Goodness Graciousness

Life is measured in love and positive contributions and moments of grace
-Carly Fiorina

If you are not a better person tomorrow than you are today, what need have you for a tomorrow?
– Rebbe Nachman of Breslov

You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely
-Ogden Nash

One of the more lovely aspects of living in Israel, besides having only one Pesach seder, is the ability to celebrate one's birthday, not only twice (once by the Hebrew calendar, and once by the Gregorian calendar) but throughout the entire stretch of time between  the two days.
This period has aptly been named the Birthday Chol HaMoed, and can range in time from zero days (every 19 years the two calendars match up again) to up to three weeks.
Birthday greetings, balloons, presents, and, most importantly, Birthday Cake can be enjoyed every day of the Birthday Chol HaMoed without guilt (or calories), and with much glee.

Because my birthday (both Hebrew and Gregorian) falls sometime within the Chagim period, it often got overlooked when I was growing up. Sometimes birthday cake was served at the adjacent holiday dinner, sometimes on the birthday itself, and sometimes, not at all. It depended on how stressed my mother was. To be honest, I never cared. There was always a lot of cake in my house, whether it was for a birthday or not.

And so I grew up with little regard for birthdays. It was only as an adult that I understood how important they were to some other people, and how hurt someone would get if you didn't make a Very Big Deal out of their birthday. It amused me, as if the birthday person had done ANYTHING, besides, of course, cause his or her mother a great deal of pain, to deserve being made a big deal of.

But so it is; birthdays, it turns out, can be a Big Deal.

This year, I have a relatively long Birthday Chol HaMoed, almost two weeks. And I've decided to turn it into a Big Deal.

I decided this because of gematriya.
Gematriya is the practice of giving numerical value to Hebrew letters, and thereby giving meaning to certain numbers, or to words with the same gematriya.

A prime example of how gematriya is used in the Jewish world (without anyone even realizing it) is the word 'chai' (חי). In gematriya, chai, which means life, has the numerical value of  18 . It is standard practice in Jewish households, especially in North America - less so in Israel and Europe - to give gifts in multiples of 18, i.e., 18, 36 or 52 dollars. This symbolizes that the recipient should be blessed with life - chai.

I looked up my age in gematriya, i.e., what words, in Hebrew, add up to the numerical value of my age.
The first word to come up was  madig (מדאיג), which means worrisome.
Hmmm. I don't need reminders to worry, thank you.

Another word with the same numerical value is halevai!! (and yes, with exclamation marks, it can only be said with exclamation marks). Halevai!! means 'if only', as in:
Neighbor: "Are you going to Hawaii this year for the Chagim?
Me: Halevai!!!  But I have to host 267 people and stay home and wash dishes.
or
Friend: "Let's go out for coffee".
Me: "Halevai!!! But I have to wash dishes."

I don't think I want my year to be a Halevai!!!! year.

Then it came to me that this year is my 'chen' (חן) birthday. The letters of the word chen, in gematriya, have the numerical value of my age, as of this week.

A direct translation of  chen from Hebrew into English would be grace, or charm, or graciousness but, in fact, chen, like so many other Hebrew words, has no real English equivalent.

In the book of Proverbs we find:

Grace (chen) is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman who fears God, she shall be praised.  

שֶׁקֶר הַחֵן, וְהֶבֶל הַיֹּפִי: אִשָּׁה יִרְאַת-ה', הִיא תִתְהַלָּל.  (Proverbs 31;30)

It seems from this that chen is not necessarily something positive.

On the other hand, the book of Genesis tells us that

Noah found grace (chen) in the eyes of God.

 'וְנֹחַ מָצָא חֵן בְּעֵינֵי ה (Genesis 6:8)

Here, Noah clearly has some je ne s'ais quoi that God saw, which allows him to be saved. 

The Kabbalah defines chen as kindness, gentleness, pleasantness, and beauty—qualities that are not only attractive, but desirable.

So it seems that Proverbs is taking the grace/charm definition, while Genesis is taking the Kabbalistic definition.

Even on my best days, I decidedly do not possess grace or charm or graciousness, and, unfortunately, am often not kind or gentle or pleasant, and certainly not when I have to wash 267 dishes.

But a girl can try.

