Ra’anana Community Kollel
Today I Am A Man
Elana Horwitz
“He’s asking us if he should buy the tie. What should I tell him?”
My husband, exasperated, holds the phone out to me. Our very-soon-to-be-thirteen-year-old son is calling from the men’s store in Bnei Brak. It’s the third men’s store he has visited today.
“What color is it?” I ask my husband brightly, ignoring the proffered phone.
“Gold with wavy black diagonal lines, apparently, but there’s a lot more to it than that,” he explains patiently, again.
“ I hear you. You explained before that it has to fit right; it has to tie right. But what do I know about it? This is one of those father-son things.”
Getting back to serious negotiations with our son, my husband sighs. “How much does it cost?”
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My husband has been so helpful in setting up all the tables and borrowed chairs that we will need on Shabbos. I feel blessed knowing that I can count on him when time pressures. Exhausted but happy this Thursday night, he collapses on the couch.
“You know, it’s amazing,” I marvel, taking a seat nearby. “Suddenly we’re at a different stage in our lives. I feel like I’m playing the role of ‘mother of the bar mitzvah boy’ in a play.”
He laughs. “It’s not as if we didn’t have thirteen years of advance notice. But now that our own child is actually becoming bar mitzvah, I kind of find myself wondering…how did we do it?” His look grows thoughtful. “We’ve had years of experience but dealing with the kids is still hard. Lots of things in our lives are hard. How do we do it?”
“Well, in raising our children, when I get frazzled about parenting things, you’re confident,” I venture.
“And when I’m too impatient, you’re calm with the kids,” he supplies the next puzzle piece. “How do we do it? My first answer is, bisiyata dishmaya. My second answer is, together.”
Both my husband and I have changed with the passing of the years, I reflect. Hashem has helped us mature in expecting us to grow in our acceptance of each other. Marriage has been worth all the effort it has taken.
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It’s really happening. Tonight our oldest son is a bar mitzvah.
It’s Friday night. The men are at shul. I’m home with our younger children and the women that have come to our town to celebrate this milestone with me, to affirm my mothering of thirteen years.
Or maybe they just like a good party.
My mother-in-law, visiting from America, sits in the kitchen chatting with cousins. My sister-in-law gets acquainted with my friends, Suri and Rachel, who live in Yerushalayim with their families.
My eight-year-old niece scampers around the house with my eleven-year-old daughter, both giggling girlish secrets and delighting in their shared cousinhood. Both born on Succos, they have always shared a special bond. They last saw each other more than four years ago.
We have already davened Lecha Dodi. The Shabbos candles burn merrily as the preschoolers romp and the toddlers clamor for cookies, for juice, for a lap and a story.
We’re chatting pleasantly but all the women have one ear attuned to the window. We await my dear boy, the bar mitzvah bachur, who is the star of the evening. Tonight he is a man.
Faintly we hear the music winding its way to my home. Its volume increases. Suddenly the door opens. Half a dozen of my son’s friends from his cheder in Bnei Brak escort him inside, all the while singing songs of Shabbos and Torah.
My handsome son appears grinning at the doorway, glowing in his brand new black suit, black hat, and gold tie with wavy black diagonal lines. My heart leaps up at the heavenly song the cheder boys are harmonizing. My eyes swim at the sight of my beautiful baby, all dressed in black. The room fades and I am searching the clouds.
Searching, searching…where is she? It’s time; she needs to be here now! I can’t find her! She can’t be gone; I need her here now! “Where’s my mother?” I hear my voice call desperately.
I feel Suri’s arms engulf me. I’m back in the kitchen. My mother-in-law and her cousins are whispering and darting strange glances in my direction. Rachel says meaningfully, “She’s here. Your mother is here.”
She’s here. That’s nice. But, Mommy, you have gone. I don’t see you. Although you were so young, I accept that you have gone. But couldn’t you have come back just for the bar mitzvah? Just for one special moment? Just so we could share one loving look as our beautiful baby is escorted home to his family on the wings of musical prayer?
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We are more than forty for the seuda and we’re eating in our home. We wanted to eat at home. We want to experience all this joy and support and mitzvah and make it part of our home.
We have room to seat all of our guests comfortably. It’s important to me that all the people are happy with the seating arrangements. I spent over an hour at noontime circling the tables, rearranging place cards.
And now Devoiry is acting up because she doesn’t like her seat. She’s only a little girl and her mother, my friend, Suri, who looks lovely in her white lace apron, is trying everything to accommodate her. But it isn’t working. “She wants to sit next to her Tatty,” Suri apologizes.
Oh, no. That really won’t work. We’re not really going to rearrange all the adults to cater to little Devoiry’s ADHDing or whatever she’s doing.
