece of jewelry on impulse years ago, smitten by the shimmering shades of green, red and burgundy cloisonné in a heart-within-a-heart motif. The tiniest of diamonds set in the middle added to the reflective quality. It wasn’t outrageously expensive, but it was surely a self-indulgence to buy it.

I rationalized my decision. Lots of women spent this much and much more on designer handbags every year or two, a habit I do not understand and could not afford. Toting home my new bauble, I felt guilty. My husband is a generous man. I should have told him about it and asked him to keep it in mind for a special occasion. But it was a limited edition, the artist’s name etched in gold on the back, and I knew it wouldn’t last. So I took material matters into my own hands and signed the credit card slip.

I loved wearing my colorful pendant. My husband also liked it and didn’t question where it came from or what it cost. But after a few years, it disappeared. I searched everywhere for it, but finally gave it up for lost. I was sad, but part of me felt it was payback. You shouldn’t have been so extravagant in the first place, I thought.

Fast forward three years. I had dumped out the contents of a dresser drawer to organize it. To my amazement, there was my pendant, winking at me amidst an island of ordinary athletic socks. I thanked God for returning my pendant to me. I figured He was telling me, “Knock it off already with the guilt trip. Just enjoy it and be careful.”

Given this history, you can imagine the awful déjà vu I experienced when I felt the chain slip off a few days ago. This can’t be happening again! I thought. This time, my beautiful pendant would not magically appear in a sock drawer back at home.

I felt heartsick. It’s just a thing, I lectured myself. Count your blessings. If it’s gone, it’s gone. Go home and make dinner.

And yet. . . even though it was a lost and tiny item in a huge mall, why not at least report it missing? The woman in the management office was sympathetic, took my information, but agreed it was long odds of getting it back. It was absurd to actually try to find my pendant, and I wondered what lesson there was in my having lost it not once, but twice. But Chanukah is a time of miracles. In the Chanukah story, something very small and valuable really did show up in a totally unexpected way. Why not at least look?

I retraced my steps as closely as possible. I went down the escalator to the last place I had been, a Hallmark shop. I kept my eye to the ground. Before heading to the aisle where I had picked the only item I purchased – a Chanukah card – I stopped to survey the area near the cash register where I had waited in line.

Tucked under a display of holiday mugs, my pendant, face up, glinted at me.

I was rooted to the spot, thunderstruck. I swooped down and grabbed it. Holding it in a vise-like grip, I ran back upstairs and in happy disbelief showed it to the lady in the management office. I think she was as stunned as I was.

When I shared this story with our guests at our Shabbat table, I said, “This really felt like my own little Chanukah miracle. But I still wonder if it means anything else?”

My niece Ali said, “I would not have gone back into the mall like you did. I would have been sure the pendant was gone for good. But you looked for it and you found it. I think that’s the lesson. Never give up, even when the odds seem so much against you.”

“There’s also another lesson,” my husband said. “For Chanukah, I’m going to buy you a better chain.”

(This article originally appeared on Aish.com.)

Want to read reviews of many of the books I read in 2016? Here is my “Year in Books” via Goodreads. I hope you find some books that attract your attention!