Over the years, as Hebrew has evolved, chen has come to mean both a physical beauty and an inner beauty, one that is not so easily recognized. It also means the ability to recognize another's inner beauty, and the beauty in all situations even, or especially, when that beauty is not so discernable.

Here's another thing about a birthday in Israel. The birthday person has the ability to bless others with good wishes. (Of course, everyone has this ability every day, but it's more, shall we say, potent on one's birthday.)

So, yes, in this coming year, I'm going to make a decided effort to be more pleasant (smiles don't cost money), more gentle (we never know what people are going through - it's always best to speak and behave with gentleness), and kinder (the world can only be improved through random acts of kindness).  Please remind me of this.

In addition – this is where the Big Deal comes in, because I usually don't do things like this – I am going to use my birthday Chol HaMoed to bless/pray/wish/hope that we all encounter only beauty, and kindness, and graciousness – that all of Am Yisrael should all have a year of Chen.

And birthday cake. Let's not forget birthday cake.

Much To Do About Nothing

Don't worry...the world won't end today.
I've put it on my 'To Do' list for tomorrow.
― Anthony T. Hincks

Every day, I begin my workday by checking my emails.  And, every workday, after I have checked them, I ignore them until I have checked my Facebook page, my private emails, how many likes I received on previous blogposts, read my horoscope, messaged my kids, chatted to everyone in the office, and drank a couple of pots of coffee. (In fact, I have a whole list of things to do at work before I actually do any work.)
The other day, having just returned from the long weekend of Rosh HaShana, and even though there were five days worth of emails, there was nothing pressing, so after I checked everything I needed to check and drank three pots of coffee, I began writing out my TO-DO list for the coming days.

This is where it all falls apart.

When there is a great deal of work to do around the house, as there is during the 'Chagim' (the Jewish holidays that fall, one after another, during the early autumn) the only way I can cope is by writing out lists. There is nothing more satisfying than crossing things off the daily to-do lists.
Therefore, I write separate lists for everything: things to clean (divided into rooms); food to buy (by groupings - fruits, vegetables, dry goods, spices, drinks, meat, cocktails), tasks to complete (listed in order of dislike - ironing is always last).

But despite all these lists, somehow, I always forget something.

I go to the supermarket with a list as long as a Stephen King novel (but scarier), and conscientiously tick things off the list as I take items off the shelves. But when I get home, I find I forgot to list mayonnaise. Or paprika. Or a can of mini corn. Or fabric softener. (Which would make 3,467 days in a row that I forgot to buy fabric softener.)
I send a kid to the local corner store, where prices are, on average, 6.8 times higher than the supermarket I just left, to buy the missing item.
The kid asks "What else do you need?" I answer, "Just steak spice, I have everything else I need." The kid comes back with the steak spice just as the next kid is leaving to go buy the vanilla pudding I need to put in the gluten-free cookies that I put on my What to Bake list, but forgot to put on the Gluten-Free Ingredients I Need to Buy' list.
By coincidence, just as the second kid has left,  the out-of-town kid  phones to ask what she should bring. I tell her "oh I have everything I need!! But if you happen to come across, in your travels, some fresh oregano, I would be grateful."

I begin a new list: Things I've Forgotten To Buy. This list can sometimes get quite lengthy, but usually, I forget exactly what it is I've forgotten.

In the midst of all the shopping and meal planning, the house has to be cleaned. This area of housework does not faze me. I write out - usually on the backs of printed recipes of dishes I will never make (what was I thinking??? Also, I forgot to buy pesto) - lengthy, detailed lists of tasks to be done. Then I leave the lists in public places around the house where other people will find them.

Back in the kitchen, after all the ingredients have been sorted, next comes the task of baking/cooking. I first have to put things in order; which pots are needed for what dish, which baking pans I will need, in what order to cook each dish. I glance through my lists: What to Bake, Which Chicken/Schnitzel/Meat is the Easiest to Make, Vegetables Kids Like and Vegetables Kids Don't Like (the second part of that list took me quite a chunk of my workday to complete), Desserts (a surprisingly short list consisting of ice cream [bought - I must remember to put that on the Things I've Forgotten To Buy list] and canned fruit salad [which I, in fact, remembered ticking off my list with great satisfaction]).
But all my plans come to a screeching halt as I left my What Pots and Pans I Have list at work.
Which is good. Because I forgot to buy balsamic vinegar.

And I've run out of kids.