I hesitate. Devoiry whimpers and hides her face in her mother’s skirt. “Would you prefer to sit next to Tatty, zeeskeit?” Suri coos helplessly.
Okay, we are going to change around all the seating arrangements.
I give up my façade of control and find room in my soul for the One Who is really in control.
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It’s quiet. All the men and boys have gone to the Clevelander Rebbe’s tisch for a bracha. My friends and their young children have retired to their sleeping quarters at the neighbors’. My daughters remain with me.
My daughter’s friend Temima, is here too. My friend Rachel brought Temima here with her family for the bar mitzvah because her younger sister is in the hospital. The little girl was recently diagnosed with a potentially fatal kidney disease.
We tidy up the house a little. My daughter moves the flowers to a safe spot. “Mommy”, she inquires wistfully. “How long will it be until the flowers die?”
Temima, reading on the couch, tenses visibly at the word “die”.
“It’s not fair,” my daughter complains tiredly. “These are gorgeous. Why do they have to die?”
No. We’re not going there. Not now, with Temima listening in. I’ll change the subject. Maybe bring out a bowl of popcorn. I’ll…
“Mommy,” she whines. “I’m asking you something.”
Temima picks herself up from the couch and silently joins us in the kitchen. She finds a clean plastic cup, walks towards the water cooler for a drink. She moves slowly, very slowly. I avoid her eyes.
I take a deep breath. “Everything dies,” I say, looking straight at my daughter, but my heart beating as one with Temima’s. “If something won’t die then it isn’t alive. And if it’s alive, it’s precious. We appreciate it while we have it.”
My daughter nods and goes to her room to sleep. Temima sits alone on the couch, sipping her water thoughtfully.
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In the morning our son lains his parasha flawlessly. We throw candies and the children scamper to catch them. The Sefer Torah is returned to the aron kodesh. My husband is getting up to speak. Today he wants to address our son and our kehilla, the wonderful friends that make us proud to call this town our community kollel’s home.
“I want to transmit the essence of Torah to my son. I want him to learn Torah with love!”
He’s getting emotional.
“In this kehilla I see love of Torah and mitzvos! In this community I see love for Hakadosh Baruch Hu!”
Rachel fidgets a little on the bench behind me. Her husband is a staid learner who definitely would not go screaming in public about love.
“Sitting in the beis hamidrash is wonderful. But I also want my son to share what he learns, to go out among our People and spread that love!”
My husband has begun the mental separation process necessary for our son’s maturing. But am I ready?
And I’m in for it later with Rachel for sure. Yikes!
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The kiddush after shul is a cacophony of talking women dressed in beautiful Shabbos outfits, laughing with me, kissing my cheek, wishing me mazel tov. On the men’s side I get glimpses of the kollel avreichim’s black and white attire, mingling with the more casual spring men’s wear worn by the people in our kehilla.
I scan the tables to gauge the rate of food consumption. People are eating happily. The kollel wives are serving cholent. There is still plenty of cake out on platters. Perfect.
Our bar mitzvah bachur stands on a chair to give his dvar Torah. It’s hard to hear from where I am standing but it looks like the men are amused.
“Do you know the difference between a bar mitzvah and a chassuna?” one woman asks me.
I can think of several differences. I smile my “no” and wait for the punch line.
“After the chassuna your son won’t be going home with you.”
But he will still be my son.
“Wow, I can’t imagine that,” I offer, slightly jolted. Suddenly I feel the next few years slipping away. “ I mean, look at him standing right here with us on that chair…”
“When he’s a chosson hopefully he won’t need to stand on a chair,” she winks.
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We’ve all napped, sort of, and now Rachel comes back, bringing her children with her. Her kids and mine play noisily, joyfully in the garden. She sits with me on my living room floor, near the toys and our babies.
“Look!” I marvel. “Look how well your son can crawl down that step. My baby can’t but he’s trying! He’s trying to copy your baby. Look at the way he admires him!”
She is honest. “My son can crawl down the step. Yours can’t. But my child is two-and-a-half. Yours is a year old.
“But for a child with Down Syndrome, that’s pretty good!” I enthuse.
“It’s pretty good after about a thousand hours of physical therapy, yes.”
I question her attitude with my eyes.
“I love my son. I accept him. He belongs with our family. You know that I wouldn’t have it any other way. But it’s hard. It’s painful,” she explains.
I stare. “It’s healthy for you to say that.”
Her face is strong, determined. “I have to be real or else I can’t do it.”
“I had thought that it takes time to get used to it,” I tell her softly. “But… I guess you don’t get used to it.”
She seems more tranquil, relieved that I understand.
“You don’t get used to it,” she confirms with a sad, loving smile.
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Suri lounges on the couch. “How’s your grandson?” I inquire, interested.
“Yankele? All right, I guess. I think his mother is weaning him but I wish she wouldn’t. I wonder about the effect it might have on his development. Maybe I’ll talk to my son about it.”
I’m flabbergasted. “Suri, you know, if my mother-in-law would say anything like that to my husband I would be really upset.”
She looks insulted.
“I mean, you’re my friend, but you’re also a mother-in-law now… I see what you’re saying from two opposing sides.”
She seems years ahead of me as she answers. “When you’re a mother-in-law too, and a Bubbie, you may see things differently.”
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The men and boys have gone to shul for mincha, shalosh seudos and maariv.
Our men seem to always be running. Moving forward with alacrity, they escape our tagged on comment, our one last thought, and the lingering devotion in our eyes.
Like grains of sand, they seem to slip through our fingers. We know the secret of the sand - when you hold it lightly, lovingly in your hand, you have it. It feels comforting. When you clutch it too tightly and try to confine it, it wriggles away. Then your hand hurts.
So we let them go. We send them away - to daven, to study the Torah, to sow seeds of goodness on our planet. Thus we share in their accomplishments.
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The women are eating shalosh seudos together at my home. I tried to cater to everyone’s different tastes.
I ask if anyone would like to say a dvar Torah. Rachel smiles and clears her throat.
“From the parasha we see the great importance placed on learning Torah…” she begins.
Uh oh, here comes her rebuttal of my husband’s kiruv speech. Now I’m in for it.
“I just want to say,” she continues, “ that at this table I see a variety of women whose husbands’ paths in life have taken very different turns. Each one learns Torah, and each one uses his kochos in Torah l’shem Shamayim. And we, as wives, applaud them for who they are. I respect that.”
We are truly a variety of women. Our husbands are viewed differently from one another. They are called the ben Torah, the kiruv worker, the working chassid.
Our children have individual needs as well. There is the remarkably mature teenage Bais Yaakov daughter - can all the responsibility she willingly accepts be good for her? There is the yeshiva bachur who doesn’t seem very inspired - why not? What can be done about that? One very temperamental kid is diagnosed with ADHD. There is the toddler with Down Syndrome, plucky and determined. One daughter is highly intelligent but misinterprets social cues. She often makes rude remarks without intending to insult anyone. Jokes confuse her - can she have Asperger Syndrome? And there is the handful of boisterous preschoolers, the generous sprinkling of delightful babies. There is the already- married son with a brand new son of his own.
“Hashem,” I marvel, “at my simple dining room table sit the mothers of Your grand nation. It’s right here, this resourceful, complex Klal Yisrael.”
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Rachel is trying to fit the suitcases in her van. “I’m worried about Temima. All those presents she sees her sister getting…I’m worried that she’ll think that the situation is really …you know…bad. I wanted to get her alone for a minute to tell her…” Her voice trails off uncertainly.
“What?” I ask.
“That’s the problem. I don’t know what to say.”
My anxieties give vent.
“Rachel, if Temima’s little sister has such a serious kidney disease, how does their parents know that their other children won’t develop one?”
Her face registers shock and pain, visible even in the starry dark.
I press on. “B’ezras Hashem she will recover; the family will get past this scare. But I researched it a little, and I learned that the recurrence rate is so high for this type of problem. When can the parents know that their daughter will be okay?
Rachel stands tall now, her back to the van. Our haunted eyes lock.
“She can never know,” my friend tells me honestly. “When do any of us know that our children will be okay? When they become bar mitzvah?”
We exchange a smirk. She really has to go. It’s a long way to Yerushalayim. But my friend waits for my response.
The faint smell of smoke wafts through the air. Tonight is Lag Ba’omer. The neighbor’s kids’ bonfire is getting underway. Whom am I kidding with my claim of breathing difficulties and tiredness preventing me from attending? I face reality. I’m paralyzed by the thought of watching my children playing with fire.
I admit the truth. “We can never know if our children will be okay. We are mothers and fathers forever.”
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“Mommy, help! Get this crazy tie off me already! It’s choking me!”
I try. I try to loosen my son’s constraints, lovingly and sympathetically. “You did a great job today, kid,” I compliment him playfully.
“Kid?” Unsuccessfully, he attempts a sophisticated lift of the eyebrows. He deepens his voice theatrically. “Today I am a man!”
You are, my dear son, one moonrise more of a man. As I am today a sunset’s worth more of a woman.
We learn. We grow…we can’t help it. Life is a perfect process.
My son sighs shortly with relief. With a definitive display of overload he tosses the tie on the couch and without a backward glance races the clock, runs breathlessly down the block, towards the safety of the children’s bonfire.
